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AN AMERICAN DILEMMA 



AN 

AMERICAN 

DILEMMA 

The Negro Problem 
and Modern Democracy 



by 

GUNNAR MYRDAL 

WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF 

RICHARD STERNER 

AND 

ARNOLD ROSE 




HARPER y BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
New York London 



AN AMERICAN DILEMMA 

Copyright, 1944, by Harper y Brothers 
Printed in the United States of America 

All rights in this book arc reserved. 
No part of the book may be reproduced in any 
manner whatsoever without written permission 
except in the case of brief quotations embodied 
in critical articles and reviews. For information 
address Harper fc? Brothers 



This study was made possible by funds granted 
by Carnegie Corporation of New York. That 
corporation is not, however, the author, owner, 
publisher, or proprietor of this publication, and 
is not to he understood as approving by virtue 
of its grant any of the statenienls made or 
views expressed therein. 



FOREWORD 



I have been asked to write a prefatory note for this book, because of 
the part played by the Carnegie Corporation in inaugurating the compre- 
hensive study of which it is the outcome. In the public mind, the American 
foundations are associated with gifts for endowment and buildings to 
universities, colleges and other cultural and scientific institutions, and to a 
lesser degree with the financial support of fundamental research. It is true 
that a great part of the funds for which their Trustees are responsible have 
been distributed for these purposes, but the foundations do other things 
not so generally recognized. There are, for example, problems which face 
the American people, and sometimes mankind in general, which call for 
studies upon a scale too broad for any single institution or association to 
undertake, and in recent years certain foundations have devoted a consider- 
able part of their available resources to the financing of such comprehensive 
studies. " 

The primary purpose of studies of this character is the collection, analysis 
and interpretation of existing knowledge; it is true that considerable 
research may prove necessary to fill the gaps as they reveal themselves, 
but such research is a secondary rather than a primary part of the under- 
taking as a whole. Provided the foundation limits itself to its proper func- 
tion, namely to make the facts available and let them speak for themselves, 
and does not undertake to instruct the public as to what to do about them, 
studies of this kind provide a wholly proper and, as experience has shown, 
sometimes a highly important use of their funds. 

As examples, we may take the inquiry and report of the Committee on 
the Costs of Medical Care (i 928-1 933), made possible by a group of 
foundations. Lord Hailey's memorable study, An African Survey, in the 
thirties was financed by the Carnegie Corporation. The significance of such 
undertakings cannot be measured by their cost. The volumes on the Poor 
Whites of South Africa, published in 1932, represent a relatively modest 
enterprise, but they have largely changed the thinking of the South 
Africans upon a social question of great importance to them. 

While the underlying purpose of these studies is to contribute to the 
general "advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding," 
to quote the Charter of the Carnegie Corporation, it sometimes happens 
that a secondary factor, namely the need of the foundation itself for fuller 
light in the formulation and development of its own program, has been 



vi Foreword 

influential in their inception. This is true in the present case. The wide 
sweep of Andrew Carnegie's interests included the Negro, he gave gener- 
ously to Negro institutions, and was closely identified with both Hampton 
and Tuskegee Institutes. The Corporation which he created maintained 
that interest, and during the years between its organization in 191 1 and the 
inauguration of the present study, it made grants of more than two and 
one-half million dollars in direct response thereto. 

In 1931, the late Newton D. Baker joined the Corporation Board. He 
was the son of a Confederate officer, attended the Episcopal Academy in 
Virginia and the Law School of Washington and Lee University, and spent 
the greater part of his early years in the Border states of West Virginia 
and Maryland. His services first as City Solicitor and later as Mayor of 
Cleveland gave him direct experience with the growing Negro populations 
in Northern cities, and as Secretary of War he had faced the special prob- 
lems which the presence of the Negro element in our population inevitably 
creates in time of national crisis. 

Mr. Baker knew so much more than the rest of us on the Board about 
these questions, and his mind had been so deeply concerned with them, 
that we readily agreed when he told us that more knowledge and better 
organized and interrelated knowledge were essential before the Corpora- 
tion could intelligently distribute its own funds. We agreed with him 
further in believing that the gathering and digestion of the material might 
well have a usefulness far beyond our own needs. 

The direction of such a comprehensive study of the Negro in America, 
as the Board thereupon authorized, was a serious question. There was no 
lack of competent scholars in the United States who were deeply interested 
in the problem and had already devoted themselves to its study, but the 
whole question had been for nearly a hundred years so charged with 
emotion that it appeared wise to seek as the responsible head of the under- 
taking someone who could approach his task with a fresh mind, uninflu- 
enced by traditional attitudes or by earlier conclusions, and it was therefore 
decided to "import" a general director—somewhat as the late Charles P. 
Howland was called across the Atlantic to supervise the repatriation of 
the Greeks in Asia Minor after the close of the first World War. And since 
the emotional factor affects the Negroes no less than the whites, the search 
was limited to countries of high intellectual and scholarly standards but 
with no background or traditions of imperialism which might lessen the 
confidence of the Negroes in the United States as to the complete impar- 
tiality of the study and the validity of its findings. Under these limitations, 
the obvious places to look were Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries, 
and the search ended in the selection of Dr. Gunnar Myrdal, a scholar who 
despite his youth had already achieved an international reputation aa a 
social economist, a professor in the University of Stockholm, economic 



Foreword vii 

adviser to the Swedish Government, and a.member of the Swedish Senate. 
Dr. Myrdal had a decade earlier spent a year in the United States as a 
Fellow of the Spelman Fund, and when the invitation was extended to 
him by the Corporation in 1937, was about to make a second visit at the 
invitation of Harvard University to deliver the Godkin Lectures. 

It was understood that he should be free to appoint and organize a staff 
of his own selection in the United States and that he should draw upon 
the experience of other scholars and experts in less formal fashion, but 
that the report as finally drawn up and presented to the public should 
represent and portray his own decisions, alike in the selection of data and 
in the conclusions as to their relative importance. Upon him rested the 
responsibility, and to him should go the credit for what I for one believe 
to be a remarkable accomplishment. 

The difficulties of Dr. Myrdal's task, which would have been great 
enough in any event, were much increased by the outbreak of the present 
war. At a critical point in the development of the enterprise, he returned 
to Sweden to confer with his colleagues in the Government and the Univer- 
sity, and only after nine months was he enabled to return by a long and 
circuitous route. Meanwhile, defense and war needs here had taken more 
and more of the time and energies of his collaborators. Despite all these 
difficulties, delays and complications, his task has now been completed and 
is presented in these volumes. The Carnegie Corporation is under deep 
and lasting obligation to Dr. Myrdal. The full degree of this obligation 
will be appreciated only when the material he has gathered and interpreted 
becomes generally known. 

Though he has achieved an extraordinary mastery of the English lan- 
guage, Dr. Myrdal is not writing in his mother tongue. As a result, there 
is a freshness and often a piquancy in his choice of words and phrases which 
is an element of strength. Here and there it may lead to the possibility of 
misunderstanding of some word or some phrase. This is a risk that has 
been deliberately taken. It would have been possible for some American 
to edit the very life out of Dr. Myrdal's manuscript in an effort to avoid 
all possibility of offending the susceptibilities of his readers, but the result 
would have been a less vital and a far less valuable document than it is 
in its present form. 

Thanks are also due to the Director's many associates and advisers, and in 
particular to Professor Samuel A. Stouffer and Dr. Richard Sterner, who 
during Dr. Myrdal's absence carried the burden of direction and decision, 
and to Messrs. Shelby M. Harrison, William F. Ogburn and Donald R. 
Young for their generously given editorial services in connection with the 
publication of some of the research memoranda prepared by Dr. Myrdal's 
collaborators. 

When the Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation asked for the preparation 



viii Foreword 

of this report in 1937, no one (except possibly Adolf Hitler) could have 
foreseen that it would be made public at a day when the place of the 
Negro in our American life would be the subject of greatly heightened 
interest in the United States, because of the social questions which the 
war has brought in its train both in our military and in our industrial life. 
It is a day, furthermore, when the eyes of men of all races the world over 
are turned upon us to see how the people of the most powerful of the 
United Nations are dealing at home with a major problem of race relations. 
It would have been better in some ways if the book could have appeared 
somewhat earlier, for the process of digestion would then have taken place 
under more favorable conditions, but, be that as it may, it is fortunate that 
its appearance is no longer delayed. 

I venture to close these introductory paragraphs with a personal word 
dealing with a matter upon which Dr. Myrdal himself has touched in his 
preface, but which I feel moved to state in my own words. It is inevitable 
that many a reader will find in these volumes statements and conclusions 
to which he strongly objects, be he white or colored, Northerner or South- 
erner. May I urge upon each such reader that he make every effort to react 
to these statements intellectually and not emotionally. This advice, I 
realize, is much more easy to give than to follow, but it is given with a 
serious purpose. The author is under no delusions of omniscience} as a 
scholar, he is inured to taking hard knocks as well as giving them, and he 
will be the first to welcome challenges as to the accuracy of any data he has 
presented, the soundness of any general conclusions he has reached, and 
the relative weight assigned by him to any factor or factors in the compli- 
cated picture he draws. Criticism and correction on these lines will add 
greatly to the value of the whole undertaking. 

F. P. Keppel 
December 15, 1942. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



Late in the summer of 1957 Frederick P. Keppel, on behalf of the 
Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, of which he was then 
President, invited me to become the director of "a comprehensive study 
of the Negro in the United States, to be undertaken in a wholly objective 
and dispassionate way as a social phenomenon." 

Our idea, so far as we have developed it, would be to invite one man to be respon- 
sible for the study as a whole, but to place at his disposal the services of a group 
of associates, Americans, who would be competent to deal as experts with the anthro- 
pological, economic, educational and social aspects of the question, including publir 
health and public administration. 11 

After some correspondence and, later, personal conferences in the spring 
of 1938, when I was in the United States for another purpose, the matter 
was settled. It was envisaged that the study would require a minimum of 
two years of intensive work, but that it might take a longer time before the 
final report could be submitted. 

On September 10, 1938, 1 arrived in America to start the work. Richard 
Sterner of the Royal Social Board, Stockholm, had been asked to accom- 
pany me. On Mr. Keppel's advice, we started out in the beginning of 
October on a two months' exploratory journey through the Southern states. 
Jackson Davis, of the General Education Board, who has behind him the 
experiences of a whole life devoted to improving race relations in the 
South and is himself a Southerner, kindly agreed to be our guide, and has 
since then remained a friend and an advisor. 

We traveled by car from Richmond, Virginia, and passed through most of the 
Southern states. We established contact with a great number of white and Negro 
leaders in various activities; visited universities, colleges, schools, churches, and 
various state and community agencies as well as factories and plantations; talked to 
police officers, teachers, preachers, politicians, journalists, agriculturists, workers, 
sharecroppers, and in fact, all sorts of people, colored and white . . . 

During this trip the State Agents for Negro Education in the various states were 
our key contacts. They were all extremely generous with their time and interest, and 
were very helpful. 

The trip was an exploratory journey: we went around with our eyes wide open and 
gathered impressions, but did not feel ready, and in any case, had not the necessary 
time to collect in an original way data and material for the Study. The experience, 

'Letter from Mr. Frederick P. Keppel, August 12, 1937. 



x Author's Preface 

however, was necessary. Without it our later studies will have no concrete point* at 
which to be fixed.* 

After a period of library work a first memorandum on the planning of 
the research to be undertaken was submitted to Mr. Keppel on January 28, 
1939. It was later mimeographed, and I had, at this stage of the study, the 
advantage of criticisms and suggestions, in oral discussions and by letter, 
from a number of scholars and experts, among whom were: W. W. Alex- 
ander, Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, Midian O. Bousfield, Sterling Brown, 
W. O. Brown, Ralph J. Bunche, Eveline Burns, Horace Cayton, Allison 
Davis, Jackson Davis, John Dollard, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edwin Embree, 
Earl Engle, Clark Foreman, E. Franklin Frazier, Abram L. Harris, 
Melville J. Herskovits, Charles S. Johnson, Guion G. Johnson, Guy B. 
Johnson, Eugene Kinckle Jones, Thomas Jesse Jones, Otto Klineberg, 
Ralph Linton, Alain Locke, Frank Lorimer, George Lundberg, Frank 
Notestein, Howard W. Odum, Frederick Osborn, Robert E. Park, Hortense 
Powdermaker, Arthur Raper, Ira DeA. Reid, E. B. Reuter, Sterling Spero, 
Dorothy Swaine Thomas, W. I. Thomas, Charles H. Thompson, Edward 
L. Thorndike, Rupert B. Vance, Jacob Viner, Walter White, Doxey A. 
Wilkerson, Faith Williams, Louis Wirth, L. Hollingsworth Wood, 
Thomas J. Woofter, Jr., Donald R. Young. 

During the further planning of the study in terms of specific research 
projects and collaborators, Donald R. Young of the Social Science Research 
Council, Charles S. Johnson of Fisk University, and Thomas J. Woofter, 
Jr., then of the Works Progress Administration, were relied upon heavily 
for advice. Mr. Young, in particular, during this entire stage of the study, 
was continuously consulted not only on all major questions but on many 
smaller concerns as they arose from day to day, and he placed at my 
disposal his great familiarity with the field of study as well as with 
available academic personnel. Upon the basis of the reactions I had 
received, I reworked my plans and gradually gave them a more definite 
form in terms of feasible approaches and the manner of actually handling 
the problems. A conference was held at Asbury Park, New Jersey, from 
April 23 to April 28 inclusive, at which were present: Ralph J. Bunche, 
CharJes S. Johnson, Guy B. Johnson, Richard Sterner, Dorothy S. Thomas, 
Thomas J. Woofter, Jr., and Donald R. Young. As a result of the confer- 
ence I submitted to Mr. Keppel, in a letter of April 28, 1939, a more 
definite plan for the next stage of the study. The general terms of reference 
were defined in the following way: 

The rtud* thus conceived, should aim at determining the aocial, political, educa- 
tional, and econom.c rntu. of the Negro in the United State* a. well as defining 
opinion, held by different groups of Negrdes and white, a. to hi. "right" atttua. h 
mat, further, be concerned with both recent change, and current trend, with respect 
'Memorandum to Mr. Keppel, January a«, i 939 . 



Author's Preface xi 

to the Negro's position in American society. Attention must also be given to the 
total American picture with particular emphasis on relations between the two races. 
Finally, it must consider what changes are being or can be induced by education, 
legislation, interracial efforts, concerted action by Negro groups, etc. 

Mr. Keppel, who from the start had given me the benefit of his most 
personal interest and advice, and who had followed the gradual develop- 
ment of the approach, gave his approval to the practical plans. Needed 
were a working staff, consisting of experts who could devote their whole 
time to the project, and, in addition, the collaboration of other experts to 
prepare research memoranda on special subjects. I was most fortunate in 
securing the cooperation needed. The following staff members were 
engaged, besides Richard Sterner: Ralph J. Bunche, Guy B. Johnson, Paul 
H. Norgren, Dorothy S. Thomas, and Doxey A. Wilkerson. Norgren did 
not join the staff until November I, 1939. Mrs. Thomas left the study on 
January 15, 1940, for another engagement. Outside the staff, the following 
persons undertook various research tasks, namely: M. F. Ashley-Montagu, 
Margaret Brenman, Sterling Brown, Barbara Burks, Allison Davis, J. G. 
St. Clair Drake, Harold F. Dorn, G. James Fleming, Lyonel C. Florant, 
E. Franklin Frazier, Herbert Goldhamer, Melville J. Herskovits, T. 
Arnold Hill, Eugene L. Horowitz, Eleanor C. Isbell, Charles S. Johnson, 
Guion G. Johnson, Dudley Kirk, Louise K. Kiser, Otto Klineberg, Ruth 
Landes, Gunnar Lange, T. C. McCormick, Benjamin Malzberg, Gladys 
Palmer, Arthur Raper, Ira DeA. Reid, Edward Shils, Bernhard J. Stern, 
Louis Wirth, T. J. Woofter, Jr. There were the following assistants to 
staff members and outside collaborators, who worked for various periods: 
Berta Asch, Lloyd H. Bailer, Louis Boone, Frieda Brim, Vincent Brown, 
William B. Bryant, Elwood C. Chisolm, Walter Chivers, Kenneth Clark, 
Belle Cooper, Lenore Epstein, Edmonia Grant, Louis O. Harper, James 
Healy, Mary C. Ingham, James E. Jackson, Jr., Wilhelmina Jackson, 
Anne De B. Johnson, Louis W. Jones, Alan D. Kandel, Simon Marcson, 
Felix E. Moore, Jr., Rose K. Nelson, Herbert R. Northrup, Edward N. 
Palmer, Lemuel A. Penn, Glaucia B. Roberts, Arnold M. Rose, George 
C. Stoney, Joseph Taylor, Benjamin Tepping, Harry J. Walker, Richard 
B. Whitten, Milton Woll, Rowena Wyant, and Walter Wynne. Mrs. 
Rowena Hadsell Saeger was the executive secretary of the study through- 
out this stage. 

During the summer of 1939 I prepared a detailed plan for the study.* 
The work on the various research memoranda started gradually during 
the summer and fall of 1939, and I remained in close touch with all my 
collaborators. As I wanted to be able to corroborate, as far as possible, 

* "Memorandum on the Disposition of the Study on the American Negro." 

information in the literary sources and in the research memoranda being 
prepared for the study, by looking at interracial relations in various parts 



xii Author's Preface 

of the country with my own eyes, 1 continued to reserve as much of my 
time as possible for work in the field. 

After the Germans had invaded Denmark and Norway in April, 1940, 
Mr. Keppel and I agreed that my duty was to go home to Sweden. Samuel 
A. Stouffer — who, meanwhile, had undertaken the responsibilities on the 
staff which Mrs. Thomas had left — agreed to take upon himself the burden 
of directing the project in my absence. Without reserve, he unselfishly 
devoted all his talents and all his energy to the task of bringing the research 
to completion by September 1, 1940, and he succeeded. I shall always 
remain in deep gratitude to Stouffer for what he did during those months 
and for the moral support he thereafter has unfailingly given me and the 
project. 

Because of the delay in the completion of the work — and, indeed, the 
uncertainty as to whether I would ever be able to return to the task of 
writing a final report — the Corporation decided, in the fall of 1940, to 
facilitate the publication of some of the memoranda. A Committee to advise 
In the selection of those contributions most nearly ready for publication 
was appointed, consisting of Donald R. Young, Chairman, Shelby M. 
Harrison and William F. Ogburn. Samuel A. Stouffer served as Secretary 
to this committee. The following volumes have been published: 

Melville J. Herskovits, The Myth of the Negro Past. New York: Harper & Brother*, 

1941. 
Charles S. Johnson, Patterns of Negro Segregation. New York: Harper & Brothers, 

1943. 
Richard Sterner, The Negro's Share. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943. 

A fourth volume is to be published later: 

Otto Klineberg, editor, Characteristics of the American Negro. New York: Harper & 
Brothers. 

This volume contains the following research memoranda, the manuscripts 
of which will be deposited in the Schomburg Collection of the New York 
Public Library. 

Otto Klineberg, "Tests of Negro Intelligence," "Experimental Studies of Negro 

Personality." 
Benjamin Malzberg, "Mental Disease among American Negroes: A Statistical 

Analysis." 
Louis Wirth and Herbert Goldhamer, "The Hybrid and the Problem of Miscegena- 
tion." 
Eugene L. Horowitz, " 'Race' Attitudes." 
Gny Johnson, "The Stereotypes of the American Negro." 

The following unpublished manuscripts, prepared for the study — after 
some provision has been made to preserve the authors' rights — are being 



Author's Preface xiii 

deposited in the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library 
where they will be available for scientific reference:* 

M. F. Ashley-Montagu, "Origin, Composition and Physical Characteristics of the 
American Negro Population." 

Margaret Brenman, "Personality Traits of Urban Negro Girls." 

Sterling Brown, "The Negro in American Culture" (fragment). 

Ralph Bunche, "Conceptions and Ideologies of the Negro Problem," "The Pro- 
grams, Ideologies, Tactics, and Achievements of Negro Betterment and Inter- 
racial Organizations," "A Brief and Tentative Analysis of Negro Leadership," 
"The Political Status of the Negro." 

Barbara Burks, "The Present Status of the Nature-Nurture Problem as It Relates to 
Intelligence." 

Allison Davis, "Negro Churches and Associations in the Lower South." 

Harold F. Dorn, "The Health of the Negro." 

J. G. St. Clair Drake, "Negro Churches and Associations in Chicago." 

G. James Fleming, "The Negro Press." 

Lyonel C. Florant, "Critique of the Census of the United States," "Negro Migia- 
tion — 1860-1940" (revised edition, 1942, of the Stouffer-Florant manuscript). 

E. Franklin Frazier, "Recreation and Amusement among American Negroes," "Stories 
of Experiences with Whites." 

T. Arnold Hill, "Digest and Analysis of Questionnaires Submitted by Urban League 
Secretaries for 'The Negro in America.' Churches and Lodges, Negro Business 
and Businessmen, Racial Attitudes, Recreation and Leisure Time." 

E. C. Isbell, "The Negro Family in America," "Statistics of Population Growth 
and Composition." 

Guion G. Johnson, "A History of Racial Ideologies in the United States with Refer- 
ence to the Negro." 

Guion G. Johnson and Guy B. Johnson, "The Church and the Race Problem in 
the United States." 

Guy B. Johnson and Louise K. Kiser, "The Negro and Crime." 

Dudley Kirk, "The Fertility of the Negro." 

Ruth Landcs, "The Ethos of the Negro in the New World." 

Gunnar Laage, "Trends in Southern Agriculture," "The Agricultural Adjustment 
Program and the Negro" (fragment). 

T. C. McCormick, "The Negro in Agriculture." 

Benjamin Malzberg, "A Study of Delusions among Negroes with Mental Diseases." 

Paul Norgren, "Negro Labor and Its Problems." 

* In addition to the unpublished research memoranda listed, the following material is also 
deposited in the Schomburg Collection: 

Memorandum to Mr. Keppcl, January 28, 1939 (containing the first plan of the Study) 
Memorandum to the Staff, "Disposition of the Study on the American Negro," September 

10, 1939 (containing the definitive research program) 
Memorandum to the Staff, "Main Viewpoints and Emphases of the Study," February 8, 

1940 
Memorandum to the Staff, "Preparation of Manuscripts," February 8, 1940 
Memorandum to the Staff, "Bibliographies," October 31, 1939 



xvi Author's Preface 

ments in this book are made in a conjectural form and based on personal 
observations, these observations are often made by Sterner or by both 
Sterner and myself. 

Arnold Rose has prepared drafts for Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 on problems 
connected with race and population, Chapter 22 on the present political 
scene, Chapter 29 on the patterns of discrimination, Chapters 41 and 42 on 
church and education, and Appendices 4, 7 and 8. He has also prepared 
drafts for many sections of other chapters. For still other chapters he has 
assembled data and filled in gaps. For the final formulation of the main 
methodological analysis in Appendix 2 on facts and values in social science, 
his contribution has been of great importance. He has read the manuscripts 
of all parts and edited them. His editing work has included much more 
than polishing the English. It has, rather, been a most conscientious check- 
ing of basic data as well as of inferences, and a critical consideration of 
arrangement, viewpoints and conclusions. Both his criticisms and sugges- 
tions have, with few exceptions, led to changes in the final manuscript, and 
many of these changes are important. His wide knowledge of the social 
science literature and his sound judgment on methodological problems 
have, in this critical work, been significant. When I delivered the manu- 
script and departed from America, there was still a great deal of checking 
to be done and gaps to be filled in for which he was responsible, as well 
as for the proof reading. He also had to write Chapters 43 and 44, on the 
Negro community and culture, and Sections 1 and 4 of Appendix 10. For 
the present form of these two chapters and the appendix, Rose is himself 
responsible. 

About the contributions of both Sterner and Rose I want to add the 
following. The size of the book, and still more the scope of the problems 
involved, will make it understandable even to the reader who is not him- 
self familiar with many of the specific fields, that the work done has been 
immense. We have had to dig deep into primary sources in many fields 
of social science and a major part of this digging has been done by them. 
The collaboration, which stretched ruthlessly over evenings and weekends, 
has been a sheer pleasure to me, as I have felt more than I have ever 
experienced before the stimulation of an ideal cooperation where we not 
only added together the results of our labor but imagined that we in our 
concerted endeavors sometimes reached higher than an arithmetical sum. 
A similar outlook on the methodological problems of social science and a 
mutually shared scientific curiosity in seeing our structure of hypothesis, 
data, and conclusion rise, have given to our collaboration a spirit of intel- 
lectual exploration which I will not soon forget. 

To Miss Ruth Moulik, who has been our secretary and who will con- 
tinue to stay with the book until it has come through the press, we are 
grateful for her skill and great devotion. Besides the responsibility for 



Author's Preface xvii 

the office and, particularly, for the typing and checking of the manuscript, 
she has helped us by statistical computations, by digging up sources in the 
library, by checking statistical data and quotations, and in many other ways. 

In the last, hectic stage of the study, from September through December, 
1942, Caroline Baer Rose was a member of the little group of three who 
had to carry on after Sterner and I departed for Sweden. She worked 
unselfishly through all hours, including evenings and weekends, and 
brought to the study her frank personality and broad background. She 
assisted Mr. Rose in checking data and filling in gaps and was especially 
helpful in doing these things on the economics part. She also wrote the 
first draft of Chapter 44, Section 4, on "Recreation." 

Before making my final revision of the manuscript I have had the 
invaluable help of having it read critically and carefully by two friends 
who are at the same time outstanding social scientists with a great familiarity 
with the problems treated in the book: Professors E. Franklin Frazier of 
Howard University and Louis Wirth of the University of Chicago. They 
have not spared any effort, and as a result I have had their criticisms and 
suggestions often from page to page, referring to everything from the 
syntax and the arrangement of chapters and appendices to fundamental 
problems of approach and to conclusions. In my revision nearly every 
point raised by them has caused omissions, additions, rearrangements, 
clarifications or other alterations. Paul H. Norgren has read Appendix 6 
and a first draft of Chapter 19. Gunnar Lange has read Chapters 10 to 12 
and a first draft of Chapter 18. The final manuscript has benefited by their 
criticism. Alva Myrdal has read various chapters; her criticism of Appendix 
1 and Chapter 41 on Negro education has been particularly valuable. 

The relation of the study to the Carnegie Corporation of New York 
must be accounted for. The study has an unusual character as it was not 
initiated by any individual scholar or academic institution but sponsored 
by the Carnegie Corporation itself and, in a sense, carried out within the 
Corporation. The general plan that a number of American experts should 
be asked to collaborate by preparing research monographs while the director 
himself should write a final report, was also developed by the Corporation. 
All decisions on practical and financial matters have been taken on the 
responsibility of the Corporation. The Trustees of the Corporation have 
been most generous and prompt in appropriating necessary funds for the 
study. 

Mr. Keppel has had to keep in closer touch with the progress of the 
work than is usual when a study is sponsored by an outside institution. No 
conventional words of appreciation can express what his unfailing personal 
interest in the project has meant in upholding the courage of the present 
author throughout his tribulations. Charles Dollard, the Assistant to the 
President of the Carnegie Corporation, has followed the work in all its 



xviii v Author's Preface 

practical details and has, with Keppel, contributed most in terms of moral 
support and advice. Both Keppel and Dollard have read the manuscript 
and given me their criticisms and suggestions, which have been very 
valuable. 
For the content of the book, I am solely responsible. 

The scope and main direction of this book will be explained in the 
"Introduction." There are, however, some few notes of a more personal 
character for which the proper place is at the close of this preface. To 
invite a foreigner — someone "in a nonimperialistic country with no back- 
ground of domination of one race over another" who, presumably "would 
approach the situation with an entirely fresh mind"; I am here again 
quoting Keppel's first letter, August 12, 1937 — to review the most serious 
race problem in the country, is an idea singularly American. In any other 
country such a proposal would have been defeated by afterthoughts of 
practical and political expediency. Many will deem it a foolish idea. But 
. more fundamentally it is a new demonstration, in a minor matter, of 
American moralism, rationalism, and optimism — and a demonstration of 
America's unfailing conviction of its basic soundness and strength. Early 
in the course of this work, when I had found out the seriousness of the 
task before me, I proposed to Mr. Keppel that a committee be formed of 
a Southern white, a Northern white, and a Negro. In such a group we 
could have allowed for political considerations and worked out a basis for 
practical understanding, to which each one could have subscribed, since the 
representation of different viewpoints would have accounted for the intel- 
lectual compromises involved. This was, however, not at all what he 
wanted. He told me that everyone would generously help and advise me — 
and there he proved right — but that I would have to find out for myself, 
and upon my own responsibility, the truth in the- matter without any side 
glances as to what was politically desirable and expedient. 

This book is the result. Let it be added at once that the author does not 
have any pretension of having produced the definitive statement of the 
Negro problem in America. The problem is too big and too complicated, 
and also things are rapidly changing while one writes. Time has, as always, 
been a limitation. When I now leave the work, I know that many chapters 
could be improved. But apart from such shortcomings, there is a more basic 
relativism which the reader should keep in mind. Things look different, 
defending ufon "where you stand" as the American expression runs. The 
author fully realizes, and hopes the reader will remember, that he has 
never been subject to the strains involved in living in a black : white society 
and never has had to become adjusted to such a situation — and that this 
condition was the very reason why he was asked to undertake the work. 
He was requested to see things as a stranger. Indeed, he was asked to be 



Author's Preface joe 

both the subject and the object of a cultural experiment in the field of social 
science. 

As he, in this problem — to which he previously had given hardly a 
thought — was nearly stripped of all the familiar and conventional moorings 
of viewpoints and valuations, he had to construct for himself a system of 
coordinates. He found this in the American ideals of equality and liberty. 
Being a stranger to the problem, he has had perhaps a greater awareness 
of the extent to which human valuations everywhere enter into our scientific 
discussion of the Negro problem. In two appendices on valuations, beliefs, 
and facts he has attempted to clear the methodological ground for a 
scientific approach which keeps the valuations explicit and hinders them 
from going underground in the form of biases distorting the facts. And he 
has followed the rule all through the book of inserting the terms "the 
American Creed" and "value premise" and of specifying those value 
premises and printing them in italics. The reader will be less irritated by 
their repetition if he understands that these terms are placed as signs of 
warning to the reader and to the writer alike: the search for scientific 
knowledge and the drawing of practical conclusions are dependent upon 
valuations as well as upon facts. 

When, in this way, the data on the American Negro problem are mar- 
shaled under the high ideals of the American Creed, the fact must be faced 
that the result is rather dark. Indeed, as will be pointed out in the first 
chapter, the Negro problem in America represents a moral lag in the 
development of the nation and a study of it must record nearly everything 
which is bad and wrong in America. The reading of this book must be 
somewhat of an ordeal to the good citizen. I do not know if it can be 
offered as a consolation that the writing of the book, for much the same 
reason, has been an ordeal to the author who loves and admires America 
next to his own country — and does it even more sincerely after having had 
to become an expert on American imperfections. To a scholar a work is 
always something of a fate. His personal controls are diminutive; he is 
in the hands of the facts, of his professional standards, and of the funda- 
mental approach chosen. 

If this book gives a more complete record than is up to now available 
of American shortcomings in this field, I hope, however, that it also 
accounts more completely for the mutability in relations, the hope for 
great improvement in the near future and, particularly, the dominant role 
of ideals in the social dynamics of America. When looking back over the 
long manuscript, one main conclusion — which should be stressed here since 
it cannot be reiterated through the whole book — is this: that not since 
Reconstruction has there been more reason to anticipate fundamental 
changes in American race relations, changes which will involve a develop- 
ment toward the American ideals. 



xx Author's Preface 

To the friends, colleagues, experts, and administrators of both races who 
have been helpful to me in the course of this study, 1 want to say plainly 
that in a job of this kind the attempt to be completely honest involves the 
author in the risk of losing friends. If this does not happen in the present 
instance, I shall ascribe this to the singular American magnanimity which 
is demonstrated in the very initiative of calling for this study. 

GUNNAR MYRDAL 

Stockholm, October, 1942 
University of Stockholm 



Acknowledgments 



Permission has been granted by the following publishers to quote from 
the copyright material listed below. The place and date of publication will 
be found in the Bibliography. 
American Council on Education: 

Children of Bondage by Allison Davis and John Dollard. 

Color, Class, and Personality by Robert L. Sutherland. 

Color and Human Nature by W. Lloyd Warner, Buford H. Junker 
and Walter A. Adams. 

Growing up in the Black Belt by Charles S. Johnson. 

Negro Youth at the Crossways by E. Franklin Frazier. 
D. Appleton-Century Company: 

Below the Potomac by Virginius Dabney. 

Race Distinctions in American Law, by Gilbert T. Stephenson. 
Albert and Charles Boni: 

The New Negro edited by Alain Locke. 
The Atlanta University Press: 

Economic Cooperation Among Negro Americans edited by W. E. B. 
Du Bois. 
Chapman & Grimes, Inc.: 

The Negro's God by Benjamin E. Mays. 
Chapman & Hall, Ltd. (London) : 

Through Afro-America by William Archer. 
The University of Chicago Press: 

The Biology of the Negro by Julian H. Lewis. 

Deep South by Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner and Mary R. Gard- 
ner. 

The Etiquette of Race Relations in the South by Bertram Wilbur Doyle. 

Introduction to the Science of Sociology by Robert E. Park and Ernest 
W. Burgess. 

Negro Politicians by Harold F. Gosnell. 

The Negro Press in the United States by Frederick G. Detweiler. 

Shadow of the Plantation by Charles S. Johnson. , 
The Clarendon Press (Oxford) : 

The Relations of the Advanced and Backward Races of Mankind by 
James Bryce. 



jorii Acknowledgments 

The Cleveland Foundation: 

Criminal Justice in the American City — A Summary by Roscoe Pound. 
Columbia University Press: 

American Caste and the Negro College by Buell G. Gallagher. 

The Anthropometry of the American Negro by Melville J. Herskovits. 
The John Day Company and David Lloyd, agent: 

American Unity and Asia, copyright 1942, by Pearl S. Buck. 
R. S. Crofts & Co.: 

The Roots of American Civilization by Curtis P. Nettels. 
Doubleday, Doran and Company: 

Booker T. Washington by Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe. 

Following the Colour Line by Ray Stannard Baker. 

Penrod by Booth Tarkington. 

The Story of the Negro by Booker T. Washington. 

Studies in the American Race Problem by Alfred H. Stone. 

Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington. 

What the Negro Thinks by Robert R. Moton. 
Duke University Press: 

Race Relations and the Race Problem edited by Edgar T. Thompson. 
Lee Furman, Inc.: 

A Long Way From Home by Claude McKay. 
University of Georgia Press: 

What Negro Newspapers of Georgia Say About Some Social Problems 
by Rollin Chambliss. 
Ginn and Company: 

The Basis of Racial Adjustment by Thomas J. Woofter, Jr. 

Folkways by William Sumner. 
Harcourt, Brace and Company: 

Black Reconstruction by W. E. B. Du Bois. 

Darkwater by W. E. B. Du Bois. 

Dusk of Dawn by W. E. B. Du Bois. 

Main Currents of American Thought by Vernon L. Parrington. 
Harper & Brothers: 

American Minority Peoples by Donald R. Young. 

Divine White Right by Trevor Bowen. 

The Negro's Church by Benjamin E. Mays and Joseph W. Nicholson. 

Negro Problems in Cities by Thomas J. Woofter, Jr. and Associates. 

Preface to Eugenics by Frederick Osborn. 

The Story of a Pioneer by Anna Howard Shaw. 

We Europeans by Julian S. Huxley and A. A. Haddon. 
Harvard University— Peabody Museum: 

Study of Some Negro-White Families in the United States by Caroline 
Bond Day. 



Acknowledgments xxui 

Harvard University Press: 

Population: A Problem For Democracy by Gunnar Myrdal. Reprinted 
by permission of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. 
Hastings House and Hampton Institute: 

The Negro in Virginia prepared by the Federal Writers' Project. 
D. C. Heath and Company: 

Race Relations by Willis D. Weatherford and Charles S. Johnson. 
Henry Holt and Company: 

American Regionalism by Howard W. Odum and Harry E. Moore. 

Black Yeomanry by Thomas J. Woofter, Jr. 

The Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner. 

The Negro in American Civilization by Charles S. Johnson. 

Planning for America by George B. Galloway and Associates. 
The Johns Hopkins Press: 

The Industrial Revolution in the South by Broadus Mitchell and George 
S. Mitchell. 
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.: 

The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man by James Weldon Johnson. 

Black Manhattan by James Weldon Johnson. 

The Mind of the South by Wilbur J. Cash. 

The Racial Basis of Civilization by Frank H. Hankins. 
Little, Brown & Company: 

The Road to Reunion by Paul H. Buck. 
Little, Brown & Company and Atlantic Monthly Press: 

The Epic of America by James Truslow Adams. 
Longmans, Green and Co., Inc. : 

The Basis of Ascendancy by Edgar Gardner Murphy. 

Problems of the Present South by Edgar Gardner Murphy. 
A. C. McClurg&Co.: 

The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois. 
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.: 

Race Mixture by E. B. Reuter. 
The Macmillan Company: 

The American Commonwealth by James Bryce. 

Democracy and Race Friction by John M. Mecklin. 

The Mind of Primitive Man by Franz Boas. 

Race Questions by Josiah Royce. 

Studies in the Theory of Human Society by Franklin H. Giddings. 
Julian Messner, Inc.: 

Sinful Cities of the Western World by Hendrik De Leeuw. 
Methuen and Company, Ltd. (London) : 

The Negro in the New World by Sir Harry Johnston. 



xxiv Acknowledgments 

The University of North Carolina Press: 

The Collapse of Cotton Tenancy by Charles S. Johnson, Edwin R. 
Embree and W. W. Alexander. 

The Legal Status of the Negro by Charles S. Mangum, Jr. 

Liberalism in the South by Virginius Dabney. 

Human Geography of the South by Rupert B. Vance. 

The Negro College Graduate by Charles S. Johnson. 

Preface to Peasantry by Arthur F. Raper. 

Tar-Heel Editor by Josephus Daniels. 
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.: 

American Faith by Ernest Sutherland Bates. 
The Oxford University Press: 

American Farmers in the World Crisis by Carl T. Schmidt. 

Race, Class and Party by Paul Lewinson. 
The University of Pennsylvania Press: 

The Philadelphia Negro by W. E. B. Du Bois. 
G. P. Putnam's Sons: 

Darker Phases of the South by Frank Tannenbaum. 

Freedom and Culture by John Dewey. 
The Ronald Press Company: 

The Course of American Democratic Thought by Ralph H. Gabriel. 
Russell Sage Foundation: 

"Youth Programs" by M. M. Chambers in the Social Work Year Book, 
104 1 edited by Russell H. Kurtz. 
Charles Scribner's Sons: 

America's Tragedy by James Truslow Adams. 

Heredity and Human Affairs by Edward M. East. 

The Marginal Man by Everett V. Stonequist. 

The Negro: The Southerner's Problem by Thomas Nelson Page. 

The Negro Question by George W. Cable. 

The Old South by Thomas J. Wertenbaker. 

The Passing of the Great Race by Madison Grant. 

The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy by Lothrop 
Stoddard. 
The Twentieth Century Fund: 

Facing the Tax Problem. 
The Viking Press: 

Along This Way, copyright 1933 by James Weldon Johnson. 

After Freedom, copyright 1939 by Hortense Powdermaker. 

Alien Americans by B. Schrieke, copyright 1936.. 

Brown America by Edwin R. Embree, copyright 1931. 

Negro Americam; What Now?, copyright 1934 by James Wejdon 
Johnson. 



Acknowledgments xxv 

University of Virginia: 

Negro Crime in a Small Urban Community by Robert M. Lightfoot. 
Yale University Press: 

Caste and Class in a Southern Town by John Dollard. 

Essays of William Graham Sumner edited by Albert G. Keller and 
Maurice R. Davie. 

New Haven Negroes by Robert Austin Warner. 

Social Life of a Modern Community by W. Lloyd Warner and Paul S. 
Lunt. 
Xavier University: 

The Negro in Louisiana by Charles B. Roussevc. 



CONTENTS 



Foreword, by Frederick P. Keppel v 

Author's Preface ix 

Introduction xli 

i . The Negro Problem as a Moral Issue 

2. Valuations and Beliefs 

3. A White Man's Problem 

4. Not an Isolated Problem 

5. Some Further Notes on the Scope and Direction of This 

Study 

6. A Warning to the Reader 

PART I. THE APPROACH 

Chapter 1. American Ideals and the American Conscience 3 

1 . Unity of Ideals and Diversity of Culture 

2. American Nationalism 

3. Some Historical Reflections 

4. The Roots of the American Creed in the Philosophy of 

Enlightenment 

5. The Roots in Christianity 

6. The Roots in English Law 

7. American Conservatism 

3. The American Conception of Law and Order 
9. Natural Law and American Puritanism 

10. The Faltering Judicial Order 

11. Intellectual Defeatism 

12. "Lip-Service" 

13. Value Premises in This Study 

Chapter 1. Encountering the Negro Problem 26 

1. On the Minds of the Whites 

2. To the Negroes Themselves 

3. Explaining the Problem Away 

4. Explorations in Escape 

c. The Etiquette of Discussion 
6. The Convenience of Ignorance 

J. Negro and White Voices 
. The North and the South 

xrril 



xxviii Contents 

Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 50 

1. American Minority Problems 

2. The Anti-Amalgamation Doctrine 

3. The White Man's Theory of Color Caste 

4. The "Rank Order of Discriminations" 

5. Relationships between Lower Class Groups 

6. The Manifoldness and the Unity of the Negro Problem 

7. The Theory of the Vicious Circle 

8. A Theory of Democracy 

PART II. RACE 

Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 83 

1. Biology and Moral Equalitarianism 

2. The Ideological Clash in America 

3. The Ideological Compromise 

4. Reflections in Science 

5. The Position of the Negro Writers 

6. The Racial Beliefs of the Unsophisticated 

7. Beliefs with a Purpose 

8. Specific Rationalization Needs 

9. Rectifying Beliefs 
10. The Study of Beliefs 

Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 1 13 

1. The American Definition of "Negro" 

2. African Ancestry 

3. Changes in Physical Appearance 

4. Early Miscegenation 

5. Ante-Bellum Miscegenation 

6. Miscegenation in Recent Times 

7. "Passing" 

8. Social and Biological Selection 

9. Present and Future Genetic Composition Trends 

Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics 137 

i. Physical Traits 

2. Biological Susceptibility to Disease 

3. Psychic Traits 

4. Frontiers of Constructive Research 

PART III. POPULATION AND MIGRATION 

Chapter 7. Population 157 

1. The Growth of the Negro Population 

2. Births and Deaths 

3. Summary 

4. Ends and Means of Population Policy 

5. Controlling the Death Rate 



Contents mox 

6. The Case for Controlling the Negro Birth Rate 

7. Birth Control Facilities Tor Negroes 

Chapter 8. Migration 182 

1. Overview 

2. A Closer View 

3. The Great Migration to the Urban North 

4. Continued Northward Migration 

5. The Future of Negro Migration 

PART IV. ECONOMICS 

Chapter 9*. Economic Inequality 205 

1. Negro Poverty 

2. Our Main Hypothesis: The Vicious Circle 

3. The Value Premises 

4. The Conflict of Valuations 

Chapter 10- The Tradition of Slavery 220 

1. Economic Exploitation 

2. Slavery and Caste 

3. The Land Problem 

4. The Tenancy Problem 

Chapter 11.. The Southern Plantation Economy and the Negro 

Farmer 230 

1. Southern Agriculture as a Problem 

2. Overpopulation and Soil Erosion 

3. Tenancy, Credit and Cotton 

4. The Boll Weevil 

5. Main Agricultural Classes 

6. The Negro Landowner 

7. Historical Reasons for the Relative Lack of Negro Farm Owners 

8. Tenants and Wage Laborers 

9. The Plantation 1 enant 

Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture During the 

'Thirties: Trends and Policies 251 

1. Agricultural Trends during the 'Thirties 

2. The Disappearing Sharecropper 

3. The Role of the A.A.A. in Regard to Cotton 

4. A.A.A. and the Negro 

5. The Local Administration of the A.A.A. 

6. Mechanization 

7. Labor Organizations 

8. The Dilemma of Agricultural Policy 

9. Economic Evaluation of the A.A.A. 

10. Social Evaluation of the A.A.A. 

11. Constructive Measures 

12. Farm Security Programs 



xsx Contents 

Chapter jy^Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 279 

1. Perspective on the Urbanization of the Negro People 

2. In the South 

3. A Closer View 

4. Southern Trends during the 'Thirties > 

5. In the North 

6. A Closer View on Northern Trends 

J. The Employment Hazards of Unskilled Work 
. The Size of the Negro Labor Force and Negro Employment 
9. Negro and White Unemployment 

Chapter 14. The Negro in Business, the Professions, Public 

Service and Other White Collar Occupations 304 

1. Overview 
a. The Negro in Business 

3. Negro Finance 

4. The Negro Teacher 

5. The Negro Minister 

0. The Negro in Medical Professions 

J. Other Negro Professionals 
. Negro Officials and White Collar Workers in Public Service 
9. Negro Professionals oi the Stage, Screen and Orchestra 
10. Note on Shady Occupations 

Chapter 15, The Negro in the Public Economy 233 

1. The Public Budget 

2. Discrimination in Public Service 

3. Education 

4. Public Health 

5. Recreational Facilities 

6. Public Housing Policies 

7. Social Security and Public Assistance 

8. Specialized Social Welfare Programs during the Period After 



heSc 



9. The Social Security Program 

10. Assistance to Special Groups 

11. Work Relief 

12. Assistance to Youth 

13. General Relief and Assistance in Kind 

Chapter 16, Income, Consumption and Housing 364 

1. Family Income 

2. Income and Family Size 

3. The Family Budget 

4. Budget Items 

k. Fooof Consumption 
6. Housing Conditions 

Chapter vj^'The Mechanics of Economic Discrimination as a 

Practital Problem 380 

1. The Practical Problem 

2. The Ignorance and Lack of Concern of Northern Whites 



Contents xxari 

3. Migration Policy 

4. The Regular Industrial Labor Market in the North 
s. The Problem of Vocational Training 

6. The Self-Perpetuating Color Bar 

7. A Position or "Indifferent Equilibrium" 

8. In the South 

Chapter 18. Pre-JVar Labor Market Controls and Their Conse- 
quences for the Negro 397 

1. The Wages and Hours Law and the Dilemma of the Marginal 

Worker 
a. Other Economic Policies 

3. Labor Unions and the Negro 

4. A Weak Movement Getting Strong Powers 

Chapter 19. The War Boom — and Thereafter 409 

1. The Negro Wage Earner and the War Boom 
1. A Closer View 

3. Government Policy in Regard to the Negro in War Production 

4. The Negro in the Armed Forces 

5. . . . And Afterwards? 

PART V. POLITICS 

Chapter 20. Underlying Factors 429 

1. The Negro in American Politics and as a Political Issue 

2. The Wave of Democracy and the Need for Bureaucracy 

3. The North and the South 

4. The Southern Defense Ideology 

5. The Reconstruction Amendments 

6. Memories of Reconstruction 

7. The Tradition of Illegality 

Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 452 

1. The. "Solid South" 

2. Southern Conservatism 

3. Is the South Fascist? 

4. The Changing South 

5. Southern Liberalism 

Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 474 

1. The Southern Political Scene 

2. Southern Techniques for Disfranchising the Negroes 

3. The Negro Vote m the South 

4. The Negro in Northern Politics 

5. What the Neero Gets Out of Politics 

Chapter 23. Trends and Possibilities 505 

1. The Negro's Political Bargaining Power 

2. The Negro's Party Allegiance 



joorii Contents 

3. Nemo Suffrage in the South as an Issue 

4. An Unstable Situation 

f. The Stake of the North 
. Practical Conclusions 

PART VI. JUSTICE 

Chapter 24. Inequality of Justice 5*3 

1. Democracy and Justice 

2. Relative Equality in the North 

3. The Southern Heritage 

Chapter 25. The Police and Other Public Contacts 535 

1. Local Petty Officials 

2. The Southern Policeman 

3. The Policeman in the Negro Neighborhood 

4. Trends and Outlook 

5. Another Type of Public Contact 

Chapter 26. Courts , Sentences and Prisons 547 

1 . The Southern Courts 
a. Discrimination in Court 

3. Sentences and Prisons 

4. Trends and Outlook 

Chapter 27. Violence and Intimidation 558 

1 . The Pattern of Violence 
a. Lynching 

3. The Psychopathology of Lynching 

4. Trends and Outlook 

5. Riots 

PART VII. SOCIAL INEQUALITY 
Chapter 28 v The Basis of Social Inequality 573 

1. The Value Premise 

a. The One-Sidedness of the System of Segregation 

3. The Beginning in Slavery 

4. The Jim Crow Laws 

k. Beliefs Supporting Social Inequality 

6. The Popular Theory of "No Social Equality" 

7. Critical Evaluation of the "No Social Equality" Theory 

8. Attitudes among Different Classes of Whites in the South 

9. Social Segregation and Discrimination in the North 

Chapter 0.%, Patterns of Social Segregation and Discrimination 605 

1. Facts and Beliefs Regarding Segregation and Discrimination 

2. Segregation and Discrimination in interpersonal Relations 

3. Housing Segregation 



Contents xxxiii 

4. Sanctions for Residential Segregation 

5. The General Character of Institutional Segregation 

6. Segregation in Specific Types of Institutions 

Chapter ^Ov/Tiff ects of Social Inequality 640 

1. The Incidence of Social Inequality 

2. Increasing Isolation 

3. Interracial Contacts 

4. The Factor of Ignorance 
<. Present Dynamics 

PART VIII. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 

Chapter i*,/Caste and Class 667 

i. The Concepts "Caste" and "Class" 

2. The "Meaning" of the Concepts "Caste" and "Class" 

3. The Caste Struggle 

4. Crossing the Caste Line 

Chapter 32. The Negro Class Structure 689 

1. The Negro Class Order in the American Caste System 

2. Caste Determines Class 

3. Color and Class 

4. The Classes in the Negro Community 

PART IX. LEADERSHIP AND CONCERTED ACTION 

Chapter 33. The American Pattern 0/ Individual Leadership 

and Mass Passivity 709 

1. "Intelligent Leadership" 

2. "Community Leaders" 

3. Mass Passivity 

4. The Patterns Exemplified in Politics and throughout the 

American Social Structure 

Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 720 

1. leadership and Caste 

2. The Interests of Whites and Negroes with Respect to Negro 

I leadership 

3. In the North and on the National Scene 

4. The "Glass Plate" 

5. Accommodating Leadership and Class 

6. Several Qualifications 

7. Accommodating Leaders in the North 

8. The Glamour Personalities 

Chapter 35. The Negro Protest 7,6 

1 . The Slave Revolts 



xxxiv Contents 

a. The Negro Abolitionists and Reconstruction Politicians 

3. The Tuskegee Compromise 

4. The Spirit of Niagara and Harper's Ferry 

5. The Protest Is Still Rising 

6. The Shock of the First World War and the Post- War Crisis 

7. The Garvey Movement 

8. Post- War Radicalism among Negro Intellectuals 

9. Negro History and Culture 

10. The Great Depression and the Second W T or!d War 

Chapter 36. The Protest Motive and Negro Personality 757 

1. A Mental Reservation 

2. The Struggle Against Defeatism 

3. The Struggle for Balance 

4. Negro Sensitiveness 

5. Negro Aggression 

6. Upper Class Reactions 

7. The "Function" of Racial Solidarity 

Chapter 37. Compromise Leadership 768 

1. The Daily Compromise 

2. The Vulnerability of the Negro Leader 

3. Impersonal Motives 

4. The Protest Motive 

5. The Double Role 

6. Negro Leadership Techniques 

7. Moral Consequences 

8. Leadership Rivalry 

9. Qualifications 

10. In Southern Cities 

11. In the North 

12. On the National Scene 

Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 781 

1. Instability 

2. Negro Provincialism 

3. The Thinking on the Negro Problem 

4. Courting the "Best People Among the Whites" 

5. The Doctrine of Labor Solidarity 

6. Some Critical Observations 

7. The Pragmatic "Truth" of the Labor Solidarity Doctrine 

8. "The Advantages of the Disadvantages" 

9. Condoning Segregation 

10. Boosting Negro Business 

11. Criticism of Negro Business Chauvinism 
ia v "Back to Africa" 

■■' 13." Miscellaneous Ideologies 

Chapter 39. 'Negro Improvement and Protest Organizations 8io 

1. A General American Pattern 



Contents xxxv 

i. Nationalist Movements 

3. Business and Professional Organizations 

4. The National Negro Congress Movement 

c. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored 
'People 

6. the N.A.A.C.P. Branches 

7. The N.A.A.C.P. National Office 

8. The Strategy of the N.A.A.C.P. 

0. Critique of the N.A.A.C.P. 

10. The Urban League 

11. The Commission on Interracial Cooperation 

12. The Negro Organizations during the War 

13. Negro Strategy 

Chapter 40. The Negro Church 858 

1. Non-Political Agencies for Negro Concerted Action 

2. Some Historical Notes 

3. The Negro Church and the General American Pattern of 

Religious Activity 

4. A Segregated Church 

5. Its Weakness 

6. Trends and Outlook 

Chapter 41. The Negro School 879 

1 . Negro Education as Concerted Action 

2. Education in American Thought and Life 

3. The Development of Negro Education in the South 

4. The Whites' Attitudes toward Negro Education 

5. "Industrial" versus "Classical" Education of Negroes 

6. Negro Attitudes 

7. Trends and Problems 

Chapter 42. The Negro Press 908 

1. An Organ for the Negro Protest 

2. The Growth of the Negro Press 

3. Characteristics of the Negro Press 

4. The Controls of the Negro Press 

5. Outlook 

PART X. THE NEGRO COMMUNITY 
Chapter 43. Institutions 927 

1. The Negro Community as a Pathological Form of an American 

Community 

2. The Negro Family 

3. The Negro Church in the Negro Community 

4. The Negro School and Negro Education 

5. Voluntary Associations 



xxxvi Contents 

Chapter 44. Non-Institutional Aspects of the Negro Community 956 

1. "Peculiarities" of Negro Culture and Personality 

2. Crime 

3. Mental Disorders and Suicide 

4. Recreation 

5. Negro Achievements 

PART XI. AN AMERICAN DILEMMA 

Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads in the Negro 

Problem 997 

1. The Negro Problem and the War 

2. Social Trends 

3. The Decay of the Caste Theory 

4. Negroes in the War Crisis 

5. The War and the Whites 

6. The North Moves Toward Equality 

7. Tension in the South 

8. International Aspects 

9. Making the Peace 

10. America's Opportunity 

Appendix 1. A Methodological Note on Valuations and Beliefs 1027 

1. The Mechanism of Rationalization 

2. Theoretical Critique of the Concept "Mores" 

3. Valuation Dynamics 

Appendix 2. A Methodological Note on Facts and Valuations in 

Social Science ro3 5 

1. Biases in the Research on the American Negro Problem 

2. Methods of Mitigating Biases in Social Science 

3. The History and Logic of the Hidden Valuations in Social 

Science 

4. The Points of View Adopted in This Book 

Appendix 3. A Methodological Note on the Principle of Cumula- 
tion 1065 

Appendix 4. Note on the Meaning of Regional Terms as Used in 

This Book 1 07 1 

Appendix 5. A Parallel to the Negro Problem 1073 

Appendix 6. Pre-lf'ar Conditions of the Negro Wage Earner in 

Selected Industries and Occupations 1079 

1. General Characteristics of Negro Jobs 



Contents xxxvii 

2. Domestic Service 

3. Other Service Occupations 

4. Turpentine Farms 

5. Lumber 

0. The Fertilizer Industry 

7. Longshore Work. 

8. Building Workers 

9. Railroad Workers 

10. Tobacco Workers 

1 1 . Textile Workers 

12. Coal Miners 

13. Iron and Steel Workers 

14. Automobile Workers 

15. The Slaughtering and Meat Packing Industry 

Appendix 7. Distribution of Negro Residences in Selected Cities 1125 
Appendix 8. Research on Caste and Class in a Negro Community 1129 
Appendix 9. Research on Negro Leadership 1 1 33 

Appendix 10. Quantitative Studies of Race Attitudes 1136 

1. Kxisting Studies of Race Attitudes 

2. The Kmpirical Study of Valuations and Beliefs 

3. "Personal" and "Political" Opinions 

4. The Practical Study of Race Prejudice 

List of Rooks, Pamphlets, Periodicals, and Other Material Re- 
ferred to in This Hook 1 144 

Numbered Footnotes 1 181 

Index 1 44 1 



LIST OF TABLES 



Chapter j 

Table t. Carey's Estimates of the Number of Slaves 
Imported into the United States at Various Time 
Periods 118 

Footnote 59. Comparison of Variabilities of the American 
Negro Population with the American White 
Population and with the West African Negro 
Population in Twenty-three Selected Traits 1211 

Chapter J 

Table 1. Net Reproduction Rates by Color and Urban- 
Rural Residence, for the United States, by 
Regions: 1930 and 1940 160 

Footnote 24. Net Reproduction Rates in Southern Regions: 

1940 1222 

Chapter 11 

Table 1. Negro and White Agricultural Workers in the 

South, by Tenure: 1930 236 

Chapter 12 

Table 1. Number of Farm Operators in the South, by 

Tenure and Color: 1930, 1935, and 1940 253 

Footnote 3. Index Numbers for Gross Cash Income from 

Marketings 1 244 

Footnote 13. Counties in Selected Southern States by Increase 
or Decrease in Number of Colored and White 
Owners, Tenants (Other Than Croppers), and 
Croppers: 1930- 193 5 1246 

Footnote 2>Z- Number of Motor Trucks and Tractors on. 

Farms: 1930 and 1940 1248 

Chapter /j 

Table 1. Number of All Male Workers and of Negro Male 
Workers in Nonagricultural Pursuits, by Section: 
1 890-1930 285 

Table 1. Changes in Population and in Male Labor Force 
in Selected Northern and Southern Cities: 1930- 
1940 288 



xl List of Tables 

Table 3. Number and Proportion of Nonwhite Workers in 
Selected Industries, 1940; and Negroes as a Per- 
centage of the Gainful Workers, 1930 — in the 
South 290 

Table 4. Negro and W T hite Male Workers in Nonagri- 
cultural Pursuits by Social-Economic Status, in 
the North and in the South: 1930 296 

Table 5. Total Persons and Labor Force in Nonfarm Areas 
of the United States, by Employment Status, Sex, 
and Race: 1940 298 

Table 6. Labor Force as a Percentage of All Persons, 14 
Years of Age and Over, and Unemployed Workers 
as a Percentage of Total Labor Force, in Selected 
Large Cities, by Sex and Race: 1940 300 

Chapter 14 

Table 1. Negro Workers in Business, Professional, and 
White Collar Occupations, by Sex: 1910, 1920, 
and 1930 306 

Table 2. Number of Negro Entrepreneurs and White Collar 
Workers in Selected Trade and Service Industries: 
19 10 309 

Table 3. Principal Groups of Negro Professional Workers: 

1910 and 1930 319 

Chapter 13 

Footnote 19. Median Expenditure for Teachers' Salaries in 
Counties with Specified Proportion of Negroes in 
the School Population, Aged 5-19: 1930-1931 1271 

Footnote 57. "Paupers" in Almshouses in 1890 1277 

Chapter 16 

Table 1. Median Incomes of Negro and Native White 

Families in Selected Cities: 1935-1936 365 

Table 2. Per Cent Distribution of Total Family Consump- 
tion Items, for Normal Nonrelief Families in 
Selected Community and Income Groups, by 
Race: 1935- 1916 369 

Table 3. Percentage of Normal Nonrelief Families Who 
During a Survey Period of One Week in 1936 
Failed to Consume Specified Foods 372 

Table 4. Average Value (in Cents) per Meal per Food- 
Expenditure-Unit in Small and Large Normal 
Nonrelief Families, by Race 374 

Table 5. Diets of Normal Nonrelief Negro and White 
Families in the Southeast Classified by Grade: 
I936-J937 375 



List of Tables xli 

Table 6. Percentage of Urban Families Showing Various 
Degrees of Crowding, by Region and Race: 

I93.v>93" " ' . 378 

Footnote 1. Median Incomes for Negro and White Farm 
Families in Three Southeastern Sample Areas: 

1935-193" . ... 1284 

Footnote 34. Percentage of Negro and White Families in the 
Southeast with Diets Furnishing Less than 
Optimum Requirements of Specified Nutrients: 

1936- 1 937 1290 

Footnote 40. Large Families Living in Homes with More Than 
1.5 Person per Room as a Percentage of All Large 
Farm Families, by Color and Tenure: 1935 1936 1291 



Chapter iS 
Footnote 4. 



Chapter iq 
Footnote 1. 



Chapter <?.? 

Table 1. 



Chapter 40 

Table 1. 

Chapter 43 

Table 1. 



Percentage Increase in Number of Wage Earners 
in Virginia Manufacturing Industries, 1930-1939; 
and Percentage of Nonwhitc Wage Karners, 
1930 1939 1296 



Percentage of Nonwhitcs in the Total Population, 
1940, am] among Recent In-migrants According to 
Surveys Made during the Latter Half of 1941, in 
Selected Cities 1301 



Per Cent of Major 1'arty Vote for Roosevelt, 1932, 
r 93". 1940, in Kach Ward Having More Than 
Half Its Population Negro, Selected Cities 



Negro Membership 
Denomination: J 930 



in Harlem Churches by 



Number and Rate of Illegitimate Births, by 
Nativity, Section and Rural-Urban Residence: 

] 93 6 . 
Table 2. Proportion Broken Families of All Families: 1930 

Table 3. School Attendance in the United States, Ages 

5-20, by Race: 18 50- 1940 
Table 4. School Attendance, Ages 7-20, by Race and 

Region: 1930 
Table 5. Years of School Completed, by Persons 25 Years 

Old and Over, by Race, for the United States, 

Rural and Urban Areas: 1940 



496 



865 



932 
934 

942 
943 

944 



xlii List of Tables 

Table 6. Ratio of Negro to White Pupils in Public Schools 

by Grades, in 18 Southern States: 1933-1934 944 

Footnote 20. Organizations and Activities of 609 Urban 

Churches 1427 

Chapter 44 

Table 1. Prisoners Received from Courts by State and 
Federal Prisons and Reformatories by Sex, Race 
and Nativity: 1939 971 

Table 2. Male Felony Prisoners Received from Courts by 
State and Federal Prisons and Reformatories, by 
Geographic Areas and by Race and Nativity: 

1939 97 1 

Table 3. Distribution of Arrests according to Race and 
Type of Offense (Excluding Those under Fifteen 
Years of Age): 1940 973 

Appendix 4 

Table 1. Various Definitions of the South 1072 

Appendix 6 

Table 1. Nonagricultural Industries and Service Groups 

Having 15,000 Negro Workers or More: 1930 1081 

Table 2. Percentage of Nonrelief White Families, in 
Selected Income Groups, Who Had Expenditure 
for Household Help: 1935-1936 1084 

Table 3. Range between Local Wage Rates for Domestic 
Work, in Selected States, according to Estimates 
by State Employment Offices: January, 1939 1085 

Table 4. Average Earnings and Hours of Work for Lumber 
Workers in the South by Type and Branch of 
Industry and by Color: 1939-19^0 1093 

Table 5. Percentage Distribution of Logging and Sawmill 
Workers by Average Hourly Earnings, by Type 
and Branch of Industry and by Color, in the 
South: 1939-^1940 1093 

Table 6. Occupations in Lumber Mills (Sawmills, Logging, 
Maintenance and Service Branches) by Average 
Hourly Earnings of White Workers, and Differ- 
ence between Average Earnings of White and 
Negro Workers, in the South: 1939-1940 1094 

Table 7. Percentage of Negroes among Longshoremen and 

Stevedores in Selected States: 1910 and 1930 1097 



LIST OF FIGURES 



Figure i. Negro Population of the United States: 1790 to 1940 158 
Figure 2. Ratio of Nonwhite to White Mortality Rates for 

Selected Causes of Death, United States: 1920-1931 173 
Figure 3. The Proportion of Negroes in the Population, by States: 

1940 184 

Figure 4. 'J he Northward Migration 192 

Figure 5. Average Size of Farm, and Average Value of Land and 

Buildings per Acre and per Farm, by Color and Tenure, 

in the South: 1920 and 1940 239 



ylm 



INTRODUCTION 



I. The Negro Problem as a Moral Issue 

There is a "Negro problem" in the United States and most Americans 
are aware of it, although it assumes varying forms and intensity in differ- 
ent regions of the country and among diverse groups of the American 
people. Americans have to react to it, politically as citizens and, where 
there are Negroes present in the community, privately as neighbors. 

To the great majority of white Americans the Negro problem has dis- 
tinctly negative connotations. It suggests something difficult to settle and 
equally difficult to leave alone. It is .embarrassing. It makes for moral 
uneasiness. The very presence of the Negro in America* j his fate in this 
country through slavery, Civil War and Reconstruction; his recent career 
and his present status; his accommodation; his protest and his aspiration; 
in fact his entire biological, historical and social existence as a participant 
American represent to the ordinary white man in the North as well as in 
the South an anomaly in the very structure of American society. To many, 
this takes on the proportion of a menace — biological, economic, social, 
cultural, and, at times, political. This anxiety may be mingled with a feel- 
ing of individual and collective guilt. A few see the problem as a chal- 
lenge to statesmanship. To all it is a trouble. 

These and many other mutually inconsistent attitudes are blended into 
none too logical a scheme which, in turn, may be quite inconsistent with 
the wider personal, moral, religious, and civic sentiments and ideas of the 
Americans. Now and then, even the least sophisticated individual becomes 
aware of his own confusion and the contradiction in his attitudes. Occasion- 
ally he may recognize, even if only for a moment, the incongruence of his 
state of mind and find it so intolerable that the whole organization of his 
moral precepts is shaken. But most people, most of the time, suppress such 
threats to their moral integrity together with all of the confusion, the 
ambiguity, and inconsistency which lurks in the basement of man's soul. 
This, however, is rarely accomplished without mental strain. Out of the 
strain comes a sense of uneasiness and awkwardness which always seems 
attached to the Negro problem. 

The strain is increased in democratic America by the freedom left open 

"The word America will be used in this book u a synonym for continental United 
States. 

xlv 



xlvi Introduction 

— even in the South,* to a considerable extent — for the advocates of the 
Negro, his rights and welfare. All "pro-Negro" forces in American society, 
whether organized or not, and irrespective of their wide differences in both 
strategy and tactics, sense that this is the situation. They all work on the 
national conscience. They all seek to fix everybody's attention on the sup- 
pressed moral conflict. No wonder that they are often regarded as public 
nuisances, or worse — even when they succeed in getting grudging conces- 
sions to Negro rights and welfare. 

At this point it must be observed that America, relative to all the other 
branches of Western civilization, is moralistic and "moral-conscious." The 
ordinary American is the opposite of a cynic. He is on the average more of 
a believer and a defender of the faith in humanity than the rest of the 
Occidentals. It is a relatively important matter to him to be true to his own 
ideals and to carry them out in actual life. We recognize the American, 
wherever we meet him, as a practical idealist. Compared with members of 
other nations of Western civilization, the ordinary American is a rational- 
istic being, and there are close relations between his moralism and his 
rationalism. Even romanticism, transcendentalism, and mysticism tend to 
be, in the American culture, rational, pragmatic and optimistic. American 
civilization early acquired a flavor of enlightenment which has affected the 
ordinary American's whole personality and especially his conception of 
how ideas and ideals ought to "click" together. He has never developed 
that particular brand of tired mysticism and romanticism which finds 
delight in the inextricable confusion in the order of things and in ineffec- 
tuality of the human mind. He finds such leanings intellectually perverse. 
These generalizations might seem venturesome and questionable to the 
reflective American himself, who, naturally enough, has his attention 
directed more on the dissimilarities than on the similarities within his 
culture. What is common is usually not obvious, and it never becomes 
striking. But to the stranger it is obvious and even striking. In the social 
sciences, for instance, the American has, more courageously than anywhere 
else on the globe, started to measure, not only human intelligence, apti- 
tudes, and personality traits, but moral leanings and the "goodness" of 
communities. This man is a rationalist; he wants intellectual order in his 
moral set-up} he wants to pursue his own inclinations into their hidden 
haunts; and he is likely to expose himself and his kind in a most undiplo- 
matic manner. 

In hasty strokes we are now depicting the essentials of the American 
ethos. This moralism and rationalism are to many of us — among them the 
author of this book — the glory of the nation, its youthful strength, perhaps 
the salvation of mankind. The analysis of this "American Creed" and its 

* The mew precise meaning of the -words, South, North, and other terms for region* in 
America wQI be explained in Appendix 4. 



Introduction xlvii 

implications have an important place in our inquiry. While on the one 
hand, to such a moralistic and rationalistic being as the ordinary American, 
the Negro problem and his own confused and contradictory attitudes 
toward it must be disturbing; on the other hand, the very mass of unsettled 
problems in his heterogeneous and changing culture, and the inherited 
liberalistic trust that things will ultimately take care of themselves and 
get settled in one way or another, enable the ordinary American to live 
on happily, with recognized contradictions around him and within him, 
in a kind of bright fatalism which is unmatched in the rest of the Western 
world. This fatalism also belongs to the national ethos. 

The American Negro frobletn is a -problem in the heart of the American. 
It is there that the interracial tension has its focus. It is there that the 
decisive struggle goes on. This is the central viewpoint of this treatise. 
Though our study includes economic, social, and political race relations, 
at bottom our problem is the moral dilemma of the American — the conflict 
between his moral valuations on various levels of consciousness and general- 
ity. The u American Dilemma," referred to in the title of this book, is the 
ever-raging conflict between, on the one hand, the valuations preserved on 
the general plane which we shall call the "American Creed," where the 
American thinks, talks, and acts under the influence of high national and 
Christian precepts, and, on the other hand, the valuations on specific planes 
of individual and group living, where personal and local interests; eco- 
nomic, social, and sexual jealousies; considerations of community prestige 
and conformity ; group prejudice against particular persons or types of 
people; and all sorts of miscellaneous wants, impulses, and habits dominate 
his outlook. 

The American philosopher, John Dewey, whose immense influence is 
to be explained by his rare gift for projecting faithfully the aspirations and 
possibilities of the culture he was born into, in the maturity of age and 
wisdom has written a book on Freedom and Culture, in which he says: 

Anything that obscures the fundamentally moral nature of the social problem is 
harmful, no matter whether it proceeds from the side of physical or of psychological 
theory. Any doctrine that eliminates or even obscures the function of choice of values 
and enlistment of desires and emotions in behalf of those chosen weakens personal 
responsibility for judgment and for action. It thus helps create the attitudes that 
welcome and support the totalitarian state. 1 

We shall attempt to follow through Dewey's conception of what a social 
problem really is. 

2. Valuations and Beliefs 

The Negro problem in America would be of a different nature, and, 
indeed, would be simpler to handle scientifically, if the moral conflict 



xlviii Introduction 

raged only between valuations held by different persons and groups of 
persons. The essence of the moral situation is, however, that the conflicting 
valuations are also held by the same person. The moral struggle goes on 
within people and not only between them. As people's valuations are con- 
flicting, behavior normally becomes a moral compromise. There are no 
homogeneous "attitudes" behind human behavior but a mesh of struggling 
inclinations, interests, and ideals, some held conscious and some suppressed 
for long intervals but all active in bending behavior in their direction. 

The unity of a culture consists in the fact that all valuations are 
mutually shared in some degree. We shall find that even a poor and 
uneducated white person in some isolated and backward rural region in 
the Deep South, who is violently prejudiced against the Negro and intent 
upon depriving him of civic rights and human independence, has also a 
whole compartment in his valuation sphere housing the entire American 
Creed of liberty, equality, justice, and fair opportunity for everybody. He 
is actually also a good Christian and honestly devoted to the ideals of 
human brotherhood and the Golden Rule. And these more general valua- 
tions^ — more general in the sense that they refer to all human beings — are, 
to some extent, effective in shaping his behavior. Indeed, it would be impos- 
sible to understand why the Negro does not fare worse in some regions of 
America if it were not constantly kept in mind that behavior is the outcome 
of a compromise between valuations, among which the equalitarian ideal 
is one. At the other end, there are few liberals, even in New England, who 
have not a well-furnished compartment of race prejudice, even if it is usually 
suppressed from conscious attention. Even the American Negroes share 
in this community of valuations: they have eagerly imbibed the American 
Creed and the revolutionary Christian teaching of common brotherhood; 
under closer study, they usually reveal also that they hold something of 
the majority prejudice against their own kind and its characteristics. 

The intensities and proportions in which these conflicting valuations are 
present vary considerably from one American to another, and within the 
same individual, from one situation to another. The cultural unity of the 
nation consists, however, in the fact that most Americans have most valua- 
tions in common though they are arranged differently in the sphere of 
valuations of different individuals and groups and bear different intensity 
coefficients. This cultural unity is the indispensable basis for discussion 
between persons and groups. It is the floor upon which the democratic 
process goes on. 

In America as everywhere else people agree, as an abstract proposition, 
that the more general valuations— those which refer to man as such and 
not to any particular group or temporary situation— are morally higher. 
These valuations are also given the sanction of religion and national 
legislation. They are incorporated into the American Creed. The other 



Introduction xlix 

valuations — which refer to various smaller groups of mankind or to partic- 
ular occasions — are commonly referred to as "irrational" or "prejudiced," 
sometimes even by people who express and stress them. They are defended 
in terms of tradition, expediency or utility. 

Trying to defend their behavior to others, and primarily to themselves, 
people will attempt to conceal the conflict between their different valua- 
tions of what is desirable and undesirable, right or wrong, by keeping away 
some valuations from awareness and by focusing attention on others. For 
the same opportune purpose, people will twist and mutilate their beliefs 
of how social reality actually is. In our study we encounter whole systems 
of firmly entrenched popular beliefs concerning the Negro and his relations 
to the larger society, which are bluntly false and which can only be under- 
stood when we remember the opportunistic ad hoc purposes they serve. 
These "popular theories," because of the rationalizing function they serve, 
are heavily loaded with emotions. But people also want to be rational. 
Scientific truth-seeking and education are slowly rectifying the beliefs and 
thereby also influencing the valuations. In a rationalistic civilization it is 
not only that the beliefs arc shaped by the valuations, but also that the 
valuations depend upon the beliefs." 

Our task in this inquiry is to ascertain social reality as it is. We shall seek 
to depict the actual life conditions of the American Negro people and their 
manifold relations to the larger American society. We must describe, in as 
much detail as our observations and space here allow, who the American 
Negro is, and how he fares. Whenever possible, we shall present quantita- 
tive indices of his existence and of the material conditions for his existence. 
But this is not all and, from our point of view, not even the most important 
part of social reality. We must go further and attempt to discover and 
dissect the doctrines and ideologies, valuations and beliefs, embedded in the 
minds of white and Negro Americans. We want to follow through W. I. 
Thomas's theme, namely, that when people define situations as real, they 
are real. 2 We shall try to remember throughout our inquiry that material 
facts in large measure are the product of what people think, feel and 
believe. The actual conditions, as they are, indicate from this point of view 
the great disparities between the whites' and the Negroes' aspirations and 
realizations. The interrelations between the material facts and people's 
valuations of and beliefs about these facts are precisely what make the 
Negro a social problem. 

It is sometimes assumed to be the mark of "sound" research to dis- 
regard the fact that people are moral beings and that they are struggling 
for their conscience. In our view, this is a bias and a blindness, dangerous to 

* The theory of human behavior and its motivation, which is sketched in the text and is 
basic to our approach to the Negro problem, is explained in Appendix i, "A Methodological 
Note on Valuations and Beliefs." 



1 Introduction 

the possibility of enabling scientific study to arrive at true knowledge. Every 
social study must have its center in an investigation of people's conflicting 
valuations and their opportune beliefs. They are social facts and can be 
observed by direct and indirect manifestations. We are, of course, also 
interested in discovering how these inclinations and loyalties came about 
and what the factors are upon which they rest. We want to keep free, how- 
ever, at least at the outset, from any preconceived doctrine or theory, 
whether of the type making biological characteristics, or economic inter- 
ests, sexual complexes, power relations, or anything else, the "ultimate" 
or "basic" cause of these valuations. We hope to come out with a type of 
systematic understanding as eclectic as common sense itself when it is open- 
minded. 

When we thus choose to view the Negro problem as primarily a moral 
issue, we are in line with popular thinking. It is as a moral issue that this 
problem presents itself in the daily life of ordinary people; it is as a 
moral issue that they brood over it in their thoughtful moments. It is in 
terms of conflicting moral valuations that it is discussed in church and 
school, in the family circle, in the workshop, on the street corner, as well 
as in the press, over the radio, in trade union meetings, in the state legis- 
latures, the Congress and the Supreme Court. The social scientist, in his 
effort to lay bare concealed truths and to become maximally useful in 
guiding practical and political action, is prudent when, in the approach to 
a problem, he sticks as closely as possible to the common man's ideas and 
formulations, even though he knows that further investigation will carry 
him into tracts uncharted in the popular consciousness. There is a pragmatic 
common sense in people's ideas about themselves and their worries, which 
we cannot afford to miss when we start out to explore social reality. Other- 
wise we are often too easily distracted by our learned arbitrariness and our 
pet theories, concepts, and hypotheses, not to mention our barbarous ter- 
minology, which we generally are tempted to mistake for something more 
than mere words. Throughout this study we will constantly take our 
starting foint in the ordinary man's own ideas, doctrines, theories and 
mental constructs. 

In approaching the Negro problem as primarily a moral issue of con- 
flicting valuations, it is not implied, of course, that ours is the prerogative 
of pronouncing on a priori grounds which values are "right" and which are 
"wrong." In fact, such judgments are out of the realm of social science, 
and will not be attempted in this inquiry. Our investigation will naturally 
be an analysis of morals and not in morals. In so far as we make our own 
judgments of value, they will be based on explicitly r.tated value premises, 
selected from among those valuations actually observed as existing in the 
minds of the white and Negro Americans and tested as to their social and 



Introduction li 

political relevance and significance. Our value judgments are thus derived 
and have no greater validity than the value premises postulated. 

3. A White Man's Problem 

Although the Negro problem is a moral issue both to Negroes and to 
whites in America, we shall in this book have to give primary attention 
to what goes on in the minds of white Americans. To explain this direction 
of our interest a general conclusion from our studies needs to be stated at 
this point. When the present investigator started his inquiry, his preconcep- 
tion was that it had to be focused on the Negro people and their peculiari- 
ties. This is understandable since, from a superficial view, Negro Americans, 
not only in physical appearance, but also in thoughts, feelings, arid in 
manner of life, seemed stranger to him than did white Americans. Further- 
more, most of the literature on the Negro problem dealt with the Negroes: 
their racial and cultural characteristics, their living standards and occupa- 
tional pursuits, their stratification in social classes, their migration, their 
family organization, their religion, their illiteracy, delinquency and dis- 
ease, and so on. But as he proceeded in his studies into the Negro problem, 
it became increasingly evident that little, if anything, could be scientifically 
explained in terms of the peculiarities of the Negroes themselves. 

As a matter of fact, in their basic human traits the Negroes are inherently 
not much different from other people. Neither are, incidentally, the white 
Americans. But Negroes and whites in the United States live in singular 
human relations with each other. All the circumstances of life — the 
"environmental" conditions in the broadest meaning of that term — diverge 
more from the "normal" for the Negroes than for the whites, if only 
because of the statistical fact that the Negroes are the smaller group. The 
average Negro must experience many times more of the "abnormal" inter- 
racial relations than the average white man in America." The more impor- 
tant fact, however, is that practically all the economic, social, and political 
power is held by whites. The Negroes do not by far have anything 
approaching a tenth of the things worth having in America. 

It is thus the white majority group that naturally determines the Negro's 
"place." All our attempts to reach scientific explanations of why the Negroes 
are what they are and why they live as they do have regularly led to 
determinants on the white side of the race line. In the practical and politi- 
cal struggles of effecting changes, the views and attitudes of the white 
Americans are likewise strategic. The Negro's entire life, and, consequently, 
also his opinions on the Negro problem, are, in the main, to be considered 
as secondary reactions to more primary pressures from the side of the 
dominant white majority. 

*Thw is less true, of course, in communities where the rat'o between the numSei of 
Negroes and the number of whites diverges sharply from the average ratio of one to ten 
ff>r the whole nation. 



Hi Introduction 

The Negro was brought to America for the sake of the white man's 
profit. He was kept in slavery for generations in the same interest. A civil 
war was fought between two regional groups of white Americans. For two 
years no one wanted Negroes involved in the fighting. Later on some two 
hundred thousand Negro soldiers fought in the Northern army, in addi- 
tion to all the Negro laborers, servants, spies, and helpers in both armies. 
But it was not the Negroes' war. As a result of the war, which took a toll 
of some half million killed and many more wounded, the four million 
Negro slaves were liberated. Since then the Negro's "place" in American 
society has been precarious, uncertain and changing j he was no longer so 
necessary and profitable to the white man as in slavery before the Civil War. 
In the main, however, the conflicting and vacillating valuations of the white 
majority have been decisive, whether the issue was segregation in the 
schools, discrimination with reference to public facilities, equal justice and 
protection under the laws, enjoyment of the franchise, or the freedom to 
enter a vocation and earn an honest living. The Negro, as a minority, and a 
poor and suppressed minority at that, in the final analysis, has had little 
other strategy open to him than to play on the conflicting values held in the 
white majority group. In so doing, he has been able to identify his cause 
with broader issues in American politics and social life and with moral 
principles held dear by the white Americans. This is the situation even today 
and will remain so in the foreseeable future. In that sense, "this is a white 
man's country." 

This stress in the formulation of our problem, it must be repeated, is 
motivated by an ambition to be realistic about the actual power relations in 
American society. It should not be taken as a doctrinaire approach. In the 
degree that the Negro people succeed in acquiring and institutionalizing 
footholds of power in society with the help of interested white groups — 
for example, if they can freely use their votes, as they can in the North, or 
press themselves into the industrial labor market and the trade unions — 
they will increasingly be able to act and not only to react. Under all 
circumstances, in fact even in slavery, the attitudes and activities of the 
Negro people do, to a certain extent, influence the attitudes and policies of 
the white majority group in power, as account is taken by the whites of the 
Negro's reactions. Even if the prevailing power situation is reason enough 
to look for the primary responsibility for what happens in the valuations of 
the white people, these same valuations are themselves the product of a 
two-way interracial relationship. 

4. Not an Isolated Problem 

Closely related to the thesis that the Negro problem is predominantly 
a white man's problem is another conclusion, which slowly dawned upon 
the author, though it undoubtedly is not news to many of his American 



Introduction liii 

readers: The Negro -problem is an integral fart of, or a special phase of, 
the whole complex of problems in the larger American civilization. It can- 
not be treated in isolation. There is no single side of the Negro problem — 
whether it be the Negro's political status, the education he gets, his place 
in the labor market, his cultural and personality traits, or anything else — 
which is not predominantly determined by its total American setting. We 
shall, therefore, constantly be studying the American civilization in its 
entirety, though viewed in its implications for the most disadvantaged 
population group. 

There is a natural tendency on the part of white people in America to 
attempt to localize and demarcate the Negro problem into the segregated 
sector of American society where the Negroes live. This tendency is visible 
even in many scientific treatments of the Negro problem. The Negro 
spokesmen, on their side, are often equally tempted to stress the singularity 
of their grievances to the extent of not considering the broader setting. 
The fact of segregation also often makes them less familiar with the 
American society at large. The Negro social scientists have their special 
opportunity in knowing intimately the Negro community and will — with a 
few outstanding exceptions* — treat their problems in isolation. 

The assumption underlying the approach in this book is, on the contrary, 
that the Negro problem exists and changes because of conditions and forces 
operating in the larger American society. Establishing this integration is 
thought to make the analysis more realistic. This will explain and, the 
author believes, justify the fact that in all parts of this inquiry attention is 
given to the characteristics of the American society at large in which the 
Negro becomes a problem. 

The relationship between American society and the Negro problem is not 
one-sided. The entire structure of American society is itself greatly con- 
ditioned by the presence of the thirteen million Negro citizens. American 
politics, the labor market, education, religious life, civic ideals, art, and 
recreation are as they are partly because of the important conditioning 
factor working throughout the history of the nation. New impulses from the 
Negro people are constantly affecting the American way of life, bending 
in some degree all American institutions and bringing changes in every 
aspect of the American's complex world view. While primary attention 
will be focused on the Negro people and on the influences from the larger 
society working on them, their influence back on white society will not be 
ignored. 

This plan of keeping the entire American culture within the focus of 
our study will, of course, increase the difficulties of our task. There are 
some ideas concerning the larger society, in which our special problem has 
its play, which are so general that they are hard to grasp and give definite 
form and, in any case, almost impossible to prove. Everyone has .«"ich 



liv Introduction 

ideas, and of necessity, they determine the scientific treatment of a specific 
social problem. In few instances is it possible to check them by present-day 
scientific tools. It is still less possible to check one's ideas about the larger 
society within the frame of a specialized investigation. In the main, they 
remain unchecked, as they are derived by common sense intuition and every- 
day reflection. They are generalized inductions from a vast mass of 
unassorted, scientifically uncontrolled personal experience. Few of them are 
obtained from books dealing with the larger society. But since they 
determine the study, they should be accounted for as far as possible. This 
is usually difficult, as these ideas — in the degree they conform to the cul- 
tural milieu — do not stand out clearly in the consciousness of an investigator. 
No doubt most social scientists honestly believe they have no such pre- 
conceptions. Their prevalence becomes obvious, however, when time has 
passed and the milieu has changed. Then we see how the scientists in the 
past period unconsciously worked under certain preconceptions, which we 
now find erroneous Or not adequate for the present situation. These general 
ideas can also become explicit when one becomes acquainted with a dif- 
ferent civilization and views one's own society through the prism of such 
an alien milieu. 

The present writer has been looking not only at the Negro people but 
at all America from the outside. In fact, it has been his chief and sometimes 
overwhelming difficulty in this work that he had to start from the beginning 
and try to understand not only the Negro problem but the entire American 
culture in which it is encompassed. Comparatively little in American 
civilization is natural to him. He is constantly reminded of the preconcep- 
tions he utilizes to understand the larger American society. The difference 
is not that he has preconceptions and his American colleagues do not. The 
difference is that, being an outsider, he is compelled to be more conscious 
of them, and has had to try to reach them by deliberate intellectual efforts. 
In this situation he is tempted to turn a deficiency into a virtue. At any 
rate, he is under the pressure to state to himself what he thinks about this 
somewhat strange culture. He can then attempt an experiment in more 
rigorous social science methods in the interests of objectivity by laying 
open even this type of preconception. He is thereby attempting rationally 
to assist his critics. Not only in the next few chapters but everywhere in the 
book I express general views on the larger American society j many general 
statements about the Negro and race relations belong to the same type of 
judgment. 

Some readers may disagree with many of my preconceptions of America. 
All will probably disagree with some. Just because in this experiment the 
preconceptions are not hidden but are openly set out, the reader is offered 
a guide to the specific mistakes which, in pursuing the study, might have 
been committed on account of false preconceptions about the larger Ameri- 



Introduction lv 

can society and the Negro problem. If the reader is equally careful he will, 
however, also remember that, at least in the present stage of social research, 
it is next to impossible to judge rationally our most general assumptions 
concerning a civilization. The possibility always remains, therefore, that on 
some points he is wrong, and I am right. But a good result will in any 
case be reached, as we shall have determined the locus of fundamental dis- 
agreement, and thus we shall be better prepared to direct further research 
toward its scientific solution. 

These assumptions are all, in a sense, subjective. I have, naturally, tried 
to acquire as objectively true an understanding of America and the Ameri- 
can Negro as I am capable of reaching. And, equally naturally, it would 
be most fortunate to the investigation if these main assumptions approached 
objective truth and were relevant to the problems under study. But they 
are, of course, not proved; they are not part of scientifically verified truth. 
The only definite statement I can make is that the picture is subjectively 
"true" j that is, that it faithfully represents what the author, upon careful 
consideration, believes to be true. 

5. Some Further Notes on the Scope and 
Direction of this Study 

This book is an analysis, not a description. It presents facts only for the 
sake of their meaning in the interpretation. Since, however, an attempt at 
a comprehensive analysis was made, the scope of the facts, even when com- 
pressed into outline form, is extensive, though, we hope, selective. The 
author had available not only the vast existing published literature, but 
also some specially prepared research memoranda, a portion of which are 
being published, and all of which are made available to the inquiring 
reader.' 

On the theoretical b side> the aim of this book is to formulate tentative 
generalizations on the basis of known facts. A corollary of this scientific 
task is to indicate gaps in knowledge. These gaps will be noted in passing, 
and in some respects positive suggestions for investigation will be offered. 
Undoubtedly, we shall sometimes be found to have overlooked existing 
sources. In view of the scope of the investigation this is inevitable but, 
nevertheless, regrettable. 

As the known and verified facts are scarce, a courageous use will be made 
of the writer's own observations. Their conjectural character will always 
be made explicit. They are the author's best judgments, when published data 

* A list of these will be found in the Preface. The unpublished memoranda can be 
consulted in the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library. 

"The terms theoretical and practical (or folitical) are used in this hook as in the 
discipline of philosophy. The former word implies thinking in terms of causes and effects) 
the latter words imply thinking in terms of means and ends. (See Appendix 2, Section 4.) 



Wi Introduction 

are insufficient, as to what is the truth, and they should be taken only for 
what they are. For the outlining of further research they may serve as the 
projection of plausible hypotheses. 

On the practical side, the aim of this book is to throw light on the future, 
and to construct, in a preliminary way, bases for rational policy. This is one 
reason why the theoretical analysis will stress interrelations and trends. 
Even though reliable prognoses cannot be made in many respects, various 
possibilities can be presented and their probabilities estimated. 

Explicit value premises will be introduced, usually in the beginning of 
each main part of the inquiry. As a source for the value premises, the 
relatively comprehensive and definite body of political ideals contained in 
the "American Creed" will be usedj we shall sketch the historical origin 
of the American Creed in the first chapter. The use of explicit value 
premises serves three main purposes: (i) to purge as far as possible the 
scientific investigation of distorting biases which are usually the result of 
hidden biases $ (2) to determine in a rational way the statement of problems 
and the definition of terms for the theoretical analysis; (3) to lay a logical 
basis for practical and political conclusions." 

Our aim is to organize the entire treatise around one single sequence of 
thoughts. We shall proceed from the American scene at large to the facts 
and problems of Negro life, to the trends, to the specific policies, to their 
final integration into the structure of national policies. This plan is, within 
limits, the basis of organization for each major part of the inquiry. 

The main axes to be drawn through our subject and in accordance with 
which we shall organize the materials are pretty much determined by the 
object under study. Those of most general relevance are: color, region, 
urban-rural residence, social class, education, sex, and age. Comparisons 
between Negroes and whites — in such things, for example, as vital indices, 
criminality, family patterns — will not be made indiscriminately but, as far 
as possible, will be standardized by comparing Negroes with a duly defined 
control group of whites, or by comparing subgroups of Negroes and 
whites of equal social, economic, and educational status. This attempt is, 
however, all too often frustrated through insurmountable difficulties due to 
the scarcity of available data. 

The book concentrates on present conditions but does not neglect the 
future. While it would add to our comprehension to examine the historical 
development behind the existing situation, this is beyond the scope of our 
inquiry. In a sense and to a degree present conditions and trends can be 
analyzed without consideration of their antecedents. This should not be 

* The problem of bias, of theoretical anil practical research, and of the utilization of the 
scientific technique of explicit value premises are treated in Appendix 2, "A Methodological 
Note on Facts and Valuations in Social Science." The author may be allowed to point out 
that a critical study of this inquiry assumes the reading' of Appendix z. 



Introduction lvii 

taken to mean that the author has not tried — within the time available — 
to familiarize himself with the history of the Negro problem in America, 
but merely that this book has a limited scope and does not intend to give 
the history of the Negro problem. Where, in the course of the presentation, 
it is deemed necessary to review some aspect of the past in order to under- 
stand present problems, historical outlines will be offered. We are, how- 
ever, not concerned with the past for its own sake, but merely in so far as 
important happenings in the past have influenced present situations and 
trends. Even in this narrower sphere we do not have the historian's inter- 
est in the "uniquely historical datum" but the social scientist's interest in 
broad and general relations and main trends. 

Other problems of race relations in the United States and the Negro 
problem in areas outside of the United States will be left entirely outside 
the scope of the present inquiry. Good reasons could be given for stretching 
the boundaries of the study considerably in both directions. Unquestionably 
it could contribute vastly to a more complete understanding of the Ameri- 
can Negro problem. Obvious restrictions of space and capacity, however, 
stand in the way. 

The book has grown to considerable length, and the author realizes that 
some readers cannot afford the time or energy to read it all. The main parts 
have, therefore, been arranged so that they can be read independently. 
This has involved some repetitions of facts and main viewpoints. Even for 
the reader who reads the whole book, the repetitions have been thought 
to be less burdensome than the risk of obscurity. When he surveyed a wide 
field of American culture, James Bryce said: 

Whenever it has been necessary to trace a phenomenon to its source or to explain 
the connection between several phenomena, I have not hesitated, knowing that one 
must not expect a reader to carry in his mind all that has been told already, to re-state 
a material fact, or rc-enforce a view which gives to the facts what I conceive to be 
their true significance. 4 

Technical terms will be avoided except when they are necessary for 
clarity. Words will be used in their common sense meaning unless the 
danger of ambiguity forces us explicitly to restrict the meaning of the 
term. Some of the main terms which are understood to be value loaded — 
such as discrimination, disfranchisement, caste, and class — will be expressly 
denned in relation to our set of value premises. 11 

If we have departed from the usual techniques of style in minor respects, 
we have done so with the hope of helping the reader. One thing may be 
mentioned here: We have classified footnotes into two groups. Those 
marked by letters of the alphabet are placed at the bottom of the page; 
we believe that they should be read with the text since they are integral 

* See Appendix 2, Section *.. 



lviii Introductiok 

parts of it, but would make the text clumsy if they were to be inserted in it 
Those marked by numbers are placed at the end of the book} they are 
mainly for scholars who wish concrete evidence of sources, but we believe 
the general reader will wish to skim over them. Our classification is sub- 
jective and does not rigidly follow any rules. 

6. A Warning to the Reader 

Before embarking upon the study, the simple old reminder should be 
repeated that no person or culture can be judged solely by its imperfections. 
The subject of this book — American attitudes and actions with respect to 
the Negro and the disparity between American ideals and behavior in this 
field — forces us to dig in dark corners and to wash dirty linen in public. 
But we wish to warn the reader that we do not, and he should not, regard 
our analysis as a complete evaluation of America. 

As interests in social studies are often concentrated on problem groups 
and areas, a delusion is easily created that the situation in America is worse 
than it actually is. "Moral statistics" consist traditionally of a recording of 
all the negative items in a culture: crime, illegitimacy, suicide and so on. 
This tradition has arisen because data for abnormalities are available. Figure? 
on divorces have been calculated in all countries — and, of course, America 
ranks among the highest — but there has never been any comprehensive 
enumeration of the happy marriages. There are statistics on crime— and they 
are ugly for America--i>ut none on civil decency. The method of measuring 
moral levels by statistics and descriptions of what is extremely bad and 
wrong in a society is thus heavily loaded against a nation with a particularly 
wide range of moral behavior. This is a fact not always taken into account 
even by the American specialists on the evils and the wrongs of society. 

In setting out upon investigating a subject matter, which is bound to deal 
for the most part with various forms of social pathology in America, the 
author must stress that, in his opinion, large groups of the American popu- 
lation probably live a more "righteous" life, measured by whatever 
standard one chooses, than any large group of people anywhere else in 
the Western world. Even in the large cities with a shocking amount of 
political corruption, crime, and vice, by far the greater part of the popula- 
tion has no more contact with these phenomena than if they lived in another 
country. The moral latitude is so very wide in America: if there is abnof' 
molly much that is very bad, there is also unusually much that is extremely 
good. 

Thus a study of America centered upon the Negro problem must not 
be expected to give a comprehensive and balanced cultural analysis of the 
nation any more than would a study centered on crime or political corrup- 
tion. Under a broader perspective the Negro is only a corner — although a 
fairly big one — of American civilization. This corner is one of the least 



Introduction lfat 

clean in the national household: we shall see plenty of law-breaking, crime 
and corruption, poverty and distress, heartlessness and ignorance. We shall 
continuously be dealing with the frictions, worries and shortcomings of 
America. 

Studying the Negro problem gives a "frog-perspective" of the cultural 
situation, not a bird's eye view. Although the frog-perspective does reveal 
some of the real virtues of a society, as we shall find, it focuses more com- 
pletely on its faults. For a general purpose, it is not a true perspective." 
I am eager to have the warning expressly stated in the introduction to this 
book, that anyone who uncritically utilizes the viewpoints and findings of 
this inquiry on the American Negro 'problem for wider conclusions con- 
cerning the United States and its civilization than are warranted by its 
direction of interest is misusing them. 



Part I 
THE APPROACH 



CHAPTER I 

AMERICAN IDEALS 
AND THE AMERICAN CONSCIENCE 

IMHHii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiimt Himiinmiiiiniiw titmimmii iiiiiHiHiiniiiiMitiiili 

I. Unity of Ideals and Diversity of Culture 

It is a commonplace to point out the heterogeneity of the American 
nation and the swift succession of all sorts of changes in all its component 
parts and, as it often seems, in every conceivable direction, America is 
truly a shock to the stranger. The bewildering impression it gives of dis- 
similarity throughout and of chaotic unrest is indicated by the fact that 
few outside observers — and, indeed, few native Americans — have been able 
to avoid the intellectual escape of speaking about America as "paradoxical." 

Still there is evidently a strong unity in this nation and a basic homo- 
geneity and stability in its valuations. Americans of all national origins, 
classes, regions, creeds, and colors, have something in common: a social 
ethos, a political creed. It is difficult to avoid the judgment that this 
"American Creed" is the cement in the structure of this great and disparate 
nation. 

When the American Creed is once detected, the cacophony becomes a 
melody. The further observation then becomes apparent: that America, 
compared to every other country in Western civilization, large or small, 
has the most explicitly expressed system of general ideals in reference to 
human interrelations. This body of ideals is more widely understood and 
appreciated than similar ideals are anywhere else. The American Creed is 
not merely — as in some other countries — the implicit background of the 
nation's political and judicial order as it functions. To be sure, the political 
creed of America is not very satisfactorily effectuated in actual social life. 
But as principles which ought to rule, the Creed has been made conscious 
to everyone in American society. 

Sometimes one even gets the impression that there is a relation between 
the intense apprehension of high and uncompromising ideals and the 
spotty reality. One feels that it is, perhaps, the difficulty of giving reality 
to the ethos in this young and still somewhat unorganized nation — that it 
is the prevalence of "wrongs" in America, "wrongs" judged by the high 
standards of the national Creed — which helps make the ideals stand out so 



4 An American Dilemma 

clearly,. America is continously struggling for its soul. These principles of 
social ethics have been hammered into easily remembered formulas. All 
means of intellectual communication are utilized to stamp them into every- 
body's mind. The schools teach them, the churches preach them. The 
courts propounce their judicial decisions in their terms. They permeate 
editorials with a pattern of idealism so ingrained that the writers could 
scarcely free themselves from it even if they tried. They have fixed a 
custom of indulging in high-sounding generalities in all written or spoken 
addresses to the American public, otherwise so splendidly gifted for the 
matter-of-fact approach to things and problems. Even the stranger, when 
he has to appear before an American audience, feels this, if he is sensitive 
at all, and finds himself espousing the national Creed, as this is the only 
means by which a speaker can obtain human response from the people to 
whom he talks. 

The Negro people in America are no exception to the national pattern. 
"It was a revelation to me to hear Negroes sometimes indulge in a glorifi- 
cation of American democracy in the same uncritical way as unsophisticated 
whites often do," relates the Dutch observer, Bertram Schricke. 1 A Negro 
political scientist, Ralph Bunche, observes: 

Every man in the street, white, black, red or yellow, knows that this is "the land of 
the free," the "land of opportunity," the "cradle of liberty," the "home of democ- 
racy," that the American flag symbolizes the "equality of all men" and guarantees to 
us all "the protection of life, liberty and property," freedom of speech, freedom of 
religion and racial tolerance. 2 

The present writer has made the same observation. The American Negroes 
know that they are a subordinated group experiencing, more than anybody 
else in the nation, the consequences of the fact that the Creed is not lived up 
to in America. Yet their faith in the Creed is not simply a means of pleading 
their unfulfilled rights. They,' like the whites, are under the spell of the 
great national suggestion. With one part of themselves they actually 
believe, as do the whites, that the Creed is ruling America. 

These ideals of the essential dignity of the individual human being, of 
the fundamental equality of all men, and of certain inalienable rights to 
freedom, justice, and a fair opportunity represent to the American people 
the essential meaning of the nation's early struggle for independence. In 
the clarity and intellectual boldness of the Enlightenment period these 
tenets were written into the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble 
of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and into the constitutions of the 
several states. The ideals of the American Creed have thus become the 
highest law of the land. The Supreme Court pays its reverence to these 
general principles when it declares what is constitutional and what is not. 
They have been elaborated upon by all national leaders, thinkers and 



Chapter i. American Ideals 5 

statesmen. America has had, throughout its history, a continuous discussion 
of the principles and implications of democracy, a discussion which, in 
every epoch, measured by any standard, remained high, not only quanti- 
tatively but also qualitatively. The flow of learned treatises and popular 
tracts on the subject has not ebbed, nor is it likely to do so. In all wars, 
including the present one, the American Creed has been the ideological 
foundation of national morale. 

2. American Nationalism 

The American Creed is identified with America's peculiar brand of na- 
tionalism, and it gives the common American his feeling of the historical 
mission of America in the world — a fact which just now becomes of global 
importance but which is also of highest significance for the particular prob- 
lem studied in this book. The great national historian of the middle nine- 
teenth century, George Bancroft, expressed this national feeling of pride 
and responsibility: 

In the fulness of time a republic rose in the wilderness of America. Thousands of 
years had passed away before this child of the ages could be born. From whatever 
there was of good in the systems of the former centuries she drew her nourishment; 
the wrecks of the past were her warnings . . . The fame of this only daughter of 
freedom went out into all the lands of the earth; from her the human race drew 
hope. 8 

And Frederick J. Turner, who injected the naturalistic explanation into 
history that American democracy was a native-born product of the Western 
frontier, early in this century wrote in a similar vein: 

Other nations have been rich and prosperous and powerful. But the United States 
has believed that it had an original contribution to make to the history of society by 
the production of a sclf-dctcrmining, sdf-restraincd, intelligent democracy. 4 

Wilson's fourteen points and Roosevelt's four freedoms have more recently 
expressed to the world the boundless idealistic aspirations of this American 
Creed. For a century and more before the present epoch, when the oceans 
gave reality to the Monroe Doctrine, America at least applauded heartily 
every uprising of the people in any corner of the world. This was a tra- 
dition from America's own Revolution. The political revolutionaries of 
foreign countries were approved even by the conservatives in America. 
And America wanted generously to share its precious ideals and its happi- 
ness in enjoying a society ruled by its own people with all who would come 
here. James Truslow Adams tells us: 

The American dream that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in 
the past century has not been a dream of merely material plenty, though that has 
doubtless counted heavily. It has been much more than that. It has been a dream of 



6 An American Dilemma 

being able to grow to fullest development as man and woman, unhampered by the bar- 
rier* which had slowly been erected in older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders 
which had developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being 
of any and every class. And that dream has been realized more fully in actual life here 
than anywhere else, though very imperfectly even among ourselves. 8 

This is what the Western frontier country could say to the "East." And 
even the skeptic cannot help feeling that, perhaps, this youthful exuberant 
America has the destiny to do for the whole Old World what the frontier 
did to the old colonies. American nationalism is -permeated by the American 
Creed, and therefore becomes international in its essence. 

3. Some Historical Reflections 

It is remarkable that a vast democracy with so many cultural disparities 
has been able to reach this unanimity of ideals and to elevate them 
supremely over the threshold of popular perception. Totalitarian fascism 
and nazism have not in their own countries — at least not in the short range 
of their present rule — succeeded in accomplishing a similar result, in spite 
of the fact that those governments, after having subdued the principal 
precepts most akin to the American Creed, have attempted to coerce the 
minds of their people by means of a centrally controlled, ruthless, and 
scientifically contrived apparatus of propaganda and violence. 

There are more things to be wondered about. The disparity of national 
origin, language, religion, and culture, during the long era of mass immi- 
gration into the United States, has been closely correlated with income 
differences and social class distinctions. Successive vintages of "Old Amer- 
icans" have owned the country and held the dominant political power} they 
have often despised and exploited "the foreigners." To this extent condi- 
tions in America must be said to have been particularly favorable to the 
stratification of a rigid class society. 

But it has not come to be. On the question of why the trend took the 
other course, the historians, from Turner on, point to the free land and 
the boundless resources. The persistent drive from the Western frontier — 
now and then swelling into great tides as in the Jeffcrsonian movement 
around 1 800, the Jacksonian movement a generation later, and the succes- 
sive third-party movements and breaks in the traditional parties — could, 
however, reach its historical potency only because of the fact that America, 
from the Revolution onward, had an equalitarian creed as a going national 
ethos. The economic determinants and the force of the ideals can be shown 
to be interrelated. But the latter should not be relegated to merely a 
dependent variable. Vernon L. Parrington, the great historian of the devel- 
opment of the American mind, writes thus: 

'The humanitarian idealism of the Declaration [of Independence] has always 
echoed as a battle-cry in the hearts of those who dream of an America dedicated to 



Chapter x. American Ideals 7 

democratic ends. It cannot be long ignored or repudiated, for sooner or later it 
returns to plague the council of practical politics. It is constantly breaking out in fresh 
revolt. . . . Without its freshening influence our political history would have been 
much more sordid and materialistic." 

Indeed, the new republic began its career with a reaction. Charles Beard, 
in An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States? 
and a group of modern historians, throwing aside the much cherished 
national mythology which had blurred the difference in spirit between the 
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, have shown that the 
latter was conceived in considerable suspicion against democracy and fear 
of "the people." It was dominated by property consciousness and designed 
as a defense against the democratic spirit let loose during the Revolution. 

But, admitting all this, the Constitution which actually emerged out of 
the compromises in the drafting convention provided for the most demo- 
cratic state structure in existence anywhere in the world at that time. And 
many of the safeguards so skillfully thought out by the conservatives to 
protect "the rich, the wellborn, and the capable" against majority rule 
melted when the new order began to function. Other conservative safe- 
guards have fastened themselves into the political pattern. And "in the 
ceaseless conflict between the man and the dollar, between democracy and 
property" — again to quote Parrington 8 — property has for long periods 
triumphed and blocked the will of the people. And there are today large 
geographical regions and fields of human life which, particularly when 
measured by the high goals of the American Creed, are conspicuously 
lagging. But taking the broad historical view, the American Creed has 
triumphed. It has given the main direction to change in this country. 
America has had gifted conservative statesmen and national leaders, and 
they have often determined the course of public affairs. But with few 
exceptions, only the liberals have gone down in history as national heroes. 
America is, as we shall point out, conservative in fundamental principles, 
and in much more than that, though hopefully experimentalistic in regard 
to much of the practical arrangements in society. But the principles con- 
served are liberal and some, indeed, are radical. 

America got this dynamic Creed much as a political convenience and a 
device of strategy during the long struggle with the English Crown, the 
London Parliament and the various British powerholders in the colonies. 
It served as the rallying center for the growing national unity that was 
needed. Later it was a necessary device for building up a national morale 
in order to enlist and sustain the people in the Revolutionary War. In this 
spirit the famous declarations were resolved, the glorious speeches made, 
the inciting pamphlets written and spread. "The appeal to arms would 
seem to have been brought about by a minority of the American people, 



8 An American Dilemma 

directed by a small group of skillful leaders, who, like Indian scouts,, 
covered their tracks so cleverly, that only the keenest trailers can now 
follow their course and understand their strategy." 10 

But the Creed, once set forth and disseminated among the American 
people, became so strongly entrenched in their hearts, and the circum- 
stances have since then been so relatively favorable, that it has succeeded in 
keeping itself very much alive for more than a century and a half. 

4. The Roots of the American Creed in the 
Philosophy of Enlightenment 

The American Creed is a humanistic liberalism developing out of the 
epoch of Enlightenment when America received its national consciousness 
and its political structure. The Revolution did not stop short of anything 
less than the heroic desire for the "emancipation of human nature." The 
enticing flavor of the eighteenth century, so dear to every intellectual and 
rationalist, has not been lost on the long journey up to the present time. 
Let us quote a contemporary exegesis: 

Democracy is a form of political association in which the general control and 
direction of the commonwealth is habitually determined by the bulk of the com- 
munity in accordance with understandings and procedures providing for popular 
participation and consent. Its postulates arc: 

1. The essential dignity of man, the importance of protecting and cultivating his 
personality on a fraternal rather than upon a differential basis, of reconciling the 
needs of the personality within the frame-wort of the common good in a formula 
of liberty, justice, welfare. 

2. The perfectibility of man; confidence in the possibilities of the human personal- 
ity, as over against the doctrines of caste, class, and slavery. 

3. That the gains of commonwealths are essentially mass gains rather than the efforts 
of the few and should be diffused as promptly as possible throughout the com- 
munity without too great delay, or too wide a spread in differentials. 

4. Confidence in the value of the consent of the governed expressed in institutions, 
understandings and practices as a basis of order, liberty, justice. 

5. The value of decisions arrived at by common counsel rather than by violence and 
brutality. 

These postulates rest upon (1) reason in regarding the essential nature of the 
political man, upon (2) observation, experience and inference, and (3) the fulfill- 
ment of the democratic ideal is strengthened by a faith in the final triumph of ideals 
of human behavior in general and of political behavior in particular. 11 

For practical purposes the main norms of the American Creed as usually 
pronounced are centered in the belief in equality and in the rights to 
liberty. 12 In the Declaration of Independence— as in the earlier Virginia 
Bill of Rights — equality was given the supreme rank and the rights to 
liberty are posited as derived from equality. This logic was even more 
clearly expressed in Jefferson's original formulation of the first of the 



Chapter i. American Ideals 9 

"self-evident truths": "All men are created equal and from that equal 
creation they derive rights inherent and unalienable, among which are the 
preservation of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 13 

Liberty, in a sense, was easiest to reach. It is a vague ideal: everything 
turns around whose liberty is preserved, to what extent and in what direc- 
tion. In society liberty for one may mean the suppression of liberty for 
others. The result of competition will be determined by who got a head 
start and who is handicapped. In America as everywhere else — and some- 
times, perhaps, on the average, a little more ruthlessly — liberty often 
provided an opportunity for the stronger to rob the weaker. Against this, 
the equalitarianism in the Creed has been persistently revolting. The 
struggle is far from ended. The reason why American liberty was not 
more dangerous to equality was, of course, the open frontier and the free 
land. When opportunity became bounded in the last generation, the inher- 
ent conflict between equality and liberty flared up. Equality is slowly 
winning. The New Deal during the 'thirties was a landslide." 

5. The Roots in Christianity 

If the European philosophy of Enlightenment was one of the ideological 
roots of the American Creed, another equally important one was Christian- 
ity, particularly as it took the form in the colonies of various lower class 
Protestant sects, split off from the Anglican Church. b "Democracy was 
envisaged in religious terms long before it assumed a political termi- 
nology." u 

It is true that modern history has relegated to the category of the pious 
patriotic myths the popular belief that all the colonies had been founded 
to get religious liberty, which could not be had in the Old World. Some 
of the colonics were commercial adventures and the settlers came to them, 
and even to the religious colonies later, to improve their economic status. 
It is also true that the churches in the early colonial times did not always 
exactly represent the idea of democratic government in America but most 
often a harsher tyranny over people's souls and behavior than either King 
or Parliament ever cared to wield. 

But the myth itself is a social reality with important effects. It was strong 

' New Dealers, like most American liberals today, pronounce liberty before equality. But 
they do so in the eighteenth century Jeffcrsonian sense, not in the American businessman's 
sense. The "four freedoms" of Franklin D. Roosevelt are liberties, but they arc liberties to 
get equality, not liberties of the stronger to infringe on the weaker. In this sense, equality 
is logically derivable from liberty, just as liberty is from equality: if there is real liberty 
for all there will be equal opportunity and equal justice for all, and there will even be 
social equality limited only by minor biological inequalities. 

b While the Protestant sects emphasized the elements of the American Creed, it ahoujg. 
not be forgotten that there was an older trait of humanitarianisni and equalitarianism in 
creed of the Medieval Church. 



12 An American Dilemma 

ualism," nor a relatively continuous prosperity, that made it possible for 
America to get along without a publicly organized welfare policy almost 
up to the Great Depression in the 'thirties but it was also the world's most 
generous private charity. 

6. The Roots in English Law 

The third main ideological influence behind the American Creed is 
English law. The indebtedness of American civilization to the culture of 
the mother country is nowhere else as great as in respect to the democratic 
concept of law and order, which it inherited almost without noticing it. 
It is the glory of England that, after many generations of hard struggle, 
it established the principles of justice, equity, and equality before the law 
even in an age when the rest of Europe (except for the cultural islands 
of Switzerland, Iceland, and Scandinavia) based personal security on the 
arbitrary police and on lettres de cachet. 

This concept of a government "of laws and not of men" contained 
certain fundamentals of both equality and liberty. It will be a part of our 
task to study how these elemental demands arc not nearly realized 
even in present-day America. But in the American Creed they have never 
been questioned. And it is no exaggeration to state that the philosophical 
ideas of human equality and the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and 
property, hastily sowed on American ground in a period of revolution 
when they were opportune — even allowing ever so much credit to the 
influences from the free life on the Western frontier — would not have 
struck root as they did if the soil had not already been cultivated by 
English law. 

Law and order represent such a crucial element both in the American 
Creed and in the spotty American reality that, at a later stage of our 
argument in this chapter, we shall have to devote some further remarks 
to this particular set of ideological roots. 

7. American Conservatism 

These ideological forces — the Christian religion and the English law — 
also explain why America through all its adventures has so doggedly stuck 
to its high ideals: why it has been so conservative in keeping to liberalism 
as a national creed even if not as its actual way of life. This conservatism, 
in fundamental principles, has, to a great extent, been perverted into a 
nearly fetishistic cult of the Constitution. This is unfortunate since the 
150-year-old Constitution is in many respects impractical and ill-suited for 
modern conditions and since, furthermore, the drafters of the document 
made it technically difficult to change even if there were no popular feeling 
against change. 

The worship of the Constitution also is a most flagrant violation of the 



Chapter i. American Ideals 13 

American Creed which, as far as the technical arrangements for executing 
the power of the people are concerned, is strongly opposed to stiff formulas. 
Jefferson actually referred to the American form of government as an 
experiment. The young Walt Whitman, among many other liberals before 
and after him, expressed the spirit of the American Revolution more 
faithfully when he demanded "continual additions to our great experiment 
of how much liberty society will bear." Modern historical studies of how 
the Constitution came to be as it is reveal that the Constitutional Conven- 
tion was nearly a plot against the common people. Until recently, the 
Constitution has been used to block the popular will: the Fourteenth 
Amendment inserted after the Civil War to protect the civil rights of the 
poor freedmen has, for instance, been used more to protect business corpor- 
ations against public control." 

But when all this is said, it docs not give more than one side of the cult 
of the Constitution. The common American is not informed on the tech- 
nicalities and has never thought of any great difference in spirit between 
the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. When he worships 
the Constitution, it is an act of American nationalism, and in this the 
American Creed is inextricably blended. The liberal Creed, even in its 
dynamic formulation by Jefferson, is adhered to by every American. The 
unanimity around, and the explicitncss of, this Creed is the great wonder of 
America. The "Old Americans," all those who have thoroughly come tc 
identify themselves with the nation — which are many more than the Sons 
and Daughters of the Revolution — adhere to the Creed as the faith of their 
ancestors. The others — the Negroes, the new immigrants, the Jews, and 
other disadvantaged and unpopular groups — could not possibly have in- 
vented a system of political ideals which better corresponded to their 
interests. So, by the logic of the unique American history, it has developed 
that the rich and secure, out of pride and conservatism, and the poor and 
insecure, out of dire need, have come to profess the identical social ideals. 
The reflecting observer comes to feel that this spiritual convergence, more 
than America's strategic position behind the oceans and its immense material 
resources, is what makes the nation great and what promises it a still greater 
future. Behind it all is the historical reality which makes it possible for 
the President to appeal to all in the nation in this way: "Let us not forget 
that we are all descendants from revolutionaries and immigrants." 

8. The American Conception of Law and Order 

While the Creed is important and is enacted into law, it is not lived up 
to in practice. To understand this we shall have to examine American 

1 See Chapter 20, Section i. 



14 An American Dilemma 

attitudes toward law. It is necessary to discuss the legal tradition of Amer- 
ica at the outset, since it gives a unique twist to each of the specific problems 
that we shall take up in ensuing chapters." 

Americans are accustomed to inscribe their ideals in laws, ranging from 
their national Constitution to their local traffic rules. American laws thus 
often contain, in addition to the actually enforced rules (that is, "laws" in 
the ordinary technical meaning of the term), other rules which are not 
valid or operative but merely express the legislators' hopes, desires, advice 
or dreams. There is nothing in the legal form to distinguish the latter 
rules from the former ones. Much of the political discussion has to do with 
the question of strengthening the administration of laws or taking other 
measures so as to enforce them. Between the completely enforced rules 
and the unenforceable ones there are many intermediary types which are 
sometimes, under some conditions, or in some part, only conditionally and 
incompletely enforced. 

To an extent this peculiar cultural trait of America is explainable by the 
fact that the nation is young and, even more, that it owes its state structure 
to a revolution — a revolution in the courageously rationalistic age of 
Enlightenment. Americans have kept to this custom of inscribing their 
ideals in laws. b 

The "function," from the legislator's point of view, of legislating national 
ideals is, of course, a pedagogical one of giving them high publicity and 
prestige. Legislating ideals has also a "function" of dedicating the nation 
to the task of gradually approaching them. In a new nation made up of 
immigrants from all corners of the world and constantly growing by the 
arrival of other immigrants, carrying with them a greatly diversified cul- 
tural heritage, these goals must have stood out as important to statesmen 
and political thinkers. 

Another cultural trait of Americans is a relatively low degree of respect 
for law and order. This trait, as well as the other one just mentioned, is 
of paramount importance for the Negro problem as we shall show in some 
detail in later chapters. There is a relation between these two traits, of 
high ideals in some laws and low respect for all laws, but this relation 
is by no means as simple as it appears. 

* Our analysis is somewhat parallel to that of James Truslow Adams, "Our Lawless 
Heritage," Atlantic Monthly (December, 1928), pp. 732-740. 

b Other countries, and I am thinking primarily of Great Britain, Holland, and Scandi- 
navia, also sometimes commit their ideals to legislation, but they do so rarely and with 
great circumspection and extreme caution. -On the whole, these countries have left even the 
essential liberties of citizens in a democracy unformulated as merely implied in all legislation 
and judicial procedure. Vet they have afforded a greater protection of the common citizens' 
liberties under the law than America (although thev have not faced the same problems 
as America). 



Chapter i. American Ideals 15 

9. Natural Law and American Puritanism 

On this point we must observe somewhat more closely the moralistic 
attitude toward law in America, expressed in the common belief that there 
is a "higher law" behind and above the specific laws contained in constitu- 
tions, statutes and other regulations. 

The idea of a "natural law" has long been a part of our common line 
of legal tradition. When the elected "lawman" in pre-Christian times 
"spoke the law" to the assembled arm-bearing freemen, he was not assumed 
to make the law or invent it but to expound something which existed prior 
to and independent of himself and all others participating in the procedure. 
The idea of a "higher law," as well as the whole procedure of letting it 
become a social reality and, indeed, the entire legal system as it functioned 
and grew in the northern countries, had deep roots in primitive religion 
and magic, as is revealed by studies of the contemporary mythology and 
the peculiar formalistic mechanisms of the creation and operation of law. 
The distinguishing mark of the particular type of magical thinking in these 
countries was, however, that out of it developed what we now understand 
to be the characteristic respect for law of modern democracy. 

When representative bodies, among them the English Parliament, 
emerged as political institutions, they also did not conceive of themselves 
as "legislatures" in the modern sense, but pretended only to state the law 
that already "existed." Even when these legislatures began to take on new 
functions and to make rules to meet new situations, they still kept up the 
fiction that they only "declared" or "explained" the law as it existed. The 
modern idea of creating laws by "legislation" is thus a late product in the 
historical development of Western democracy, and it was never totally 
freed from the connotation of its subordination to a "higher law" existing 
independent of all formally fixed rules. 

In America the Revolution gave a tremendous spread to this primitive 
idea of "natural law" as it, in the meantime, had been developed in the 
philosophies of Enlightenment under the further influences of Greek 
speculation, Roman law, medieval scholasticism, and free naturalistic 
speculation since Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes and Hugo Grotius. 
American religion supported it strongly. The idea fixed itself upon the 
entire American state structure. "A peculiarity of American democracy 
had been from the beginning that it put its faith in a higher law rather 
than in the changing will of the people." 20 The role given to the Supreme 
Court and the tradition of this tribunal not to "legislate," which as a court 
it could hardly have the right, to do, but to refer to the higher principles 
back of the Constitution strengthened still more the grip of this old idea 
on the mind of the Americans. 

The adherence even in modern times to this idealistic conception of the 



1 6 An American Dilemma 

origin and reality of the judicial order undoubtedly, in one way, raised its 
moral prestige among the American people as it had done earlier in the 
history of the Old World. No careful observer of the present American 
scene should miss seeing, in spite of everything we shall discuss presently, 
the common American's pride in and devotion to the nation's judicial system 
and its legal institutions. Government authorities constantly appeal to this 
idealistic pride and devotion of the citizens in order to enforce the law. In 
America, there is a continuous endeavor to keep the judicial system orderly, 
and there is a continuous educational campaign on behalf of this idealism. 
Undoubtedly the idealistic concept of American law as an emanation of 
"natural law" is a force which strengthens the rule of law in America. 

But, in another way, it is at the same time most detrimental to auto- 
matic, unreflecting law observance on the part of the citizens. Laws become 
disputable on moral grounds. Each legislative statute is judged by the 
common citizen in terms of his conception of the higher "natural law." 
He decides whether it is "just" or "unjust" and has the dangerous attitude 
that, if it is unjust, he may feel free to disobey it. 21 The strong stress on 
individual rights and the almost complete silence on the citizen's duties 
in the American Creed make this reaction the more natural. The Jeffer- 
sonian distrust of government — "that government is best which governs 
least" — soon took the form, particularly on the Western frontier, of a 
distrust and disrespect for the enacted laws. The doctrine of a higher law 
fosters an "extra-legal" disposition towards the state and excuses illegal 
acts. 

But the frontier was not, in this respect, fundamentally different from 
the old colonies. Without stepping outside the American tradition, Garrison 
could pronounce even the Constitution to be a "compact with Hell" on the 
slavery issue. This, by itself, would not have been dangerous to democ- 
racy, if he had meant to argue only for a change of the Constitution. But 
he and many more Northerners of conscientious inclinations found it a 
moral obligation not to obey the fugitive slave laws. Here the citizen does 
not stop to criticize the laws and the judicial system and demand a change 
in them, but he sets his own conception of the "higher law" above the 
existing laws in society and feels it his right to disobey them. It is against 
this background also that we shall have to study the amazing disrespect 
for law and order which even today characterizes the Southern states in 
America and constitutes such a large part of the Negro problem. This 
anarchistic tendency founded upon a primitive concept of natural law has 
never left American political speculation or American popular thought. 22 
This anarchistic tendency in America's legal culture becomes even more 
dangerous because of the presence of a quite different tendency: a desire 
to repdate human behavior tyrannically by means of formal laws. This 
last tendency is a heritage from early American puritanism which was some- 



Chapter i. American Ideals 17 

times fanatical and dogmatic and always had a strong inclination to mind 
other people's business. So we find that this American, who is so proud to 
announce that he will not obey laws other than those which are "good" 
and "just," as soon as the discussion turns to something which in his opinion 
is bad and unjust, will emphatically pronounce that "there ought to be a 
law against . . ." To demand and legislate all sorts of laws against this or 
that is just as much part of American freedom as to disobey the laws when 
they are enacted. America has become a country where exceedingly much 
is permitted in practice but at the same time exceedingly much is forbidden 
in law. 

By instituting a national prohibition of the sale of liquor without taking 
adequate steps for its enforcement, America was nearly drenched in cor- 
ruption and organized crime until the statute was repealed. The laws 
against gambling have, on a smaller scale, the same effect at the present 
time. And many more of those unrespected laws are damaging in so far 
as they, for example, prevent a rational organization of various public 
activities, or when they can be used by individuals for blackmailing pur- 
poses or by the state or municipal authorities to persecute unpopular indi- 
viduals or groups. Such practices are conducive to a general disrespect for 
law in America. Actually today it is a necessity in everyday living for the 
common good American citizen to decide for himself which laws should 
be observed and which not. 

10. The Faltering Judicial Order 

We shall meet this conflict as a central theme in all angles of the Negro 
problem. The conflict should not, however, be formulated only in terms 
of the national ideology. Or, rather, this ideology is not fully explainable 
in terms of the thoughts and feelings out of which the American Creed 
was composed. 

A low degree of law observance already became habitual and nationally 
cherished in colonial times when the British Parliament and Crown, increas- 
ingly looked upon as a foreign ruler by the Americans, insisted upon 
passing laws which the Americans considered unwise, impractical or simply 
unjust. The free life on the frontier also strained legal bonds. There the 
conflict between puritanical intolerance and untamed desire for individual 
freedom clashed more severely than anywhere else. The mass immigration 
and the cultural heterogeneity were other factors hampering the fixation of 
a firm legal order in America. The presence of states within the nation 
with different sets of laws and the high mobility between states were con- 
tributing factors. The jurisdictional friction between states and the federal 
government, the technical and political difficulties in changing the federal 
Constitution, the consequent great complexity of the American legal 
system, and the mass of legal fiction and plain trickery also are among the 



1 9 An American Dilemma 

important factors. For example, it cannot be conducive to the highest 
respect for the legal system that the federal government is forced to carry 
out important social legislation under the fiction that it is regulating "inter- 
state commerce," or that federal prosecuting agencies punish dangerous 
gangsters for income tax evasion rather than for the felonies they have 
committed. 

So this idealistic America also became the country of legalistic formalism. 
Contrary to America's basic ideology of natural law and its strong practical 
sense, "the letter of the law," as opposed to its "spirit," came to have an 
excessive importance. The weak bureaucracy" became tangled up in "red 
tape." The clever lawyer came to play a large and unsavory role in politics, 
in business, and in the everyday life of the citizens. The Americans thus 
got a judicial order which is in many respects contrary to all their inclina- 
tions. 

Under the influence of all these and many jther factors the common 
American citizen has acquired a comparatively low degree of personal 
identification with the state and the legal machinery. An American, when 
he accidentally comes by the scene of a crime or of an attempt by the police 
to seize an offender, is, on the average, more inclined to hurry on in order 
not to get involved in something unpleasant, and less inclined to stop and 
help the arm of the Jaw, than a Britisher or a Scandinavian would be under 
similar circumstances. He is more likely to look on his country's and his 
community's politics and administration as something to be indulged and 
tolerated, as outside his own responsibility, and less likely to think and act 
as a would-be legislator, in a cooperative endeavor to organize a decent 
social life. b He is even inclined to dissociate himself from politics as some- 
thing unworthy and to take measures to keep the worthy things "out of 
politics." This is part of what Lord Bryce called "the fatalism of the 
multitude" in America. This political fatalism and the lack of identification 
and participation work as a vicious circle, being both cause and effect of 
corruption and political machine rule. 

The authorities, when not relying upon the idealistic appeal, will most 
often meet the citizen's individualistic inclinations by trying to educate him 
to obey the law less in terms of collective interest than in terms of self- 
interest. They try to tell the young that "crime does not pay," which, in 
some areas, is a statement of doubtful truth. 

In the exploitation of the new continent business leaders were not 
particular about whether or not the means they used corresponded either 
with the natural law or with the specific laws of the nation or the states. 
This became of greater importance because of the central position of busi- 
ness in the formation of national aspirations and ideals. When Theodore 

* See Chapter to, Section 2. 
The low degree of participation will be discussed in Chapter 33. 



Chapter i. American Ideals 19 

Roosevelt exclaimed: "Damn the law! I want the canal built," he spoke 
the language of his contemporary business world and of the ordinary 
American. 

We have to conceive of all the numerous breaches of law, which an 
American citizen commits or learns about in the course of ordinary living, 
as psychologically a series of shocks which condition him and the entire 
society to a low degree of law observance. The American nation has, 
further, experienced disappointments in its attempts to legislate social 
change, which, with few exceptions, have been badly prepared and ineffi- 
ciently carried out. The almost traumatic effects of these historical dis- 
appointments have been enhanced by America's conspicuous success in so 
many fields other than legislation. One of the trauma was the Reconstruc- 
tion legislation, which attempted to give Negroes civil rights in the South j 
another one was the anti-trust legislation pressed by the Western farmers 
and enacted to curb the growth of monopolistic finance capitalism; a third 
one was the prohibition amendment. 

1 1 . Intellectual Defeatism 

Against this background, and remembering the puritan tendency in 
America to make all sorts of haphazard Jaws directed at symptoms and 
not at causes and without much consideration for social facts and 
possibilities," 3 it is understandable that the social scientists, particularly the 
sociologists, in America have developed a defeatist attitude towards the 
possibility of inducing social change by means of legislation." The political 
"do-nothing" tendency is strong in present-day social science in America. 
It is, typically enough, developed as a general theory — actually as a 
scientific translation of the old natural law idea in its negative import. The 
social scientists simply reflect the general distrust of politics and legislation 
that is widespread among the educated classes of Americans. 

Of particular importance to us is that this view is common even among 
Negro intellectuals when reflecting on various aspects of the Negro 
problem. The failure of Reconstruction had especially severe effects on 
them. Younger Negro intellectuals are disposed to express disbelief in the 
possibility that much can be won by politics, legislation, and law suits, and 
have become inclined to set their hopes on what they conceive of as more 
fundamental changes of the economic structure. Sometimes they think in 
terms of an economic revolution. But, whether their thoughts take such a 
radical direction or stay conservative, a common trait is fatalism in regard 
to politics and legislation. Fatalism in regard to res ptblica is, however, 

* These points are developed at greater length in Appendix z. We are here referring noi 
to the specialists on law and law enforcement but to the general sociologist, economist, or 
political scientist when he meets legislation as an angle of his respective problems. 



ao An American Dilemma 

by 'no means a Negro characteristic. It is a common American disease of 
the democratic spirit which is on the way to becoming chronic. 

We shall meet this tendency as it affects various aspects of the Negro 
problem as we go along. A few critical remarks on the general theory that 
"stateways cannot change folkways" need to be made at the start. In this 
abstract form and as applied to various specific problems, the theory cannot 
be true, since in other parts of the world similar changes are effectuated 
by means of legislation. The theory must, therefore, be qualified in the 
light of specific American conditions. But even in America new legislation, 
infringing upon old customs and upon individual and local interests, is 
often made fairly watertight nowadays. 24 The general explanation why 
some laws have been more successful than others in America is that they 
have been better -prepared and better administered. 

This means that, among the explanations for the general disrepute and 
deficiency of law and order in America, there are two other factors: the 
habit of passing laws without careful investigation, and the relatively low 
standard of American administration of law. To the latter point we shall 
return in a later chapter," where we shall point also to the new but strong 
tendency in America toward the building up of an independent and legal 
administration. On the former point we shall restrict ourselves to quoting 
a high authority: "For nothing is done with so little of scientific or orderly 
method as the legislative making of laws." 211 

These two factors are strategic. When the foolish attempts to suppress 
symptoms of ills while leaving the causes untouched become censored, and 
when lawmaking increasingly becomes an important task of scientific social 
engineering, and when, further, administration becomes independent, legal, 
impartial, and efficient, better laws will be made, and they will be better 
enforced even in America. It is a problem to explain why lawmaking and 
administration have been so backward in a nation where private business 
and also private agencies for public good are often excellently organized. 
The mere possibility of change in these two factors shows the fallacy 
of the general theory that law cannot change custom. In the face of the 
tendency in American society toward more careful lawmaking and improved 
administration the theory appears politically as well as theoretically biased; 
biased against induced change. In this book we shall meet other dynamic 
tendencies in American society favoring the same development, the chief 
among them being, perhaps, the growing cultural homogeneity and the 
increasing political and social participation of the masses. Many social 
scientists tend not only to ignore these changes, but to deny them and, in 
some cases, to oppose them. 

If in the course of time Americans are brought to be a law-abiding 
people, and if they at the same time succeed in keeping alive not only their 

* See Chapter act 



Chapter i. American Ideals 21 

conservatism in fundamental principles and their pride and devotion to 
their national political institutions, but also some of their puritan eagerness 
and courage in attempting to reform themselves and the world — redirected 
somewhat from the old Biblical inclination of thinking only in terms of 
prescriptions and purges — this great nation may become the master builder 
of a stable but progressive commonwealth. 

12. "Lip-Service" 

The conflict in the American concept of law and order is only one side 
of the "moral overstrain" of the nation. America believes in and aspires 
to something much higher than its plane of actual life. The subordinate 
position of Negroes is perhaps the most glaring conflict in the American 
conscience and the greatest unsolved task for American democracy. But 
it is by no means the only one. Donald Young complains: 

In our more introspective moments, ncaily all of us Americans will admit that 
our government contains imperfections and anachronisms. We who have been born 
and brought up under the evils of gang rule, graft, political incompetence, inade- 
quate representation, and some of the other weaknesses of democracy, American plan, 
have developed mental callouses and are no longer sensitive to them. 2 " 

The popular explanation of the disparity in America between ideals and 
actual behavior is that Americans do not have the slightest intention of 
living up to the ideals which they talk about and put into their Constitution 
and laws. Many Americans are accustomed to talk loosely and disparagingly 
about adherence to the American Creed as "lip-service" and even "hypoc- 
risy." Foreigners are even more prone to make such a characterization. 

This explanation is too superficial. To begin with, the true hypocrite sins 
in secret; he conceals his faults. The American, on the contrary, is strongly 
and sincerely "against sin," even, and not least, his own sins. He investi- 
gates his faults, puts them on record, and shouts them from the housetops, 
adding the most severe recriminations against himself, including the 
accusation of hypocrisy. If all the world is well informed about the political 
corruption, organized crime, and faltering system of justice in America, 
it is primarily not due to its malice but to American publicity about its own 
imperfections. America's handling of the Negro problem has been criticized 
most emphatically by white Americans since long before the Revolution, 
and the criticism has steadily gone on and will not stop until America has 
completely reformed itself. 

Bryce observed: "They know, and are content that all the world should 
know, the worst as well as the best of themselves. They have a boundless 
faith in free inquiry and full discussion. They admit the possibility of any 
number of temporary errors and delusions."- 7 The present author remem- 
bers, from his first visit to this country as an inexperienced social scientist 



22 An American Dilemma 

at the end of the 'twenties, how confused he often felt when Americans 
in all walks of life were trustingly asking him to tell them what was 
"wrong with this country." It is true that this open-mindedness, particularly 
against the outside world, may have decreased considerably since then on 
account of the depression, and that the present War might work in the same 
direction, though this is not certain; and it is true also that the opposite 
tendency always had its strong representation in America. But, by and 
large, America has been and will remain, in all probability, a society which 
is eager to indulge in self -scrutiny and to welcome criticism. 

This American eagerness to get on record one's sins and their causes is 
illustrated in the often quoted letter by Patrick Henry (1772), where he 
confessed that he had slaves because he was "drawn along by the general 
inconvenience of living here without them." 

I will not, I cannot, justify it. However culpable my conduct, I will so far pay 
my devoir to virtue as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and 
lament my want of conformity to them. 28 

American rationalism and moralism spoke through Patrick Henry. America 
as a nation is like its courageous and eloquent son of the Revolution. It is 
continuously paying its devoir to virtue; it is repeating its allegiance to the 
full American Creed by lamenting its want of conformity to it. The 
strength and security of the nation helped this puritan tradition to continue. 
No weak nation anxious for its future could ever have done it. Americans 
believe in their own ability and in progress. They are at bottom moral 
optimists. 

In a great nation there is, of course, division of labor. Some Americans 
do most of the sinning, but most do some of it. Some specialize in muck- 
raking, preaching, and lamentation; but there is a little of the muckraker 
and preacher in all Americans. On the other hand, superficially viewed, 
Americans often appear cynical. Their social science has lately developed 
along a deterministic track of amoralistic nonconcernedness; but this is 
itself easily seen to be a moralistic reaction. As a matter of fact, this young 
nation is the least cynical of all nations. It is not hypocritical in the usual 
sense of the word, but labors persistently with its moral problems. It is 
taking its Creed very seriously indeed, and this is the reason why the ideals 
are not only continuously discussed but also represent a social force — why 
they receive more than "lip-service" in the collective life of the nation. The 
cultural unity of the nation is this common sharing in both the consciousness 
of sins and the devotion to high ideals. 

Americans accuse themselves, and are accused by others, of being materi- 
alists. But they are equally extreme in the other direction. Sometimes an 
American feels moved to put the matter right, as Jtisiah Royce did when 
he explained: 



Chapter i. American Ideals 23 

When foreigners accuse us of extraordinary love for gain, and of practical materi- 
alism, they fail to see how largely we are a nation of idealists. Yet that we are such 
a nation is something constantly brought to the attention of those whose calling 
requires them to observe any of the tendencies prevalent in our recent intellectual 
life in America. 28 

The American problem to be studied in this book would, indeed, have an 
entirely different prognosis if this fact were forgotten. 

13. Value Premises in This Study 

For the study of a national problem which cuts so sharply through the 
whole body politic as does the Negro problem, no other set of valuations 
could serve as adequately as the norm for an incisive formulation of our 
value premises as can the American Creed. No other norm could compete 
in authority over people's minds. "The American democratic faith is a 
pattern of ideals providing standards of value with which the accomplish- 
ments of realistic democracy may be judged," observes an author surveying 
the historical trends of American thinking. 80 

And there is no doubt that these ideals are active realities. The student 
of American history must be professionally near-sighted or blinded by a 
doctrinal belief in a materialistic determinism if he fails to see the signif- 
icance of tracing how the Creed is gradually .realizing itself. The American 
Creed is itself one of the dominant "social trends." "Call it a dream or 
call it vision," says John Dewey, "it has been interwoven in a tradition 
that has had an immense effect upon American life." 31 Or, to quote a 
distinguished Negro thinker, the late Kelly Miller: 

In this country political, social and economic conditions gravitate toward equality. 
We may continue to expect thunderstorms in the political firmament so long at 
there exists inequality of political temperature in the atmosphere of the two regions. 
Neither Massachusetts nor Mississippi will rest satisfied until there is an equality of 
political condition in both States. . . . Democratic institutions can no more tolerate 
a double political status than two standards of ethics or discrepant units of weight 
and measure. 82 

But apart from trends, the American Creed represents the national con- 
science. The Negro is a "problem" to the average American partly because 
of a palpable conflict between the status actually awarded him and those 
ideals. 

The American Creed, just because it is a living reality in a developing 
democracy, is not a fixed and clear-cut dogma. It is still growing. During 
the Revolutionary epoch the interests of statesmen and philosophers and 
of the general public were focused on the more formal aspects of freedom, 
equality and justice. After a long period of material expansion but not 
rapid spiritual growth, the American Creed is in this generation again in 



24 An American Dilemma 

a formative stage. It is now discovering its ideals in the social and economic 
sphere and in the realm of international organization. 

While this is going on, there are great disparities in opinions even on 
fundamentals in these new fields of valuation — as there were during the 
Revolution concerning the ideals which then became crystallized. Some 
Americans see in trade unions a denial of the rights to human liberty} 
others see in the unions an expression of the common man's right to reach 
for greater equality and freedom. Some Americans want to tax property 
and nationalize public utilities in order to defend equality of opportunity 
for the masses of the people and to preserve their liberties; others see in 
such attempts an assault upon American principles of liberty. In the inter- 
national field American ideals in recent decades and even today seem 
divided and rambling in the wide space of the triangle marked by the 
three points: absolute isolationism, an organized world democracy, and 
American world imperialism. 

These great disparities of opinion would, in any other social problem, 
considerably increase the technical difficulties of utilizing the Creed as a 
set of specified and definite value premises for research. When in later 
chapters we face the task of defining our value premises specifically, we 
shall find that this is not the case in the Negro problem. The Creed is 
expressive and definite in practically all respects of importance for the 
Negro problem. Most of the value premises with which we shall be 
concerned have actually been incorporated for a long time in the national 
Constitution and in the constitutions and laws of the several states. 

The deeper reason for the technical simplicity of the value aspect of the 
Negro problem is this: From the point of view of the American Creed 
the status accorded the Negro in America represents nothing more and 
nothing less than a century-long lag of public morals. In principle the 
Negro problem was settled long ago; in practice the solution is not effec- 
tuated. The Negro in America has not yet been given the elemental civil 
and political rights of formal democracy, including a fair opportunity to 
earn his living, upon which a general accord was already won when the 
American Creed was first taking form. And this anachronism constitutes 
the contemporary "problem" both to Negroes and to whites. 

If those rights were respected, many other pressing social problems 
would, of course, still remain. Many Negroes would, together with many 
whites, belong to groups which would invoke the old ideals of equality and 
liberty in demanding more effective protection for their social and economic 
opportunities. But there would no longer be a Negro problem. This does 
not mean that the Negro problem is an easy problem to solve. It is a 
tremendous task for theoretical research to find out why the Negro's status 
is what it is. In its unsolved form it further intertwines with all other social 
problems. It is simple only in the technical sense that in America the value 



Chapter i. American Ideals 25 

premises — if they are conceived to be the ideals of the American Creed- 
are extraordinarily specific and definite. 

Finally, in order to avoid possible misunderstandings, it should be 
explained that we have called this Creed "American" in the sense that it is 
adhered to by the Americans. This is the only matter which interests us 
in this book, which is focused upon the Negro problem as part of American 
life and American politics. But this Creed is, of course, no American 
monopoly. With minor variations, some of which, however, are not without 
importance, the American Creed is the common democratic creed. "Ameri- 
can ideals" are just humane ideals as they have matured in our common 
Western civilization upon the foundation of Christianity and pre-Christian 
legalism and under the influence of the economic, scientific, and political 
development over a number of centuries. The American Creed is older and 
wider than America itself. 



CHAPTER 2 



ENCOUNTERING THE NEGRO PROBLEM 



i. On the Minds of the Whites 

When we say that there is a Negro -problem in America, what we mean 
is that the Americans are worried about it. It is on their minds and on their 
consciences. 

To begin with, the Negro is a problem to himself. If a multitude of 
first-hand random observations, such as we have made over the whole 
country, are any evidence, the contented Negro, whose mind is at peace 
on the race issue, is a rare phenomenon. As a generalization he is definitely 
a myth. Whether the myth was ever wholly true in the past, I cannot say. 
It is evident, however, that for a long time the Negro protest has been 
rising. This trend became sharply accentuated during the First World 
War. The present War will, in all probability, increase their discontent 
with their status in America. 

The Negro problem is working on the white man's mind too, even, and 
not least, when he wants to convince himself and others that it is settled 
for all time. The problem has varying degrees of importance in different 
regions, depending partly on their historical backgrounds and on the 
relative proportion of Negroes in their populations, as also in different social 
classes and under different religious, educational and ideological influences. 
Over large areas of America where there are few or no Negroes, the Negro 
problem is of minor importance to the people living there. To these 
ordinary white Americans, the only reason why the Negro problem has a 
higher salience than, say, the problem of British imperialism in India or, 
earlier, the Irish question, is his citizenship in the United States and, 
consequently, his feeling of national responsibility. The frequent reminders 
in the press and in public discussions of the practice of lynching and the 
agitation around the proposed anti-lynching legislation, the reports of 
Negro criminality, the continuous recollections of discrimination in educa- 
tion and in the labor market, and just now the public discomfort around 
the racial angle of both the larger world conflict and the war efforts at 
home — all constantly actualize to some degree this feeling of responsibility. 
This national participation in the Negro problem should not be exag- 

*6 



Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 27 

geratcd. Neither should it be minimized. It is the writer's conclusion that 
even in those Northern states with few Negroes, the Negro problem is 
always present though relatively quiescent. Nearly everybody in America 
is prepared to discuss the issue, and almost nobody is entirely without 
opinions on it. The opinions vary. They may be vague and hesitating or 
even questioning, or they may be hardened and articulate. But few Amer- 
icans are unaware of the Negro problem. 

So it seems always to have been. Wandering around the stacks of a good 
American library, one is amazed at the huge amount of printed material on 
the Negro problem. A really complete bibliography would run up to 
several hundred thousand titles. 1 Nobody has ever mastered this material 
exhaustively, and probably nobody ever will. The intellectual energy spent 
on the Negro problem in America should, if concentrated in a single 
direction, have moved mountains. 

This does not imply that the Negro problem approaches the status of a 
dominant issue. It is not now a main divider of opinions in national politics, 
although it was so in the decades before and after the Civil War. There 
w6re other periods in American history, however, when it was in the back- 
ground, perhaps never so much as in the decades before the First World 
War. But as a secondary problem and as a peculiar influence on all the 
dominant national issues, it has always held a rank among the most 
conspicuous. Through the generations, it has disturbed the religious 
moralists, the political philosophers, the statesmen, the philanthropists, 
the social scientists, the politicians, the businessmen and the plain citizens. 

A number of factors underlie the present trends — such as the danger of 
continued and, after the Second World War, intensified economic disloca- 
tion with its serious effects on Negro employment; the rising tension 
around democracy as a form of government and a way of life; and, finally, 
the rising educational level and intensified group consciousness and discon- 
tent of the Negro people themselves. All this makes it probable that the 
Negro problem in America is again going to mount high in relative impor- 
tance among national issues. 

2. To the Negroes Themselves 

To the Negro himself, the problem is all-important. A Negro probably 
seldom talks to a white man, and still less to a white woman, without 
consciousness of this problem. Even in a mixed white and Negro group 
of closest friends in Northern intellectual circles, and probably even in an 
all-Negro group, the Negro problem constantly looms in the background 
of social intercourse. It steers the jokes and the allusions, if it is not one 
of the dominant topics of conversation. As an inescapable overtone in social 
relations, "race" is probably just as strong as sex — even in thoae most 



28 An American Dilemma 

emancipated American environments where apparently sex is relatively 
released and "race" is suppressed. 

The Negro leader, the Negro social scientist, the Negro man of art and 
letters is disposed to view all social, economic, political, indeed, even 
esthetic and philosophical issues from the Negro angle. What is more, he 
is expected to do so. He would seem entirely out of place if he spoke 
simply as a member of a community, a citizen of America or as a man 
of the world. In the existing American civilization he can grow to a degree 
of distinction, but always as a representative of "his people," not as an ordi- 
nary American or an individual in humanity. He might protest; if he does 
it for the proper audience and in the proper forms, he is allowed to pro- 
test: but he protests as a Negro. He can criticize, but only as a Negro de- 
fending Negro interests. That is the social role awarded him, and he cannot 
step out of it. He is defined as a "race man" regardless of the role he 
might wish to choose for himself. He cannot publicly argue about collective 
bargaining generally in America, the need of a national budgetary reform, 
monetary schemes for world organization, moral philosophies and esthetic 
principles. 

Even if originally he should have had the interests and the aptitudes for 
wider knowledge and a broader career, the pressure of this expectancy on 
the part of society conditions his personality and forces him, willy-nilly, 
into the role of a Negro champion. This expectancy is entrenched in all 
institutions in American society, including universities, learned societies and 
foundations. It animates even the staunchest friends and protectors of the 
Negro minority, often, indeed, for the reason that the Negroes sorely 
need their leadership. The same expectancy of their leaders is shared by 
the Negro people. The Negro leader, sensing that his own people need 
him and conscious that his racial origin offers him an easy opportunity for 
a role in life, thus acquires his characteristic direction. Even women in 
modern times do not have their souls so pressed into one single narrow 
furrow of human interests by the tyrannic expectancy of society, although 
the women's lot in this, as in many other respects, offers the nearest analogy. 
The Negro genius is imprisoned in the Negro problem. There is through- 
out the entire history of the United States no single example of an excep- 
tion to this rule important enough to be cited. 2 

The difference in this respect between the Negro and other "racial" 
minorities — the Jews, for example — is notable. The difference is not ex- 
plainable simply in terms of differences in natural and cultural abilities 
between the two groups. A Jewish economist is not expected to be a special- 
ist on Jewish labor. A Jewish sociologist is not assumed to confine himself 
always to studying the Ghetto. A Jewish singer is not doomed eternally 
to perform Jewish folk songs. A Jew is not out of place either as a governor 
of a state or as a planner of world reconstruction. The Jew is discriminated 
against in America, but there is a quantitative difference between this and 



Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 29 

the discrimination against the Negro which is so great that it becomes 
qualitative. On the intellectual level, which we are now discussing, the 
fettering of the Negro spirit within the Negro problem is not accomplished 
so much by simple discrimination as by the prejudice inherent even in the 
most friendly but restrictive expectancy, including the expectancy of the 
Negro people. 

So far we have been commenting on the fate of those rare persons with 
extraordinary talents who, if any, should have both the intellectual 
strength and the opportunities to break out of the prison of the Negro 
problem. To the ordinary members of the Negro upper and middle class, 
even the window shutters of the prison are closed. It will be the theme 
of following chapters to show in some detail how Negro preachers, 
teachers, professionals, and businessmen have had to build their whole 
economic and social existence on the basis of the segregation of their 
people, in response to the dictates of the white society. To state the 
situation bluntly: these upper class Negroes are left free to earn their 
living and their reputation in the backwater of discrimination, but they arc 
not free to go into the main current of the river itself. On the one hand, 
they are kept fully aware of the wider range of opportunities from which 
jhey are excluded by segregation and discrimination. On the other hand, 
they know equally well how they arc sheltered by the monopoly left to 
them in their little world apart. In their whole outlook on life and society 
they are forced into an impossible and tragic dilemma. 

The masses of the Negro people, however, unlike the more advantaged 
leaders, professionals, and businessmen, derive almost none of the com- 
pensatory gains from the caste system. They sense how they are hampered 
and enclosed behind the walls of segregation and discrimination more 
acutely than might be expected. 

They do not usually spend too much of their mental energy on theoriz- 
ing over the Negro problem. Their days are filled with toil and more 
personal troubles and pleasures. But, as we shall find, in most of these varied 
activities, the Negro problem enters as a loud overtone. It is heard in 
church, in school, on the work place, in the play yard and on the street. 
They, too, are imprisoned in the Negro problem. 

The broad masses of Negroes are also enclosed in the prison as effec- 
tively by the restrictive expectancy of their friends as by the persecutions 
of their enemies. 

The patronizing attitude is really more damning than the competitive struggle. 
The stone wall of calm assumption of his inferiority is to the Negro a keener hurt 
and a greater obstacle than the battle which admits an adversary worth fighting 
against. It is hard to keep ambition alive and to maintain morale when those for 
whom you have fondness and respect keep thinking and saying that you are only 
children, that you can never grow up, that you are cast by God in an inferior mould. 8 



30 An American Dilemma 

The late James Weldon Johnson sums up this situation of the Negro 
people in the following way: 

And thi» is the dwarfing, warping, distorting influence which operates upon each 
and every coloured man in the United States. He is forced to take his outlook on 
all things, not from the view-point of a citizen, or a man, or even a human being, 
but from the view-point of a coloured man. It is wonderful to me that the race hat 
progressed so broadly as it has, since most of its thought and all of its activity must 
run through the narrow neck of this one funnel. 4 

3. Explaining the Problem Away 

To the white Americans the possibilities of keeping the Negro problem 
out of their minds are, naturally, greater and, in addition, they have 
certainly good selfish reasons for keeping it below the level of conscious- 
ness. To be sure, it was a not unusual experience of the writer to be told 
confidently sometimes by the learned, but most often by the laity, that 
there is "no Negro problem" in America and that, if there ever was one, 
it is solved and settled for all time and to the full satisfaction of both 
parties. Everything is quiet on the racial front. We think the Negroes are 
all right in their place j and they on their part do not want things changed. 
In fact, they are the happiest lot on earth. Just look at them: how they laugh 
and enjoy themselves ; how they sing and praise the Lord. * 

This attitude was met most frequently and expressed most emphatically 
in the Deep South. It was often maliciously added that there was surely 
a Negro problem in the North, but only because the Yankees have not yet 
learned to know the Negro and how to keep him in his proper place. The 
situation, if true, would certainly deserve to be called paradoxical: The 
Negroes should be least of a problem to the whites in the regions where 
they are most numerous. They should show up among the human and 
national worries, though certainly not as a principal one, of a Minnesota 
farmer who never sees Negroes, but be no problem at all to the Southern 
planter who works them in scores and is always surrounded by them. 

All this is not true, of course. A contrary statement, that the white South 
is virtually obsessed by the Negro problem, that the South has allowed the 
Negro problem to rule its politics and its business, fetter its intelligence and 
human liberties, and hamper its progress in all directions, would be nearer 
the truth. 5 A brilliant Northerner, Frank Tannenbaum, 8 has taken up this 
thought and, presumably fully in earnest, suggested, as the only hope of 
solving the Southern problem, that the Southerners get other worries to 
keep their minds off the Negro: they should get labor troubles, try to get 
immigrants and develop a complex at home against white "foreigners," and 
generally get some real issues into their petty politics. This might be carry- 
ing an idea to an extreme for educational purposes, but certainly there is 
a kernel of sense in it. 



Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 31 

Apart from the few intellectuals of pronounced liberal leanings, however, 
statements to the effect that there really is no Negro problem have become 
part of the common stock of stereotyped opinions in the South, and they 
are not entirely absent from the North. But such statements cover a 
volcanic ground of doubt, disagreement, concern, and even anxiety — of 
moral tension and need for escape and defense. To furnish such a covering 
is, from a psychological point of view, their very "function." The 
prevalence of such opinions and the intensity with which they are expressed 
might serve as an index of the latent interracial tension felt in the white 
world. 

The usefulness of this escape rationalization has a limit, however. The 
limit is reached when overt interracial struggles appear. The notion of "no 
Negro problem" is then suddenly transformed into an alarming awareness 
that the contrary is so. This contrary reaction can be invoked experimen- 
tally, simply by directing attention to the potentialities of conflict. Particu- 
larly when talking to people among the poorer classes of whites with less 
intellectual control over their thoughts and feelings, the ' writer has 
repeatedly observed the most flagrant contradictions on this point, some- 
times appearing within the same sentence. A white Southerner can defend, 
for instance, the suppression of the Negroes by saying that they are satis- 
fied with their status and lack a desire for change. Without any intermediate 
remarks, he can then proceed to explain that suppression is necessary, that 
Negroes must be kept down by all means, and that Negroes have an ineradi- 
cable craving to be like white people. Attempts on the part of the inter- 
locutor to draw attention to the contradiction have seldom succeeded. 

Some light might be thrown on this state of mind of many American 
whites by observing the different state of mind of the Negroes. The 
Negroes cannot, of course, feel an equivalent need for this special type of 
self-defense, that there is "no Negro problem," which in the white world 
is a defense against one's own thoughts and feelings and the opinions of 
other whites. Actually, it often happened that the writer was told by 
Negroes in the South that race relations in their part of the country offered 
no particular difficulties and were not much of a problem. White people 
present at such pronouncements took great pleasure in the corroboration of 
their own statements. It would seem that such statements from Negro 
leaders are part of the moral tribute expected from those leaders at all 
public interracial affairs, such as school festivals, programs of entertain- 
ment centered around Negro singers, interchurch meetings, and other 
occasions where white representatives are present. That the Negroes should 
be allowed to voice complaints, even though only in a cautious tone, con- 
stituted the radical departure in the innovation of interracial commissions 
after the First World War. Their meetings are between the "best people 
of the two races," and are typically not open to the general public. 



32 An American Dilemma 

Statements that interracial relations are good thus belong in the South to 
the etiquette of Negro college presidents, principals and teachers of Negro 
schools, and all other Negroes enjoying upper or middle class status under 
the sanction of the power of appointment and dismissal in the hands of 
white boards or officials. They are also widely accepted as a way of getting 
along by a considerable number of Negro preachers and by the handful 
of thriving and successful Negro businessmen. In return, these persons are 
allowed much leeway, particularly in the Upper South. These sentiments 
are sometimes also expressed by Negro professionals who are aware of the 
local requirements for successful leadership. 

But, even in these cases, the statements that there is "no Negro problem" 
have an easily detected difference in tone when pronounced by Negroes. 
To begin with, they are usually restricted expressly to the local com- 
munity, and often qualified by certain reservations as to this or that which 
might need improvement, while the corresponding white pronouncements 
are mostly broad and absolute in character. They arc, further, as a defense 
mechanism, primarily directed against provoking the suspicions of the other 
group. They are, finally, not to be taken too seriously. The writer 
repeatedly made the observation, both in the Deep South and in the Upper 
South, as well as in the North, that a Negro seldom took this position when 
talking freely and when there was no point in hiding his real feelings. 

The difference between the two groups, with respect to the recognition 
of the Negro problem, corresponds, of course, to the fundamental fact that 
the white group is above and the Negro group is below, that the one is 
intent upon preserving the status quo, while the other wants change and 
relief from the pressure of the dominant group. The one group is tempted 
to convince itself and others that there is "no problem." The other group 
has a contrary interest to see clearly and even make visible to others the 
existence of a real problem. This latter group may be hushed by fear or 
opportunistic calculations. These calculations can, of course, be of the most 
respectable character j indeed, they often are part of the cautious Negro 
patriot's wise policy of trying to safeguard his people from needless suffer- 
ings and to gain favors for them from the dominating white group. But, in 
any case, the explanation is not to be sought in such deep-seated internal 
tensions as with the white people. The Negro's rationalization, when it 
is articulated, is likely to be much more overt and, indeed, sometimes 
cynically so. It has not the same character of a self-deceiving defense con- 
struction against one's own moral feelings. 

4. Explorations in Escape 

tin a big city in the Deep South I was once taken by a friend to an upper class 
club for a social luncheon party. The conversation turned around world affairs, the 
business trend, art, literature and some personal gossiping; the tone was most con- 



Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 33 

genial and free, perhaps even carefree, and had the distinctive mark of skeptical 
opentnindedness which accompanies social security and a lifelong experience of 
unhampered cultural opportunities. Near the intended end of the party, my friend 
announced the peculiar reason for my being in America at the present time and 
invited the company to tell tne their frank opinions on the Negro problem. 

For a moment a somewhat awkward silence descended upon our party, a queer 
feeling that our relation of human understanding was broken. An illusion was shat- 
tered. Here we had all been behaving on the understanding that we were men of 
the world, members of that select cosmopolitan fellowship which senses no strong 
local ties and whose minds meet in most broad topics of general and human interest; 
and then suddenly my friend had violated this understanding by addressing all the 
others as a local fraternity sharing a dark secret together, while I was marked off 
as the stranger peeping in on them and their secret, the Negro problem. 

The situation most urgently had to be redefined. The responsibility was shouldered 
by an elderly, very distinguished doctor. He made a short speech (the discussion had 
suddenly turned very formal) to the effect that in the South there was "no Negro 
problem"; a static equilibrium had been readied, and was going to remain, and it 
fitted the situation as a glove fits the hand. More particularly, he went on, the 
relations between the two races in the South corresponded to their inherited abilities 
and aptitudes. A long time ago those relations had been strarilicd into "folkways and 
mores," known and respected by both races and taken for granted, or rather as self- 
evident, in view of the inferior endowments of the African race and the superior 
qualities of the Anglo-Saxon master race. The doctor ended up by pointing out that 
it was, in fact, inherent in this very notion of "mores," that they could never be 
questioned or disputed or even consciously analyzed. There could, indeed, by defini- 
tion, never be a "problem" concerning the mores of society. The very question was 
nonsensical. The mores were the ground everybody walked upon, the axioms of 
social life, even more unquestioned than the religious truths and for more substantial 
psychological reasons. 

The doctor finished. Everybody agreed, and there was really nothing in the issue 
to discuss. The few moments' stress was cased, and a measure of congeniality again 
restored. I then reflected that the South was, as I was finding out, now on the way 
to giving the Negroes a real chance in education. 1 referred to the continuous 
improvement of public schools even for Negroes and to the growing number of 
Negro youths who were permitted to acquire a higher education of a kind, even in 
the South. It had occurred to me, I continued, that this tread in education — leaving 
many other primary causes of change unmentionet}; — represented a dynamic factor 
of cumulative importance. If it was given time, andnrthe direct and indirect effects 
in all spheres of life were allowed to accumulate, the resultant social change might 
finally attain a momentum where it could seriously challenge, or at least move quite 
a bit, the "folkways and mores" our doctor had rooted so firmly, not only in tradi- 
tion, but in the very nature of things and particularly in the biology of the races. 
Yes, it might make it difficult to keep the Negro in his place. It might, for instance, 
make it much less easy to hold him disfranchised; in all certainty it would soon 
render obsolete one of the principal arguments and constitutional instruments for 
denying him the ballot — namely, his illiteracy. 

After this remark, I did not need to say anything more for the next hour or two 



34 An American Dilemma 

bat could lean back and listen to one of the most revealing and most ably performed, 
though sometimes heated, intellectual debates on the Negro problem in America I 
had, up till then, and even thereafter, heard. This was not a theater performance 
staged for my benefit; the arguments were too well considered and reasoned to be 
suspected of being improvised for the occasion; I was, indeed, happily forgotten 
most of the time. There was genuine concern, and there was serious disagreement. 
Professor Sumner's theory of folkways and mores had evaporated into the thinnest 
nothing; even the doctor never said a word more about the mystically unproblcmatic 
"mores." At the end I had the opportunity to restore good feeling between the 
debaters in a roar of understanding laughter when I closed my thanks for Southern 
hospitality with the observation that apparently they seemed to have a most disturb- 
ing Negro problem on their minds down in the Old South. 

A situation in the Negro world parallel to this experience showing how the prob- 
lem burns under the cover of a placid stereotype was given me in one of the very 
first weeks of my study of the Negro problem in America. When I and my Swedish 
associate (accompanied at this occasion by a white friend of the Negro people, a 
professor at a Southern university) visited a Negro leader prominent in banking 
and insurance in a city of the Upper South, he had kindly arranged for a gathering 
in his office of a group of about thirty Negro gentlemen of upper class status, repre- 
senting business, church, university and professions. One of his subordinates had 
been given the function of relating statistics on the progress of Negro business in 
America. He fulfilled his task with much ability and eloquence. The figures some- 
times rose to millions and hundreds of millions and, nevertheless, were presented 
to the last unit; they marched along solemnly and created an illusion of greatness 
and success. The lecture ended up in a cheerful and challenging mood. All had 
listened as to a sermon and felt duly elevated. 

This spirit prevailed until I happened to touch off some of the unfortunate real- 
ities so guardedly concealed within the statistical house of cards that had just been 
erected. I referred to the facts, that one of the white companies alone had more 
Negro insurance business than all the Negro companies together, while the latter had 
practically no white business at all; that Negro banking had a rather serious record 
of bankruptcies; that Negroes were practically excluded from all production and 
wholesale trade; that they controlled only an inconsiderable fraction of retail trade 
even in the Negro consumers' market and practically none in the white market. 

My remarks were formulated as questions, and I was hoping for some discussion. 
But I had never expected the tumultuous and agitated controversy which, much to 
the embarrassment of our dignified host, broke loose. The comforting unanimity a 
few minutes before was suddt tly decomposed into the wide and glaring spectrum of 
American Negro ideologies, bearing not only on business but on all other aspects of 
life as well. All possible opinions were vented in a debate where seldom one spoke 
at a time, ranging from an old-fashioned revolutionism demanding violent resistance 
and aggression by force against the white suppressors, on the infra-red end, to a 
pious religious plea, voiced by an elderly preacher, for endurance, forbearance, and 
patience under the sufferings, on the ultra-violet end. 

4$ these two occurrences exemplify, the artificially constructed escapist 
consensus is liable to crash if pushed from the outside. It is inherent in the 
situation, however, that such pushes do not originate from inside, or, if they 



Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 35 

do, that an attempt is made to canalize them safely. An unstable equilib- 
rium is retained and actually believed to be stable. 

I once visited an art exhibition in one of the cultural centers of the Old South 
where everything from the city plan to the interests and manners of the people 
carries the cherished memories of the romantic, glorious past. Among other exhibits 
was a man-sized sculpture in terra cotta called "Soldier in Rain," representing a 
Negro man lynched by hanging. The piece was forcefully done; and, as 1 thought, 
a real masterpiece. The hanging man was clothed only in a shirt and a pair of trousers 
tightly stretched around the body by the rain. On the chest there was a medal affixed 
to the shirt; a raindrop was suspended under the medal. I was absorbed in admtring 
the sculpture with two ladies who were supervising the exhibition. They were true 
experts in art appreciation and had kindly followed me around and told me many 
things which I could not otherwise have seen for myself. 

Quite unintentionally I happened to refer to the sculpture as representing a 
lynching. My hostesses immediately reacted as to a shock and explained eagerly that 
I was totally mistaken. The sculpture represented a soldier being hanged, probably 
behind the front for some offense, a soldier in abstracto, "just any soldier." It had 
nothing to do with the Negro problem. They were bent on convincing me that 1 
was wrong; they mentioned that none of all the thousands of visitors to the exhibi- 
tion had ever hinted at the possibility that the sculpture represented a lynched Negro 
and eagerly showed me newspaper clippings with reviews where the sculpture was 
discussed in terms of "a soldier," "a simple soldier," "a soldier behind the line." 
I answered that soldiers were never anywhere executed by hanging either at or behind 
the line, and that in the whole world hanging was, in the popular conception, which 
is the important thing for an artist, usually associated with the F.nglish custom of 
hanging petty thieves and with American lynching parties. I was even brought to 
point out that the sculptor had endowed the hanged man witli the long limbs and 
facial characteristics commonly ascribed to the Negro race. But no arguments had 
any weight. I am convinced that tlicv sincerely believed they were right, and J 
preposterously wrong. The visit ended with some mutually felt embarrassment. 

As my curiosity was awakened, I went to see the sculptor. He is an immigrant 
from one of the republics of Latin America and is of nearly pure Indian descent. I was 
told later that because of his slightly dark color, he sometimes had met some 
difficulties when he was not personally recognized. On one occasion, quite recently, 
he had been beaten by the police when he had appeared on the street one night with 
a white woman. I now told him about my experience at the exhibition and asked 
him to clear up the matter for me. His first answer was that there was nothing to 
clear up: his sculpture was an abstract piece of art and represented a soldier being 
hanged, "any soldier." We discussed the matter for a while on this line. But grad- 
ually, I must confess, I came to feel slightly exasperated, and I said, "If you, the 
artist, do not know what you have created, I know it as an art spectator. You have 
depicted a lynching, and, more particularly, a lynching of a Negro." The sculptor 
then suddenly changed personality, became intimate and open, and said: "I believe 
you are right. And 1 have intended it all the time." I asked, "Don't you think 
everybody must know it?" He said, "Yes, in a way, but they don't want to know it." 
t asked again, "Why have you spent your time in producing this piece? You under- 
stand as well as I that, even if it is admirable and is also being greatly admired by 



36 An American Dilemma 

the whole public, nobody is actually going to buy it. Personally, I would not dare 
to have it in the cellar of my house, still less in a room where 1 lived." He answered, 
"I know. I suppose that I have made this for myself. I am going to keep it in a 
closet. This is the 'American Skeleton in the Closet.' That would be the right name 
of my sculpture. 'Soldier in Rain' is only a fake, a deception between mc and the 
public down here." 

The situation described is a beautiful crystallization of moral escape. A 
sculptor, with so much color in his skin and such life experiences because of 
his skin color that a degree of identification with the American Negro 
people has been established, is living out his aggression in a piece of art 
which, in reality, is meant as an accusation against society. In the layer of 
his mind where his artistic imagination works and directs his skilful hands, 
he is clear and bent on his purpose; and the result is forceful and exact. 
In the layer where he meets the community, there is twilight. He gave me 
two contradictory statements as to what the sculpture actually represented, 
and he was, as I believe, serious and honest both times. The art appreciative 
public in this refined old city shares in his twilight. They accept his fake 
with grace and gratitude. To some extent they also share in the deep 
meaning of the sculpture to its creator. They probably even "get a kick" 
out of an obvious association which, however, they suppress. Probably none 
of the visitors to the exhibition would ever take part in a lynching or have 
anything but regret for its occurrence. But they partake in a national and 
regional responsibility. Lynching, further, stands only as a symbol for a 
whole system of suppression measures, in which they daily are participants. 
Their valuations are in conflict. Art, particularly when presented in such 
a tactful way, has a function of releasing the tension of suppressed moral 
conflicts. 

5. The Etiquette of Discussion 

Generally the form of a matter becomes important when the matter itself 
is touchy. Explosives must be handled with care. Educators, reformers, and 
journalists with liberal leanings in the South have a standard text which 
they recite to please one another and the visitor. Everything can be said 
in the South if it is said "in the right way." Criticisms and even factual state- 
ments should be phrased in such a manner that they do not "offend" or 
create "embarrassment." I have listened again and again to the pronounce- 
ments of this theory of Southern indirectness from liberal white Southerners 
who have been most eager that I should understand, not only the esthetics, 
but also the pragmatic purpose of this escape machinery. I have been told 
countless examples, where, as my interlocutor confided to me, he was able 
to ^*get by" in saying so and so to such and such a person because he phrased 
it $& this or that way, or how this or that change for the better in inter- 
racial relations was "put over" on the public by letting it appear in a euphe- 



Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 37 

tnSstie light. I have sensed the high subjective pleasure of this persistent 
balancing on the margins and the corresponding pleasures of the less liberal 
audience in being merely teased but never affronted by the sore points. 1 
have come to understand how a whole system of moral escape has become 
polite form in the South. This form is applicable even to scientific writings 
and, definitely, to public discussion and teaching on all levels. It is some- 
times developed into an exquisite and absorbing art. 

It renders the spoken or written word less effective. It is contrary to the 
aims of raising issues and facing problems; it makes difficult an effective 
choice of words. It represents an extra encumbrance in intellectual inter- 
course. At the same time as it purposively opens a means of escape, it also 
fetters everything to the very complex suppressed by this means : the Negro 
problem on their minds. 

This form has even crystallized into a peculiar theory of induced social 
change. It has become policy. There is nearly common agreement in the 
South that reforms in interracial relations should be introduced with as 
little discussion about them as possible. It is actually assumed that the race 
issue is a half dormant, but easily awakened, beast. It is a complex which 
is irrational and uncontrollable, laden with emotions, and to be touched as 
little as possible. 

When talking about the Negro problem, everybody — not only the 
intellectual liberals — is thus anxious to locate race prejudice outside him- 
self. The impersonal "public opinion" or "community feelings" are held 
responsible. The whites practically never discuss the issue in terms of "I" 
or "we" but always in terms of "they," "people in the South," "people in 
this community," or "folks down here will not stand for . . ." this or that. 
One can go around for weeks talking to white people in all walks of life 
and constantly hear about the wishes and beliefs of this collective being, 
yet seldom meeting a person who actually identifies himself with it. But he 
follows it. 

In the more formal life of the community the Negro problem and, in 
fact, the Negro himself, is almost completely avoided. "In effect the Negro 
is segregated in public thought as well as in public carriers," complains 
Robert R. Moton. 7 The subject is only seldom referred to in the church. 
In the school it will be circumvented like sex 5 it docs not fit naturally in 
any one of the regular courses given. Sometimes, but rarely, the topic 
will be taken up for ostentatious treatment as part of an effort toward 
interracial good-will. The press, with remarkable exceptions, ignores the 
Negroes, except for their crimes. There was earlier an unwritten rule in 
the South that a picture of a Negro should never appear in print, and even 
now it is rare. The public affairs of community and state are ordinarily dis- 
cussed as if Negroes were not part of the population. The strange unreality 
of this situation becomes apparent when one comes to realize that for 



38 An American Dilemma 

generations hardly any public issue of importance has been free from a 
heavy load of the race issue, and that the entire culture of the region — 
its religion, literature, art, music, dance, its politics and education, its 
language and cooking — are partly to be explained by positive or negative 
influences from the Negro. 

If the Negro is a shunned topic in formal intercourse among whites in 
the South, he enters all informal life to a disproportionate extent. He creeps 
up as soon as the white Southerner is at ease and not restraining himself. 
He is the standard joke. It is interesting to notice the great pleasure white 
people in all classes take in these stereotyped jokes and in indulging in dis- 
cussions about the Negro and what he does, says and thinks. It is apparently 
felt as a release. Ray Stannard Baker, surveying the South and the Negro 
problem a generation ago, told a story, which the present writer has encoun- 
tered several times and which seems to define the situation properly. 8 

A Negro minister 1 met told me a story of a boy who went as a sort of butler's 
assistant in the home of a prominent family in Atlanta. His people were naturally 
curious about what went on in the white man's house. One day they asked him: 

"What do they talk about when they are eating?" 

The boy thought a moment; then he said: 
"Mostly they discusses us cullud folks." 

As Baker adds, the same consuming interest exists among Negroes. A 
large part of their conversation deals with the race question. One gets the 
feeling that the two groups are sitting behind their fences, publicly ignor- 
ing each other but privately giving free rein to a curiosity emotionalized 
to the highest degree. 

The stories and the jokes give release to troubled people. It is no 
accident that Americans generally are a story-telling nation, and that jokes 
play a particularly important'role in the lives of the Southerners, white and 
black, and specifically in race relations. It should not surprise us that sex 
relations are another field of human life with a great prolification of jokes. 
There is much of human brotherhood in humor — a sort of fundamental 
democracy in a plane deeper than the usual one. It usually conveys a notion 
that we are all sinners before the Lord. When people are up against great 
inconsistencies in their creed and behavior which they cannot, or do not 
want to, account for rationally, humor is a way out. It gives a symbolic 
excuse for inperfections, a point to what would otherwise be ambiguous. It 
gives also a compensation to the sufferer. The "understanding laugh" is 
an intuitive absolution between sinners and sometimes also between the 
sinner and his victim. The main "function" of the joke is thus to create a 
collective surreptitious approbation for something which cannot be approved 
"explicitly because of moral inhibitions. To the whites the Negro jokes 
further serve the function of "proving" the inferiority of the Negro. To the 



Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 39 

Negroes the function of anti-white jokes is partly to pose the whites in a 
ridiculous light, which to them is a compensation. Partly it is a mechanism 
of psychological adjustment j they "laugh off" their misfortunes, their 
faults, their inferiority. 

In this situation the minds of people are, however, likely to show signs 
of deep-seated ambivalence. White Southerners like and love individual 
Negroes and sometimes Negroes in general ; they apparently also hate them. 
I have often witnessed how the feeling tone can pass from the one emo- 
tional pole to the other abruptly as a result of a remark changing the 
imagined type of interrelation toward which the person reacts. 

What applies to the emotional level may also be found on the intel- 
lectual level. Thus a Southerner, while extolling the virtues of the "good 
old Negroes" he used to know and deploring the vices of the young who 
go to school and are recalcitrant, may suddenly turn an intellectual somer- 
sault and bemoan the ignorance and backwardness of the older group and 
become enthusiastic about the intelligence and progressiveness of the young. 
I have come to know how fundamental and common this ambivalence of 
Southern white people is toward the relative value of the different Negro 
generations and how strategically important it is for policy, educational 
policy particularly. 

Sometimes mental contradictions are elaborated into theories and find 
their way into learned treatises and documents of state policy. An example 
is the theory that Negroes have "lower costs of living," which defends — 
in the writers' minds — lower salaries for Negroes against the equalitarian 
principles of the Constitution. The all-embracing Jim Crow doctrine "equal 
but separate" belongs to the same category of systematized intellectual and 
moral inconsistency. A partial blinding of a person's knowledge of reality 
is sometimes necessary. There are plenty of people in the South who will 
tell you, honestly and sincerely, that Negroes have equal educational 
opportunities with whites. I think they believe it — for a moment, in a way, 
and with a part of their minds. Their conviction rests on two contradictory 
principles between which they shift. 

This mental training of the Southerner, which makes him shift between 
principles according to momentary change or stimulus, spreads from the 
Negro problem to other issues. The Negro problem is unique only in 
intensity. But in most of the other issues, the Negro problem is, directly or 
indirectly, involved. One meets it in the attitude toward trade unionism, 
factory legislation, social security programs, educational policies, and 
virtually all other public issues. 

I once went to sec the director of the Department of Labor In a Southern capital. 
The discussion started by his asking me if trade unions were strong in Sweden, to 
which I answered, "Yes." Without any initiative from my side, he then told me 
how the trade union movement in this region had the great sympathy of the state 



40 An American Dilemma 

and municipal authorities, and how it was favored in all ways. I said to him, "Look 
here, I am an economist. I know that this state is not rich. Your infant industry has 
to overcome a ruthless competition from the North where industry is long estab- 
lished. Trade unions mean higher production costs. Is it really a wise policy to lay 
this extra burden upon your young industry? " My interlocutor immediately changed 
mood. "Now you hit the point. And this is the reason why we try to keep the unions 
out of this state." Then he started to tell me the techniques used to keep out labor 
organizers from the state. 

I changed the subject of conversation and told him I had been visiting some mills 
and felt that there was too little interest shown for security measures to protect the 
workers against accidents. The official started out to give me a vivid impression of 
factory legislation and factory inspection as being the very thing nearest to the legis- 
lators' hearts in this state. Again I invoked my profession as an economist, empha- 
sized the cost factor and the competitive situation ; and again I got the answer, "You 
hit the point" and the totally different story about the attitude of the state. 

These inconsistencies and contradictions should not be taken as indicat- 
ing simply personal insincerity. They are, rather, symptoms of much 
deeper, unsettled conflicts of valuations. The absorbing interest in the form 
of a matter} the indirectness of approach to a person, a subject, or a 
policy j the training to circumvent sore points and touchy complexes — which 
we consider as symptoms of escape — are developing into a pattern of 
thinking and behavior which molds the entire personality. People become 
trained generally to sacrifice truth, realism, and accuracy for the sake of 
keeping superficial harmony in every social situation. Discussion is sub- 
dued; criticism is enveloped in praise. Agreement is elevated as the true 
social value irrespective of what is to be agreed upon. Grace becomes the 
supreme virtue; to be "matter of fact" is crude. It is said about the Southern 
Negro that he is apt to tell you what he thinks you want him to say. This 
characteristic ascribed to the Negro fits, to a considerable extent, the whole 
civilization where he lives. 

This escape mechanism works, however, only to a point. When that 
point is reached, it can suddenly be thrown out of gear. Then grace and 
chivalry, in fact, all decent form, is forgotten; criticism becomes bitter; 
opinions are asserted with a vehemence bordering on violence; and dis- 
agreement can turn into physical conflict. Then it is no longer a question 
of escape. The conflict is raging in the open. 

6. The Convenience of Ignorance 

In this connection the remarkable lack of correct information about the 
Negroes and their living conditions should at least be hinted at. One 
need not be a trained student of the race problem to learn a lot in a couple 
oi days about the Negroes in a community which is not known by even 
its otherwise enlightened white residents. To an extent this ignorance is 
not simply "natural" but is part of the opportunistic escape reaction. 



Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 41 

It thus happens that not only the man in the street, but also the pro- 
fessional man, shows ignorance in his own field of work. One meets physi- 
cians who hold absurd ideas about the anatomical characteristics of the Negro 
people or about the frequency of disease among the Negroes in their 
own community j educators who have succeeded in keeping wholly unaware 
of the results of modern intelligence research; lawyers who believe that 
practically all the lynchings are caused by rape; ministers of the gospel 
who know practically nothing about Negro churches in their own town. 
In the North, particularly in such groups where contacts with Negroes are 
lacking or scarce, the knowledge might not be greater, but the number of 
erroneous conceptions seems much smaller. The important thing and the 
reason for suspecting this ignorance to be part of the escape apparatus is 
that knowledge is constantly twisted in one direction — toward classifying 
the Negro low and the white high. 

The ignorance about the Negro is the more striking as the Southerner 
is himself convinced that he "knows the Negro," while the Yankee is sup- 
posedly ignorant on the subject. The insistence on the part of the Southern 
whites that they have reliable and intimate knowledge about the Negro 
problem is one of the most pathetic stereotypes in the South. In fact, the 
average Southerner "knows" the Negro and the interracial problem as the 
patient "knows" the toothache — in the sense that he feels a concern — not 
as the diagnosing dentist knows his own or his patient's trouble. He further 
"knows" the Negro in the sense that he is brought up to use a social tech- 
nique in dealing with Negroes by which he is able to get them into sub- 
missive patterns of behavior. This technique is simple j I have often 
observed that merely speaking the Southern dialect works the trick. 

Segregation is now becoming so complete that the white Southerner 
practically never sees a Negro except as his servant and in other stan- 
dardized and formalized caste situations. The situation may have been dif- 
ferent in the old patriarchial times with their greater abundance of primary 
contacts. Today the average Southerner of middle or upper class status 
seems to be just as likely as the typical Northerner to judge all Negroes by 
his cook, and he is definitely more disposed than the Northerner to draw 
the widest conclusions from this restricted source of information. I have 
also found that the white participants in the work of the local interracial 
commissions — who are not typical Southerners because they are extraor- 
dinarily friendly to the Negro and are looked upon as local experts on the 
race problem — regularly stress the importance of those meetings in bring- 
ing together representatives of the two races so that they can "come to know 
each other." They often confess how vastly their own knowledge of the 
Negro has increased because they, in these meetings, had a chance to talk to 
Reverend So-and-so or Doctor So-and-so. These testimonies are the more 
telling when one has been present at a few of these interracial meetings 



42 An American Dilemma 

and observed how strictly formal and ruled by mental inhibitions they are. 
It is also astounding to observe that at such meetings Negro members, by 
relating simple and obvious facts in the local situation, can reveal things 
unknown to the whites present. Even when true friendliness is the basis 
for the approach, the awkwardness and anxiety shown in these interracial 
contacts is often apparent. 

The ignorance about the Negro is not, it must be stressed, just a random 
Jack of interest and knowledge. It is a tense and highstrung restriction and 
distortion of knowledge, and it indicates much deeper dislocations within 
the minds of the Southern whites. The blind spots are clearly visible in 
stereotyped opinions. The "function" of those stereotypes is, in fact, to 
serve as intellectual blinds.* Thinking and talking in terms of stereotypes 
appear to be more common in the Negro problem than in other issues and 
more dominant in the regions of America where the race problem is 
prominent. 

The stereotypes are ideological fragments which have been coined and 
sanctioned. They are abstract and unqualified, as popular thinking always 
tends to be. They express a belief that "all niggers" are thus and so. But, 
in addition, they are loaded with pretention to deep insight. It is because 
of this emotional charge that they can serve to block accurate observation 
in everyday living and detached thinking. They are treated as magical 
formulas. It is amazing to see the stern look of even educated people when 
they repeat these trite and worn banalities, inherited through the genera- 
tions, as if they were pointing out something new and tremendously impor- 
tant, and also to watch their consternation and confusion when one tries 
to disturb their conventional thoughtways by "outlandish" questions. 

7. Negro and White Voices 

What is at the bottom of this elaborated escape psychology? Has the old 
Negro fighter and scholar W. E. B. Du Bois struck a vein of truth when 
he remarks'. 

Nor does the paradox and danger of this situation fail to interest and perplex the 
best conscience of the South. Deeply religious and intensely democratic as arc the 
mass of the whites, they feel acutely the false position in which the Negro problems 
place them. Such an essentially honest-hearted and generous people cannot cite the 
caste levelling precepts of Christianity, 0* believe in equality of opportunity for all 
men, without coming to feel more and more with each generation that the present 
drawing of the color-line is a flat contradiction to their beliefs and professions. 10 

He certainly expresses the opinion of enlightened Negroes. Booker T. 
Washington said, in. essence, the same thing when, in discussing white 
people's prejudice against and their fear of the Negro, he explained that 
they 



Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 43 

... are moved by a bad conscience. If they really believe there is danger from the 
Negro it must be because they do not intend to give him justice. Injustice always 
breeds fear. 11 

James Weldon Johnson, a third Negro leader, pointed out that 

. . . the main difficulty of the race question does not lie so much in the actual 
condition of the blacks as it docs in the mental attitude of the whites. 12 

And again: 

The race question involves the saving of black America's body and white America's 
soul." 

White people have seen the same thing. Ray Stannard Baker wrote: 

It keeps coming to mc that this is more a white man's problem than it is a Negro 
problem. 14 

A Southern academician, Thomas P. Bailey, whose book on the Negro 
problem has not been surpassed in scrupulous moral honesty, said: 

The real problem is not the negro but the white man's attitude toward the negro. 

and 

Yes, wc Southerners need a freedom from suspicion, fear, anxiety, doubt, unrest, 
hate, contempt, disgust, and all the rest of the race-fccling-begotten braid of viper- 
ous emotions. 15 

The Negroes base their fundamental strategy for improving their status 
pn this insight. Moton tells us: 

. . . the careful observer will discover another characteristic of Negro psychology — 
his quick perception of physical disadvantage and his equally quick adjustment to 
secure the moral advantage. In all the agitation concerning the Negro's ttatus in 
America, the moral advantage has always been on his side, and with that as a lever 
he has steadily effected progress in spite of material disadvantages. 10 

James Weldon Johnson puts it this way: 

Black America is called upon to stand as the protagonist of tolerance, of fair play, 
of justice, and of good will. Until white America heeds, we shall never let its 
conscience 6leep. . . . White America cannot save itself if it prevents us from being 
saved. 17 

And the moral situation of white Southerners is such that Johnson can 
confidently explain: 

Negroes in the South have a simple and direct manner of estimating the moral 
worth of a white man. He is good or bad according to his attitude toward colored 
people. This test is not only a practical and logical one for Negroes to use, but the 
absolute truth of its results averages pretty high. The results on the positive side are, 
I think, invariably correct; I myself have yet to know 2 Southern white man who is 



44 An American Dilemma 

libera] in his attitude toward the Negro and on the race question and is not a man 
of moral worth. 18 

The white man is driven to apologies, not by the Negro, because the 
Negro is not so strong, but by his own moral principles. We shall have to 
study those apologies intensively in this inquiry. Only as a foretaste we 
quote James Truslow Adams, who pleads: 

The condition of the portion of that continent from which he came was one not 
only of savagery but of chronic warfare, quite irrespective of the activities of the 
slave traders. A negro in his native land was liable at any moment to be attacked, 
captured, enslaved by other blacks, torn from his family, or killed and in some cases 
eaten. Would the 1 2,000,000 of negroes in the United States today prefer that their 
ancestors had never been enslaved and that therefore they themselves, if alive, 
should at this moment be living as savages or barbarians in the African jungle? 
Would a DuBois prefer to be head man to an African chief instead of a Harvard 
graduate, scholar and writer? Would a Robeson prefer beating a torn torn to thrilling 
audiences throughout the world with his beautiful voice? Would the colored washer- 
woman I had in the North give up her comfortable house and her car, in which 
she motored her family to Virginia each summer, for the ancestral grass hut in the 
jungle? 19 

An editorial commenting upon certain demands raised by a committee 
of Negro citizens of the City of New York and presented under the 
auspices of a wartime organization for the propagation of democracy in 
America reads: 

... as a group, even in this great free city, they [the Negroes] haven't enjoyed 
equality of opportunity. They have been at a disadvantage in housing. . . . For no 
reason except color, they find many jobs closed to them ... the Negro suffers from 
an undeserved historic misfortune. He docs not enjoy, anywhere in the United 
States, opportunities equal to his individual capacity. ... It is time that more of his 
white neighbors stopped being so patient about this situation. An injustice to any 
group, whether we realize the truth or not, hurts all of us, 20 

And so the conflict in the troubled white man's soul goes on. 

8. The North and the South 

In the North the observer finds a different mental situation in regard to 
the Negro problem. The South is divergent from the rest of the country 
not only in having the bulk of the Negro population within its region but 
also in a number of other traits and circumstances — all, as we shall find, 
directly or indirectly connected with the Negro problem. 

There has been Jess social change in the South. Industrialization has 
lagged until recently. The South is more agricultural and rural. Parts of 
it are isolated. There has been relatively little immigration from foreign 
countries or from the North; practically all migration has been internal 



Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 45 

or outward. The South is poorer on the average: it is true both that there 
are more poor people in the South and that they are poorer than in the 
North." Farm tenancy is common in the South but rarer in the North. The 
tradition of the "independent farmer" is largely a Northern tradition. 
On the other hand, the tradition of aristocracy is much stronger in the 
South 3 "the Southern gentlemen," "the Southern lady," and "Southern 
hospitality" are proverbial, even if stereotyped. 

Because of this tradition and because of the relative lack of industrial- 
ization, a main way to get and remain rich in the South has been to exploit 
the Negroes and other weaker people, rather than to work diligently, 
make oneself indispensable and have brilliant ideas. The South has been 
relatively intolerant of reform movements of any sort. Circumstances con- 
nected not only with the Negro problem but also with such traditions as 
state's rights make change seem more hazardous than in the North. Educa- 
tion for all groups and on all levels has been inferior in the South. The 
trauma of the Civil War is still acute. The observer finds many Southerners 
still "fighting" the Civil War. In the North it is forgotten. 

The mere existence of a more rapid tempo of life in the North, the 
constant changes, and the feeling of progress push the Negro problem into 
the background. And the human capacity for interesting oneself in social 
problems is crowded by many other worries. There have been more 
frequent clashes of political opinions in the North. The North has been 
made to feel labor problems. The Northern farmers have been more 
restless and articulate in their demands. The continuous mass immigration 
of foreigners has created local problems of exploitation and poverty, 
maladjustment and cultural assimilation. Placed beside these problems a 
local Negro problem, where it existed in the North, became robbed of its 
singularity and shrank in significance. 

The Negro problem has nowhere in the North the importance it has in 
the South. "Too often we find," complained a Southern student of the 
Negro problem long ago, "that when our Northern journalism discusses 
wrongs at the North or at the West, it criticizes the wrongs, but when it 
discusses wrongs at the South, it criticizes the SoutA." 21 This is a correct 
observation. But the explanation and, we must add, the justification of this 
fact is, first, that the Negro problem actually is a main determinant of all 
local, regional, and national issues, whether political, economic, or broadly 
cultural, in the South, while this is not true in the North} and, second, 
that there is a "Solid South" backing the "wrongs" in the one region, 
while opinions are much more diversified in the North. 

* Contrary to the general impression, however, the well-to-do whites in the South are in 
about the same proportion in the population as are the well-to-do whites in the North. 
(We except here the very few tremendous fortunes in the North which are more numerous 
than in the South.) Also, the Southern whites as a whole have about the same income as do 
Northern whites: a large proportion of the poor in the South are Negroes. (See Chapter 16.) 



46 An American Dilemma 

There are few Negroes living in most of the North. This is especially 
true of the rural regions. Where Negroes live in small cities, particularly 
in the New England states, they are a small element of the population 
who have never been much of a problem. In the big cities where the 
greater part of the total Northern Negro population lives, the whites are 
protected from getting the Negro problem too much on their minds by 
the anonymity of life and the spatial segregation of racial, ethnic, and 
economic groups typical of the metropolitan organization of social relations. 
The Northern whites have also been able to console themselves by 
comparing the favorable treatment of Negroes in the North with that of 
the South. Negroes have votes in the North and are, on the whole, 
guaranteed equality before the law. No cumbersome racial etiquette in 
personal relations is insisted upon. The whole caste system has big holes 
in the North, even if prejudice in personal relations is pronounced, and the 
Negroes are generally kept out of the better jobs. Reports of how Negroes 
fare in the South tend to make the Northernere satisfied with themselves, 
if not smug, without, in most cases, making them want to start again to 
reform the South. We fought a Civil War over the Negroes once, they 
will say; it didn't do any good and we are not going to do it again. 

The mass migration of Southern Negroes to the North since the begin- 
ning of the First World War leads naturally — especially in periods of 
economic depression — to the reflection on the part of the Northerners that 
improvement of conditions for Negroes in their own communities is 
dangerous as it will encourage more Southern Negroes to come North. 
Most white Northerners seem to hold that the Negroes ought to stay on 
Southern land, and that, in any case, they cannot be asked to accept any 
responsibility for recent Negro migrants. Few Northerners have any idea 
that the Negroes are being pushed off the land in the South by the develop- 
ment of world competition against Southern agricultural products in com- 
bination with a national agricultural policy discriminating severely against 
the Negroes. This argument that Negroes should not be encouraged to 
come North — which is in the minds of many Northern city authorities — is 
a chief factor in hampering a sound welfare policy for Negroes. 

This "passing the buck" is, of course, not only a device of Northerners 
to quiet their conscience. It is prominently displayed also by Southerners. 
The latter get satisfaction out of every indication that Negroes are not 
treated well in the North and, indeed, that groups other than Negroes are 
living in distress in the North. Such things help to assuage their own 
conscience. They need a rationalization against their sympathy for the 
underdog and against their dislike of the caste pressure inflicted upon the 
Negro. This situation has prevailed since before the Civil War. The horrors 
of Northern free-labor slavery and Northern city slums have never left 
the Southerner's mind. The object of this maltreatment, namely, the poor 



Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 47 

Negro in both South and North, is the loser. Meanwhile each of the two 
guilty regions points to the other's sins — the South assuaging its conscience 
by the fact that "the Negro problem is finally becoming national in scope" 
and the North that "Negroes are much worse off in the South." 

The Civil War, even if it does not figure so highly in Northern con- 
sciousness as the corresponding memories in the South, is a definite source 
of historical pride in the North. Many families, particularly in the higher 
social classes which contain "Old Americans," have ancestors who fought 
in the War, the recollection of which carries emotional identification with 
the Northern cause. The teaching in the schools of the North spreads an 
identification and a vicarious pride even to the Northerners whose ancestors 
were Europeans at the time of the Civil War. The liberation of the slaves 
plays an important part in this idealization. But, paradoxically enough, it 
turns against the Negro in his present situation: "We gave him full 
citizenship," the Northerner will say. "Now it is his own funeral if he 
hasn't got the guts to take care of himself. It would be an injustice in the 
opposite direction to do more for him than for people in general just 
because of his race. The Negro shouldn't be the ward of the nation. Look 
at all other poor, hardworking people in America. My grandfather had 
to sweat and work before he got through the mill." 

This rationalized political valuation, which can be heard anywhere in the 
North, goes back to the Northern ideological retreat and the national com- 
promise of the 1870's. It still, in disguised forms, creeps into even the 
scientific writings of Yankee authors. Donald Young, for example, writes: 

With the Civil War came emancipation, enfranchisement, and guaranties of equal 
rights for black and white. If anything, Northern politicians did their best to give 
the Negro a favored status which in effect would have made him almost a Ward of 
the government. . . . Although a reaction to slavery was naturally to be expected, it 
would have been a mistake to give the freedman any more protection from private 
or public persecution than is afforded a citizen of any other color. Fortunately, the 
United States Supreme Court and the post-Civil War decline in emotionalism and 
increase in political sanity prevented the consummation of such attempts at special 
Negro legislation protection as the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and 
Sumner's Civil Rights Bill originally intended. 22 

The logic of this argument is weak. From the basic equalitarian assump- 
tion, it could not, of course, be deemed to be an unjust favoring of the 
Negro people on account of their race, if they were protected from the 
specific discriminations which are inflicted upon them just because of their 
race. Guaranteeing them civil liberties as citizens could not be said to be 
making them the wards of the nation in this particular sense. But even if 
this Northern rationalization is, in fact, an escape notion like many others 
we have found in the South, it is not charged with much emotion. The 



48 An American Dilemma 

Northerner does not have his social conscience and all his political thinking 
permeated with the Negro problem as the Southerner does. 

Rather, he succeeds in forgetting about it most of the time. The North- 
ern newspapers help him by minimizing all Negro news, except crime news. 
The Northerners want to hear as little as possible about the Negroes, 
both in the South and in the North, and they have, of course, good reasons 
for that. The result is an astonishing ignorance about the Negro on the 
part of the white public in the North. White Southerners, too, are ignorant 
of many phases of the Negro's life, but their ignorance has not such a 
simple and unemotional character as that in the North. There are many 
educated Northerners who are well informed about foreign problems but 
almost absolutely ignorant about Negro conditions both in their own city 
and in the nation as a whole. 

This has great practical importance for the Negro people. A great many 
Northerners, perhaps the majority, get shocked and shaken in their con- 
science when they learn the facts. The average Northerner does not under- 
stand the reality and the effects of such discriminations as those in which 
he himself is taking part in his routine of life. To get fublicity is of the 
highest strategic importance to the Negro feofle. The Negro protection 
and betterment organizations and many white liberals see this clearly and 
work hard to articulate the sufferings of the Negroes. 

There is no doubt, in the writer's opinion, that a great majority of white 
people in America would be prepared to give the Negro a substantially 
better deal if they knew the facts. But to understand the difficulty the 
Negroes have to overcome in order to get publicity, we must never forget 
the opportunistic desire of the whites for ignorance. It is so much more 
comfqrtable to know as little as possible about Negroes, except that there 
are a lot of them in Harlem,- the Black Belt, or whatever name is given 
to the segregated slum quarters where they live, and that there are still 
more of them in the South j that they are criminal and of disgustingly, but 
somewhat enticingly, loose sexual morals j that they are religious and have 
a gift for dancing and singing} and that they are the happy-go-lucky 
children of nature who get a kick out of life which white people are too 
civilized to get. 

Just one note more should be added: the Southerners are not entirely 
different on this last point from the Northerners. I have become convinced 
also that a majority even of Southerners would be prepared for much 
more justice to the Negro if they were really brought to know the situation. 
The younger generations of Southern whites are less indoctrinated against 
the Negro than their parents were. But they are also farther away from 
him, know less about him and, sometimes, get more irritated by what little 
they see. We do not share the skepticism against education as a means of 
mitigating racial intolerance which recently has spread among American 



Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 49 

sociologists as a reaction against an important doctrine in the American 
Creed. The simple fact is that an educational offensive against racial intoler- 
ance, going deeper than the reiteration of the "glittering generalities" in 
the nation's political creed, ha* never serioudy been attempted in America. 



CHAPTER 3 

FACETS OF THE NEGRO PROBLEM 



i. American Minority Problems 

For some decades there has been a tendency to incorporate the American 
Negro problem into the broader American minority problem. 1 In the 
United States, the term "minority people" has a connotation different from 
that in other parts of the world and especially in Central and Eastern 
Europe, where minority problems have existed. This difference in problem 
is due to a difference in situation. The minority peoples of the United 
States are fighting for status in the larger society; the minorities of Europe 
are mainly fighting for independence from it. In the United States the 
so-called minority groups as they exist today — except the Indians and the 
Negroes — are mostly the result of a relatively recent immigration, which 
it was for a long time the established policy to welcome as a nationally 
advantageous means of populating and cultivating the country. -The new- 
comers themselves were bent upon giving up their language and other 
cultural heritages and acquiring the ways and attitudes of the new nation. 
There have been degrees of friction and delay in this assimilation process, 
and even a partial conscious resistance by certain immigrant groups. But 
these elements of friction and resistance are really only of a character and 
magnitude to bring into relief the fundamental difference between the typi- 
cal American minority problems and those in, say, the old Austrian Empire. 
Of greatest importance, finally, is the fact that the official political creed of 
America denounced, in general but vigorous terms, all forms of suppression 
and discrimination, and affirmed human equality. 

In addition to a cultural difference between the native-born and the 
foreign-born in the United States, there was always a class difference. At 
every point of time many of those who were already established in the 
new country had acquired wealth and power, and were thus in a position 
to lay down the rules to late-comers. The immigrants, who left their native 
lands mainly because they had little wealth, had to fit themselves as best 
they could into the new situation. Their lack of familiarity with the English 
language and ways of life also made them an easy prey of economic 
exploitation. But as long as the West was open to expansion, immigrant 
groups could avoid becoming a subordinate class by going to a place 

so 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 51 

where they were the only class. Gradually the frontier filled up, and free 
land no longer offered the immigrants cultural independence and economic 
self-protection. Increasingly they tended to come from lands where the 
cultures were ever more distant from the established American standards. 
They became distinguished more markedly as half-digested isolates, set 
down in the slums of American cities, and the level of discrimination rose. 

The first stage of their assimilation often took them through the worst 
slums of the nation. Group after group of immigrants from every part of 
the world had their first course in Americanization in the squalid and con- 
gested quarters of New York's East Side and similar surroundings. They 
found themselves placed in the midst of utter poverty, crime, prostitution, 
lawlessness, and other undesirable social conditions. The assimilation process 
brought the immigrants through totally uncontrolled labor conditions and 
often through personal misery and social pressures of all kinds. The Ameri- 
can social scientist might direct his curiosity to the occasional failures of the 
assimilation process and the tension created in the entire structure of larger 
society during its course. To the outside observer, on the other hand, the 
relative success will forever remain the first and greatest riddle to solve, 
when he sees that the children and grandchildren of these unassimilated 
foreigners are well-adjusted Americans. He will have to account for the 
basic human power of resistance and the flexibility of people's minds and 
cultures. He will, have to appreciate the tremendous force in the American 
educational system. But it will not suffice as an explanation. He will be 
tempted to infer the influence upon the immigrant of a great national ethos, 
in which optimism and carelessness, generosity and callousness, were so 
blended as to provide him with hope and endurance. 

From the viewpoint of the struggling immigrant himself, the harsh class 
structure, which thrust him to the bottom of the social heap, did not seem 
to be a rigid social determinant. In two or three generations, if not in one, 
the immigrant and his descendants moved into, and identified themselves 
with, the dominant American group, and — with luck and ability — took their 
position in the higher strata. Only because of this continuous movement of 
former immigrants and their descendants up and into the established group 
could the so-called "Americans" remain the majority during a century 
which saw more than a score of millions of immigrants added to its popula- 
tion. The causal mechanism of this social process has been aptly described 
as a continuous "push upwards" by a steady stream of new masses of toil- 
ing immigrants filling the ranks. of the lower social strata. The class struc- 
ture remained, therefore, fairly stable, while millions of individuals 
were continuously climbing the social ladder which it constituted. The 
unceasing process of social mobility and the prospect of its continuation, and 
also the established Creed of America promising and sanctioning social 



52 An American Dilemma 

mobility, together with many other factors of importance, kept the minority 
groups contented and bent on assimilation. 

Religious differences, differences in fundamental attitudes, and "racial" 
differences entered early as elements of friction in the process of assimila- 
tion and as reasons for discrimination while the process was going on. With 
the growing importance of the new immigration from Southern and 
Eastern Europe in the decades before the War, these factors acquired 
increased importance. They are, in a considerable degree, responsible for 
the fact that even recent community surveys, undertaken decades after the 
end of the mass immigration, give a picture of American class stratification 
which closely corresponds to the differentiation in national groups. This 
type of differentiation is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of 
the American social order. 

The split of the nation into a dominant "American" group and a large 
number of minority groups means that American civilization is permeated 
by animosities and prejudices attached to ethnic origin or what is popularly 
recognized as the "race" of a person. 8 These animosities or prejudices are 
commonly advanced in defense of various discriminations which tend to 
keep the minority groups in a disadvantaged economic and social status. 
They are contrary to the American Creed, which is emphatic in denouncing 
differences made on account of "race, creed or color." In regard to the 
Negro, as well as more generally to all the other minorities, this conflict 
is what constitutes the problem, and it also contains the main factors in the 
dynamic development. Taking a cross-sectional view at any point of time, 
there is thus revealed an inconsistency in practically every American's 
social orientation. The inconsistency is not dissolved, at least not in the 
short run. Race prejudice and discrimination persist. But neither will the 
American Creed be thrown out. It is a hasty conclusion from the actual 

" The popular term "race prejudice," as it is commonly used, embraces the whole complex 
of valuations and beliefs which arc behind discriminatory behavior on the part of the 
majority group (or, sometimes, also on the part of the minority group) and which are 
contrary to the equalitarian ideals in the American Creed. In this very inclusive sense the 
term will be used in this inquiry. It should be noted that little is explained when we say 
that "discrimination is due to prejudice." The concept "race prejudice" unfortunately 
carries connotations that the intergroup situation is fairly stable and that the complex of 
attitudes behind discrimination is homogeneous and solid. (This is, incidentally, the danger 
with the concept of "attitude" as it is often used} see Appendix i.) For a discussion of 
the empirical study of race prejudice, see Appendix 10, Section 4, 

We do not need to enter into a discussion of whether "anti-minority feelings" in general 
are different from the "race prejudices" as they are displayed against Negroes. On the one 
hand, people in general also refer the toTmer attitude to what they usually perceive of as 
"race." As Donald Young points out, there is also something of a common pattern in all 
discriminations (see footnote 1 to this chapter). On the other hand, there is this significant 
difference which we shall stress, that in regard to the colored minorities, amalgamation is 
violently denied them, while in regard to all the other minorities, it is welcomed as a long- 
run process. 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 53 

facts of discrimination that the Creed will be without influence in the long 
run, even if it is suppressed for the moment, or even that it is uninfluential 
in the short run. 

In trying to reconcile conflicting valuations the ordinaiy American 
apparently is inclined to believe that, as generations pass on, the remain- 
ing minority groups — with certain distinct exceptions which will presently 
be discussed — will be assimilated into a homogeneous nation. 2 The American 
Creed is at least partially responsible for this, as well as for the American's 
inclination to deem this assimilation desirable. Of course, this view is also 
based on the memories of previous absorption of minority groups into the 
dominant "American" population. Even the American Indians are now 
considered as ultimately assimilable. "The American Indian, once con- 
stituting an inferior caste in the social hierarchy, now constitutes little 
more than a social class, since today his inferior status may be sloughed 
off by the process of cultural assimilation." :1 This, incidentally, speaks 
against the doctrine that race prejudice under all circumstances is an 
unchangeable pattern of attitudes. 

This long-range view of ultimate assimilation can be found to coexist 
with any degree of race prejudice in the actual present-day situation. In 
many parts of the country Mexicans are kept in a status similar to the 
Negro's or only a step above. Likewise, in most places anti-Semitism is 
strong and has apparently been growing for the last ten years. 4 Italians, 
Poles, Finns, arc distrusted in some communities; Germans, Scandinavians, 
and the Irish arc disliked in others, or sometimes the same communities. 
There are sections of the majority group which draw the circle exclusively 
and who hate all "foreigners." There arc others who keep a somewhat 
distinct line only around the more exotic peoples. The individual, regional, 
and class differentials in anti-minority feeling arc grcat. s 

In spite of all race prejudice, few Americans seem to doubt that it is the 
ultimate fate of this nation to incorporate without distinction not only all 
the Northern European stocks, but also the people from Eastern and 
Southern Europe, the Near East and Mexico. They see obstacles; they 
emphasize the religious and "racial" differences; they believe it will take 
a long time. But they assume that it is going to happen, and do not have, 
on the whole, strong objections to it — provided it is located in a distant 
future. 

2. The A nti- Amalgamation Doctrine 

The Negroes, on the other hand, are commonly assumed to be unassimi- 
lable and this is the reason why the characterization of the Negro problem 
as a minority problem does not exhaust its true import. 11 The Negroes are 
set apart, together with other colored peoples, principally the Chinese and 

"See Chapter 4. 



54 An American Dilemma 

the Japanese. America fears the segregation into distinctive isolated groups 
of all other elements of its population and looks upon the preservation of 
their separate national attributes and group loyalties as a hazard to Ameri- 
can institutions. Considerable efforts are directed toward "Americanizing" 
all groups of alien origin. But in regard to the colored peoples, the Ameri- 
can policy is the reverse. They are excluded from assimilation. Even by their 
best friends in the dominant white group and by the promoters of racial 
peace and good-will, they are usually advised to keep to themselves and 
develop a race pride of their own. 

Among the groups commonly considered unassimilable, the Negro peo- 
ple is by far the largest. The Negroes do not, like the Japanese and the 
Chinese, have a politically organized nation and an accepted culture of their 
own outside of America to fall back upon. Unlike the Oriental, there 
attaches to the Negro an historical memory of slavery and inferiority. It 
is more difficult for them to answer prejudice with prejudice and, as the 
Orientals may do, to consider themselves and their history superior to the 
white Americans and their recent cultural achievements. The Negroes do 
not have these fortifications for self-respect. They are more helplessly 
imprisoned as a subordinate caste in America, a caste a of people deemed to 
be lacking a cultural past and assumed to be incapable of a cultural future. 

To the ordinary white American the caste line between whites and 
Negroes is based upon, and defended by, the anti-amalgamation doctrine. 
This doctrine, more than anything else, gives the Negro problem its unique- 
ness among other problems of lower status groups, not only in terms of 
intensity of feelings but more fundamentally in the character of the 
problem. We follow a general methodological principle, presented pre- 
viously, when we now start out from the ordinary white man's notion of 
what constitutes the heart of the Negro problem. 

When the Negro people, unlike the white minority groups, is commonly 
characterized as unassimilable, it is not, of course, implied that amalgama- 
tion is not biologically possible. But crossbreeding is considered undesir- 
able. Sometimes the view is expressed that the offspring of cross- 
breeding is inferior to both parental stocks. Usually it is only asserted that 
it is inferior to the "pure" white stock. The assumption evidently held 
is that the Negro stock is "inferior" to the white stock. On the inherited 

* In this inquiry we shall use the term "caste" to denote the social status difference 
between Negroes and whites in America. The concept and its implications will be discussed 
in some detail in Part VIII. It should be emphasized that, although the dividing line 
between Negroes and whites is held fixed and rigid so that no Negro legitimately can pass 
over from his caste to the higher white caste, the relations between members of the two 
castes are different in different regions and social classes and changing in time. It is true 
that the term "caste" commonly connotes a static situation even in the latter respect How- 
ever, for a social phenomenon we prefer to use a social concept with too static connotations 
rather than the biological concept "race" which, of course, carries not only static but many 
much more erroneous connotations. 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 55 

inferiority of the Negro people there exists among white Americans a 
whole folklore, which is remarkably similar throughout the country. To this 
we shall refer in the next chapter. 

Whether this concept of the inferiority of the Negro stock is psycho- 
logically basic to the doctrine that amalgamation should be prohibited, or 
is only a rationalization of this doctrine, may for the moment be left open. 
The two notions, at any rate, appear together. The fact that one is used as 
argument for the other does not necessarily prove such a causal psychic 
relation between them. In many cases one meets an unargued and not 
further dissolvable "primary valuation, which is assumed to be self-evident 
even without support of the inferiority premise. Miscegenation* is said 
to be a threat to "racial purity." It is alleged to be contrary to "human 
instincts." It is "contrary to nature" and "detestable." Not only in the 
South but often also in the North the stereotyped and hypothetical ques- 
tion is regularly raised without any intermediary reasoning as to its applic- 
ability or relevance to the social problem discussed: "Would you like to 
have your sister or daughter marry a Negro?" This is an unargued appeal 
to "racial solidarity" as a primary valuation. It is corollary to this attitude 
that in America the offspring of miscegenation is relegated to the Negro 
race. 

A remarkable and hardly expected peculiarity of this American doctrine, 
expounded so directly in biological and racial terms, is that it is applied 
with a vast discretion depending upon the purely social and legal circum- 
stances under which miscegenation takes place. As far as lawful marriage 
is concerned, the racial doctrine is laden with emotion. Even in the Northern 
states where, for the most part, intermarriage is not barred by the force 
of law, the social sanctions blocking its way are serious. Mixed couples are 
punished by nearly complete social ostracism. On the other hand, in many 
regions, especially in the South where the prohibition against intermarriage 
and the general reprehension against miscegenation have the strongest 
moorings, illicit relations have been widespread and occasionally allowed 
to acquire a nearly institutional character. Even if, as we shall find later 
when we come to analyze the matter more in detail, b such relations are per- 
haps now on the decline, they are still not entirely stamped out. 

Considering the biological emphasis of the anti-amalgamation doctrine 
and the strong social sanctions against intermarriage tied to that doctrine, 
the astonishing fact is the great indifference of most white Americans 

* Miscegenation is mainly an American term and is in America almost always used to 
denote only relations between Negroes and whites. Although it literally implies only mixture 
of genes between members of different races, it has acquired a definite emotional connotation. 
We use it in its literal sense — without implying necessarily that it is undesirable — as a 
convenient synonym of amalgamation. 

* See Chapter 5. 



$6 An American Dilemma 

toward real but illicit miscegenation. In spite of the doctrine, in some 
regions with a large Negro population, cohabitation with a Negro woman 
is, apparently, considered a less serious breach of sexual morals than illicit 
intercourse with a white woman. The illicit relations freely allowed or only 
frowned upon are, however, restricted to those between white men and 
Negro women. A white woman's relation with a Negro man is met by the 
full fury of anti-amalgamation sanctions. 

If we now turn to the American Negro people, we can hardly avoid the 
strong impression that what there is of reluctance in principle toward 
amalgamation is merely in the nature of a reaction or response to the 
white doctrine, which thus stands as primary in the causal sense and 
strategic in a practical sense. It is true that white people, when facing the 
Negro group, make an ideological application of the general Jim Crow 
principle — "equal but separate" treatment and accommodations for the two 
racial groups — and proceed from the assertion that both races are good to 
the explanation that there is a value in keeping them unmixed. They appeal 
also to the Negroes' "race pride" and their interest in keeping their own 
blood "pure." But this is a white, not a Negro, argument. 

The Negro will be found to doubt the sincerity of the white folks' inter- 
est in the purity of the Negro race. It will sound to him too much like a 
rationalization, in strained equalitarian terms, of the white supremacy 
doctrine of race purity. "But the outstanding joke is to hear a white man 
talk about race integrity, though at this the Negro is in doubt whether to 
laugh or swear." ° Even the Negro in the uneducated classes is sensitive to 
the nuances of sincerity, trained as he is both in slavery and afterwards to 
be a good dissembler himself. The Negro will, furthermore, encounter con- 
siderable intellectual difficulties inherent in the idea of keeping his blood 
pure, owing to the fact that the large majority of American Negroes actually 
are of mixed descent. They already have white and Indian ancestry as well 
as African Negro blood. And in general they- are aware of this fact. 

In spite of this, race pride, with this particular connotation of the unde- 
sirability of miscegenation, has been growing in the Negro group. This is, 
however, probably to be interpreted as a defense reaction, a derived second- 
ary attitude as arc so many other attitudes of the Negro people." After 
weighing all available evidence carefully, it seems frankly incredible that 
the Negro people in America should feel inclined to develop any particular 
race pride at all or have any dislike for amalgamation, were it not for the 
common white opinion of the racial inferiority of the Negro people and the 
whites' intense dislike for miscegenation. The fact that a large amount of 
exploitative sexual intercourse between white men and Negro women has 
always been, and still is, part of interracial relations, coupled with the 
further fact that the Negroes sense the disgrace of their women who are 

* See Appendix io, Section 4.. 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 57 

not accepted into matrimony, and the inferior status of their mixed off- 
spring, is a strong practical reason for the Negro's preaching "race pride" 
in his own group. But it is almost certainly not based on any fundamental 
feeling condemning miscegenation on racial or biological grounds. 

On this central point, as on so many others, the whites' attitudes are 
primary and decisive} the Negroes' are in the nature of accommodation or 
protest. 

3. The White Man's Theory of Color Caste 

We have attempted to present in compressed and abstract formulation 
the white supremacy doctrine as applied to amalgamation, sex relations and 
marriage. The difficulty inherent in this task is great. As no scientifically 
controlled nation-wide investigations have been made, the author has here, 
as in other sections, had to rely on his own observations. 7 

Every widening of the writer's experience of white Americans has only 
driven home to him more strongly that the opinion that the Negro is 
unassimilable, or, rather, that his amalgamation into the American nation 
is undesirable, is held more commonly, absolutely, and intensely than 
would be assumed from a general knowledge of American thoughtways. 
Except for a handful of rational intellectual liberals — who also, in many 
cases, add to their acceptance in principle of amalgamation an admission 
that they personally feel an irrational emotional inhibition against it — it is a 
rare case to meet a white American who will confess that, if it were not for 
public opinion and social sanctions not removable by private choice, he 
would have no strong objection to intermarriage. 

The intensity of the attitude seems to be markedly stronger in the South 
than in the North. Its strength seems generally to be inversely related 
to the economic and social status of the informant and his educational 
level. It is usually strong even in most of the non-colored minority groups, 
if they are above the lowest plane of indifference. To the poor and socially 
insecure, but struggling, white individual, a fixed opinion on this point 
seems an important matter of prestige and distinction. 

But even a liberal-minded Northerner of cosmopolitan culture and with 
a minimum of conventional blinds will, in nine cases out of ten, express a 
definite feeling against amalgamation. He will not be willing usually to 
hinder intermarriage by law. Individual liberty is to him a higher principle 
and, what is more important, he actually invokes it. But he will regret the 
exceptional cases that occur. He may sometimes hold a philosophical view 
that in centuries to come amalgamation is bound to happen and might 
become the solution. But he will be inclined to look on it as an inevitable 
deterioration. 11 

* The response is likely to be anything but pleasant if one jestingly argues that possibly 
• small fraction of Negro blood in the American people, if it were blended well with all 



58 An American Dilemma 

This attitude of refusing to consider amalgamation — felt and expressed 
in the entire country — constitutes the center in the complex of attitudes 
which can be described as the "common denominator" in the problem. 
It defines the Negro group in contradistinction to all the non-colored 
minority groups in America and all other lower class groups. The boundary 
between Negro and white is not simply a class line which can be success- 
fully crossed by education, integration into the national culture, and 
individual economic advancement. The boundary is fixed. It is not a tem- 
porary expediency during an apprenticeship in the national culture. It 
is a bar erected with the intention of permanency. It is directed against the 
whole group. Actually, however, "passing" as a white person is possible 
when a Negro is white enough to conceal his Negro heritage. But the dif- 
ference between "passing" and ordinary social climbing reveals the distinc- 
tion between a class line, in the ordinary sense, and a caste line. 

This brings us to the point where we shall attempt to sketch, only in an 
abstract and preliminary form, the social mechanism by which the anti- 
amalgamation maxim determines race relations. This mechanism is per- 
ceived by nearly everybody in America, but most clearly in the South. 
Almost unanimously white Americans have communicated to the author 
the following logic of the caste situation which we shall call the "-white 
man's theory of color caste." 

(i) The concern for "race purity" is basic in the whole issue; the primary 
and essential command is to prevent amalgamation; the whites are 
determined to utilize every means to this end. 

(2) Rejection of "social equality" is to be understood as a precaution to 
hinder miscegenation and particularly intermarriage. 

(3) The danger of miscegenation is so tremendous that the segregation 
and discrimination inherent in the refusal of "social equality" must be 
extended to nearly all spheres of life. There must be segregation and 
discrimination in recreation, in religious service, in education, before 
the law, in politics, in housing, in stores and in breadwinning. 

This popular theory of the American caste mechanism is, of course, open 
to criticism. It can be criticized from a valuational point of view by main- 

the other good staff brought over to the new continent, might create a race of unsurpassed 
excellence: a people with just a little sunburn without extra trouble and even through the 
winter) with tome curl in the hair without the cost of a permanent wave; with, perhaps, 
a little more emotional warmth in their souls 1 and a little more religion, music, laughter, 
and carefreeness 111 their lives. Amalgamation is, to the ordinary American, not a proper 
subject for jokes at all, unless it can- be pulled down to the level of dirty stories, where, 
however, it enjoys a fai orcd place. Referred to society as a whole and viewed as a principle, 
11 the anti-amalgamation -naxim is held holy; it is a consecrated taboo. The maxim might, 
indeed, be a remnant of something really in the "mores." It is kept unproblematic, which is 
certainly not the case with all the rest of etiquette and segregation and discrimination 
patterns, for which this quality is sometimes erroneously claimed. 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 59 

taming that hindering miscegenation is not a worthwhile end, or that as 
an end it is not sufficiently worthwhile to counterbalance the sufferings 
inflicted upon the suppressed caste and the general depression of productive 
efficiency, standards of living and human culture in the American society 
at large — costs appreciated by all parties concerned. This criticism does not, 
however, endanger the theory which assumes that white people actually 
are following another valuation of means and ends and are prepared to 
pay the costs for attaining the ends. A second criticism would point out that, 
assuming the desirability of the end, this end could be reached without 
the complicated and, in all respects, socially expensive caste apparatus now 
employed. This criticism, however adequate though it be on the practical 
or political plane of discussion, does not disprove that people believe other- 
wise, and that the popular theory is a true representation of their beliefs 
and actions. 

To undermine the popular theory of the caste mechanism, as based on 
the anti-amalgamation maxim, it would, of course, be necessary to prove 
that people really are influenced by other motives than the ones pro- 
nounced. Much material has, as we shall find, been brought together indicat- 
ing that, among other things, competitive economic interests, which do not 
figure at all in the popular rationalization referred to, play a decisive role. 
The announced concern about racial purity is, when this economic motive 
it taken into account, no longer awarded the exclusive role as the basic 
cause in the psychology of the race problem. 

Though the popular theory of color caste turns out to be a rationaliza- 
tion, this does not destroy it. For among the forces in the minds of the 
white people are certainly not only economic interests (if these were the 
only ones, the popular theory would be utterly demolished), but also 
sexual urges, inhibitions, and jealousies, and social fears and cravings for 
prestige and security. When they come under the scrutiny of scientific 
research, both the sexual and the social complexes take on unexpected 
designs. We shall then also get a clue to understanding the remarkable 
tendency of this presumably biological doctrine, that it refers only to 
legal marriage and to relations between Negro men and white women, 
but not to extra-marital sex relations between white men and Negro women. 

However these sexual and social complexes might turn out when 
analyzed, they will reveal the psychological nature of the anti-amalgama- 
tion doctrine and show its "meaning." They will also explain the com- 
pressed emotion attached to the Negro problem. It is inherent in our type 
of modern Western civilization that sex and social status are for most indi- 
viduals the danger points, the directions whence he fears the sinister 
onslaughts on his personal security. These two factors are more likely than 
anything else to push a life problem deep down into the subconscious and 
load it with emotions. There is some probability that in America both com- 



60 An American Dilemma 

plexes are particularly laden with emotions. The American puritan tradi- 
tion gives everything connected with sex a higher emotional charge. The 
roads for social climbing have been kept more open in America than 
perhaps anywhere else in the world, but in this upward struggle the com- 
petition for social status has also become more absorbing. In a manner 
and to a degree most uncomfortable for the Negro people in America, both 
the sexual and the social complexes have become related to the Negro 
problem. 

These complexes are most of the time kept concealed. In occasional 
groups of persons and situations they break into the open. Even when not 
consciously perceived or expressed, they ordinarily determine interracial be- 
havior on the white side. 

4. The "Rank Order of Discriminations" 

The anti-amalgamation doctrine represents a strategic constellation of 
forces in race relations. Their charting will allow us a first general overview 
of the discrimination patterns and will have the advantage that white 
Americans themselves will recognize their own paths on the map we draw. 
When white Southerners are asked to rank, in order of importance, various 
types of discrimination,* they consistently present a list in which these types 
of discrimination are ranked according to the degree of closeness of their 
relation to the anti-amalgamation doctrine. This rank order — which will 
be referred to as "the "white man's rank order of discriminations" — will 
serve as an organizing principle in this book. It appears, actually, only as an 
elaboration of the popular theory of color caste sketched above. Like that 
theory, it is most clearly and distinctly perceived in the South ; in the North 
ideas are more vague but, on the whole, not greatly divergent. Neither the 
popular theory of caste nor the rank order of discriminations has been 
noted much in scientific literature on the Negro problem. 

The rank order held nearly unanimously is the following: 

Rank 1. Highest in this order stands the bar against intermarriage and sexual inter- 
course involving white women. 

Rank 2. Next come the several etiquettes and discriminations, which specifically 
concern behavior in personal relations. (These are the barriers against 
dancing, bathing, eating, drinking together, and social intercourse generally; 
peculiar rules as to handshaking, hat lifting, use of titles, house entrance 
to be used, social forms when meeting on streets and in work, and so forth. 
These patterns are sometimes referred to as the denial of "social equality" 
in the narrow meaning of the term.) 

* la this introductory sketch the distinction between "segregation" and "discrimination" 
is entirely disregarded. This distinction, signified by the popular theory and legal construct 
"separate but equal," is mainly to be regarded as an equalitarian rationalization on the part 
of the white Americans, indicating the fundamental conflict of valuations involved in the 
matter. "Segregation" means only separation and does not, in principle, imply "discrimin- 
ation." In practice it almost always does. (See Chapter 28.) 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 61 

Ran!: 3. Thereafter follow the segregations and discriminations in use of public 

facilities such as schools, churches and means of conveyance. 
Rank 4. Next comes political disfranchisement. 
Rank 5. Thereafter come discriminations in law courts, by the police, and by other 

public servants. 
Rank 6. Finally come the discriminations in securing land, credit, jobs, or other 

means of earning a living, and discriminations in public relief and other 

social welfare activities. 

It is unfortunate that this cornerstone in our edifice of basic hypotheses, 
like many of our other generalizations, has to be constructed upon the 
author's observations. 8 It is desirable that scientifically controlled, 
quantitative knowledge be substituted for impressionistic judgments as soon 
as possible." It should be noted that the rank order is very apparently 
determined by the factors of sex and social status, so that the closer the 
association of a type of interracial behavior is to sexual and social inter- 
course on an equalitarian basis, the higher it ranks among the forbidden 
things. 

Next in importance to the fact of the white man's rank order of dis- 
criminations is the fact that the Negro's own rank order is just about 
■parallel, but inverse, to that of the white man. The Negro resists least the 
discrimination on the ranks placed highest in the white man's evaluation and 
resents most any discrimination on the lowest level. This is in accord with 
the Negro's immediate interests. Negroes are in desperate need of jobs and 
bread, even more so than of justice in the courts, and of the vote. These 
latter needs are, in their turn, more urgent even than better schools and 
playgrounds, or, rather, they are primary means of reaching equality in the 
use of community facilities. Such facilities are, in turn, more important 
than civil courtesies. The marriage matter, finally, is of rather distant and 
doubtful interest. 

Such reflections are obvious; and most Negroes have them in their minds. 
It is another matter, however, whether the white man is prepared to stick 
honestly to the rank order which he is so explicit and emphatic in announc- 
ing. The question is whether he is really prepared to give the Negro a good 
job, or even the vote, rather than to allow him entrance to his front door 
or to ride beside him in the street car. 

Upon the assumption that this question is given an affirmative answer, 
that the white man is actually prepared to carry out in practice the implica- 
tions of his theories, this inverse relationship between the Negro's and the 
white man's rank orders becomes of strategical importance in the practical 
and political sphere of the Negro problem. Although not formulated in this 
way, such a relationship, or such a minimum moral demand on the ordinary 
white man, has always been the basis of all attempts to compromise and 
come to a better understanding between leaders of the two groups. It has 



6i An American Dilemma 

been the basis for all interracial policy and also for most of the practical 
work actually carried out by Negro betterment organizations. Followed to 
its logical end, it should fundamentally change the race situation in 
America. 

It has thus always been a primary requirement upon every Negro leader 
— who aspires to get any hearing at all from the white majority group, and 
who does not want to appear dangerously radical to the Negro group and 
at the same time hurt the "race pride" it has built up as a defense — that 
he shall explicitly condone the anti-amalgamation maxim, which is the 
keystone in the white man's structure of race prejudice, and forbear to 
express any desire on the part of the Negro people to aspire to inter- 
marriage with the whites. The request for intermarriage is easy for the 
Negro leader to give up. Intermarriage cannot possibly be a practical object 
of Negro public policy. Independent of the Negroes' wishes, the opportun- 
ity for intermarriage is not favorable as long as the great majority of the 
white population dislikes the very idea. As a defense reaction a strong 
attitude against intermarriage has developed in the Negro people itself. 10 
And the Negro people have no interest in defending the exploitative illicit 
relations between white men and Negro women. This race mingling is, 
on the contrary, commonly felt among Negroes to be disgraceful. And it 
often arouses the jealousy of Negro men. 

The required soothing gesture toward the anti-amalgamation doctrine 
is, therefore, readily delivered. It is iterated at every convenient oppor- 
tunity and belongs to the established routine of Negro leadership. For 
example, Robert R. Moton writes: 

As for amalgamation, very few expect it; still fewer want it; no one advocates it; 
and only a constantly diminishing minority practise it, and that surreptitiously. It is 
generally accepted on both sides of the colour line that it is best for the two races 
to remain ethnologically distinct. 11 

There seems thus to be unanimity among Negro leaders on the point 
deemed crucial by white Americans. If we attend carefully, we shall, how- 
ever, detect some important differences in formulation. The Negro spokes- 
man will never, to begin with, accept the common white premise of racial 
inferiority of the Negro stock. To quote Moton again: 

. . . even in the matter of the mingling of racial strains, however undesirable it 
might seem to be from a social point of view, he [the Negro] would never admit 
that hit blood carries any taint of. physiological, mental, or spiritual inferiority. 12 

'A doctrine of equal natural endowments — a doctrine contrary to the white 
man*« assumption of Negro inferiority, which is at the basis of the anti- 
amalgamation theory — has been consistently upheld. If a Negro leader 
publicly even hinted at the possibility of inherent racial inferiority, he 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 63 

would immediately lose his following. The entire Negro press watches the 
Negro leaders on this point. ' 

Even Booker T. Washington, the supreme diplomat of the Negro people 
through a generation filled with severe trials, who was able by studied 
unobtrusivencss to wring so many favors from the white majority, never 
dared to allude to such a possibility, though he sometimes criticized most 
severely his own people for lack of thrift, skill, perseverance and general 
culture. In fact, there is no reason to think that he did not firmly believe 
in the fundamental equality of inherent capacities. Privately, local Negro 
leaders might find it advisable to admit Negro inferiority and, particularly 
earlier, many individual Negroes might have shared the white man's 
view. But it will not be expressed by national leaders and, in fact, never 
when they are under public scrutiny. 13 An emphatic assertion of equal 
endowments is article number one in the growing Negro "race pride." 

Another deviation of the Negro faith in the anti-amalgamation doctrine 
is the stress that they, for natural reasons, lay on condemning exploitative 
illicit amalgamation. They turn the tables and accuse white men of debasing 
Negro womanhood, and the entire white culture for not rising up against 
this practice as their expressed antagonism against miscegenation should 
demand. Here they have a strong point, and they know how to press it. 14 

A third qualification in the Negro's acceptance of the anti-amalgamation 
doctrine, expressed not only by the more "radical" and outspoken Negro 
leaders, is the assertion that intermarriage should not be barred by law. 
The respect for individual liberty is invoked as an argument. But, in 
addition, it is pointed out that this barrier, by releasing the white man 
from the consequences of intimacy with a Negro woman, actually has the 
effect of inducing such intimacy and thus tends to increase miscegenation. 
Moton makes this point: 

The Negro woman suffers not only from the handicap of economic and social 
discriminations imposed upon the race as a whole, but is in addition the victim of 
unfavourable legislation incorporated in the marriage laws of twenty-nine states, 
which forbid the intermarriage of black and white. The disadvantage of these 
statutes lies, not as is generally represented, in the legal obstacle they present to social 
equality, but rather in the fact that such laws specifically deny to the Negro woman 
and her offspring that safeguard from abuse and exploitation with which the women 
of the white race are abundantly surrounded. On the other side, the effect of such 
legislation leaves the white man, who is so inclined, free of any responsibility 
attending his amatory excursions across the colour line and leaves the coloured woman 
without redress for any of the consequences of her defencelessness; whereas white 
women have every protection, from fine and imprisonment under the law to enforced 
marriage and lynching outside the law. 10 

But even with all these qualifications, the anti-amalgamation doctrine, 
the necessity of assenting to which is understood by nearly' everybody, 



64 An American Dilemma 

obviously encounters some difficulties in the minds of intellectual Negroes. 
They can hardly be expected to accept it as a just rule of conduct. They 
tend to accept it merely as a temporary expedient necessitated by human 
weakness. Kelly Miller thus wrote: 

. . . you would hardly expect the Negro, in derogation of his common human 
qualities, to proclaim that he is so diverse from God's other human creatures as to 
make the blending of the races contrary to the law of nature. The Negro refuses to 
become excited or share in your frenzy on this subject. The amalgamation of the 
races is an ultimate possibility, though not an immediate probability. But what have 
you and I to do with ultimate questions, anyway? 16 

And a few years later, he said: 

It must be taken for granted in the final outcome of things thai the color line 
will be wholly obliterated. While blood may be thicker than water, it docs not possess 
the spissitudc or inherency of everlasting principle. The brotherhood of man is 
more fundamental than the fellowship of race. A physical and spiritual identity of 
all peoples occupying common territory is a logical necessity of thought. The clear 
seeing mind refuses to yield or give its assent to any other ultimate conclusion. This 
consummation, however, is far too removed from the sphere of present probability 
to have decisive influence upon practical procedure. 17 

This problem is, of course, tied up with the freedom of the individual. 
"Theoretically Negroes would all subscribe to the right of freedom ol 
choice in marriage even between the two races," 18 wrote Moton. And Du 
Bois formulates it in stronger terms: 

... a woman may say, 1 do not want to marry this black man, or this red man, or 
this white man. . . . But the impudent and vicious demand that all colored folk 
shall write themselves down as brutes by a general assertion of their unfitness to 
marry other decent folk is a nightmare. 19 

Negroes have always pointed' out that the white man must not be very 
certain of his woman's lack of interest when he rises to such frenzy on 
behalf of the danger to her and feels compelled to build up such formid- 
able fences to prevent her from marrying a Negro. 

With these reservations both Negro leadership and the Negro masses 
acquiesce in the white anti-amalgamation doctrine. This attitude is noted 
with satisfaction in the white camp. The writer has observed, however, 
that the average white man, particularly in the South, does not feel quite 
convinced of the Negro's acquiescence. In several conversations, the same 
white person, in the same breath, has assured me, on the one hand, that the 
Negroes are perfectly satisfied in their position and would not like to be 
treated as equals, and on the other hand, that the only thing these Negroes 
long for is to be like white people and to marry their daughters. 

Whereas the Negro spokesman finds it possible to assent to the first 
rank of discrimination, namely, that involving miscegenation, it is more 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 65 

difficult for him to give his approval to the second rank of discrimination, 
namely, that involving "etiquette" and consisting in the white man's 
refusal to extend the ordinary courtesies to Negroes in daily life and his 
expectation of receiving certain symbolic signs of submissivencss from the 
Negro. The Negro leader could not do so without serious risk of censor- 
ship by his own people and rebuke by the Negro press. In all articulate 
group:: of Negroes there is a demand to have white men call them by their 
titles of Mr., Mrs., and Miss; to have white men take off their hats on 
entering a Negro's house; to be able to enter a white man's house through 
the front door rather than the back door, and so on. But on the whole, and 
in spite of the rule that they stand up for "social equality" in this sense, 
most Negroes in the South obey the white man's rules. 

Booker T. Washington went a long way, it is true, in his Atlanta speech 
in 1895 where he explained that: "In all things that are purely social we 
[the two races] can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all 
things essential to mutual progress."" He there seemed to condone not 
only these rules of "etiquette" but also the denial of "social equality" in 
a broader sense, including some of the further categories in the white man's 
rank order of discrimination. He himself was always most eager to observe 
the rules. But Washington was bitterly rebuked for this capitulation, 
particularly by Negroes in the North. And a long time has passed since 
then; the whole spirit in the Negro world has changed considerably in 
:hree decades. 

The modern Negro leader will try to solve this dilemma by iterating 
that no Negroes want to intrude upon white people's private lives. But 
this is not what Southern white opinion asks for. It is not satisfied with 
the natural rules of polite conduct that no individual, of whatever race, 
shall push his presence on a society where he is not wanted. It asks for a 
general order according to which all Negroes are placed under all white 
people and excluded from not only the white man's society but also from 
the ordinary symbols of respect. No Negro shall ever aspire to them, and 
no white shall be allowed to offer them. 

Thus, on this second rank of discrimination there is a wide gap between 
the ideologies of the two groups. As we then continue downward in our 
rank order and arrive at the ordinary Jim Crow practices, the segregation 
in schools, the disfranchisement, and the discrimination in employment, we 
find, on the one hand, that increasingly larger groups of white people are 
prepared to take a stand against these discriminations. Many a liberal white 
professor in the South who, for his own welfare, would not dare to entertain 
a Negro in his home and perhaps not even speak to him in a friendly man- 
ner on the street, will be found prepared publicly to condemn disfranchise- 
ment, lynching, and the forcing of the Negro' out of employment. Also, 
on the other hand, Negro spokesmen are becoming increasingly firm in 



66 An American Dilemma 

their opposition to discrimination on these lower levels. It is principally em 
these lower levels of the white man's rank order of discriminations that 
the race struggle goes on. The struggle will widen to embrace all the 
thousand problems of education, politics, economic standards, and so forth, 
and the frontier will shift from day to day according to varying events. 

Even a superficial view of discrimination in America will reveal to the 
observer: first, that there are great differences, not only between larger 
regions, but between neighboring communities; and, second, that even in 
the same community, changes occur from one time to another. There is 
also, contrary to the rule that all Negroes are to be treated alike, a certain 
amount of discretion depending upon the class and social status of the 
Negro in question. A white person, especially if he has high status in the 
community, is, furthermore, supposed to be free, within limits, to overstep 
the rules. The rules are primarily to govern the Negro's behavior. 

Some of these differences and changes can be explained. But the need 
for their interpretation is perhaps less than has sometimes been assumed. 
Hie variations in discrimination between local communities or from one 
tune to another are often not of primary consequence. All of these thousand 
and one precepts, etiquettes, taboos, and disabilities inflicted upon the Negro 
have a common purpose: to express the subordinate status of the Negro 
people and the exalted position of the whites. They have their meaning and 
chief function as symbols. As symbols they are, however, interchangeable 
to an extent: one can serve in place of another without causing material 
difference in the essential social relations in the community. 

The differences in patterns of discrimination between the larger regions 
of the country and the temporal changes of patterns within one region, 
Which reveal a definite trend, have, on the contrary, more material import. 
These differences and changes imply, in fact, a considerable margin of 
variation within the very notion of American caste, which is not true of 
all the other minor differences between the changes in localities within a 
single region — hence the reason for a clear distinction. For exemplification 
it may suffice here to refer only to the differentials in space. As one moves 
|rom the Deep South through the Upper South and the Border states to 
the North, the manifestations of discrimination decrease in extent and 
intensity; at the same time the rules become more uncertain and capricious. 
"ijlhe "color line" becomes a broad ribbon of arbitrariness. The old New 
England states stand, on the whole, as the antipode to the Deep South. 
This generalization requires important qualifications, and the relations are 
in process of change. 

•«' The decreasing discrimination as we go from South to North in the 
United States is apparently related to a weaker jbask prejudice. In the 
North the Negroes have fair justice and are not disfranchised; they are 
not Jim-Crowed in public means of conveyance; educational institutions 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 67 

are less segregated. The interesting thing is that the decrease of discrim- 
ination does not regularly follow the white man's rank order. Thus inter- 
marriage, placed on the top of the rank order, is legally permitted in all 
but one of the Northern states east of the Mississippi. The racial etiquette, 
being the most conspicuous element in the second rank, is, practically 
speaking, absent from the North. On the other hand, employment discrim- 
inations, placed at the bottom of the rank order, at times are equally 
severe, or more so, in some Northern communities than in the South, even 
if it is true that Negroes have been able to press themselves into many 
more new avenues of employment during the last generation in the North 
than in the South. 

There is plenty of discrimination in the North. But it is — or rather its 
rationalization is— kept hidden. We can, in the North, witness the legis- 
lators' obedience to the American Creed when they solemnly pass laws and 
regulations to condemn and punish such acts of discrimination which, as 
a matter of routine, are committed daily by the great majority of the 
white citizens and by the legislators themselves. In the North, as indeed 
often in the South, public speakers frequently pronounce principles of 
human and civic equality. We see here revealed in relief the Negro problem 
as an American Dilemma. 

5. Relationships Between Lower Class Groups 

It was important to compare the Negro problem with American minority 
problems in general because both the similarities and the dissimilarities are 
instructive. Comparisons give leads, and they furnish perspective. 

This same reason permits us to point out that the consideration of the 
Negro problem as one minority problem among others is far too narrow. 
The Negro has usually the same disadvantages and some extra ones in 
addition. To these other disadvantaged groups in America belong not 
only the groups recognized as minorities, but all economically weak classes 
in die nation, the bulk of the Southern people, women," and others. This 
country is a "white man's country," but, in addition, it is a country belong- 
ing primarily to the elderly, male, upper class, Protestant Northerner. 
Viewed in this setting the Negro problem in America is but one local and 
temporary facet of that eternal problem of world dimension — how to 
regulate the conflicting interests of groups in the best interest of justice 
and fairness. The latter ideals are vague and conflicting, and their meaning 
is changing in the course of the struggle. 

There seems to be a general structure of social relations between groups 
on different levels of power and advantage. From a consideration of our 

* The parallel between the status of Negroes and of women, who are neither a minority 
group not a low social class, is particularly instructive $ see Appendix 5, "A Parallel to til* 
Negro Problem." 



66 An American Dilemma 

exaggeratedly "typical" case—the Negro— we may hope to reach sonic 
suggestions toward a more satisfactory general theory about' this social 
power structure in general. Our hypothesis is that in a society where there 
are broad social classes and, in addition, more minute distinctions and 
splits in the lower strata, the lower class group will, to a great extent, take 
care of keeping each other subdued, thus relieving, to that extent, the 
higher classes of this otherwise painful task necessary to the monopolization 
of the power and the advantages. 

It wUl be observed that this hypothesis is contrary to the Marxian theory 
of class society, which in the period between the two World Wars has been 
so powerful, directly and indirectly, consciously and unconsciously, in 
American social science thinking generally. The Marxian scheme assumes 
that there is an actual solidarity between the several lower class groups 
against the higher classes, or, in any case, a potential solidarity which as a 
matter of natural development is bound to emerge. The inevitable result 
is a "class struggle" where all poor and disadvantaged groups are united 
behind the barricades. 

Such a construction has had a considerable vogue in all discussions on 
the American Negro problem since the First World War. We are not here 
taking issue with the political desirability of a common front between the 
poorer classes of whites and the Negro people who, for the most part, 
oelong to the proletariat. In fact, we can well see that such a practical 
judgment is motivated as a conclusion from certain value premises in line 
with the American Creed. But the thesis has also been given a theoretical 
content as describing actual trends in reality and not only political 
desiderata. A solidarity between poor whites and Negroes has been said 
to be "natural" and the conflicts to be due to "illusions." This thesis, 
which will be discussed in some detail in Chapter 38, has been a leading 
one in the field and much has been made of even the faintest demonstration 
of such solidarity. 

In partial anticipation of what is to follow later in this volume, we might 
be permitted to make a few general, and perhaps rather dogmatic, remarks 
in criticism of this theory. Everything we know about human frustration 
and aggression, and the displacement of aggression, speaks against it. For 
in individual to feel interest solidarity with a group assumes his psycho- 
logical identification with the group. This identification must be of con- 
siderable strength, as the very meaning of solidarity is that he is pre- 
pared to set aside and even sacrifice his own short-range private interests 
for the lofljg-Tange interests of his group. Every vertical split within the 
lower dais; aggregate will stand as an obstacle to the feeling of solidarity. 
Even within' the white working class itself, as within the entire American 
nation, the feeling of solidarity and loyalty is relatively low.* Despite the 

* See Chapter 33. 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 69 

considerable mobility, especially in the North, the Negroes are held apart 
from the whites by caste, which furnishes a formidable bar to mutual 
identification and solidarity. 

It has often occurred to me, when reflecting upon the responses I get 
from white laboring people on this strategic question, that my friends among 
the younger Negro intellectuals, whose judgment I otherwise have 
learned to admire greatly, have perhaps, and for natural reasons, not had 
enough occasion to find out for themselves what a bitter, spiteful, and 
relentless feeling often prevails against the Negroes among lower class 
white people in America. Again relying upon my own observations, I have 
become convinced that the laboring Negroes do not resent whites in any 
degree comparable with the resentment shown in the opposite direction 
by the laboring whites. The competitive situation is, and is likely to remain, 
highly unstable. 

It must be admitted that, in the midst of harsh caste resentment, signs 
of newborn working class solidarity are not entirely lacking; we shall have 
to discuss these recent tendencies in some detail in order to evaluate the 
resultant trend and the prospects for the future." On this point there 
seems, however, to be a danger of wishful thinking present in most writ- 
ings on the subject. The Marxian solidarity between the toilers of all the 
earth will, indeed, have a long way to go as far as concerns solidarity of 
the poor white Americans with the toiling Negro. This is particularly true 
of the South but true also of the communities in the North where the 
Negroes are numerous and competing with the whites for employment. 

Our hypothesis is similar to the view taken by an older group of Negro 
writers and by most white writers who have touched this crucial question: 
that the Negro's friend — or the one who is least unfriendly — is still rather 
the upper class of white people, the people with economic and social security 
who are truly a "noncompeting group." There are many things in the 
economic, political, and social history of the Negro which are simply 
inexplicable by the Marxian theory of class solidarity but which fit into 
our hypothesis of the predominance of internal lower class struggle. Du 
Bois, in Black Reconstruction, argues that it would have been desirable 
if after the Civil War the landless Negroes and the poor whites had joined 
hands to retain political power and carry out a land reform and a progres- 
sive government in the Southern states} one sometimes feels that he thinks 
it would have been a possibility. 21 From our point of view such a possibility 
did not exist at all, and the negative outcome was neither an accident nor 
a result of simple deception or delusion. These two groups, illiterate and 
insecure in an impoverished South, placed in an intensified competition 
with each other, lacking every trace of primary solidarity, and marked off 
from each other by color and tradition, could not possibly be expected to 

'See Chapter it. 



: .."50 ,: ' . " Am Am8*ksah Bhjkmma 

clasp bands. There is a Swedish proverb: "When the leedbcoc is empty, 
the horses will bite each other. 1 * 

That part of the country where, even today, the Negro is dealt with 
most severely, the South, is also a disadvantaged and, in most respects, 
backward region in the nation. The Negro lives there in the midst of other 
relatively subordinated groups. Like the Negro, the entire South is a 
problem. We do not want to minimize other obvious explanations of the 
harsher treatment of the Negro in the South: his concentration there in 
large numbers, the tradition of subordination retained from slavery, and 
the traumatic effect of the Civil War and Reconstruction; but we do want 
to stress the fact that the masses of white Southerners are poor and to keep 
in mind the tendency of lower class groups to struggle against each other.* 

'.The great similarity in cultural situation — on a different level — between the Negro 
people in all America and the white South should not be overlooked. Many of the general 
thing! which can be said about the Negroes hold true, in large measure, of the white 
Southerners, or something quite similar can be asserted. Thus, just as the Negro sees him- 
self economically excluded and exploited, so the Southern white man has been trained to 
think of his economy as a colony for Yankee exploitation. As the Negro has been compelled 
to develop race pride and a "protective" community, so the white South has also a strong 
group feeling. The white South is also something of a nation within a nation. It is cer- 
tainly no accident that a "regional approach" in social science has been stressed in the 
South. The Southerner, like the Negro, is apt to be sensitive and to take any personal 
remark or observation as a rebuke, and a rebuke not only against himself but against the 
whole South. In analyzing himself, he finds the same general traits of extreme individualism 
and romanticism which are ascribed to the Negro. His educators and intellectual leaders 
find it necessary to complain of the same shortcomings in him as he finds in the Negro: 
violence, laziness, lack of thrift, lack of rational efficiency and respect for law and social 
order, lack of punctuality and respect for deadlines. The rickety rocking-chair ci the 
porch has a symbolic meaning in the South not entirely different from that of the Negro's 
watermelon, although there is more an association of gloom and dreariness around the 
former stereotype, and happy-go-lucky carefreeness around the latter. The expression 
••C J.T." — colored people's time — is often referred to in the South, but nearly as frequently 
it is jestingly suggested that it fits the folkways also of the white Southerners. The casual 
carrying of weapons, which is so associated in the Northerners' minds with the Negro, is 
commonplace among white Southerners. Both groups are on the average more religious 
than the rest of America, and the preacher is, or has been, more powerful in society. In 
jmth groups there is also a tendency toward fundamentalism and emotionalism, the former 
characteristic more important for the whites, the latter for the Negroes. The general 
educational level in the South has, for lack of school facilities, been lower than the 
national norm, and as a result an obvious double standard in favor of Southerners is 
Actually being applied by higher educational institutions and by such organizations as 
foundations awarding fellowships and encouraging research projects. The Yankee prejudice 
'.against the SflirtlMrften takes the form of a paternalistic favoring of a weaker group. The 
''white wrj|es||i4rf-.^»e South, like the Negro writers, are accustomed to work mainly for a 
! readers. And they .have, for the benefit of the out-group, exploited the 
Ice and oddness. During the 'twenties both groups had a literary renais- 
described in both cases as an emancipation from outside determinants and 
.. -_-hbound realism. This list could be continued to a considerable length, but 
k tea already been nude understandable both why the Negro in a way feels so much at 
la the South and why his lot there sometimes becomes so sad and even tragic. 




Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 71 

A few remarks are now relevant on the internal social stratification of 
the Negro group itself. The stratification of the Negro caste into classes 
is well developed and the significance attached to class distinctions is great 
This is not surprising in view of the fact that caste harriers, which prevent 
individuals of the lower group from rising out of it, force all social climbing 
to occur within the caste and encourage an increase in internal social com- 
petition for the symbols of prestige and power. Caste consigns the over- 
whelming majority of Negroes to the lower class. But at the same time as 
it makes higher class status rarer, it accentuates the desire for prestige and 
social distance within the Negro caste. It fact it sometimes causes a more 
minute class division than the ordinary one, and always invests it with 
more subjective importance." The social distinctions within a disadvantaged 
group for this reason become a fairly adequate index of the group's social 
isolation from the larger society. 

Caste produces, on the one hand, a strong feeling of mutuality of fate, 
of in-group fellowship — much stronger than a general low class position 
can develop. The Negro community is a protective community, and we 
shall> in the following chapters, see this trait reflected in practically all 
aspects of the Negro problem. But, on the other hand, the intcrclass 
strivings, often heightened to vigorous mutual repulsion and resentment, 
are equally conspicuous. 

Negro writers, especially newspapermen, particularly when directing 
themselves to a Negro audience, have always pointed out, as the great 
fault of the race, its lack of solidarity. The same note is struck in practically 
every public address and often in sermons when the preacher for a moment 
leaves his other-worldliness. It is the campaign cry of the organizations 
for Negro business. Everywhere one meets the same endless complaints: 
that the Negroes won't stick together, that they don't trust each other but 
rather the white man, that they can't plan and act in common, that they 
don't back their leaders, that the leaders can't agree, or that they deceive 
the people and sell out their interests to the whites. 

In order not to be dogmatic in a direction opposite to the one criticized, 
we should point out that the principle of internal struggle in the lower 
classes is only one social force among many. Other forces are making for 
solidarity in the lower classes. In both of the two problems raised— the 
solidarity between lower class whites and Negroes and the internal solidarity 
within the Negro group— there can be any degree of solidarity, ranging 
between utter mistrust and complete trustfulness. The scientific problem is 
to find out and measure the degree of solidarity and the social forces 
determining it, not just to assume that solidarity will come about << naturally ,, 
and "inevitably ." The factors making for solidarity are both irrational and 
rational. Among the irrational factors are tradition, fear, charisma, brute 

■See Chapter ja. 



^2 Am American Dilemma 

force, propaganda. The main rational factors are economic and social 
security and a planned program of civic education. 

While visiting in Southern Negro communities, the writer was forced 
to the observation that often the most effective Negro leaders— those with 
a rational balance of courage and restraint, a realistic understanding of the 
power situation, and an unfailing loyalty to the Negro cause — were federal 
employees (for example, postal clerks), petty railway officials, or other 
persons with their economic basis outside the local white or Negro com- 
munity and who had consequently a measure of economic security and 
some leisure time for thinking and studying. They were, unfortunately, 
few. Generally speaking, whenever the masses, in any part of the world, 
have permanently improved their social, economic, and political status 
through orderly organizations founded upon solidarity, these masses have 
not been a semi-illiterate proletariat, but have already achieved a measure 
of economic security and education. The vanguards of such mass reform 
movements have always belonged to the upper fringe of the lower classes 
concerned. 

If this hypothesis is correct and if the lower classes have interests in 
common, the steady trend in this country toward improved educational 
facilities and toward widened social security for the masses of the people 
will work for increased solidarity between the lower class groups. But 
changes in this direction will probably be slow, both because of some 
general factors impeding broad democratic mass movements in America" 
and — in our special problems, solidarity between whites and Negroes — 
because of the existence of caste. 

In this connection we must not forget the influence of ideological forces. 
And we must guard against the common mistake of reducing them solely 
to secondary expressions of economic interests. Independent (that is, 
independent of the economic interests involved in the Negro problem) 
ideological forces of a liberal character are particularly strong in America 
because of the central and influential position of the American Creed in 
people's valuations. 

It may be suggested as an hypothesis, already fairly well substantiated 
by research and by common observation, that those liberal ideological 
forces tend to create a tie between the problems of all disadvantaged groups 
in society, and that they work for solidarity between these groups. A study 
of opinions in the Negro problem will reveal, we believe, that persons 
who are inclined to favor measures to help the underdog generally, are 
also, and as a. pact of this attitude, usually inclined to give the Negro a lift. 
There is jujatrobtion between political opinions in different issues, 1 ' which 
probably seats upon, a basis of temperamental personality traits and has its 



* See Chapter 33. 

*F©r a ditcuMion of the correlation of opinion* in different utiles, tee Appendix *, 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 73 

deeper roqts in all the cultural influences working upon a personality. If 
this correlation is represented by a composite scale running from radicalism, 
through liberalism and conservatism, to reactionism, it is suggested that 
it will be found that all subordinate groups — Negroes, women, minorities 
in general, poor people, prisoners, and so forth — will find their interests 
more favored in political opinion as we move toward the left of the scale. 
This hypothesis of a system of opinion correlation will, however, have to 
be taken with a grain of salt, since this correlation is obviously far from 
complete. 

In general, poor people are not radical and not even liberal, though to 
have such political opinions would often be in their interest. Liberalism is 
not characteristic of Negroes either, except, of course, that they take a 
radical position in the Negro problem. We must guard against a superficial 
bias (probably of Marxian origin) which makes us believe that the lower 
classes are naturally prepared to take a broad point of view and a friendly 
attitude toward all disadvantaged groups. A liberal outlook is much more 
likely to emerge among people in a somewhat secure social and economic 
situation and with a background of education. The problem for political 
liberalism — if, for example, we might be allowed to pose the problem in 
the practical, instead of the theoretical mode — appears to be first to lift 
the masses to security and education and then to work to make them liberal. 

The South, compared to the other regions of America, has the least 
economic security, the lowest educational level, and is most conservative. 
The South's conservatism is manifested not only with respect to the Negrg 
problem but also with respect to all the other important problems of the 
last decades — woman suffrage, trade unionism, labor legislation, social 
security reforms, penal reforms, civil liberties — and with respect to broad 
philosophical matters, such as the character of religious beliefs and practices. 
Even at present the South does not have a full spectrum of political 
opinions represented within its public discussion. There are relatively few 
liberals in the South and practically no radicals." 

The recent economic stagnation (which for the rural South has lasted 
much more than ten years), the flood of social reforms thrust upon the 
South by the federal government, and the fact that the rate of industrial- 
ization in the South is higher than in the rest of the nation, may well come 
to cause an upheaval in the South's entire opinion structure. The importance 
of this for the Negro problem may be considerable." 

6. The Manifoldness and the Unity of the Negro Problem 

The Negro problem has the manifoldness of human life. Like the 
women's problem, it touches every other social issue, or rather, it repre- 
sents an angle of diem all. A glance at the table of contents of this volume 

'See Chapter 21, Section 5. 
' See Chapter ai, Sectios * 



74 An American Dilemma 

shows that in our attempt to analyze the Negro problem we haye not been 
able to avoid anything: race, culture, population, breadwinning, economic 
and social policy, law, crime, class, family, recreation, school, church,' press, 
organizations, politics, attitudes. 

The perplexities and manifoldness of the Negro problem have even 
increased considerably during the last generation. One reason is migration 
and industrialization. The Negro has left his seclusion. A much smaller 
portion of the Negro people of today lives in the static, rather inarticulate 
folk society of the old plantation economy. The Negro people have increas- 
ingly stepped into the midst of America's high-geared metropolitan life, 
and they have by their coming added to the complication of these already 
tremendously complicated communities. This mass movement of Negroes 
from farms to cities and from the South to the North has, contrary to 
expectation, kept up in bad times as in good, and is likely to continue. 

Another and equally important reason why the Negro problem shows 
an increasing involvement with all sorts of other special problems is the 
fact that America, especially during the last ten years, has started to use 
the state as an instrument for induced social change. The New Deal has 
actually changed the whole configuration of the Negro problem. Particu- 
larly when looked upon from the practical and political viewpoints, the 
contrast between the present situation and the one prior to the New Deal 
is striking. 

Until then the practical Negro problem involved civil rights, education, 
charity, and little more. Now it has widened, in pace with public policy in 
the new "welfare state," and involves housing, nutrition, medicine, educa- 
tion, relief and social security, wages and hours, working conditions, child 
and woman labor, and, lately, the armed forces and the war industries. 
The Negro's share may be meager in all this new state activity, but he 
has been given a share. He has been given a broader and more variegated 
front to defend and from which to push forward. This is the great import 
of the New Deal to the Negro. For almost the first time in the history of 
the nation the state has done something substantial in a social way without 
excluding the Negro. 

In this situation it has sometimes appeared as if there were no longer a 
Negro problem distinct from all the other social problems in the United 
States. In popular periodicals, articles on the general Negro problem gave 
way to much more specific subjects during the 'thirties. Even on the 
theoretical level it has occurred to many that it was time to stop studying 
the Negro problem in itself. The younger generation of Negro intellectuals . 
have become tired of all the talk about the Negro problem on which they 
. were brought up, and which sometimes seemed to them so barren of real 
deliveries. They started to criticize the older generation of Negroes for 
their obsession with the Negro problem. In many ways this was a move- 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 75 

ment which could be considered as the continuation, during the 'thirties, 
of the "New Negro Movement" of the 'twenties. 

We hear it said nowadays that there is no "race problem," but only a 
"class problem." The Negro sharecropper is alleged to be destitute not 
because of his color but because of his class position — and it is pointed out 
that there are white people who are equally poor. From a practical angle 
there is a point in this reasoning. But from a theoretical angle it contains 
escapism in new form." It also draws too heavily on the idealistic Marxian 
doctrine of the "class struggle." And it tends to conceal the whole system 
of special deprivations visited upon the Negro only because he is not white. 
We find also that as soon as the Negro scholar, ideologist, or reformer 
leaves these general ideas about how the Negro should think, he finds 
himself discussing nothing but Negro rights, the Negro's share, injustices 
against Negroes, discrimination against Negroes, Negro interests — nothing, 
indeed, but the old familiar Negro problem, though in some new political 
relations. He is back again in the "race issue." And there is substantial 
reason for it. 

The reason, of course, is that there is really a common tie and, therefore, 
a unity in all the special angles of the Negro problem. All these specific 
problems are only outcroppings of one fundamental complex of human 
valuations — that of American caste. This fundamental complex derives 
its emotional charge from the equally common race prejudice, from its 
manifestations in a general tendency toward discrimination, and from its 
political potentialities through its very inconsistency with the American 
Creed. 

7. The Theory of the Vicious Circle 

A deeper reason for the unity of the Negro problem will be apparent 
when we now try to formulate our hypothesis concerning its dynamic 
causation. The mechanism that operates here is the "principle of cumula- 
tion," also commonly called the "vicious circle." b This principle has a much 
wider application in social relations. It is, or should be developed into, a 
main theoretical tool in studying social change. 

Throughout this inquiry, we shall assume a general interdependence 
between all the factors in the Negro problem. White prejudice and 
discrimination keep the Negro low in standards of living, health, education, 
manners and morals. This, in its turn, gives support to white prejudice. 
White prejudice and Negro standards thus mutually "cause" each other. 
If thing9 remain about as they are and have been, this means that the two 

* See Chapter 38, Sections 5 to 7. 

" See Appendix 3, "A Methodological Note on the Principle of Cumulation." We call 
the principle the "principle of cumulation" rather than "vicious circle" because it can work 
in an "upward" desirable direction as well as in a "downward" undesirable direction. 



j6 An American Dilemma 

forces happen to balance each other. Such a static "accommodation" is, 
however, entirely accidental. If either of the factors changes, this will 
cause a change in the other factor, too, and start a process of interaction 
where the change in one factor will continuously be supported by the 
reaction of the other factor. The whole system will be moving in the 
direction of the primary change, but much further. This is what we mean 
by cumulative causation. 

If, for example, we assume that for some reason white prejudice could 
be decreased and discrimination mitigated, this is likely to cause a rise in 
Negro standards, which may decrease white prejudice still a little more, 
which would again allow Negro standards to rise, and so on through 
mutual interaction. If, instead, discrimination should become intensified, we 
should see the vicious circle spiraling downward. The original change can 
as easily be a change of Negro standards upward or downward. The effects 
would, in a similar manner, run back and forth in the interlocking system 
of interdependent causation. In any case, the initial change would be 
supported by consecutive waves of back-effects from the reactions of the 
other factor. 

The same principle holds true if we split one of our two variables into 
component factors. A rise in Negro employment, for instance, will raise 
family incomes, standards of nutrition, housing, and health, the possibil- 
ities of giving the Negro youth more education, and so forth, and all these 
effects of the initial change, will, in their turn, improve the Negroes' 
possibilities of getting employment and earning a living. The original push 
could have been on some other factor than employment, say, for example, 
an improvement of health or educational facilities for Negroes. Through 
action and interaction the whole system of the Negro's "status" would 
have been set in motion in the direction indicated by the first push. Much 
the same thing holds true of the development of white prejudice. Even 
assuming no changes in Negro standards, white prejudice can change, for 
example, as a result of an increased general knowledge about biology, 
eradicating some of the false beliefs among whites concerning Negro racial 
inferiority. If this is accomplished, it will in some degree censor the hostile 
and derogatory valuations which fortify the false beliefs, and education will 
then be able to fight racial beliefs with more success. 

By this we have only wanted to give a hint of an explanatory scheme of 
dynamic causation which we are going to utilize throughout this inquiry. 
As pointed out in Appendix 3, and as we shall find in later chapters, the 
interrelations are in reality much more complicated than in our abstract 
illustrations, and there are all sorts of irregularities in the reaction of 
* various factors. But the complications should not force us to give up our 
main hypothesis that a cumulative principle is working in social change. It 
is actually this hypothesis which gives a theoretical meaning to the Negro 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 77 

problem as a special phase of all other social problems in America. Behind 
the barrier of common discrimination, there is unity and close interrelation 
between the Negro's political power; his civil rights; his employment 
opportunities; his standards of housing, nutrition and clothing; his health, 
manners, and law observance; his ideals and ideologies. The unity is largely 
the result of cumulative causation binding them all together in a system 
and tying them to white discrimination. It is useful, therefore, to interpret 
all the separate factors from a central vantage point — the point of view 
of the Negro problem. 

Another corollary from our hypothesis is practical. In the field of Negro 
politics any push upward directed on any one of those factors — if our main 
hypothesis is correct — moves all other factors in the same direction and 
has, through them, a cumulative effect upon general Negro status. An 
upward trend of Negro status in general can be effected by any number 
of measures, rather independent of where the initial push is localized. By 
the process of cumulation it will be transferred through the whole system. 

But, as in the field of economic anti-depression policy, it matters a lot 
how the measures are proportioned and applied. The directing and 
proportioning of the measures is the task of social engineering. This 
engineering should be based on a knowledge of how all the factors 
are actually interrelated: what effect a primary change upon each factor 
will have on all other factors. It can be generally stated, however, 
that it is likely that a rational policy will never work by changing 
only one factor, least of all if attempted suddenly and with great force. 
In most cases that would either throw the system entirely out of gear or 
else prove to be a wasteful expenditure of effort which could reach much 
further by being spread strategically over various factors in the system and 
over a period of time. 

This — and the impracticability of getting political support for a great 
and sudden change of just one factor — is the rational refutation of so-called 
panaceas. Panaceas are now generally repudiated in the literature on the 
Negro problem, though usually without much rational motivation. There 
still exists, however, another theoretical idea which is similar to the idea 
of panacea: the idea that there is one predominant factor, a "basic factor." 
Usually the sc-called "economic factor" is assumed to be this basic factor. 
A vague conception of economic determinism has, in fact, come to color 
most of the modern writings on the Negro problem far outside the Marxist 
school. Such a view has unwarrantedly acquired the prestige of being a 
particularly "hard-boiled" scientific approach. 

As we look upon the problem of dynamic social causation, this approach 
is unrealistic and narrow. We do not, of course, deny that the conditions 
under which Negroes are allowed to earn a living are tremendously 
important for their welfare. But these conditions are closely interrelated 



78 An American Dilemma 

to all other conditions of Negro life. When studying the variegated causes 
of discrimination in the labor market, it is, indeed, difficult to perceive what 
precisely is meant by "the economic factor." The Negro's legal and political 
status and all the causes behind this, considerations by whites of social 
prestige, and everything else in the Negro problem belong to the causation 
of discrimination in the labor market, in exactly the same way as the 
Negro's low economic status is influential in keeping down his health, his 
educational level, his political power, and his status in other respects. 
Neither from a theoretical point of view — in seeking to explain the Negro's 
caste status in American society — nor from a practical point of view — in 
a tempting to assign the strategic points which can most effectively be 
attacked in order to raise his status — is there any reason, or, indeed, any 
possibility of singling out "the economic factor" as basic. In an interde- 
pendent system of dynamic causation there is no "primary cause" but 
everything is cause to everything else. 

If this theoretical approach is bound to do away in the practical sphere 
with all panaceas, it is, on the other hand, equally bound to encourage the 
reformer. The principle of cumulation — in so far as it holds true — promises 
final effects of greater magnitude than the efforts and costs of the reforms 
themselves. The low status of the Negro is tremendously wasteful all 
around — the low educational standard causes low earnings and health 
deficiencies, for example. The cumulatively magnified eftect of a push 
upward on any one of the relevant factors is, in one sense, a demonstration 
and a measure of the earlier existing waste. In the end, the cost of raising 
the status of the Negro may not involve any "real costs" at all for society, 
but instead may result in great "social gains" and actual savings for society. 
A movement downward will, for the same reason, increase "social waste" 
out of proportion to the original saving involved in the push downward 
of one factor or another. 

These dynamic concepts of "social waste," "social gain," and "real costs" 
are mental tools originated in the practical man's workshop. To give them 
a clearer meaning — which implies expressing also the underlying social 
value premises — and to measure them in quantitative terms represents 
from a practical viewpoint a main task of social science. Fulfilling that task 
in a truly comprehensive way is a stage of dynamic social theory still to be 
reached but definitely within vision. 

8. A Theory of Democracy 

The factors working on the white side in our system of dynamic causation 
were brought together under the heading "race prejudice." For our present 
purpose, it is defined as discrimination by whites against Negroes. One 
viewpoint on race prejudice needs to be presented at this point, chiefly 
because of its dose relation to our hypothesis of cumulative causation. 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 79 

The chemists talk about "irreversible processes," meaning a trait of a 
chemical process to go in one direction with ease but, for all practical 
purposes, to be unchangeable back to its original state (as when a house 
burns down). When we observe race prejudice as it appears in American 
daily life, it is difficult to avoid the reflection that it seems so much easier 
to increase than to decrease race prejudice. One is reminded of the old 
saying that nineteen fresh apples do not make a single rotten apple fresh, 
but that one rotten apple rapidly turns the fresh ones rotten. When we 
come to consider the various causative factors underlying race prejudice — 
economic competition; urges and fears for social status; and sexual drives, 
fears, jealousies, and inhibitions — this view will come to be understandable. 
It is a common observation that the white Northerner who settles in the 
South will rapidly take on the stronger race prejudice of the new sur- 
roundings; while the Southerner going North is likely to keep his race 
prejudice rather unchanged and perhaps even to communicate it to those 
he meets. The Northerner 111 the South will find the whole community 
intent upon his conforming to local patterns. The Southerner in the North 
will not meet such concerted action, but will feel, rather, that others are 
adjusting toward him wherever he goes. If the local hotel in a New 
England town has accommodated a few Negro guests without much worry 
one way or the other, the appearance one evening of a single white guest 
who makes an angry protest against it might permanently change the 
policy of the hotel. 

If we assume that a decrease in race prejudice is desirable — on grounds 
of the value premise of the American Creed and of the mechanism of 
cumulative wastage just discussed — such a general tendency, inherent in the 
psychology of race prejudice, would be likely to force us to a pessimistic 
outlook. One would expect a constant tendency toward increased race 
prejudice, and the interlocking causation with the several factors on the 
Negro side would be expected to reinforce the movement. Aside from all 
valuations, the question must be raised: Why is race prejudice, in spite of 
this tendency to continued intensification which we have observed, never- 
theless, on the whole not increasing but decreasing? 

This question is, in fact, only a special variant of the enigma of philos- 
ophers for several thousands of years: the problem of Good and Evil 
in the world. One h reminded of that cynical but wise old man, Thomas 
Hobbes, who proved rather conclusively that, while any person's actual 
possibilities to improve the lot of his fellow creatures amounted to almost 
nothing, everyone's opportunity to do damage was always immense. The 
wisest and most virtuous man will hardly leave a print in the sand behind 
him, meant Hobbes, but an imbecile crank can set fire to a whole town. 
Why is the world, then, not steadily and rapidly deteriorating, but rather, 
at least over long periods, progressing? Hobbes raised this question. His 



80 An American Dilemma 

answer was, as we know: the State, Leviathan. Our own tentative answer 
to the more specific but still overwhelmingly general question we have 
raised above will have something in common with that of the post- Eliza- 
bethan materialist and hedonist, but it will have its stress placed differently, 
as we shall subsequently see. 

Two principal points will be made by way of a preliminary and hypo- 
thetical answer, as they influence greatly our general approach to the Negro 
problem. The first point is the American Creed, the relation of which to 
the Negro problem will become apparent as our inquiry proceeds. The 
Creed of progress, liberty, equality, and humanitarianism is not so unin- 
fluential on everyday life as might sometimes appear. 

The second point is the existence in society of huge institutional struc- 
tures like the church, the school, the university, the foundation, the trade 
union, the association generally, and, of course, the state. It is true, as we 
shall find, that these institutional structures in their operation show an 
accommodation to local and temporary interests and prejudices — they could 
not be expected to do otherwise as they are made up of individuals with 
all their local and temporary characteristics. As institutions they are, how- 
ever, devoted to certain broad ideals. It is in these institutions that the 
American Creed has its instruments: it plays upon them as on mighty 
organs. In adhering to these ideals, the institutions show a pertinacity, 
matched only by their great flexibility in local and temporary accommo- 
dation. 

The school, in every community, is likely to be a degree more broad- 
minded than local opinion. So is the sermon in church. The national labor 
assembly is prone to decide slightly above the prejudice of the median 
member. Legislation will, on the whole, be more equitable than the legis- 
lators are themselves as private individuals. When the man in the street 
acts through his orderly collective bodies, he acts more as an American, as 
a Christian, and as a humanitarian than if he were acting independently. 
He thus shapes social controls which are going to condition even himself. 

Through these huge institutional structures, a constant pressure is 
brought to bear on race prejudice, counteracting the natural tendency for 
it to spread and become more intense. The same people are acting in the 
institutions as when manifesting personal prejudice. But they obey different 
moral valuations on different planes of life. In their institutions they have 
invested more than their everyday ideas which parallel their actual be- 
havior. They have placed in them their ideals of how the world rightly 
ought to be. The ideals thereby gain fortifications of power and influence in 
society. This is a theory of social self-healing that applies to the type of 
'society We call democracy. 



Part II 
RACE 



CHAPTER 4 

RACIAL BELIEFS 



i. Biology and Moral Equalitarianism 

Few problems are more heavily loaded with political valuations and, 
consequently, wishful thinking than the controversy concerning the relative 
importance of nature and nurture. Opinions on this question signify more 
than anything else where each of us stands on the scale between extreme 
conservatism and radicalism. The liberal is inclined to believe that it is 
the occasion that makes the thief, while the conservative is likely to hold 
that the thief is likely to create the occasion. The individual and society 
can, therefore, according to the liberal, be purposively improved through 
education and social reform. The conservative, on the other hand, thinks 
that it is "human nature" and not its environment which, on the whole, 
makes individuals and society what they are. He sees therein a reason and 
a justification for his skepticism in regard to reforms.* 

The liberalism of the Enlightenment which later developed such strong 
roots in this country tended to minimize the differences between individuals 
and peoples as to inborn capacities and aptitudes. To Locke, the newborn 
child was a tabula rasa upon which the "sensations" — that is, in modern 
language, the entirety of life experiences — made their imprint. Environ- 
ment was thus made supreme. As to the inborn capacities and inclinations, 
men were, on the whole, supposed to be similar j apparent differences were 
of cultural origin, and men could be changed through education. This 
was the basis for the philosophical radicalism and the rationalistic optimism 
which French, and also some English, writers developed during the 
eighteenth century. Individual differences in mental traits were sometimes 
recognized. But so far as groups of people were concerned — social classes, 
nations, and what was beginning to be called "races" — equality of natural 
endowments was the general assumption. 

It should be remembered that these philosophers were primarily reacting 

'The generalization expressed in this paragraph hat its exceptions. Though it is hardly 
possible to be a true biological determinist and yet a political liberal, it is possible to be 
an environmentalist and yet a conservative. The easiest rationalization in the latter case is 
to perceive of the environment as very tough against politically induced changes. William 
Sumner and his theory of mores is the classical American example of such a marriage 
between a radical environmentalism and an extreme political conservatism. (See Appendix a.) 

«1 



84 An American Dilemma 

against that particular extension of feudalism into modern times which 
was represented in their home countries by the theories of mercantilism 
and the social order of estates and privileges. Dissimilar minority races 
were not much in the foreground of their political thinking, but social 
classes were. The upper classes in England and France, as everywhere 
else, developed a vague popular theory that the lower classes, urban 
proletariat, and rural peasantry were less well endowed by nature." It 
was against this convenient belief that the radical philosophers of the 
Enlightenment reacted. Their main interest was, however, not naturalistic 
but moralistic. Equality in "natural rights of man," rather than equality in 
natural endowments, was central in their thought. 

The former equality was, of course, not necessarily made dependent 
upon the latter. Even if some people were weaker, the moral philosophers 
did not think that this was a sound reason for giving them less protection 
in their natural rights. But the radical and optimistic belief in the possibility 
of social improvement, which they also held, did require the environment- 
alistic assumption. Thus a strong tendency toward a belief in natural 
equality became associated with the doctrine of moral equality in the 
philosophy of the Enlightenment. 

When transferred to America the equality doctrine became even more 
bent toward the moral sphere. There are several reasons for this. Origin- 
ally the doctrine had a function in the political disputes with the mother 
country, England. These disputes concerned rights and not natural endow- 
ments. The strong impact of religion in America following the Revolution 
is another reason. A third reason was the actual presence within America 
of a different "race." 

There is thus no doubt that the declaration that all men were "created 
equal" and, therefore, endowed with natural rights has to be understood 
in the moral sense that they were born equal as to human rights. Neverthe- 
less, the moral equality doctrine carried with it, even in America, a tendency 
toward a belief in biological equalitarianism. Among the educated classes, 
race prejudice was low in the generation around the Revolution. This is 
easily seen even by a superficial survey of the American political literature 
of the age. 

2. The Ideological Clash in America 

When the Negro was first enslaved, his subjugation was not justified in 
terms of. his biological inferiority. Prior to the influences of the Enlighten- 
ment, human servitude was taken as a much more unquestioned element 
in the easting order of economic classes and social estates, since this way 

' It -should be noted that just as a biological rationalization was then and is now invoked 
to justify class, so arguments concerning the "social order" have always been employed 
to justify Negro slavery and, later, color caste. (See Chapter 28, Section 5.) 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 85 

of thinking was taken over from feudal and post-feudal Europe. The 
historical literature on this early period also records that the imported 
Negroes — and the captured Indians — originally were kept in much the 
same status as the white indentured servants. 1 When later the Negroes 
gradually were pushed down into chattel slavery while the white servants 
were allowed to work off their bond, the need was felt, in this Christian 
country, for some kind of justification above mere economic expediency 
and the might of the strong. The arguments called forth by this need 
were, however, for a time not biological in character, although they later 
easily merged into the dogma of natural inequality. The arguments were 
broadly these: that the Negro was a heathen and a barbarian, an outcast 
among the peoples of the earth, a descendant of Noah's son Ham, cursed 
by God himself and doomed to be a servant forever on account of an 
ancient sin. 2 

The ideas of the American Revolution added their influence to those 
of some early Christian thinkers and preachers, particularly among the 
Quakers, in deprecating these arguments. And they gave an entirely new 
vision of society as it is and as it ought to be. This vision was dominated 
by a radically equalitarian political morality and could not possibly include 
slavery as a social institution. The philosophical ideas of man's natural 
rights merged with the Golden Rule of Christianity, "Do unto others as 
you would have them do unto you." 

How it actually looked in the minds of the enlightened slaveholders 
who played a prominent role in the Revolution is well known, since they 
were under the urge to intellectual clarity of their age, and in pamphlets, 
speeches, and letters frequently discussed the troubles of their conscience, 
Most of them saw clearly the inconsistency between American democracy 
and Negro slavery. To these men slavery was an "abominable crime," a 
"wicked cause," a "supreme misfortune," an "inherited evil," a "cancer 
in the body politic." Jefferson himself made several attacks on the institu- 
tion of slavery, and some of them were politically nearly successful. Later 
in his life (1821) he wrote in his autobiography: 

... it was found that the public mind would not bear the proposition [of gradual 
emancipation], nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not far distant 
when it must bear it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the 
book of fate than that these people are to be free. 8 

It was among Washington's first wishes ". .. to see a plan adopted for the 
abolition of it [slavery] j but there is only one proper and effectual mode 
by which it can be accomplished and that is by legislative authority. . . ."* 
In this period the main American religious denominations also went 011 
record to denounce slavery. 

Even in terms of economic usefulness slavery seemed for a time to be 
a decaying institution. Slave prices were falling. Public opinion also was 



26 An American Dilemma 

definitely in motion. In the North where it was most unprofitable, slavery 
was abolished in state after state during this revolutionary era. Also South- 
ern states took certain legislative steps against slave trade and relaxed 
their slave codes and their laws on manumission. It is probable that the 
majority of Americans considered Negro slavery to be doomed. But in 
the South the slaves represented an enormous investment to the slave 
owners, and the agricultural economy was largely founded on slave labor. 
When the Constitution was written, slavery had to be taken as an economic 
and political fact. It is, however, indicative of the moral situation in 
America at that time that the words "slave" and "slavery" were avoided. 
"Somehow," reflects Kelly Miller, "the fathers and fashioners of this basic 
document of liberty hoped that the reprobated institution would in time 
pass away when there should be no verbal survival as a memorial of its 
previous existence." 5 

In the first two decades of the nineteenth century, the Abolitionist move- 
ment was as strong in the South as in the North, if not stronger. A most 
fateful economic factor had, however, entered into the historical develop- 
ment, and it profoundly changed the complexion of the issue. Several 
inventions in the process of cotton manufacture, and principally Eli Whit- 
ney's invention of the cotton gin in 1794, transformed Southern agricul- 
ture. Increased cotton production and its profitability gave impetus to a 
southward and westward migration from the old liberal Upper South, and 
raised the prices of slaves which had previously been declining. 6 

In explaining the ensuing ideological reaction in the South we must not 
forget, however, that the revolutionary movement, typified by the Declara- 
tion of Independence, represented a considerable over-exertion of American 
liberalism generally, and that by the time of the writing of the Constitution 
a reaction was on its way. In Europe after the Napoleonic Wars a reaction 
set in, visible in all countries and in all fields of culture. The North 
released itself rather completely from the influences of the European 
reaction. The South, on the contrary, imbibed it and continued on an 
accentuated political and cultural reaction even when the European move- 
ment had turned again toward liberalism. Around the 1830's, the pro- 
slavery sentiment in the South began to stiffen. During the three decades 
leading up to the Civil War, an elaborate ideology developed in defense 
of slavery. This Southern ideology was contrary to the democratic creed 
of the Old Virginia statesmen of the American Revolution. 

The pro-slavery theory of the ante-bellum South is basic to certain ideas, 
attitudes, and policies prevalent in all fields of human relations even at the 
present time." The central theme in the Southern theory is the moral and * 
political dictum that slavery did not violate the "higher law," that it was 

" See Chapters 10, 20, 24. and 28. 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 87 

condoned by the Bible and by the "laws of nature," and that "free society," 
in contrast, was a violation of those laws. 

More and more boldly as the conflict drew nearer, churchmen, writers, 
and statesmen of the South came out against the principle of equality as 
formulated in the Declaration of Independence. This principle came to 
be ridiculed as a set of empty generalities and meaningless abstractions. 
Common experience and everyday observation showed that it was wrong. 
Indeed, it was "exuberantly false, and arborescently fallacious": 

Is it not palpably nearer the truth to say that no man was ever born free and no 
two men were ever born equal, than to say that all men are born free and equal? 
. . . Man is born to subjection. . . . The proclivity of the natural man is to domineer 
or to be subservient. 7 

Here we should recall that Jefferson and his contemporaries, when they 
said that men were equal, had meant it primarily in the moral sense that 
they should have equal rights, the weaker not less than the stronger. 8 
This was fundamentally what the South denied. So far as the Negroes were 
concerned, the South departed radically from the American Creed. Lincoln 
later made the matter plain when he observed that one section of the coun- 
try thought slavery was right while the other held it to be wrong. 

The militant Northern Abolitionists strongly pressed the view that 
human slavery was an offense against the fundamental moral law. Their 
spiritual ground was puritan Christianity and the revolutionary philosophy 
of human rights. They campaigned widely, but most Northerners — sensing 
the dynamite in the issue and not liking too well the few Negroes they had 
with them in the North — kept aloof. In the South the break from the 
unmodified American Creed continued and widened. Free discussion was 
effectively cut off at least after 1840. Around this central moral conflict 
a whole complex of economic and political conflicts between the North and 
the South grew up." The most bloody contest in history before the First 
World War became inevitable. De Tocqueville's forecast that the abolition 
of slavery would not mean the end of the Negro problem came true. It 
is with the American nation today, and it is not likely to be settled 
tomorrow. 

It should be observed that in the pro-slavery thinking of the ante-bellum 
South, the Southerners stuck to the American Creed as far as whites were 
concerned; in fact, they argued that slavery was necessary in order to 
establish equality and liberty for the whites. In the precarious ideological 
situation— where the South wanted to defend a political and civic institu- 
tion of inequality which showed increasingly great prospects for new land 
exploitation and commercial profit, but where they also wanted to retain 
the democratic creed of the nation — the race doctrine of biological inequality 

* The role of the Negro and slavery as causative factors for the War will be commented 
upon in Chapter ao. 



88 An American Dilemma 

between, whites and Negroes offered the most convenient solution. 9 The 
logic forcing the static and conservative ideology of the South to base itself 
partly on a belief in natural inequality is parallel but opposite to the ten- 
dency of the original philosophy of Enlightenment in Europe and the 
American Revolution to evolve a doctrine of natural equality in order to 
make room for progress and liberalism. 10 

3. The Ideological Compromise 

After the War and Emancipation, the race dogma was retained in the 
South as necessary to justify the caste system which succeeded slavery as the 
social organization of Negro-white relations. In fact, it is probable that 
racial prejudice increased in the South at least up to the end of Reconstruc- 
tion and probably until the beginning of the twentieth century. 11 

The North never had cleansed its own record in its dealing with the 
Negro even if it freed him and gave him permanent civil rights and the 
vote. In the North, however, race prejudice was never so deep and so 
widespread as in the South. During and after the Civil War it is probable 
that the North relaxed its prejudices even further. But Reconstruction was 
followed by the national compromise of the 1870's when the North allowed 
the South to have its own way with the Negroes in obvious contradiction to 
what a decade earlier had been declared to be the ideals of the victorious 
North and the polity of the nation. The North now also needed the race 
dogma to justify its course. As the North itself did not retreat from most of 
the Reconstruction legislation, and as the whole matter did not concern the 
average Northerner so much, the pressure on him was not hard, and the 
belief in racial inequality never became intense. But this period was, in this 
field, one of reaction in the North, too. 

The fact that the same rationalizations are used to defend slavery and 
caste is one of the connecting links between the two social institutions. In 
the South the connection is psychologically direct. Even today the average 
white Southerner really uses the race dogma to defend not only the present 
caste situation but also ante-bellum slavery and, consequently, the righteous- 
ness of the Southern cause in the Civil War. This psychological unity of 
defense is one strong reason, among others, why the generally advanced 
assertion is correct that the slavery tradition is a tremendous impediment 
in the way of improvement of the Negro's lot. The caste system has 
inherited the defense ideology of slavery. 

The partial exclusion of the Negro from American democracy, however, 
has in no way dethroned the American Creed. This faith actually became 
strengthened by the victorious War which saved the Union and stopped 
the Southerners from publicly denouncing the cherished national principles 
that all men are born equal and have inalienable civil rights. The question 
can be asked: What do the millions of white people in the South and in 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 89 

the North actually think when, year after year, on the nr*ional holidays 
dedicated to the service of the democratic ideals, they read, recite, and 
listen to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? Do they or 
do they not include Negroes among "all men"? The same question is 
raised when we observe how, in newspaper editorials and public speeches, 
unqualified general statements are made asserting the principles and the 
fact of American democracy. Our tentative answer is this: In solemn 
moments, Americans try to forget about the Negroes as about other 
worries. If this is not possible they think in vague and irrational terms; 
in these terms the idea of the Negroes' biological inferiority is a nearly 
necessary rationalization. 

The dogma of racial inequality may, in a sense, be regarded as a strange 
fruit of the Enlightenment. The fateful word race itself is actually not yet 
two hundred years old. The biological ideology had to be utilized as an 
intellectual explanation of, and a moral apology for, slavery in a society 
which went out emphatically to invoke as its highest principles the ideals 
of the inalienable rights of all men to freedom and equality of opportunity. 
It was born out of the conflict between an old harshly nonequalitarian insti- 
tution — which was not, or perhaps in a short time could not be, erased — and 
the new shining faith in human liberty and democracy. Another accom- 
plishment of early rationalistic Enlightenment had laid the theoretical basis 
for the racial defense of slavery j the recognition of Homo sapiens as only 
a species of the animal world and the emerging study of the human body 
and mind as biological phenomena. Until this philosophical basis was laid, 
racialism was not an intellectual possibility. 

The influences from the American Creed thus had, and still have, a 
double-direction. On the other hand, the equalitarian Creed operates directly 
to supress the dogma of the Negro's racial inferiority and to make people's 
thoughts more and more "independent of race, creed or color," as the 
American slogan runs. On the other hand, it indirectly calls forth the 
same dogma to justify a blatant exception to the Creed. The race dogma 
is nearly the only way out for a people so moralistically equalitarian, if it 
is not prepared to live up to its faith. A nation less fervently committed to 
democracy could, probably, live happily in a caste system with a some- 
what less intensive belief in the biological inferiority of the subordinate 
group. The need jor race prejudice is, from this point of view, a need for 
defense on the fart of the Americans against their own national Creed, 
against their own most cherished ideals. And race prejudice is, in this sense, 
a function of equalitarianism. The former is a perversion of the latter. 12 

4. Reflections in Science 

This split in the American soul has been, and still is, reflected in scien- 
tific thought and in the literature on the Negro race and its characteristics. 



90 An American Dilemma 

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the 
supreme exponent of early American liberalism, in -his famous Notes on 
Virginia (1781-1782) deals with the Negro problem in a chapter on "The 
Administration of Justice and the Description of the Laws." He posits his 
ideas about race as an argument for emancipating the slaves, educating 
them, and assisting them to settle in Africa: 

Deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by 
the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions 
which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, 
and produce convulsions, which will probably never end but in the extermination 
of the one or the other race. 18 

He goes on to enumerate the "real distinctions" between Negroes and 
whites and gives a fairly complete list of them as they were seen by 
liberal people of his time: color, hair form, secretion, less physiological 
need of sleep but sleepiness in work, lack of reasoning power, lack of depth 
in emotion, poverty of imagination and so on. In all these respects he is 
inclined to believe that "it is not their condition, then, but nature, which 
has produced the distinction." But he is cautious in tone, has his attention 
upon the fact that popular opinions are prejudiced, and points to the pos- 
sibility that further scientific studies may, or may not, verify his con- 
jectures." 

This guarded treatment of the subject marks a high point in the early 
history of the literature on Negro racial characteristics. In critical sense and 
in the reservation for the results of further research, it was not surpassed 
by white writers until recent decades. As the Civil War drew nearer, intel- 
lectuals were increasingly mobilized to serve the Southern cause and to 
satisfy the Southern needs for rationalization. After Reconstruction their 
theories were taken over by the whole nation. Biology and ethnology were 
increasingly supplanting theology and history in providing justification 
for slavery and, later, caste. Even the friends of the Negroes assumed great 
racial differences, even if, out of charity, they avoided elaborating on them. 
The numerous enemies of the Negro left a whole crop of pseudo-scientific 
writings in the libraries, emphasizing racial differences. Robert W. 
Shufeldt's book, America's Greatest Problem: the Negro 1 * which had 
considerable influence for a time — illustrating the inferiority argument by 
a picture of a Negro lad between two monkeys and filled with an imposing 
mass of presumed evidences for Negro inferiority — is a late example of this 
literature at its worst. 18 

Without much change this situation continued into the twentieth century. 
At this time the heavily prejudiced position of science on the race problem 
was, however, beginning to be undermined. Professor Franz Boas and a 
l#hole school of anthropologists had already come out against these argu- 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 91 

ments for racial differences based on the primitive people's lack of culture." 
The outlines of a radically environmentalistic sociology were being drawn 
by W. G. Sumner, W. I. Thomas and C. H. Cooley. The early research on 
intelligence pronounced that there were considerable racial differences but 
h had already encountered some doubts as to validity." Improved techniques 
in the fields of anatomy and anthropometry had begun to disprove earlier 
statements on Negro physical traits. b 

The last two or three decades have seen a veritable revolution in scienti- 
fic thought on the racial characteristics of the Negro. This revolution has 
actually a much wider scope: it embraces not only the whole race issue even 
outside the Negro problem, but the fundamental assumptions on the nature- 
nurture question. The social sciences in America, and particularly sociology, 
anthropology, and psychology, 18 have gone through a conspicuous develop- 
ment, increasingly giving the preponderance to environment instead of to 
heredity. 

In order to retain a proper perspective on this scientific revolution, we 
have to recall that American social science is not many decades old. The 
biological sciences and medicine, firmly entrenched much earlier in American 
universities, had not, and have not yet, the same close ideological ties to 
the American Creed. They have been associated in America, as in the rest 
of the world, with conservative and even reactionary ideologies. 1 " Under 
their long hegemony, there has been a tendency to assume biological causa- 
tion without question, and to accept social explanations only under the 
duress of a siege of irresistible evidence. In political questions, this tendency 
favored a do-nothing policy. This tendency also, in the main, for a century 
and more, determined people's attitudes toward the racial traits of the 
Negro. In the years around the First World War, it exploded in a c;iscade 
of scientific and popular writings BU with a strong racialistic bias, rationalizing 

"Cooley challenged Galton's hereditary explanation of racial genius in 1897. (Charles 
H. Cooley, "Genius, Fame and the Comparison of Races," Annals of the American Academy 
of Political and Social Science [May, 1897], pp. 317-358) j see Chapter 6, Section 3. 

''Several scientists, for example, had criticized much of the early research on brain and 
skull differences. One of the most notorious of the exposes was that of Robert B. Bean by 
Franklin P. Mall. Bean was a Southern student of Mall's in the lattcr's laboratory at Johns 
Hopkins. In an elaborate study of Negro skulls and brains, he attempted to show that the 
skulls were smaller than the skulls of white men, and that the brains were less miwiluted 
and otherwise deficient. After Bean published his findings (Robert B. Bean, "b.i'iie Racial 
Peculiarities of the Negro Brain," American Journal of Anatomy [September, 1906], 
pp. 27-432), Mall repeated the measurements on many of the same specimens and found 
that Bean had completely distorted his measurements and conclusions. (Franklin P. Mall, 
"On Several Anatomical Characters of the Human Brain, Said to Vary According to Race 
and Sex, With Especial Reference to the Weight of the Frontal Lobe," American Journal 
of Anatomy [February, 1909], pp. t-32). Bean's sample, too, was grossly inadequate) h 
consisted of 103 Negroes and 49 whites in the Baltimore morgue who had been unclaimed 
at death. 



92 An American Dilemma 

the growing feeling in America against the "new" immigrants pouring into 
a country whose last frontier was now occupied and congregating in the 
big cities where they competed with American labor. In addition to the 
social friction they created, the idea that these newcomers represented an 
inferior stock provided much of the popular theory for the restrictive 
immigration legislation. 21 

The wave of racialism for a time swayed not only public opinion but also 
some psychologists who were measuring psychic traits, especially intelli- 
gence, and perhaps also some few representatives of related social sciences. 22 
But the social sciences had now developed strength and were well on the 
way toward freeing themselves entirely from the old biologistic tendency. 
The social sciences received an impetus to their modern development by 
reacting against this biologistic onslaught. They fought for the theory of 
environmental causation. Their primary object of suspicion became more 
and more the old static entity, "human nature," and the belief that funda- 
mental differences between economic, social, or racial groups were due to 
"nature." 

From the vantage point of their present research front, the situation 
looks somewhat like this: a handful of social and biological scientists over 
the last fifty years have gradually forced informed people to give up some 
of the more blatant of our biological errors. But there must be still other 
countless errors of the same sort that no living man can yet detect, because 
of the fog within which our type of Western culture envelops us. Cultural 
influences have set up the assumptions about, the mind, the body, and the 
universe with which wc begin; pose the questions we askj influence the 
facts we seek j determine the interpretation we give these facts j and direct 
our reaction to these interpretations and conclusions. 

Social research has thus become militantly critical. It goes from discovery 
to discovery by challenging this basic assumption in various areas of life. 
It is constantly disproving inherent differences and explaining apparent 
ones in cultural and social terms. By inventing and applying ingenious 
specialized research methods, the popular race dogma is being victoriously 
pursued into every corner and effectively exposed as fallacious or at least 
unsubstantiated. So this research becomes truly revolutionary in the spirit 
of the cherished American tradition. A contrast is apparent not only in 
comparison with earlier stands of American social science but also with 
contemporary scientific trends in other countries. The democratic ones 
have, on the whole, followed a similar course, but America has been lead- 
ing. It is interesting to observe how on this point the radical tendency in 
American social research of today dominates even the work and writings 
of scientists who -feel and pronounce their own political inclination to be 
conservative. 

What has happened is in line with the great traditions of the American 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 93 

Creed, the principles of which are themselves, actually, piecemeal becoming 
substantiated by research and elaborated into scientific theory. American 
social scientists might — in a natural effort to defend their objectivity — 
dislike this characterization, but to the outsider it is a simple and obvious 
fact that the social sciences in America at present have definitely a spirit 
in many respects reminiscent of eighteenth century Enlightenment. The 
ordinary man's ideas have not, however, kept up to those of the scientist. 
Hardly anywhere else or in any other issue is there — in spite of intensive 
and laudable efforts to popularize the new results of research — such a wide 
gap between scientific thought and popular belief. At least potentially these 
ideas have, however, a much greater importance in America than could be 
assumed upon casual observation and for the reason that the ordinary 
American has a most honored place in his heart for equalitarianism. 

This trend in social sciences to discount earlier notions of great differences 
in "nature" between the advantaged and the disadvantaged groups (rich- 
poor, men-women, whites-Negroes) runs parallel to another equally con- 
spicuous trend in American political ideology since the First World War: 
an increased interest and belief in social reforms. The latter trend broke 
through in the course of the Great Depression following the crisis of 1929; 
and it materialized in the New Deal, whose principles, even if not methods, 
are now widely accepted. We have already stressed the strategic importance 
for political liberalism and radicalism of the modern social science point 
of view on the basic problem of nurture versus nature. The scientific trend 
in non-democratic countries during the same period — and specifically the 
sway of racialism over German universities and research centers under the 
Nazi regime — provides a contrast which vividly illustrates our thesis. 

As always, we can, of course, assume that basically both the scientific, 
trend and the political development in a civilization are functions of a 
larger synchronized development of social ideology. A suspicion is, then, 
natural that fundamentally the scientific trend in America is a rational- 
ization of changed political valuations. This trend has, however, had its 
course during a remarkable improvement of observation and measurement 
techniques and has been determined by real efforts to criticize research 
methods and the manner in which scientific inferences are made from 
research data. It has, to a large extent, been running against expectation 
and, we may assume, wishes. This is the general reason why, in spite of 
the natural suspicion, we can feel confident that the scientific trend is, on 
the whole, a definite approach toward objective truth. 

5. The Position of the Negro Writers 

As creators of original scientific theories and as independent research 
workers in the field of social science, as in other fields, the Negroes came 
late and are even now rather exceptional. This is a consequence of the 



94 An American Dilemma 

American caste system. But for a much longer time they have had gifted 
essayists well in touch with the trends in social sciences. From the begin- 
ning, Negro writers took the stand that the American dogma of racial 
inequality was a scientific fake. 23 The late Kelly Miller, particularly, knew 
how to present the Negro's case effectively. He had well digested the 
anthropological criticism against the argument that the Negroes had never 
produced a culture of their own in Africa and knew how to turn it around: 

Because any particular race or class has not yet been caught up by the current of 
the world movement is no adequate reason to conclude that it must forever fall 
without the reach of its onward flow. If history teaches any clear lesson, it is that 
civilization is communicable to the tougher and hardier breeds of men, whose 
physical stamina can endure the awful stress of transmission. To damn a people to 
everlasting inferiority because of deficiency in historical distinction shows the same 
faultiness of logic as the assumption that what never has been never can be. The 
application of this test a thousand years ago would have placed under the ban of 
reproach all of the rigorous and virile nations of modern times. 21 

and: 

. . . history plays havoc with the vainglorious boasting of national and racial conceit. 
Where are the Babylonians, the Assyrians and the Egyptians, who once lorded it 
over the earth? In the historical recessional of races they are "one with Nineveh and 
Tyre," Expeditions must be sent from some distanct continent to unearth the glori- 
ous monuments of their ancestors from beneath the very feet of their degenerate 
descendants. The lordly Greeks who ruled the world through the achievements of 
the mind, who gave the world Homer and Socrates and Phidias in the heyday of 
their glory, have so sunken in the scale of excellence that, to use the language of 
Macaulay, "their people hare degenerated into timid slaves and their language into 
a barbarous jargon." On the other hand, the barbarians who, Aristotle tells us, could 
not count beyond ten fingers in his day subsequently produced Kant and Shakespeare 
and Newton. 26 

Miller reminds his white countrymen: 

Our own country has not escaped the odium of intellectual inferiority. The 
generation has scarcely passed away in whose ears used to ring the standing sneer, 
"Who reads an American book?" It was itv the day of Thomas Jefferson that a 
learned European declared: "America has not produced one good poet, one able 
mathematician, one man of genius in a single art or science." In response to this 
charge Jefferson enters an eloquent special plea. He says: "When we shall have 
existed as a people ai long as the Greeks did before they produced a Homer, the 
Romans, a Virgil, the French, a Racine, the English, a Shakespeare and Milton, 
should this reproach be still true, we will inquire from what unfriendly cause it has 
proceeded.". How analogous to this is the reproach wh'ch you [Thomas Dixon, Jr.] 
and Mr»"W*iponi treading the track of Thomas Nelson Page, and those of his school 
o£ thought; now* hurl against the Negro race? The response of Jefferson defending 
the American colonies from the reproach of innate inferiority will apply with 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 95 

augmented emphasis to ward off similar charges against the despised and rejected 
Negro. 28 

To the Southerners particularly he gave the following rejoinder: 

The white people of the South claim, or rather boast of, a race prepotency and 
inheritance as great as that of any breed of men in the world. Bat they clearly fail 
to show like attainment. 27 

and added maliciously: 

Has it ever occurred to you that the people of New England blood, who have 
done and are doing most to make the white race great and glorious in this land, are 
the most reticent about extravagant claims to everlasting superiority? You protest too 
much. Your loud pretensions, backed up by such exclamatory outburst of passion, 
make upon the reflecting mind the impression that you entertain a sneaking suspicion 
of their validity. 28 

This is heated polemics but not without its point. On the central issue his 
best formulated argument is probably contained in the following sentences: 

The Negro has never, during the whole course of history, been surrounded by 
those influences which tend to strengthen and develop the mind. To expect the 
Negroes of Georgia to produce a great general like Napoleon when they are not 
even allowed to carry arms, or to deride them for not producing scholars like those 
of the Renaissance when a few years ago they were forbidden the use of letters, 
verges closely upon the outer rim of absurdity. Do you look for great Negro states- 
men in States where black men arc not allowcj to vote? 20 

Concerning the physical disabilities of the Negro, he was full of scorn: 

Do you recall the school of pro-slavery scientists who demonstrated beyond doubt 
that the Negro's skull was too thick to comprehend the substance of Aryan knowl- 
edge? Have you not read in the now discredited scientific books of that period with 
what triumphant acclaim it was shown that the shape and size of the Negro's skull, 
facial angle, and cephalic configuration rendered him forever impervious to the 
white man's civilization? But all enlightened minds are now as ashamed of that 
doctrine as they are of the one-time dogma that the Negro had no soul. 80 

If at the time when he was writing, he could have seen the modern devel- 
opment of intelligence research, on which we shall comment in a later 
chapter, he would have had still more arrows for his bow. 

Miller has been quoted at some length here because his attitude is typical 
of the thinking of the intellectual Negroes on this issue for several dec- 
ades, 31 in fact, from the first time the Negro people had a group of 
individuals trained to independent scholarly thinking. These early Negro 
intellectuals were in all certainty just as much driven by their rationalization 
interests as their white colleagues. Only their interest went in the opposite 
direction. In the development of intelligence research it is apparent that 
Negroes and members of other minority groups always had a tendency to 



q6 An American Dilemma 

find environmental explanations for differences in intelligence perfor- 
mance, while the "American" scientists and, particularly, Southerners and 
other Americans who for one reason or other felt tender toward the 
Southern cause, for a long time labored under the bias of expecting to find 
innate differences. 

From one point of view it is, of course, merely an historical accident that 
modern research has tended to confirm the Negroes' view and not the 
whites'. The Negro writers constantly have proceeded upon the assumption, 
later formulated by Du Bois in Black Reconstruction: w . . . that the Negro 
in America and in general is an average and ordinary human being, who 
under given environment develops like other human beings. . . ." 32 This 
assumption is now, but was not a couple of decades ago, also the assumption 
of white writers. 88 Negro writings from around the turn of the century, 
therefore, sound so much more modern than white writings. It is mainly 
this historical accident which explains why, for example, Du Bois' study of 
the Philadelphia Negro community, 84 published in the 'nineties, stands 
out even today as a most valuable contribution, while white authors like 
H. W. Odum and C. C. Brigham have been compelled — and have had 
the scientific integrity and personal courage — to retreat from writings of 
earlier decades even though they were published after Du Bois' study. 33 
The white authors have changed while the Negro authors can stand by 
their guns. It is also apparent, when going through the literature on the 
Negro, that the whole tone, the "degree of friendliness" in viewpoints and 
conclusions, has been modified immensely in favor of the Negro since the 
beginning of the 'twenties. 30 This trend is, of course, intimately related to 
the general trend in social sciences, referred to above, and to the still 
broader political and social development in the American nation. 

The Negro intellectuals' resistance to the white race dogma has been 
widely popularized among the Negro people through the Negro press, 
the Negro school and the Negro pulpit. As it corresponds closely to Negro 
interests, it will now be found to emerge as a popular belief in all Negro 
communities in America, except the backward ones. It may be assumed that 
formerly the Negroes more often took over white beliefs as a matter of 
accommodation. 

The spread of the same conclusions from modern research has been 
much slower among whites, which is also natural, as they do not coincide 
with their interest in defending the caste order, and in any case, do not 
have the same relevance to their own personal problems of adjustment. 
One most important result is, however, that */ is now becoming difficult for 
even popular writers to express other views than the ones of racial equal- 
itarianism and still retain intellectual respect. This inhibition works also 
on the journalists, even in the South and even outside of the important 
circle of Southern white liberals. The final result of this change might, in 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 97 

time, be considerable. Research and education are bolstering the American 
Creed in its influence toward greater equalitarianism. 

6. The Racial Beliefs of the Unsophisticated 

Our characterization of the race dogma as a reaction against the equali- 
tarian Creed of revolutionary America is a schematization too simple to 
be exact unless reservations are added. Undoubtedly the low regard for 
the Negro people before the eighteenth century contained intellectual 
elements which later could have been recognized as a racial theory in 
disguise. The division of mankind into whites, blacks, and yellows stretches 
back to ancient civilization. A loose idea that barbarism is something 
inherent in certain peoples is equally old. On the other hand, the masses 
of white Americans even today do not always, when they refer to the 
inferiority of the Negro race, think clearly in straight biological terms. 

The race dogma developed gradually. The older Biblical and socio- 
political arguments in defense of slavery retained in the South much of 
their force iong beyond the Civil War. Under the duress of the ideological 
need of justification for Negro slavery, they were even for a time becoming 
increasingly elaborated. Their decline during recent decades is probably a 
result of the secularization and urbanization of the American people, which 
in these respects, as in so many others, represents a continuation of the 
main trend begun by the revolutionary ideological impulses of the eight- 
eenth century. In this development, the biological inferiority dogma 
threatens to become the lone surviving ideological support of color caste 
in America. 

In trying to understand how ordinary white people came to believe in 
the Negro's biological inferiority, we must observe that there was a shift 
from theological to biological thinking after the eighteenth century. As 
soon as the idea was spread that man belongs to the biological universe, 
the conclusion that the Negro was biologically inferior was natural to the 
unsophisticated white man. It is obvious to the ordinary unsophisticated 
white man, from his everyday experience, that the Negro is inferior. And 
inferior the Negro really is; so he shows up even under scientific study. 
He is, on the average, poorer; his body is more often deformed; his 
health is more precarious and his mortality rate higher; his intelligence 
performance, manners, and morals are lower. The correct observation that 
the Negro is inferior was tied up to the correct belief that man belongs 
to the biological universe, and, by twisting logic, the incorrect deduction 
was made that the inferiority is biological in nature. 

Race is a comparatively simple idea which easily becomes applied to 
certain outward signs of "social visibility," such as physiognomy. Explana- 
tions in terms of environment, on the contrary, tax knowledge and imagi- 
nation heavily. It is difficult for the ordinary man to envisage clearly how 



98 An American Dilemma 

such factors as malnutrition, bad housing, and lack of schooling actually 
deform the body and the soul of people. The ordinary white man cannot 
be expected to be aware of such subtle influences as the denial of certain 
outlets for ambitions, social disparagement, cultural isolation, and the early 
conditioning of the Negro child's mind by the caste situation, as factors 
molding the Negro's personality and behavior. The white man is, there- 
fore, speaking in good faith when he says that he sincerely believes that 
the Negro is racially inferior, not merely because he has an interest in this 
belief, but simply because he has seen it. He "knows" it. 

Tradition strengthens this honest faith. The factors of environment 
were, to the ordinary white man, still less of a concrete reality one hundred 
years ago when the racial dogma began to crystallize. Originally the 
imported Negro slaves had hardly a trace of Western culture. The tremen- 
dous cultural difference between whites and Negroes was maintained ■ and, 
perhaps, relatively increased by the Negroes being kept, first, in slavery 
and, later, in a subordinate caste, while American white culture changed 
apace. By both institutions the Negroes' acculturation was hampered and 
steered in certain directions. The Negroes, moreover, showed obvious 
differences in physical appearance. 

From the beginning these two concomitant differences — the physical and 
the cultural — must have been associated in the minds of white people. 
"When color differences coincide with differences in cultural levels, then 
color becomes symbolic and each individual is automatically classified by 
the racial uniform he wears." 37 Darker color, woolly hair, and other con- 
spicuous physical Negro characteristics became steadily associated with 
servile status, backward culture, low intelligence performance and lack 
of morals. All unfavorable reactions to Negroes — which for social if not 
for biological reasons, are relatively much more numerous than favorable 
reactions — became thus easily attributed to every Negro as a Negro, that 
is, to the race and to the individual only secondarily as a member of the 
race. Whites categorize Negroes. As has been observed also in other racial 
contacts, visible characteristics have a power to overshadow all other 
characteristics and to create an illusion of a greater similarity between the 
individuals of the out-race and a greater difference from the in-race than 
is actually warranted. 88 

This last factor is the more important as the unsophisticated mind is 
much more "theoretical" — in the popular meaning of being bent upon 
simple, abstract, clear-cut generalizations — than the scientifically trained 
mind. 86 This works in favor of the race dogma. To conceive that apparent 
, differences in capacities and aptitudes could be cultural in origin means a 
deferment of judgment that is foreign to popular thinking. It requires 

* When we say that cultural differences were maintained, we do not refer one way or the 
other to the retention of African culture. 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 99 

difficult and complicated thinking about a multitude of mutually dependent 
variables, thinking which does not easily break into the lazy formalism of 
unintellectual people. 

We should not be understood, however, to assume that the simpler 
concept of race is clear in the popular mind. From the beginning, as is 
apparent from the literature through the decades, environmental factors 
to some extent, hav>, been taken into account. But they are discounted, and 
they are applied in a loose way — partly under the influence of vulgarized 
pre-Darwinian and Darwinian evolutionism — to the race rather than to 
the individual. The Negro race is said to be several hundreds or thousands 
of years behind the white man in "development." Culture is then assumed 
to be an accumulated mass of memories in the race, transmitted through 
the genes. A definite biological ceiling is usually provided: the mind of 
the Negro race cannot be improved beyond a given level. This odd theory 
is repeated through more than a century of literature: it is phrased as an 
excuse by the Negro's friends and as an accusation by his enemies. The 
present writer has met it everywhere in contemporary white America. 

Closely related to this popular theory is the historical and cultural 
demonstration of Negro inferiority already referred to. It is constantly 
pointed out as a proof of his racial backwardness that in Africa the Negro 
was never able to achieve a culture of his own. Descriptions of hideous 
conditions in Africa have belonged to this popular theory from the begin- 
ning. Civilization is alleged to be the accomplishment of the white race; the 
Negro, particularly, is without a share in it. As typical not only of long 
literature but, what is here important, of the actual beliefs among ordinary 
white people in America, two quotations from a fairly recent exponent of 
the theory may be given: 

To begin with, the black peoples have no historic pasts. Never having evolved 
civilizations of their own, they are practically devoid of that accumulated mass of 
beliefs, thoughts, and experiences which render Asiatics so impenetrable and so 
hostile to white influences. . . . Left to himself, he [the Negro] remained a savage, 
and in the past his only quickening has been where brown men have imposed their 
ideas and altered his blood. The originating powers of the Kuropean and the Asiatic 
are not in him. 40 

The black race has never shown real constructive power. It has never built up a 
native civilization. Such progress as certain negro groups have made has been due to 
external pressure and has never long outlived that pressure's removal, for the negro, 
when left to himself, as in Haiti and Liberia, rapidly reverts to his ancestral, ways. 
The negro is a facile, even eager, imitator; but there he stops. He adopts, but he 
does not adapt, assimilate, and give forth creatively again. . . . 

Unless, then, every lesson of history is to be disregarded, we must conclude that 
black Africa is unable to stand alone. The black man's numbers may increase pro- 
digiously and acquire alien veneers, but the black man's nature will not change. 41 



100 An American Dilemma 

Without any doubt there is also in the white man's concept of the Negro 
"race" an irrational element which cannot be grasped in terms of either 
biological or cultural differences. It is like the concept "unclean" in primi- 
tive religion. It is invoked by the metaphor "blood" when describing 
ancestry. The ordinary man means something particular but beyond secular 
and rational understanding when he refers to "blood." The one who has 
got the smallest drop of "Negro blood" is as one who is smitten by a hide- 
ous disease. It does not help if he is good and honest, educated and intelli- 
gent, a good worker, an excellent citizen and an agreeable fellow. Inside 
him are hidden some unknown and dangerous potentialities, something 
which will sooner or later crop up. This totally irrational, actually magical, 
belief is implied in the system of specific taboos to be analyzed in Part VII. 
White intellectuals, particularly in the South, have often, in attempting 
to clarify to the writer their own attitude toward taboos, referred to this 
irrational element and described it in the terms utilized above. They some- 
times talked of it as an "instinct," but were well aware that they could 
not grasp it by this ton sober physio-psychological analogy. 

In this magical sphere of the white man's mind, the Negro is inferior, 
totally independent of rational proofs or disproofs. And he is inferior in a 
deep and mystical sense. The "reality" of his inferiority is tlie white man's 
own indubitable sensing of it, and that feeling applies to every single Negro. 
This is a manifestation of the most primitive form of religion. There is 
fear of the unknown in this feeling, which is "superstition" in the literal 
sense of this old word. Fear is only increased by the difficulties in expressing 
it in rational language and explaining it in such a way that it makes sense. 
So the Negro becomes a "contrast conception." He is "the opposite race" — 
an inner enemy, "antithesis of character and properties of the white man." 42 
His name is the antonym of white. As the color white is associated with 
everything good, with Christ -and the angels, with heaven, fairness, clean- 
liness, virtue, intelligence, courage, and progress, so black has, through 
the ages, carried associations with all that is bad and low: black stands for 
dirt, sin, and the devil. 48 It becomes understandable and "natural" on a 
deeper magical plane of reasoning that the Negro is believed to be stupid, 
immoral, diseased, lazy, incompetent, and dangerous — dangerous to the 
white man's virtue and social order. 

The Negro is segregated, and one deep idea behind segregation is that 
of quarantining what is evil, shameful, and feared in society.* When one 
speaks about "Americans" or "Southerners," the Negro is not counted in. 
When the "public" is invited, he is not expected. Like the devil and all 
his synonyms and satellites, he is enticing at the same time that he is 

/To illustrate this point and to exemplify how racial beliefs develop in an individual, 
we have included as footnote 44 to this chapter one of the clearest analyses of his own 
former prejudices by a Southerner to be found in the literature. 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs ioi 

disgusting. Like them he is also humorous in a way, and it is possible to 
pity him. As the devil with his goat's foot is earth-bound in a sinister sense, 
so the Negro is also more part of "nature" than the white man. The old 
theologians of the South meant something specific when they equipped the 
Negro with a disproportionate amount of original sin just as Christian 
theologians generally characterize the devil as a fallen angel. Behind all 
these associations is the heritage of magic and primitive religion which 
we carry from prehistoric time and which is always with us in metaphorical 
meanings attached to the words we use. 

The stereotyped opinions of the Negro express themselves in institu- 
tionalized behavior, in jokes and stories, and in fiction. Fiction as a sound- 
ing board for, and as a magnifier of, popular prejudices is an object for 
research which deserves much more attention. The printed word has an 
easily detected magical import and authority for the unintellectual mind." 
It is generalized. People want to see their favorite opinions set forth and 
elaborated in print.* 6 One of the sources for studying the stereotyped 
opinions on the Negro is, therefore, fiction. 48 

7. Beliefs with a Purpose 

The low plane of living, the cultural isolation, and all the resulting 
bodily, intellectual, and moral disabilities and distortions of the average 
Negro make it natural for the ordinary white man not only to see that the 
Negro is inferior but also to believe honestly that the Negro's inferiority 
is inborn. This belief means, of course, that all attempts to improve the 
Negro by education, health reforms, or merely by giving him his rights 
as a worker and a citizen must seem to be less promising of success than 
they otherwise would be. The Negro is judged to be fundamentally incor- 
rigible and he is, therefore, kept in a slum existence which, in its turn, 
leaves the imprint upon his body and soul which makes it natural for the 
white man to believe in his inferiority." This is a vicious circle; it is, indeed, 
one of the chief examples of cumulative causation. From a practical point 
of view, it signifies that one of the ways, in the long run, to raise the white 
man's estimate of the Negro is to improve the Negro's status and, thereby, 
his qualities. It means also, however, that one of the chief hindrances to 
improving the Negro is the white man's firm belief in his inferiority. ". . . 
what the greater part of white America merely thinks about us is an influ- 

* Every lawyer knows from experience that by presenting a printed blank of a drafted 
contract, he can much more easily get anyone to Bign it than if it was written lot the 
occasion. 

* ". . . the haughty American Nation . . . makes the negro clean its boots and then proves 
the moral and physical inferiority of the negro by the fact that he is a shoeblack." (George 
Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman [1916} first edition, 1903], p. xviii.) 

* See Chapter 3, Section 7. 



J02 Am American Dilemma 

ential factor in making our actual condition what it is," complains James 
Weldon Johnson. 47 

The Negro's situation being what it is and the unsophisticated white 
man's mind working as it does, the white man can honestly think and say 
that his beliefs are founded upon close personal experience and hard facts. 
He is not deliberately deceiving himself; but the beliefs are opportunistic. 
The typical white individual does not fabricate his theory for a purpose. 
The ordinary white American is an upright and honest fellow who tries 
to think straight and wants to be just to everybody. He does not consciously 
concoct his prejudices for a purpose. 

But unscrupulous demagogues do it all the time with great profit. Many 
other white individuals will occasionally find it to their private interests 
to stretch their biased beliefs a little more in a direction unfavorable to the 
Negro. Much of this might happen just on the margin of what is con- 
sciously acknowledged. Practically no white people are sufficiently incited 
by self-interest to scrutinize their beliefs critically. And so through the 
generations, strengthened by tradition and community consensus, a public 
opinion among whites is formulated which is plainly opportunistic in the 
interest of the majority group. The individual in the group can remain 
confident in his moral and intellectual integrity. He "sees" the facts for 
himself. Tradition and consensus seem to him to be additional intellectual 
evidence and moral sanction for what he already believes. They relieve 
him of any duty he otherwise might have felt to criticize seriously his 
observations and inferences. The recognition that the racial beliefs thus 
have a social purpose opens up a perspective on the causal mechanism 
behind their formation and gives us a clue for the further study of their 
structure, to which we now proceed. 

If white Americans can believe that Negro Americans belong to a lower 
biological species than they themselves, this provides a motivation for their 
doctrine that the white race should be kept pure and that amalgamation 
should, by all means, be prevented. The theory of the inborn inferiority 
of the Negro people is, accordingly, used as an argument for the anti- 
amalgamation doctrine. This doctrine, in its turn, has, as we have seen, a 
central position in the American system of color caste.* The belief in 
biological inferiority is thus another basic support, in addition to the 
no-social-equality, anti-amalgamation doctrine, of the system of segregation 
and discrimination. Whereas the anti-amalgamation doctrine has its main 
importance in the "social" field, the belief in the Negro's biological inferi- 
ority is basic to discrimination in all fields. White Americans have an 
interest in'deprecating the Negro race in so far as they identify themselves 
with^tjhe prevailing system of color caste. They have such an interest, 
thciftgn in a lower degree, even if their only attachment to the caste order 

* Sec Chapter 3, Section 1. 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 103 

is that they do not stand up energetically as individuals and citizens to 
eradicate it. 

We are not under any obligation, of course, to extend civil courtesies, 
equal justice, suffrage, and fair competition to animals, however much we 
love them. Kind treatment of animals is not a "right" of theirs but is 
rather construed as an obligation to our own humane feelings and to those 
of our equals. In so far as the Negro can be placed lower in the biological 
order than the white man and nearer to the animals, he is also, to an 
extent, kept outside the white man's social and moral order. The white 
man's entire system of discrimination is then in no need of moral defense. 
The Negro becomes deprived of the "natural rights of man," and will, 
instead, have his protection in the civil kindness toward inferior and 
dependent beings, which behooves a Christian society. He will be asked 
not to insist on "rights" but to pray for favors. 

... the thought of the older South — the sincere and passionate belief that some- 
where between men and cattle, God created a terlium quid, and called it a Negro— 
a clownish, simple creature, at times even lovable within its limitations, but straitly 
foreordained to walk within the Veil. To be sure, behind the thought lurks the 
afterthought — some of them with favoring chance might become men, but in sheer 
self-defense we dare not let them, and we build about them walls so high, and hang 
between them and the light a veil so thick, that they shall not even think of breaking 
through. 48 

Another analogy may be found in the status of women and children." 
They, too, were — in a considerable measure — wards of the adult males, 
particularly in the period when the race dogma was being built up. They 
did not enjoy "equal rights" but had to rely for their protection upon 
kindly considerations from their superiors. Their status was also partly 
explained and justified by biological inferiority or lack of maturity. The 
Negro can be classified as nearer the animal but still a man, although not 
a mature man. Unlike children, he can be assumed never to grow to full 
maturity. Not only the individual Negro but the Negro race as a whole 
can be said to be "undeveloped" and "childish." 

The dominant interest in rationalizing and defending the caste system 
can be specified in the demand that the following statements shall be held 
true: 

(i) The Negro people belongs to a separate race of mankind. 

(2) The Negro race has an entirely different ancestry. 

(3) The Negro race is inferior in as many capacities as possible. 

(4) The Negro race has a place in the biological hierarchy somewhere 
between the white man and the anthropoids. 

(5) The Negro race is so different both in ancestry and in characteristics 

'See Appendix 5. 



104 An American Dilemma 

that all white peoples in America, in contradistinction to the Negroes, 
can be considered a homogeneous race. 
(6) The individuals in the Negro race are comparatively similar to one 
another and, in any case, all of them are definitely more akin to one 
another than to any white man. 

Our assumption is that the abstract scheme of opportunistic ideas, stated 
in the six points above, represents the ordinary white American's ad hoc 
theory on the Negro race. The assumption is based on the fact that the 
scheme closely corresponds to obvious needs for rationalization inherent 
in the American caste situation. Not only can the scheme be deduced from 
the rationalization needs, but it has been induced from our observations of 
opinions actually held among unsophisticated whites over the whole 
country. Such beliefs seem to have particular strength in the South and 
in other regions and groups where the Negro problem has a high salience. 
Their strength seems everywhere to stand in a close inverse relation to the 
individual white's level of education. Its relation to social class — if 
standardized for education — seems more doubtful. The white upper class 
person might feel a greater biological distance from the average Negro, but 
he has not the same need to emphasize the race dogma, since the social 
distance is so great and so secure. He will often be found both more willing 
to recognize individual Negroes as exceptions to the race dogma and more 
likely to classify poor whites as of an inferior stock, and, sometimes, "just 
as bad as" the average Negro. The lower classes of whites seem to be much 
more careful to keep the race dogma straight in both these respects. 

In adhering to this biological rationalization, specified in the six points 
stated above, the white man meets certain difficulties. A factual difficulty 
to begin with is that individual Negroes and even larger groups of Negroes 
often, in spite of the handicaps they encounter, show themselves to be 
better than they ought to be according to the popular theory. A whole 
defense system serves to minimize this disturbance of the racial dogma, 
which insists that all Negroes are inferior. From one point of view, segre- 
gation of the Negro people fulfills a function in this defense system. It is, 
of course, not consciously devised for this purpose, and it serves other 
purposes as well, but this docs not make its defense function less important. 
Segregation isolates in particular the middle and upper class Negroes," and 
thus permits the ordinary white man in America to avoid meeting an 
educated Negro. The systematic tendency to leave the Negro out when 
discussing public affairs and to avoid mentioning anything about Negroes 
in the press except their crimes also serves this purpose. b The aggressive 
and derogatory altitude toward "uppity" Negroes and, in particular, the 



'See Chapter 30, Section 2, and Chapter 31. 
k See Chapter a, and Chapter 30, Section 3. 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 105 

tendency to relegate all educated Negroes to this group also belongs to the 
defense system." 

Since he has a psychological need to believe the popular theory of Negro 
racial inferiority, it is understandable why the ordinary white man is disin- 
clined to hear about good qualities or achievements of Negroes. 'The 
merits of Negro soldiers should not be too warmly praised, especially in 
the presence of Americans," reads one of the advices which the French 
Military Mission, stationed with the American Expeditionary Army during 
the First World War, circulated but later withdrew. 49 It should be added 
that white people who work to help the Negro people and to improve race 
relations see the strategic importance of this factor and direct their work 
toward spreading information about Negroes of quality among the whites. 

Another difficulty has always been the mulatto." White Americans want 
to keep biological distance from the out-race and will, therefore, be tempted 
to discount the proportion of mulattoes and believe that a greater part of 
the Negro people is pure bred than is warranted by the facts. A sort of 
collective guilt on the part of white people for the large-scale miscegenation, 
which has so apparently changed the racial character of the Negro people^ 
enforces this interest. 

The literature on the Negro problem strengthens this hypothesis. Only 
some exceptional authors, usually Negroes, gave more adequate estimates 
of the proportion of mixed breeds, 5 " and it was left to Hrdlicka and 
Herskovits in the late 'twenties to set this whole problem on a more 
scientific basis. The under-enumeration of mulattoes by the census takers 
decade after decade and also, until recently, the rather uncritical utilization 
of this material, indicate a tendency toward bias. The observations of the 
present author have, practically without exception, indicated that the non- 
expert white population shows a systematic tendency grossly to under- 
estimate the number of mulattoes in the Negro population. 

It may, of course, be said against this assumption of a hidden purpose 
that one should not assume the ability of uninformed and untrained persons 
to distinguish a mulatto from a pure bred Negro. But the facts of historical 
and actual miscegenation are fairly well known, at least in the South, and are 
discussed with interest everywhere. And if a wrong estimate systematical!" 
goes in the same direction, there is reason to ask for a cause. It has alsc 

'See Chapter 31. The term "uppity" is a Southern white man's term for all Negroes 
who try to rise, or have risen, out of the lower classes. Negroes use the term also, but are 
more Inclined to substitute "biggity" for it. 

b The term "mulatto" is, according to American custom, understood to include all 
Negroes of mixed ancestry, regardless of the degree of intermixture and the remoteness of 
its occurrence. The term includes in addition to "true" mulattoes also quadroons and 
octoroons and all other types of cross-breeds. In America they are all grouped with the 
Negro race. (See Chapter 5, Section 1.) 

" See Chapter 5, Section 6. 



io6 Am American Dilemma 

been observed that the ordinary white American gets disturbed when 
encountering the new scientific estimates that the great majority of Amer- 
ican Negroes are not of pure African descent. Similarly, the ordinary white 
American is disturbed when he hears that Negroes sometimes pass for 
white. He wants, and he must wr.nt, to keep biological distance. 

But the mulatto is a disturbance to the popular race theory not only 
because of his numbers. The question is also raised: Is the mulatto a 
deteriorated or an improved Negro? In fact, there seems never to have 
been popular agreement among white Americans whether the mulatto is 
worse than the pure bred Negro, or whether he is better because of his 
partially white ancestry. The former belief should per se strengthen the 
anti-amalgamation doctrine, in fact, make adherence to it to the interest 
of the entire society. The second belief can serve a purpose of explaining 
away Negro accomplishments which are, with few exceptions, made by 
mulattoes and which then could be ascribed to the white blood. 81 Actually, 
I have often heard the same man use both arguments. 

8. Specific Rationalization Needs 

When analyzing the actual beliefs, we must take account of much more 
specific needs for rationalization. Specific beliefs seem to have specific 
rationalization purposes besides the general one of justifying the caste order 
as a whole. Practically every type of white-Negro relation, every type of 
discrimination behavior, every type of interracial policy, raises its own 
peculiar demands for justification. And practically every special Negro 
characteristic, actual or only presumed, opens the possibility of meeting one 
or more of these special demands. 

The specific demands are embraced in the general one, in the same way 
as the caste order consists after all of the aggregate of a great number of 
specific discriminations and disabilities. Some of the beliefs are directly 
connected with a purpose of rationalizing a particular phase of the caste 
order. Others are only indirectly connected with such a specific purpose. 
The connection is sometimes obvious, as when a certain belief is regularly 
brought forward as a reason for a certain item of the caste order. Some- 
times the connection is less apparent to the observer; we shall even have 
to expect that at times it will be hidden from both the consciousness of the 
believer and the superficial observation of the investigator. The following 
exemplifications in most cases indicate only those direct connections between 
beliefs and specific purposes which are more apparent. All the beliefs to be 
mentioned have been scientifically disproved, as we shall find in the next 
two chapters. 

The beliefs that Negroes get sleepy when working with machines and 
that they, on the whole, lack mechanical aptitudes, serve a need for justi- 
fication of their being kept out of industry. The beliefs of their general 



* Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 107 

unreliability, their inborn lack of aptitude for sustained mental activity, 
and, particularly, their lower intelligence, help to justify this vocational 
segregation and to excuse the barriers against promotion of Negroes to 
skilled and supervisory positions. The beliefs that the Negro race is 
"childish," immature, undeveloped, servile, lacking in initiative, are used 
to justify the denial of full civic rights and suffrage to Negroes. 

The Negro's presumed lower intelligence and the belief that the mind 
of the Negro cannot be improved beyond a given level have always been 
main arguments for discrimination in education, and, specifically, for 
directing Negro education toward developing his hands and not his brains. 
The beliefs that Negroes have a much smaller cranial capacity and lower 
brain weight, a less complicated brain structure, thicker skull bones, an 
earlier closing of the cranial sutures, have a function to explain and fortify 
the beliefs in the lesser development of the Negro's higher brain centers 
and, consequently, his lower intelligence and reasoning power. 

The beliefs in the Negro's inborn laziness and thriftlessness, his happy- 
go-lucky nature, his lack of morals, his criminal tendencies, and so on, 
serve the purpose of easing the conscience of the good, upright white 
citizen when he thinks of the physical and moral slum conditions which 
are allowed in the Negro sections of all communities in America. They also 
rationalize the demand for housing segregation, and tend, on the whole, 
to picture the Negro as a menace to orderly society unless "kept in his 
place" by the caste system. The exaggerated beliefs in the Negro's higher 
susceptibility to various diseases have, in particular, the function to explain, 
in a way less compromising for the larger community, the high mortality 
rates and the bad health conditions among the Negro population. Until 
recently, these beliefs have discouraged all programs of health improve- 
ment among Negroes. 

The belief in a peculiar "hircine odor" of Negroes, like similar beliefs 
concerning other races, touches a personal sphere and is useful to justify 
the denial of social intercourse and the use of public conveniences which 
would imply close contact, such as restaurants, theaters and public convey- 
ances. It is remarkable that it does not hinder the utilization of Negroes in 
even the most intimate household work and personal services. 

There are many popular beliefs deprecating the mulatto: that they are 
more criminally disposed even than Negroes in general; that they tend 
to be sterile; that they— having parents of two distinct races— are not 
harmoniously proportioned, but have a trait of one parent side by side 
with a trait of the other parent, paired in such a way that the two cannot 
function together properly; that they are more susceptible to tuberculosis; 
that, because Negroes have relatively long, narrow heads, Negro women, 
with narrow pelvises, and their mulatto offspring are endangered when 
they bear children of white men whose heads are rounder, and so on. 



io8 An American Dilemma 

These beliefs are all of a nature to discourage miscegenation ana to Keep 
up biological distance even in regard to cross-breeds. The assertion, partic- 
ularly common among Southerners, that there are infallible signs to detect 
everyone with the slightest amount of Negro blood, which is so easy for 
the observer to disprove by experiment, is a reassuring belief with a similar 
function. 

The belief that practically all Negro women lack virtue and sexual 
morals bolsters up a collective bad conscience for the many generations of 
miscegenation. At the same time, it is, occasionally, a wishful expression of 
sexual appetite on the part of white men. The belief in the strong sexual 
urge and the superior sexual skill and capacity of Negro women (the 
"tigress" myth) has more obviously this latter function. The belief that 
Negro males have extraordinarily large genitalia is to be taken as an 
expression of a similar sexual envy and, at the same time, as part of the 
social control devices to aid in preventing intercourse between Negro males 
and white females. 

There are also popular beliefs which are friendly and actually ascribe 
some sort of superiority to the Negro: for example, that he is more gifted 
in music, the arts, dancing, and acting than white people; that he is better 
in handling animals or, sometimes, children ; that he is loyal and reliable 
as a servant (often the opposite is, however, asserted) ; that he is, on the 
whole, a more happy and mentally balanced human being; that he has 
more emotional warmth; that he can take sorrows and disappointments 
more easily; that he is more religious in his nature. All such favorable 
beliefs seem to have this in common, that they do not raise any question 
concerning the advisability or righteousness of keeping the Negro in his 
place in the caste order. They do not react against the major need for 
justification. They rather make it natural that he shall remain subordinate. 

The list of beliefs with specific purposes could be made much longer. 
The underlying hypothesis is this, that in analyzing the popular beliefs, 
we have to work as a detective reconstructing the solution of a crime from 
scattered evidence. For both the student of popular beliefs on the Negro 
and the detective, the guide to the explanation is given in the question: 
To whose good? Beliefs are opportune; they are in the service of interests. 
It is these general and specific rationalization needs which give the beliefs 
their pertinacity. They give to the stereotypes their emotional load, and 
their "value" to the people who hold to them. 62 

9. Rectifying Beliefs 

Th* rationalization needs do not work in an intellectual vacuum. They 
must have raw material to shape into the desired form. This material con- 
sists of white people's experiences of Negroes, how they behave and what 
they are, from his point of view. We have already observed that the 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs 109 

ordinary white man'? actual observations of average Negroes in their 
present inferior status make most of his beliefs natural and reasonab!" to 
him. The dependent Negro's attempts to accommodate to the wishes and 
expectations of the dominant white group facilitate this tendency. This all 
refers to the South. In the North, white people may have few personal 
experiences of Negroes, but they take over the myths, legends, and stereo- 
types that are existent in their culture. 

Assuming as our value -premise that we want to reduce the bias in white 
people's racial beliefs concerning Negroes,' our first practical conclusion 
is that we can effect this result to a degree by actually improving Negro 
Status, Negro behavior, Negro characteristics. The impediment in the way 
of this strategy is, of course, that white beliefs, directly and indirectly, are 
active forces in keeping the Negroes low. We have already referred to this 
vicious circle. 

A second line of strategy must be to rectify the ordinary white man's 
observations of Negro characteristics and inform him of the specific mistakes 
he is making in ascribing them wholesale to inborn racial traits. We may 
assume that, until the Negro people were studied scientifically — which in 
a strict sense of the term means not until recent decades — the raw material 
for beliefs which the average white man had at his disposal in the form of 
transmitted knowledge and personal observations placed only the most 
flexible limits to his opportunistic imagination. When, however, scientific 
Knowledge is being spread among people and becomes absorbed by them 
through popular literature, press, radio, school, and church, this means 
that the beliefs are gradually placed under firmer control of reality. Peofle 
want to be rational, to be honest and well informed. This want, if it is 
properly nourished, acts as a competing force among the opportunistic 
interests. To a degree the desire to be rational slowly overcomes the 
resistance of the desire to build false rationalizations. The resistance is, 
however, keen. Professor Young tells us: 

More than five hundred students of the author continued to rank the "American" 
as the superior "race" after completing a course on race relations! The "will to 
believe" ... is strong! 53 

The paramount practical importance of scientific research on the Negro 
is apparent for improvement of interracial relations. It is no accident that 
popular beliefs are biased heavily in a direction unfavorable to the Negro 
people— because they are steered by white people's needs for justification 
of the caste order. And it is, consequently, no accident either that scientific 
research, as it is progressing, is unmasking and rejecting these beliefs and 
giving rational reasons for beliefs more favorable to the Negroes. It is 

' The desire to be rational, to know the truth, and to think straight is—as need not be 
elaborated upon— central in the American Creed, and is accepted by everybody in principle. 



no An American Dilemma 

principally through encouraging research and through exposing the masses 
of people to its results that society can correct the false popular beliefs — 
by objectivizing the material out of which beliefs are fabricated. Seen in 
long-range perspective, a cautious optimism as to the results of gathering 
and spreading true information among the American people in racial mat- 
ters seems warranted. The impression of the author is that the younger, 
and better educated, generation has, on the whole, somewhat fewer 
superstitious beliefs, and that, during the last decade at least, the racial 
beliefs have begun to be slowly rectified in the whole nation. 

A third line of strategy is, naturally, to attack the valuations for the 
rationalization of which false beliefs are employed. This must mean 
strengthening the American Creed in its primary function of bending 
people's minds toward equalitarianism. Everything done to modify the 
caste order must diminish the moral conflict in the hearts of the Americans 
and thus decrease the defense needs which give emotional energy to the 
false racial beliefs. Indirectly, the valuations conflicting with the Creed also 
are becoming deflated as beliefs are becoming rectified. Valuations depend, 
to an extent, on the availability of functional beliefs in which they can be 
"lived out" and expressed.' 

In this way the moral and the intellectual tasks of education are closely 
related. The interrelation extends even to our first line of strategy. Every 
improvement of the actual level of Negro character will increase the 
effectiveness of both the intellectual and moral education of white people 
in racial matters and vice versa. It is this mechanism of mutual and cumula- 
tive dynamic causation which explains the actual situation in theory and, at 
the same time, affords the basis for constructive practical policy. 

io. The Study of Beliefs 

It should by this time be clear that it is the popular beliefs, and they 
only, which enter directly into the causal mechanism of interracial relations. 
The scientific facts of race and racial characteristics of the Negro people 
are only of secondary and indirect importance for the social problem under 
'Study in this volume. In themselves they are only virtual but not actual 
social facts. ". . . to understand race conflict we need fundamentally to 
understand conflict and not race. ,,&i We have concluded, further, from the 
actual power situation in America that the beliefs held by white -people 
rather than those held by Negroes are of primary importance? 

The popular beliefs concerning the Negro race pose two different tasks 
for scientific research. One task is to criticize and refute the beliefs when 
they "are wrong. American anthropology and psychology have, in recent 
decades, worked in this direction. It was, in fact, a necessary work to be 

'See Appendix t. 

*'See Introduction, Section 3. 



Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs hi 

performed in order to free science itself from the load of inherited racial 
bias. Another task which, in the end, might turn out to be of equal practical 
importance and which has a more central theoretical relevance is to study 
the racial beliefs themselves as social facts: to record them carefully; to 
analyze their causation and explain their role in people's emotions, 
thoughts, and actions; their "function" in the caste order of American 
society. 

Practically nothing has been done in a comprehensive and systematic 
compass to study the popular racial beliefs as social facts. 86 The racial 
beliefs have not even been recorded in a scientifically controlled manner. 
It is true that the beliefs can be perceived by an observer in America. They 
can also be recorded from the press and the popular literature. Selected 
fragments of evidence on various sectors of racial beliefs have, for a long 
time, been recorded in the scientific literature on the Negro problem. 69 
Until a few decades ago, however, even this literature had more the charac- 
ter of folklore itself than of a study of folklore. Impressionistic information 
of this type permits discussion of the problem in a hypothetical manner. 
It allows the outlining of a problem for study but not its solution. The 
foregoing pages are written in this vein. In order to lay the factual basis 
for a truly scientific analysis, which is more than suggestive and conjectural 
in character, beliefs must be observed and recorded in a systematic way 
under controlled research conditions.* 1 

In such studies the assumption should be that -people's beliefs are not 
necessarily consistent. The utmost care should be taken not to press upon 
the informants a greater systematic order than there actually exists in theii 
beliefs. For our assumption is, further, that the very inconsistencies are 
illuminating and of highest importance, particularly for the analytical 
approach to the deeper problem of the causation of the beliefs. Our hypo- 
thesis is that the beliefs are opportunistic and have the "function" to defend 
interests. The ordinary American's interests in the Negro problem should 
not be assumed to be simple and harmonious. They are, instead, complicated 
and conflicting. The conflicts are largely suppressed and only vaguely 
conscious. 

The analysis of the racial beliefs will, therefore, reach down to the 
deeper-seated conflicts of valuations. As people's thought, speech, and 
behavior regularly are in the nature of moral compromises, this deeper 
analysis cannot be accomplished simply by recording and systematizing 
the actual beliefs themselves, but must endeavor— by comparing various 
beliefs and particularly their inconsistencies — to understand them by infer- 
ences as to their "function" in the individual's opportunistic world view. 

In this deeper analysis — and only in this stage of the belief study— the 
scientific facts of race and racial traits become of importance. They have 
no direct importance per se- f indirectly they are of importance in that they 



112 An American Dilemma 

always, to an extent determined by exposure to education, form part of 
the raw material out of which actual beliefs are shaped. But in the analysis 
of beliefs they contribute the objective norms in relation to which the degree 
of incompleteness and the degree and direction of falsification of the actual 
beliefs can be scientifically ascertained and measured. As the distortion of 
truth in the beliefs is assumed to signify the opportunism of the latter, its 
measurement opens the door to a scientific study of the fundamental con- 
flicts in valuations. 11 

The main conclusion from this conjectural discussion of racial beliefs is, 
therefore, that a set of most fascinating research problems of great theoret- 
ical and practical importance is waiting for investigation. Such studies will 
demonstrate to what extent the hypotheses developed above will hold true 
when tested against properly recorded research data. 

* See Appendix i, Section 3. 



CHAPTER 5 

RACE AND ANCESTRY 



i. The American Definition of "Negro" 

The "Negro race" is defined in America by the white people. It is 
defined in terms of parentage. Everybody having a known trace of Negro 
blood in his veins — no matter how far back it was acquired — is classified 
as a Negro. No amount of white ancestry, except one hundred per cent, 
will permit entrance to the white race. As miscegenation has largely been 
an affair between white men and Negro women, it is a fair approximation 
to characterize the Negro race in America as the descendants of Negro 
women and Negro or white men through the generations — minus the 
persons having "passed" from the Negro into the white group and their 
offspring." 

This definition of the Negro race in the United States is at variance 
with that held in the rest of the American continent. "In Latin America 
whoever is not black is white: in teutonic America whoever is not white 
is black." 1 This definition differs also from that of the British colonies and 
dominions, primarily South Africa, where the hybrids (half-castes) are 
considered as a group distinct from both whites and Negroes. Even in the 
United States many persons with a mixture of Indian and white blood are 
regarded as whites (for example, ex-Vice President Curtis and Will 
Rogers). 

Legislation in this respect tends to conform to social usage, although 
often it is not so exclusive. 2 In some states one Negro grandparent defines 
a person as a Negro for legal purposes, in other states any Negro ancestor 
— no matter how far removed — is sufficient. In the Southern states defini- 
tions of who is a Negro are often conflicting. Since Reconstruction, there 
has been a tendency to broaden the definition. The Northeastern states 
generally have no definition of a Negro in law. These legal definitions and 
their changes and differences should not be taken too seriously, however. 
The more absolutistic "social", definition is, in most life situations, the 
decisive one. 8 

' This approximative summary neglects, of course, the Indian element in the ancestry of 
some Negroes, and the passing of part-Negro persons into the American Indian population. 
as well as the relatively few part-Negro offspring of white mothers. 

"3 



114 An American Dilemma 

This social definition of the Negro race, even if it does not change any- 
thing in the biological situation, increases the number of individuals actually 
included in the Negro race. It relegates a large number of individuals who 
look like white people, or almost so, to the Negro race and causes the 
Negro race to show a greater variability generally than it would show if 
the race were defined more narrowly in accordance with quantitative 
ethnological or biological criteria. "The farcical side of the color question in 
the States" — says Sir Harry H. Johnston — "is that at least a considerable 
proportion or the 'colored people' are almost white-skinned, and belong in 
the preponderance of their descent and in their mental associations to the 
white race." * In the American white population the so-called Nordic type, 
which is popularly assumed to be the opposite extreme from the black 
Negro, is a rare phenomenon. This statement is especially true after the 
"new" immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe and from the 
Near East. But even the "Old American stock" was preponderantly "non- 
Nordic." a There are, however, also American Negroes with the clearest 
of white skin, the bluest of blue eyes, and the long and narrow head which 
happens to be both a Negro and a "Nordic" trait. 

The popular belief rationalizing the exclusive social definition of the 
Negro race is well expressed by the high priest of racialism in America, 
Madison Grant, in the following words: 

It must be borne in mind that the specializations which characterize the higher 
r«ces are of relatively recent development, are highly unstable and when mixed with 
generalized or primitive characters tend to disappear. Whether we like to admit it 
or not, the result of the mixture of two races, in the long run, gives us a race revert- 
ing to the more ancient, generalized and lower type. The cross between a white man 
and an Indian is an Indian; the cross between a white man and a Negro is a Negro; 
the cross between a white man and, a Hindu is a Hindu ; and the cross between any 
of three European races and a Jew is a Jew. 5 

The fact that this belief is contrary to scientifically established truth does 
not diminish its force as a belief. An additional fortification in the sphere 
of beliefs is the "black baby myth," the popular theory that the slightest 
amount of Negro ancestry in an individual, who does not show even a trace 
of Negro characteristics, can cause a "throw-back" and that he — in a mating 
with a white individual — can become the parent of a black baby. b 
There has been much speculation about how this very exclusive racial 

* In making his famous study of the physical traits of "Old Americans" (practically all 
of English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, French, or German ancestry), Hrdlicka encountered great 
difficulty in finding persons of pure "Nordic" ancestry. (See Ales Hrdlicka, The Old 
Amtrieatu [1925], especially p. 5.) 

Even jn the population of Sweden, supposed to be the purest ",Nordic" stock in existence, 
only Home' 1 5 per cent can be classified as "Nordics" on strict anthropometric grounds. 

* Here two additional popular beliefs are added to our list in Chapter 4, Section 7, of 
beliefs with a special purpose. Concerning the black baby myth, see Section 7 of this chapter. 



Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 115 

definition came to fasten itself on America. These speculations run all the 
way from an often asserted, particularly strong "racial instinct" in the 
"Anglo-Saxon race" to Embree's remark that "this custom grew up during 
slavery in order to increase the number of slaves, who constituted valuable 
property." e "When attempting to account for the historical origin of the 
social definition of the Negro, the fact should be taken into account that 
mixed offspring were almost always the result of illegitimate sex relations 
in which, according to common law, the ordinary paternal lineage becomes 
broken. This question of how the very inclusive definition of the Negro 
race arose in American cultural history is not solved. 

The definition of the "Negro race" is thus a social and conventional, not 
a biological concept. The social definition and not the biological facts 
actually determines the status of an individual and his place in interracial 
relations." This also relieves us of the otherwise cumbersome duty of 
explaining exhaustively what we, in a scientific sense, could understand by 
"race" as an ethnological and biological entity. 7 In modern biological or 
ethnological research "race" as a scientific concept has lost sharpness of 
meaning, and the term is disappearing in sober writings. In something even 
remotely approaching its strict sense, it applies only to exceptionally isolated 
population groups, usually with a backward culture, which thus seems to 
be the concomitant of "racial purity." 

Thus the scientific concept of race is totally inapplicable at the very spots 
where we recognize "race problems" It is being replaced by quantitative 
notions of the relative frequency of common ancestry and differentiating 
traits. "Racial purity" is thus relativized, and the hybridity of all peoples 
on earth is no longer minimized. Only the ignorant talk about the "Swed- 
ish" or "Scandinavian race," not to speak of the "Anglo-Saxon" or "German 
race." The "white American race" is gradually beginning to be merely a 
joke even among the populace, except in the South. The great variability 
of traits among individuals in every population group is becoming stressed, 
and the considerable amount of overlapping between all existing groups 
increasingly recognized. Besides the recognized differences among individ- 
uals in any one group, the differences among averages of groups tend to 
pale into insignificance. 

The fundamental unity and similarity of mankind — above minor 
individual and group differentials — is becoming scientifically established. 
While formerly attention was fixed on the few obvious distinguishing 
characteristics, and while the assumption was always that there existed 

*In recognition of this, we regularly substitute in this book the terms the "Negro 
people," the "Negro group" or the "Negro population" for the term, the "Negro race.*' 
When we sometimes, for the sake of convenience, talk about "race," "racial" characteristics, 
or "racial" relations, we should be understood to refer to the popular conception of the 
word, not the scientific one. 



n6 An American Dilemma 

other differences in regard to less observable facts, scientists now stress the 
unity of mankind and are skeptical of differences until they are demon- 
strated. The old custom of describing population groups in terms of "types" 
—the so-called "Nordic" type, for instance— which were not true types in 
the statistical sense but idealized, or caricatured, types, is being discredited. 
Even the use of average or modal figures for measuring traits is beginning 
to be considered scientifically unsatisfactory. It is recognized that the 
representation of the traits of a group should be made in the form of curves 
of frequency distribution or scatter diagrams. An absolutistic metaphysical 
system of opportunistic beliefs is, in this way, gradually being demolished, 
and humble, relativistic scientific knowledge raised on its ruins. Qualitative 
conceptions are translated into quantitative ones. This is a common trend of 
modern scientific development. 

The common belief that the races could be ordered as higher or lower in 
an evolutionary series, so that Negroids could be deemed more ape-like than 
Caucasoids, is entirely discredited. It is now commonly assumed by expert 
opinion that man — the species Homo sapens — evolved only once, and 
that such average differences as now exist between men are due to living 
under different geographic conditions after having separated from the com- 
mon place of origin. Independent of this hypothesis, which, of course, can 
hardly be checked, it is a fact that the Negro is no more akin to the apes 
than the white man is. Of the four most noticeable characteristics generally 
ascribed to the average or typical Negro — dark skin, broad nose, woolly 
hair, thick lips — only the first two make him slightly more similar to the 
apes. The white man's thin lips and straight hair are, on the other hand, 
much nearer to the traits of the apes. 

When all this is said, when anticipating some later conclusions, it is 
recognized that the great majority of American Negroes have Caucasoid 
ancestry as well as Negroid, and when it is also recognized that modern 
psychological research has discounted the previously held opinions that 
there are great innate mental differentials between racially defined popula- 
tion groups, it still does not follow that the race concept is unimportant in 
the Negro problem, and that continued and intensified ethnological, bio- 
logical, and psychological research on the American Negro people is 
unnecessary. In spite of all heterogeneity, the average white man's unmis- 
takable observation is that most Negroes in America have dark skin and 
woolly hair, and he is, of course, right. 

He is also right in ascribing, the occurrence of these characteristics to 
African ancestry. His delineation of the Negro race might be ever so 
arbitrary and scientifically inaccurate; his ideas about concomitant mental 
and moral traits might be fantastic and untenable; tut the fact is that "race" 
in his definition is the basis of the social caste system as it exists in America. 
fiecause of social visibility and of community knowledge of the parentage 



Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 117 

of individuals, "race" has tremendous cultural consequences. Under the 
exposure of science and education the white people in America might, in 
times to come, gradually rectify their opportunistic beliefs and even change 
their valuations to agree more with the national Creed of justice and 
equality of opportunity, so that these cultural consequences will be 
mitigated or obliterated. But for the time being, this is not so. 

From one viewpoint the entire Negro problem in America hinges upon 
this social definition of "race." Should America wake up one morning with 
all knowledge about the African ancestry of part of its population and all 
memories of color caste absolutely forgotten and find all the outward 
physical characteristics of the Negro people eradicated, but no change in 
their mental or moral characteristics, nothing we know about this group 
and other population groups in America would lead us to believe that 
the American Negro would not rapidly come to fit in as a well-adjusted 
ordinary American. His poverty and general backwardness would mean 
a low starting point and cause a larger portion of this population group to 
remain in the lower social strata. But, having been relieved of the specific 
caste deprivations and hindrances, his relative preponderance in the dis- 
advantaged classes would, from the beginning, decrease. 

His earlier relative isolation in America through slavery and subor- 
dinate caste position and, perhaps, also a few faint traditions and customs 
kept from Africa, would, for a time, endow him with remnants of some 
peculiar cultural and personality traits. But they would be negligible even 
in the beginning — if, as we assume, they are unrelated through social 
visibility to his caste status — compared with the much more glaring and 
"non-American" peculiarities of various groups of recent immigrants. 

But this is only a dream. The Negro has to be defined according to 
social usage, and his African ancestry and physical characteristics are fixed 
to his person much more ineffaceably than the yellow star is fixed to the 
Jew during the Nazi regime in Germany. With the social definition comes 
the whole stock of valuations, beliefs, and expectations in the two groups, 
causing and constituting the order of color caste in America. 

This defines our problem in this and the next chapters. Our task is to 
describe the ancestry and the characteristics of this clearly delineated social 
group in America which is known under the somewhat incorrect term 
of the Negro "race." 

2. African Ancestry 

Part of the ancestry of the American Negro people is African, and it 
is proper to start out from this line of parentage as it is the one from which 
their name and status are derived. Too, the fact must not be ignored that 
ihe major proportion of their ancestors, back to the time of the first con- 
tact between Negroes and whites, is African Negro. 8 



n8 



An American Dilemma 



No official registration records were kept of the number of slaves 
imported, but compilations have been made on the basis of ship captains' 
reports and port records. The compilation which has been most extensively 
quoted has been that of Henry C. Carey, as modified by the United States 
Bureau of the Census. Carey estimated that a total of about 333,000 Negroes 
had been imported into the United States up to 1808, when federal law 
prohibited the slave trade. 9 Of this figure the Census Bureau said, "It is 
claimed, however, that this total is too small, and that a closer estimate 
would bring the number to 370,000 or even 400,000."' These slaves were 
brought from Africa and from the West Indies." 

TABLE I 

Carey's Estimates of the Number of Slaves Imported 
into the United States at Various Time Periods 





Number of 


Avrage 


Time Period 


Slaves 


Import 




Imported 


Pe Year 


Prior to 171 5 


30,000 


_ _ 


1715-1750 


90,000 


2,500 


1751-1760 


35,ooo 


3,5oo 


1761-1770 


74,500 


7,400 


1771-1790 


34,000 


1,700 


1791-1808 


70,000 


3,900 


Total 


333,500 





Sourtt: Henry C. Carey. Tkt State Trait (1853), p. 18. 

Some 50,000 more slaves were brought within the boundaries of the 
United States between 1790. and i860 by annexations of territory — 
principally of Louisiana, Florida and Texas. 10 There are not even private 
records to guide us in estimating how many slaves were smuggled into the 
country between 1808 and i860. Herskovits mentions the fantastically high 
figure of two and a half millions. 11 Dublin, after examining the data on 
smuggling and on births and deaths, concluded: "The unlawful trade in 
Negroes can at most account for the increase of less than one-half of 1 per 

* U. S. Bureau of the Census, A Century of Pa filiation Growth in the United States: 
ijao-iooo (1909), p. 36. A figure of slightly below 400,000 slaves imported before 1808 
seems reasonable in the light of the fact that the total Negro population was only 757,000 
in 1790 and that this estimate allows for an import of 330,000 up to 1790. 

* It is impossible to estimate how many came from Africa and how many from the West 
Indies, not only because no adequate records were kept, but also because there was the 
custom of bringing slaves intended for the United States first to the West Indies for a few 
years where they were made accustomed to their new life by the older West Indian slaves. 
It seems to be the consensus of opinion, however, that the proportion of West Indian 
slaves brought to the United States did not become significant until the nineteenth century. 



Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 119 

cent a year. The rest of the increase, namely, about 2 per cent . . . repre- 
sented the excess of births over deaths." 13 Dublin's proportion of smuggled 
Negroes is equivalent to an absolute figure of about 563,000," but even this 
must be taken, as he says, to be a maximum figure. All estimates of the num- 
ber of slaves smuggled in between 1808 and i860 must be regarded in the 
light of the fact that apparently only 330,000 to 400,000 Negroes were 
imported during the entire period before 1808, when the slave trade was 
federally legal. Although it is possible that there were more slaves smuggled 
into the United States between 1808 and i860 than there were legally 
imported in the two centuries before 1808, it is probable that the former 
figure was, at best, not much larger. A good many of the Negro slaves who 
were liberated after the Civil War were African-born. Whatever historical 
research ultimately determines these two figures to be, it is extremely 
likely that the total number of slaves imported into the United States 
before i860, by whatever means, was less than a million. 

The Negroid element in the ancestry of the present-day American Negro 
people, whether brought here directly or via the West Indies, had its 
original home in Africa and in the islands close to that continent. 18 The 
population of Africa was not homogeneous during the period of the slave 
trade. 1 * In the region of the Sahara Desert and surrounding districts, there 
had been intermixtures between Negroids and Caucasoids for an unknown 
number of centuries. In the Southern portion of the Continent were the 
Bushmen and the Hottentots. In the section known as the "West Coast" — 
which is really only the central part of the African coast facing the Atlantic 
Ocean — lived the "true Negro." u The remainder of Central and Southern 
Africa was inhabited by various groups of Negroes who are often lumped 
together for convenience and called the "Bantu-speaking stocks." 

These problems — from what regions and from what Negroid peoples in 
Africa the Negro ancestors of the present-day American Negroes came, and 
in what proportions during various periods of the slave trade the direct 
and indirect import to America was furnished — are still far from settled 
in a conclusive way. Since anthropometric evidence is difficult or impossible 
to bring to bear on these problems — due, among other things, to the later 
miscegenation of the various Negro groups in America — anthropologists 
have had to rely on the relatively meager historical evidence that can be 
discovered, scanty oral traditions in Africa, and cultural remnants in the 

"The census reports an increase of 3,064,022 Negroes between 1810 and i860. The 
application of Dublin's ratio (4 to 1) to this gives 612,804 Negroes who had to be 
accounted for by factors other than natural increase. Some 50,000 of these came into the 
country when new territory was annexed. This leaves 561,804 as a maximum figure for 
the number smuggled. 

'This is a technical anthropological term, according to Herskovits, and should not bo 
taken to imply a value judgment that the West Coast Negroes are "truer" Negroes than 
any others. 



120 An American Dilemma 

New World." This evidence seems to indicate that the great majority of 
slaves brought directly to the United States came from the West Coast 
and hence belonged predominantly to that racial group known as the "true 
Negroes." A small proportion of the slaves came from other points in 
Central and South Africa and from Madagascar, some few also from East 
Africa and North Africa. 16 It would seem probable, however, that the 
proportion of slaves from parts of Africa other than the West Coast 
increased toward the end of the slave trade era, as it became increasingly 
difficult to get enough West Coast Negroes. But the proportion from other 
parts of Africa never became predominant. During the later period also, 
slaves were brought from the West Indies, and the Negro ancestors of 
these people came from all over Africa. 17 

Since Emancipation there has been an addition to the American Negro 
population through immigration. This has never been large, however. In 
1940 there were only about 84,000 foreign-born Negroes in the entire 
United States. Three-fourths of these were from the West Indies and so 
may be presumed to have a significant proportion of white and Indian 
ancestry. 18 Only about 1,000 came from Africa, but this does not necessarily 
mean that they were of unmixed Negroid stock. a In common with most 
foreign-born groups, these foreign-born Negroes have a high birth rate, 18 
and so tend to have an effect on the genetic composition of the American 
Negro people in slightly larger proportion than their small numbers 
would indicate. This effect is largely offset, however, by the facts that they 
are genetically much more like the native American Negro and that they 
are concentrated in Northern cities where the birth rate rapidly becomes 
depressed. Consequently, they will tend not to have such an important 
effect on the genetic composition of the American Negro population. 

3. Changes 'in Physical Appearance 

Even if we ignore the fact that there has been an admixture of white 
and Indian blood b into the American Negro population, there have been 
some changes in this population stock which make it different from those 
African tribes from which it has descended. Those who became slaves in 
America were only a selection of Africans, not a representative sample of 
them. They were probably made even less representative by the rigors of 
the displacement from Africa to America, which killed off a certain number 
of them. After the Negroes came to America, their biological composition 
was probably changed by differential reproductivity and possibly by mvla- 
tions. There may also have been environmentally caused changes in 

'While the total figures are from the 1940 Census, the proportions from the West Indies 
tad from Africa are from the 1930 Census. The latter figures for 1940 are not yet 
available. It a probable that these proportions have not changed significantly from 1930 
to 1940. . . . 

'Race mixture will be discussed in the following sections. 



Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 121 

physical appearance which have no relation to genetic changes. About the 
effects of most of these causes of change, our knowledge is conjectural. 

The slave trade itself could be assumed to follow a selective pattern. It 
has been part of the system of popular beliefs of white people in America 
to assume that the captured slaves were predominantly of low class origin, 
of a docile nature and with less intelligence and courage than the average 
in their homeland. Modern research tends to rectify the idea of the extreme 
submissivencss shown by the American Negro in slavery — a belief which 
became of particularly great importance as part of the Southern ideological 
armor before and immediately after the Civil War— and also to render 
probable that the slaves were a cross-section of the population from which 
they were drawn. 20 Several instances of African royalty and nobility are 
recorded among the slaves. The means by which Africans were made slaves 
cannot be used to argue for any unfavorable selection. Persons who had been 
captured in war, who had committed crimes, or who had failed to pay 
their debts, were sold to traders. Other slaves were those who were simply 
kidnapped by the white traders or by their black assistants. Warfare and 
kidnapping were nonselective. Punishment for crimes or debt was certainly 
socially selective, but there is no evidence that it was biologically selective. 
In any case, this source of slaves was of rather small importance. 

Another source of selectivity— this one in the positive direction— might 
have been the rigors of the voyage from Africa to America. Available 
evidence is contradictory as to the extent of mortality during the period 
from the seizure of slaves in Africa to their ultimate sale in America. The 
old standard evidence pointed to a death rate as high as five-sixths of all 
Negroes captured. Some recent sources of information, however, mention a 
mortality as low as 13 per cent. 21 Even if the evidence were not contra- 
dictory as to the extent of mortality, the biologically selective nature of this 
mortality would not be definitely known — although it seems reasonable to 
suppose that the weakest died first. More definitely selective than the death 
rate was the unwillingness of the slavers to ship sick, disabled or wt*k 
persons. They were looking for the able-bodied to b: sent as slaves. 

Slavery as an institution must, in various ways, have hr. J selective effects 
upon the genetic composition of the American Negro population. Planta- 
tion owners, particularly in the slave-breeding states in the Upper South 
during the first half of the nineteenth century, took measures of positive 
eugenics in controlling mating. 83 The slave breeders can generally be 
assumed to have favored the reproduction of docile and physically strong 
specimens of the slave population. The historical sources give frequent 
references to such practices. Other practices— such as the killing of slaves 
who attempted to escape and the selling of "bad niggers" down the river 
to the Deep South where life expectancy was shorter— may also have 
had some genetic effect. 



122 An American Dilemma 

It is also possible to speculate about the eugenic effects of such selective 
factors of reproduction as the bad health conditions and the high mortality 
rates in the freed Negro population up to the present time and of the looser 
sex mores in the Negro population. But in these respects, as in regard to 
all the other sources of selectiveness mentioned above, the prudent con- 
clusion must be that our factual knowledge of each source is next to nothing, 
and that there is no possibility of weighing them together into a conclusion 
concerning their resultant effect upon the genetic composition of the Negro 
people. It is probable that we shall never come to know, in a scientific way, 
what these various selective factors have meant for the genetic composition 
of the American Negro people. 

Mutations, as well as selection, t» . have made the American Negro 
different in some respects and in some degree from the corresponding 
population groups of the African continent. There is no knowledge as to 
the number or character of the genetic mutations that have occurred in the 
Negro population since coming to the Western Hemisphere, but there 
have undoubtedly been some. Since the cessation of the slave trade, the 
Africans, too, must have had mutations that did not get transmitted to the 
American Negro people because of isolation. About this we know nothing. 

Such mutations must be distinguished from changes which appear to be 
"biological" but yet are not, or may not be, inherited by transmission of 
genes. In recent decades there have been many studies, usually not with 
specific reference to the Negro, indicating how such things as glandular 
activity, diet, and physical handling of infants may affect physical traits. 
Since Negroes experienced changes in climate, diet, and customary practices 
in care of infants, and perhaps even in glandular activity, when they made 
the drastic transition from Africa to America, their physical traits may be 
expected to have changed. The studies of physical changes of immigrants 
inaugurated by Boas 2i open the possibility that changes may occur even in 
such standard traits as head form. Since no anthropometric studies were 
made of Negroes before they were shipped to America, knowledge is lack- 
ing as to the specific character of the changes in physical form. But that 
there were some of this type, there is good reason to expect. 2 * Changes in 
cultural conditions since the period of slave importation, and the more 
recent migration from the rural South to the urban North, may also have 
modified the Negro's physical appearance since he landed on American 
shores.' 

The influences affecting the Negro's physical appearance are sometimes 
of an intentional type which do not need gross changes in environment to 
exert their efiects. The Negro woman can, and does, lighten her face 

* Id thil'paragraph we are considering only the physical changes due to direct environ- 
mentsU Ui<Uence». The psychic changes— which are probably more important — will be 
treated m, Chapter 6. 



Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 123 

with powder and bleaches. The Negro can — but does not, usually, because 
of the high cost — remodel the shape of his nose and lips. The 
changes which can be effected by this conscious type of modification of 
physical appearance are not numerous, but they may increase with advances 
in medical and surgical knowledge. 

4. Early Miscegenation 

The slaves imported from Africa by no means represented "pure Negro 
races. ,> Of the original tribal stocks many had an admixture of Caucasoid 
genes from crosses with Mediterranean peoples. During the slave trade 
more white genes were added. The Portuguese who settled on the Guinea 
Coast had relations with the natives. The slave traders themselves were 
known frequently to have had 'promiscuous intercourse with their female 
merchandise. Even more important as a source of infiltration of white blood 
into the Negro slave population before arriving in what is now the United 
States was slavery in the West Indies. While some of the slaves in these 
islands came directly from Africa, others were brought indirectly by way 
of Spain and Portugal. The importation of Negro slaves into those 
European countries was in practice by the beginning of the sixteenth 
century, and by 1539 there is some evidence that it reached the figure of 
10,000 to 12,000 a year.""' It seems that there was extensive miscegenation 
in these two European nations. Part of the offspring remained and became 
engulfed in the population of the Iberian Peninsula. Those brought over 
to the West Indies formed a large proportion of their slave population. 
This continuously received further additions of non-Negro blood from the 
white and Indian inhabitants of these islands. No one knows exactly what 
proportion of the slave population of the United States was brought by way 
of the West Indies, but the proportion would be significant. As the slave 
import from the West Indies formed an increasing proportion of all slave 
importation during the later periods of slavery in America, and as Negro 
immigration after Emancipation has been largely from the West Indies, 
the elements in the American Negro people with the shortest line of 
ancestry in this country arc, therefore, not of purer breed but rather the 
contrary. 28 

Upon their arrival in the New World, one type of mixture which is 
important, although not often referred to in this relation, did not fer se 
involve Indian and white stock. We refer to the wholesale mingling of the 
various African stocks with each other. Historical sources from the period 
often ascribe to the slaveholders a conscious purpose to break up tribal 
coherence and allegiance between the slave masses in order to decrease their 
resistance against slavery. It was part of their being "broken in." 2T But 
even apart from such a purpose, a compulsory labor system managed by 
persons who, in any case, had no feeling for upholding tribal differentia- 



124 An American Dilemma 

tion, even when they did not consciously follow the opposite policy, must 
have had this result. This intermingling between the African tribes also had 
its beginnings in Africa, where commerce and wars, slaveholding and slave 
trade, for thousands of years, had this effect. 28 The extensive slave trading 
by Europeans after the discovery of the New World, and the stirring up of 
population movements in Africa caused thereby, only intensified a process 
already taking place. Its final consummation occurred in America.* 

In the United States miscegenation with Indians and whites occurred from 
the very beginning. Indians were held as slaves in some of the American 
colonies while Negro slaves were being imported. Equality of social status 
between Indians and Negroes favored intermingling. The whites had little 
interest in hindering it. 29 As the number of Negro slaves increased, the In- 
dian slaves gradually disappeared into the larger Negro population. Whole 
tribes of Indians became untraceably lost in the Negro population of the 
South. b Some Indian tribes held Negro slaves with whom they mingled, 
and some were active in the internal Negro slave trade. Runaway Negro 
slaves and free Negroes often took refuge in the Indian camps, where they 
then were kept as slaves or were adopted. They took part in the wars and 
insurrections and became completely amalgamated in the Indian tribes with 
which they lived. In a few cases the intermixture produced a group that 
was recognized neither as Indian nor as Negro. A few isolated groups of 
this type remain to the present day. 80 

During the nineteenth century, the Indians declined as a significant ele- 
ment in the population of the South, and those who remained began to 
take on the attitudes of the white man toward the Negro. From this 
time on, Indian-Negro mixture was probably no more important than 
Indian-white mixture in the South. But the early interbreeding between 
Negroes and Indians has beeft of greater importance for the genetic com- 
position of the American Negro population than has until recently been 
realized. 81 Twenty-seven and three-tenths per cent of the Negro sample of 
1,551 individuals examined by Herskovits claimed some Indian ancestry. 31 

The relations between Negro and white indentured servants during the 
seventeenth century had much the same social basis as the Negro-Indian 
intermixture. As already pointed out, some time lapsed before the imported 
Negroes were pushed down to the lower status of chattel slavery, and 
racial prejudice developed only gradually. All through, the colonial period, 
the white population showed a marked excess of males and a scarcity of 
females— as did also the Negro population— which ■per se is a factor tending 

* This intermingling, both in Africa and in America, will be considered again when we 
discuss the possible consequence of a new "brown race" in America. (See Section 9 of this 
chapter.) 

6 Many *tber Indian tribes, of course, moved West, so that the relative absence of Indians 
in the 8m& is by no means due solely to amalgamation with the more numerous Negroes. 



Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 125 

to promote interracial sex relations. 88 It seems from the historical records 
that the two dependent groups — Negro and white servants — were often 
bound together by considerable sympathy during most of the seventeenth 
century j the extreme contempt and hatred between Negroes and poor 
whites which has prevailed into the present time seems, in any case, to 
be a later development. 8 * 

Sexual relations occurred under these conditions rather freely and 
a half-breed stock appeared early. Some of those early relations involved, 
as the sporadic historical sources reveal, white women; some of the rela- 
tions in both directions had the character of legal marriage. But from 
the beginning the much larger portion of the intermixture occurred between 
white men and Negro women and most of it was extra-marital. When a 
mulatto generation came into existence, it served as a new stimulus to 
relations between the Negro and white groups, as mulatto women were 
preferred to pure-blooded Negroes as sexual objects. Even if in these early 
relations it seems that most of the time the white male partner belonged to 
the lower classes, the higher classes, who owned and could dispose of their 
slave women, already had given a share to the paternity of the growing 
Negro population of America. 

Parallel to the stratification of the lower slave status for Negroes, the 
various states started to pass laws against intermarriage and other types of 
interracial sex relations. 83 It is apparent from a casual inspection of these 
laws that they were largely guided by the property holders' interest in keep- 
ing parents and offspring in slavery." Their chief effect upon interracial sex 
relations was probably to drive them even more toward the illicit type. 
It probably did not diminish their actual occurrence to any appreciable 
degree, since there was practically no attempt to enforce the law prohibit- 
ing interracial intercourse outside of marriage. 

5. Ante-Bellum Miscegenation 

As the slavery and plantation system became more firmly established in 
the early eighteenth century, a second stage was reached in Negro-white 
sex relations. White servitude was already on the decline while the num- 
ber of Negro slaves was increasing. Some authors hold the opinion that, 
as a result, miscegenation decreased considerably, but their arguments are 
not convincing. 80 

A final answer to this question will probably never be reached, the less 
so as the matter of interracial sex relations had become an important issue 
between the white Southerners and the Northern Abolitionists in the 
decades preceding the Civil War. The accusation that there was sexual 

* Before these laws were passed, there was some question as to whether the offspring: of 
a free person and a slave was free or not. There was also some question as to the legal 
status of both parents in such a case. 



126 An American Dilemma 

exploitation of Negro women was one of the most effective means of con- 
solidating public opinion against slavery in the puritan North. Thus 
Southern writers of the period avoided mentioning the point, especially 
as it involved white men of the master class and their female slaves. What 
the present writer has been able to read in historical sources and, in addi- 
tion, to learn from the rumors in the South leads him to believe that Wirth 
gives a balanced statement on the "amount of miscegenation during the 
period of slavery" when he says: 

The contemporary observers, on the whole, tend to leave an impression that no 
likely looking Negro, or more especially mulatto, girl was apt to be left unmolested 
by the white males; that very few of the young white men grew up "virtuously," 
and that their loss of virtue was scarcely to be attributed to cohabitation with white 
women. While such impressionistic statements lead to the inference that interracial 
sexual relations were normal experiences for at least the white men of well-to-do 
families, they reveal nothing concerning the proportion of Negro women and, of 
lesser importance, of Negro men, who entered into interracial unions. It is quite 
conceivable that the very great emphasis on the sexual activities of the white male has 
tended to obscure the extent to which large numbers of Negro women may have 
been free from any sexual experiences with men of the white race. 37 

It should not be assumed that interracial sex relations were a pattern only 
of the Southern rural plantations. There is general agreement, among the 
authors who have studied the question of interracial sexual relations of this 
period, that such relations — measured in proportion to Negro women 
involved — were even more frequent in the Southern cities and in the North. 
The Negro population in these urban communities contained a larger pro- 
portion of mulattoes, partly as a result of race mixture there and partly 
because slaveholding fathers of mulatto children sometimes freed their 
offspring and moved them to the cities or to the free territory in the North. 
The North contained more light-colored Negroes also because there were 
many states without laws prohibiting intermarriage. Mulatto women have 
always been preferred to full-blooded Negroes as sex mates. A large pro- 
portion of city Negroes were free} in the North all Negroes were free. 
Qty life — both in the South and in the North — was more anonymous, even 
for the slaves. In cities a larger proportion of Negroes were engaged in 
household work. They were fewer and were more scattered through the 
white population. All these factors tended to make interracial sex relations 
relatively more numerous in the Southern and Northern cities than in the 
Southern rural areas. The only factor, apparently, working in the opposite 
direction— to decrease sex contacts between the races in the North— was the 
North's lack of interest in breeding mulattoes for the slave market. These 
interracial sex relations in the North and in Southern cities had only a 
minor influence on the genetic composition of the total Negro population, 



Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 127 

however, since the bulk of the Negro population during the slavery period 
was rural Southern. 

6. Miscegenation in Recent Times 

The third stage of Negro-white sex contact came with the Civil War and 
its aftermath. The Northern army left an unknown amount of Yankee 
genes in the Southern Negro people. 38 The prolonged disturbances follow- 
ing the War were probably even more important. Reuter summarizes the 
situation in these words: 

The emancipation of the slaves and the breakdown of the master-slave relationship 
was followed by a prolonged period of profound disorganization. Restraints were 
removed and the manumitted slaves wandered in celebration. The period was one 
of more or less unrestrained promiscuity. 30 

This period was not a short one. When the Negro population gradually 
settled down in the caste status which had been substituted for slavery, sex- 
ual mores can be assumed to have been continued much along ante-bellum 
lines. The only new element in the situation, apparently, was the lack of 
interest in breeding mulatto children for the slave market, because the latter 
no longer existed. What evidence there is on interracial sexual relations 
during the later decades of the nineteenth century does not indicate that such 
relations were considerably less frequent than during slavery; they might 
even have been somewhat more frequent. 

It is more difficult to form even a conjectural judgment as to the amount 
of interracial sexual relations during the twentieth century and as to the 
present trend than it is to ascertain broadly the facts for earlier periods. 
Interracial sexual relations are more closely guarded than ever, and life 
is more anonymous and less fixed in groups about whose behavior simple 
and valid generalizations might be made. The slight increase in scientific 
research on the subject has not compensated for these trends. Among 
factors which might have tended to increase interracial sexual contact must 
be reckoned: increased Negro migration to cities and the North; slow but 
gradual urbanization even of rural districts in the South; and the seculariza- 
tion of sexual morals, particularly among the white population. Among 
factors tending to have an opposite effect are: in the white population, the 
gradual breakdown of the sexual double standard (making for easier accessi- 
bility of white women for extra-marital purposes), the balancing of the 
sex ratio, and the publicity about the high rate of venereal disease among 
Negroes; in the Negro population, the gradually increasing race pride, the 
relatively lessened value of concubinage with a white man, the slowly 
spreading middle class morality in sex matters. Public opinion in the 
South also has become firmer in condemning white men's sex relations 
with Negro women, and the segregation of the Negro people has become 
more complete. 



128 An American Dilemma 

There have been no scientific studies which even suggest tentatively the 
actual quantitative trend of interracial sexual relations. Most of the infor- 
mants the writer has questioned on local trends — but by no means all — have 
agreed in the belief that sex relations between members of the two groups 
are decreasing. The same opinion is expressed in the literature. 40 It should, 
however, be considered with the greatest reservation, as such an opinon 
is opportune in both the white and the Negro groups. The matter is of 
great social importance because of the way in which the Negro problem has 
been defined in America, and it is, therefore, urgent that science should 
bring light upon this phase of social life — in spite of the natural reluctance 
and perhaps even resistance from the side of the public. 

But even if interracial sexual relations were not decreasing, the offspring 
from intermixture may be decreasing. The scanty evidence available seems 
to point in this direction. 41 In considering trends in the injection of white 
genes into the American Negro population, the amount of sex relations 
between members of the two races is not the only factor which must be 
taken into consideration. 

An increased utilization of effective contraception, decreasing the rela- 
tive and absolute amount of mixed offspring, has the same genetic effect 
as decreased interracial sexual relations. Writers who have considered 
recent trends in miscegenation generally tend to ignore trends in use of 
contraceptive devices. 42 It is possible that, as means of effective birth control 
have become spread among the American population, they have been 
utilized with particular eagerness and efficiency in mixed sexual relations. 41 
The writer has, from the information he has been able to gather from 
doctors, social workers, Negroes with wide community knowledge, and, 
occasionally, from average Negroes themselves, got the impression that, 
at least in cities, even Negroes in lower strata have kept pace with knowl- 
edge about contraceptives. 44 

Even more important is a change in the character of interracial sexual 
relations. The more stable type of sex unions — marriage and concubinage — 
have probably been decreasing, 40 and these are the types of relations most 
productive of offspring.* On the other hand, prostitution is mostly sterile, 
while other casual types of relations may have increasingly involved the 
use of contraceptives. 46 

The probable decline in offspring with one white parent and one Negro 

parent should, therefore, not be taken to mean that interracial sex contacts 

have necessarily decreased: a rise in prostitution and other casual sex 

contacts may have counterbalanced the decline in marriage and concubinage. 

1 From a genetic standpoint, the only sex relations which matter are those 

*The cultnral, (octal, and personal side of miscegenation, the different types of sexual 
unions, the legislation against intermarriage and the research on intermarriage will be dealt 
with in later chapters on discrimination and caste. (See Chapters 29 and 31.) 



Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 129 

leading to mixed offspring. The scanty quantitative evidence, and general 
opinion seem to indicate that there has been a decline in the rate at which 
white genes are being added to the Negro population. 

7. "Passing" 

Because of the American caste rule of classifying all hybrids as Negroes, 
it might be thought that no Negro blood would ever get into the white 
population. However, some extremely light Negroes — usually having more 
white ancestry than Negro — leave the Negro caste and become "white." 
"Passing" is the backwash of miscegenation, and one of its surest results. 
Passing must have been going on in America ever since the time when 
mulattoes first appeared. Passing may occur only for segmented areas of 
life — such as the occupational or recreational — or it may be complete; it 
may be temporary or permanent; it may be voluntary or involuntary; it 
may be with knowledge on the part of the passer or without his knowledge; 
it may be individual or collective. 47 Usually the only kind that is 
important for the genetic composition of both the white and the Negro 
population is that kind which is complete and permanent.* 

Usually only the lighter colored Negroes pass in the United States. 
However, some of the darker do also by pretending to be Filipinos, Span- 
iards, Italians or Mexicans. Day's study further reveals how capable of 
passing are persons with one-fourth, three-eighths, and even one-half, 
Negro blood, not to speak of persons with even smaller admixtures. 48 
Because those who pass usually have more white ancestors than Negro, it 
is genetically less important that these people go over into the white world 
than if they were to remain in the Negro. Passing, therefore, involves far 
greater change in social definition of the individual than it does in his 
biological classification. 

It is difficult to determine the extent of passing. Those who have passed 
conceal it, and some who have passed permanently are not even aware of 
it themselves because their parents or grandparents hid the knowledge 
from them. Census data and vital statistics are not accurate enough to 
permit of estimates within reasonable limits. The possible methods for 
estimating the extent of passing are: (1) getting at genealogies by direct 
questioning or other means; (2) noting discrepancies between the observed 
numbers of Negroes in the census and those which may be expected on 
the basis of the previous census and birth and death figures for the inter- 
censal years; (3) noting deviations from normal in the sex ratio of Negroes. 
All these methods have been employed, but — for one reason or another — 
have not permitted us to state the extent of passing. 48 

"The cultural, social, and personal problems raised by the phenomenon of passing will 
be discussed in Chapter 31. 



130 An American Dilemma 

Passing has genetic significance for both whites and Negroes.* The whites 
get a certain admixture of Negro genes. This may modify certain charac- 
teristics of their physical structure to an extent which must be slight, on 
account of both the great size of the white population and the predominance 
of Caucasoid genes in the passers. It cannot make the white population 
much darker even if continued for a long time." The main genetic conse- 
quence of passing for the Negro people is that some of the near-Caucasoid 
elements are being constantly removed from the possibility of reducing 
the proportion of Negroid genes in the remaining American Negro popula- 
tion. This is, of course, a relative matter, since far from all light Negroes 
attempt to pass, and since many who cannot pass have a large admixture 
of white blood. Passing is apparently more common to men than to women, 
judging by opinion and the sex ratio. b This does not reduce the genetic 
significance of passing, however, since the contribution of genes by a father 
is just as great as that by a mother. Of some consequence for genetic com- 
position is the fact that young adults arc those who pass most frequently. 
These are the persons who bear most children, who are, consequently, 
usually lost to the Negro group. 

8. Social and Biological Selection 

There are no data to permit the conclusion that, in the rural South where 
most of the miscegenation has taken place, one social class of the white 
population was more responsible for the existence of the mixed-blood 
population than corresponds to its relative proportion in the population. 
Neither does the available evidence allow the contrary conclusion. But 
even if one social class of white people in the South should have been more 
predominantly involved in miscegenation, this would not necessarily have 
great genetic importance, since* it is not scientifically established that social 
classes of whites in the South differed significantly in genetic composition, 
in spite of the popular opinion that poor whites are degenerate. 51 It is also 
not possible to state that within the various social classes of whites, mis- 
cegenation has followed any pattern of individual selection. 

Turning to the Negro partners in miscegenation it would, however, on 
a priori grounds, seem probable that a factor of positive selection in mating 
could have been at work, at least until recent times when Negro pride 
became important. The Negro girl whose physical appearance and cultural 
manners approximated the prevalent standards in the higher caste would 

* In the following discussion and throughout the book, we discuss certain implications of 
the inheritance of skin color as an example of all physical traits which have significance for 
social status, such as breadth of nose, thickness of lips and hair form. 

* This probably occurs "because passing usually involves ecouomic advantages to Negro 
males who, mast compete in a white man's world, but economic disadvantages to a Negro 
female who could get a white husband only from the lower classes, but possibly a Negro 
husband from the upper classes. 



Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 131 

certainly be preferred as a sexual partner. Such girls tended, at least after 
the first generation in America, to be mulattoes rather than pure-blooded 
Negroes. The fact that a similar preference probably occurred in the choice 
of Negro girls for household work, where they became more exposed to 
sexual advances, would strengthen its importance. Within the Negro 
marriage market the mulattoes' lighter skin has had, and continues to have, 
a strong competitive value. This can again be assumed to work as a factor 
of positive selection favoring the mulatto group: Dark males who have 
distinguished themselves in any way tend to take light mulatto women 
as wives. 

As a result of this marriage selection, whatever talent there is among the mulattoes 
remains among the mulattoes ; whatever talent there is among the black group marries 
into the mulatto caste. In either event the talent of the Negro race finds its way into 
the mulatto groups. The descendants of these talented'men are mulattoes, and what- 
ever of the father's superior mentality and energy they may show or carry becomes 
an asset to the mulatto group, and the full-blood group is correspondingly impover- 
ished. The mulatto caste loses none of its native worth and is constantly reinforced 
by the addition to it of the best of the variant types which appear among the 
numerically larger group. 53 

We cannot accept this line of reasoning, however, without qualifications, 
since it is not certain that whites have predominantly selected innately 
superior Negro girls to have sex relations with, or that socially successful 
dark Negroes who marry light girls are also biologically superior, or that 
the inferiority of the white parents of mulattoes has not balanced the 
superiority of their Negro parents. The proof that mulattoes are biolog- 
ically superior to full-blooded Negroes must go beyond the finding that 
mulattoes have made greater achievements than pure-blooded 'Negroes, 
since the latter have had more social handicaps than the former. 53 

Differences in fertility and mortality between groups with a varying 
degree of white ancestry must, through the generations, have affected the 
results of miscegenation upon the genetic composition of the present-day 
American Negro people. While opportunistic opinions have been expressed 
both to the effect that mulattoes were sterile, or more sterile, than full- 
blooded Negroes, on the one hand, and that they were unusually prolific, 
on the other hand, there is not the slightest shred of scientific evidence for 
either of these opposing popular beliefs. 54 

It is certain, however, that mulattoes are concentrated in cities in the 
higher economic brackets, where — because of greater use of effective birth 
control — they have a lower fertility than the Negro population as a whole. 
Nor does the probable lower death rate of mulattoes entirely counter- 
balance their lower birth rate. This differential reproductivity has been 
tending to reduce the proportion of white genes in the total Negro popula- 
tion. While other effects on genetic composition by differential reproduc- 



132 An American Dilemma 

tivity have been claimed (such as the presumed selective migration of 
superior Negroes to the cities, where the birth rate is low),' 5 these have 
thus far no basis in demonstrated facts. 

Length of residence of different elements of the Negro population in 
the United States must have had an influence on the genetic composition 
of the American Negro people. Because the Negro net reproduction rate 
has, until recently, been far above unity— so that a given group of American 
Negroes has always more than reproduced itself in the next generation— 
the earlier a certain element has entered the American Negro population, 
the greater the proportion of the total Negro population does this element 
form,* in relation to its original size. This factor operates on the genetic 
distribution of the descendants of the various African races in favor of the 
"true Negroes" from the West Coast, since Africans outside this latter group 
were probably not brought to America in significant numbers until the 
nineteenth century. The factor also makes less important the relative num- 
bers of Negroes coming via the West Indies, who also did not come in 
significant numbers until relatively recently. It also enhances the genetic 
significance of the earlier interracial sex contacts with the Indians and the 
indentured white servants brought from Europe in the seventeenth century. 
Finally, it makes more important the interracial sex contacts with the North 
and West Europeans that occurred in the earlier days than those with South 
and East Europeans that have tended to become relatively more numerous 
since the Civil War. 

9. Present and Future Genetic Composition Trends 

Everything said so far about the racial character of the slaves originally 
imported, about miscegenation and passing in this country, and about the 
various general factors which have influenced the American Negro stock, 
has been highly conjectural and speculative. Summing up this unsatisfactory 
knowledge can hardly lead to anything more than an expectation that the 
American Negro people should show up as a considerably mixed population 
group. It is the merit of Professor Melville J. Herskovits 58 that he has 
finally approached this problem directly and, taking his departure in 
anthropometric research of the present Negro group in America and its 
genealogy, has tried to ascertain the actual composition of the group. 

Herskovits' most significant finding was that 7 1 .7 per cent of his presum- 
ably representative sample of 1,551 Negroes, had knowledge of some white 
ancestry, and that 27.2 per cent knew of some Indian ancestry. 67 Hersko- 
vits claims that his sample is representative because the groups of Negroes 
'from various sections of the country were found to be similar in several 

"The element need not have remained intact in certain family lines, of course. The 
statement in the text refers to the proportion of genet in the Negro population, therefore, 
and not to the proportion of persons. 



Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 133 

physical traits. This does not constitute proof of representativeness, how- 
ever, because it is likely that each group of Negroes (from each section 
of the country) is an upper class group, and Herskovits does not define 
the degree of closeness of trait which constitutes similarity. Too, the list of 
traits which were compared does not include color or other important 
differentiating traits. It is likely that Herskovits' sample contains too many 
upper class Negroes who are known to have a disproportionate amount of 
white ancestry.* The fact that many Negroes may not know of white 
ancestry of several generations back 68 may, however, counterbalance the 
selective factor in Herskovits' sample and leave his figure of 71.7 per cent 
with white ancestry not too inaccurate. Thus, while we cannot say that 
existing research permits a definitive answer to the question as to how many 
Negroes have some white blood, the best available evidence and expert 
opinion point to a figure around 70 per cent. This figure must tend to 
increase with time, if for no other reason than that full-blooded Negroes 
intermarry with mixed bloods and their offspring become mixed bloods. 
Herskovits' other important conclusion — that in many physical traits the 
present American Negro population shows less variability than its parent 
African Negro, American white, and American Indian populations, and so 
are rapidly forming a genetically homogeneous group — cannot be accepted 
as demonstrated. 88 

A forecast of the future trend of genetic changes must, in its very nature, 
be highly conjectural, and, if stretched beyond the next few decades, it 
cannot possibly be more than an amateurish guess. Even for the immediate 
future it can amount to little more than an enumeration of the relevant 
factors and a consideration of their interrelations. Any statement concerning 
the resultant effect of the forces at play has no greater validity than the 
specific premises stated concerning the primary factors at work. 

Miscegenation between American Negroes and whites is commonly be- 
lieved to be on the decrease. Even if it is not certain that sex relations 
between members of the two groups are decreasing, there is more reason 
to feel confident that children of white-Negro unions are becoming rarer, 
in both absolute numbers and relative proportions. Information on, and 
accessibility to, contraceptive devices is increasing; and their further 
technical perfection is generally expected among population experts. A 
decreasing rate of birth of offspring with parents representing the two races 
will not, of course, decrease the proportion of white genes in the Negro 
people but will slow down their further increase and postpone the distant 
possibility of full amalgamation. 

Passing is becoming easier in the more mobile and anonymous society 
of today and tomorrow. The more recent immigration of darker peoples 

"It also seems that Herskovits' sample contains too many Negroes from the Atlantic 
seaboard states, who are known to have a disproportionate amount of white ancestry. 



134 An American Dilemma 

from Eastern Europe and from around the Mediterranean Sea and also 
from Latin America, especially from Mexico, and the rising social respect- 
ability of the American Indian, have made passing easier for the Negro. 
Warmer relations with the republics of South America will perhaps be an 
influence in the same direction. The increasing segregation, on the other 
hand, which tends to create economic and social monopolies for the Negro 
upper class (to which most of the light-colored mulattoes belong) will 
tend to decrease the desire to pass. So also will the rising race pride.' 
America is unique among all countries having a mixed population — not 
excluding countries like Brazil where discrimination is so much milder — 
in having a significant number of white or almost white Negroes, who 
could easily pass but prefer not to do so. 

As the individuals who pass must be near-white, the extent of passing 
is a function of the number of such individuals. Continued miscegenation 
between whites and Negroes will tend to increase that number; miscegena- 
tion between mulattoes and darker Negroes — as well as low reproduction 
rates for mulattoes — will tend to decrease it. What the trend of passing is, 
and will be, resulting from the interplay of these various factors, is impos- 
sible to ascertain on the basis of present evidence. 

The effect of passing, whatever its extent, is to neutralize the effect of 
miscegenation on the genetic composition of the Negro people. b It is even 
possible to conceive of a temporary condition in which the rate of passing 
would exceed the rate of addition of new white blood into the Negro group 
so that there would be a tendency for the American Negro group to 
become more negroidized. 

Differential re-productivity is a factor which can be expected to have 
a continuing importance within the next decades. 00 Our knowledge of social 
and economic conditions among the Negro people and of the development 
of differential reproductivity in other countries which are more advanced 
in birth control rather favors the forecast that present fertility differences 
^fcgtween the various Negro groups are not going to decrease much for a 
fr; lbng time." Infant mortality and, generally, mortality in the lower age 
groups may be expected, on the other hand, to become gradually more 
equalized. 11 There are, further, no sure signs that light-colored people will 
not remain in the upper class. Since, with increasing segregation, the Negro 

* See Chapter 30, Section 2. I 
k The effect of passing on the American white population can never become important 

because those who pass usually have more Caucasoid genes than Negroid, and because the 
numbers who pass are insignificant compared to the huge American white population. 

* Fertility differentials may decrease, however, if Southern states extend the policy, wh.'ch 
a few of them now have, of setting up birth control clinics in rural areas. (See Chapter 7;. 
Section 7^ 

'See Chapter 7, Section 1. 



Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 135 

upper class is relatively growing, it can come to include a relatively greater 
number of black Negroes without losing many of its mulattoes. 

Reproduction differences have, in the main, the same effect on the Negro 
group as passing, except that the effect is not so exclusively concentrated on 
the extremely light-colored Negroes." This factor, therefore, enters into 
the balance between miscegenation and passing and makes it more probable 
that the effects of miscegenation can be fully, or more than fully, counter- 
weighted. 

Internal miscegenation within the Negro group between individuals 
with a varying degree of white ancestry is, and will in the future be, going 
on. The result is a tendency toward a slow but continuous equalization of 
Negro and white genes in, the Negro people, decreasing the relative num- 
bers at both the black and white extremes and concentrating the individuals 
ever closer to the average. The changes in position of the average itself 
will depend upon the balance, referred to above, between white-Negro 
miscegenation, on the one hand, and passing and reproductivity differ- 
entials, on the other hand. 

Immigration of Negroes (and mixed bloods) from the West Indies and 
from South America — the latter of which might become more important 
in the future — will, in so far as the immigrants enter the country as 
Negroes, somewhat change the genetic composition of the Negro people 
in a direction dependent upon the genetic constitution of the newcomers. 
As the stocks are not very different, 11 this factor, even if the immigration 
should increase, will not effect great changes in the American Negro people. 

The three main problems to be stressed in a theoretical analysis starting 
out from such considerations as those stated above — assuming immigration 
inconsequential, and disregarding the effects on the white population — are: 

(1) The interdependence between the various factors. Passing is, for 
example, a function of Negro-white and Negro-mulatto miscegenation 
and of differential reproductivity. 

(2) The position of the average in the various traits which differentiate 
whites from Negroes. This position is a function of miscegenation, 
passing and differential reproductivity. 

(3) The homogeneity of the Negro population. The degree of dispersion 
around the average is generally a function of internal miscegenation 
and, particularly in regard to the form of the frequency curve at the 
white end, a function of external miscegenation, passing and differ- 
ential reproductivity. 

" It has, of course, in contradistinction to passing, no effects at all on the white population. 

b They contain, however, relatively more genes of other original African stocks than the 
"true Negro," which predominated in the import to the United States, and of different 
groups of Indians than those that were to be found in the United States. They also bring 
their own mutations and other physical changes of the last four hundred yean. 



136 An American Dilemma 

The above generalizations may be integrated into a system of simple 
mathematical equations. In view of the paucity of data on the extent and 
trends of miscegenation, passing, and differential reproductivity, such a 
mathematical formulation could not be used to predict the probable future 
genetic composition and physical appearance of American Negroes. How- 
ever, it might have the value of allowing the student to realize more 
easily the logical possibilities in the future. It may also have the value of 
checking the looser type of judgments made even by respectable authors. 
The construction of such a theoretical model, however, is a major task in 
itself and is beyond the scope of this book. 

This chapter has mainly been a review of a great number of questions 
upon which science does not as yet provide precise and definite answers. 
We can, however, state confidently that there are no reasons to believe 
that a more complete amalgamation between whites and Negroes will 
occur within the surveyable future. It is even possible, though not certain, 
that the proportion of very light mulattoes who now, so to speak, form 
a bridge between the two population groups will decrease by passing and 
by marriage with darker Negroes. That the Negro group is not disappear- 
ing will be a theme of Chapter 7. Finally, we remind the reader again 
that the concept of the American Negro is a social concept and not a 
biological one. Even considerable changes in the genetic composition of the 
Negro people may leave the social problems, around which this inquiry is 
centered, unchanged. 



CHAPTER 6 

RACIAL CHARACTERISTICS 



i. Physical Traits 

In our discussion of "racial" characteristics, which is only a brief 
summary, we are separating those traits which are physical from those 
which are psychic, thus following the traditional division between anthro- 
pology and psychology. In presenting the facts, particularly on the physical 
traits, but also on the psychic traits, wc have to build upon studies mainly 
concerned with those traits in which Negroes differ from whites, which, by 
itself, represents a biased statement of the problem tending to exaggerate 
differences and minimize similarities. We are, furthermore, limited almost 
to what we have ourselves criticized — namely, presenting differences 
between the means of the two groups — because these are practically all the 
facts available. The dispersion around the means is usually measured only 
by standard deviation and other abstract indices which do not allow an inten- 
sive study of the concrete distribution and of overlapping. Still worse, the 
available data are so weak that even the differences between means cannot 
be said to be satisfactorily established. 

Ascertaining the differences between Negroes and whites in respect to 
physical traits involves not only measurements of Negroes but also the 
establishment of a "standard" set of measurements of whites. No anthropo- 
metric measurements of the American population have ever been under- 
taken on such a large scale and with such methodological precautions that 
valid comparisons between one sub-group and the rest of the population 
are made possible. Nearest the ideal in regard to large number of cases 
was the Army study, 1 but the technique of measurement had several weak- 
riesses. 2 

There are, however, a large number of studies on small samples of 
American Negroes and various groups of whites. For the Negroes, Hersko- 
vits' study is by far the best available. During his investigations, Herskovits 
tried to determine the representativeness of his sample; we have in the 
preceding chapter accounted for the general reasons why we cannot accept 
his claims. The investigators of white samples have not even made efforts 
to get representativeness. 

Apart from this question of representativeness, which is particularly 

"37 



138 An American Dilemma 

important because of the heterogeneous origin of the American population, 
the samples are often too small to allow even for reliability in a formal 
statistical sense, especially after differences in age and sex have been taken 
into account. There are also differences in criteria and in techniques of 
measurement utilized in the various studies which make comparisons 
extremely hazardous. Some of these differences can be accounted for, but 
some are hidden in the results and, consequently, unknown. Only when 
the two groups have been studied by one investigator in one integrated 
study is there full security on this point, but few such studies have been 
made; and they have no claims to representativeness and reliability. 8 

The white population most often used for furnishing a standard set of 
measurements of whites has been Hrdlicka's Old Americans.* Hrdlicka's 
sample — which includes 900 complete and 1,000 incomplete cases of indi- 
viduals measured over a period of 15 years — is not, and was never meant 
to be, representative of the white American population. It is instead a 
sample of those white Americans whose ancestors had been longest in this 
country — predominantly British, Germans and Scandinavians. To get his 
sample, Hrdli£ka took only Americans whose ancestors on both sides had 
been in the United States for at least two generations. The exclusiveness 
as to ancestral stock implied in this selection is coupled with a definite bias 
toward including a disproportionate number of persons of high socio- 
economic status. Only those "Old Americans" who did not marry the 
poorer immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were accepted as 
proper ancestors to the individuals in the sample. An even stronger source 
of bias in the same direction was Hrdlicka's device of selecting persons 
from patriotic societies, especially the Daughters of the American Revolu- 
tion, and from large Eastern universities. Also he made an intentional 
selection of persons who were healthy and "normal." The socio-economic 
bias generally, and particularly the demand for healthiness and "normal- 
ity," must be considered to be the more important as several physical traits 
are known, and some others are suspected, not to be true hereditary traits 
but to be determined also by nutrition and other environmental factors. 

Thus, to sum up, when Negroes are compared with whites, in the United 
States, and Hrdlicka's sample is used, they are compared with a vaguely 
defined group of "normal," healthy, white persons of Western European 
ancestry in which the upper classes were heavily over-represented. 
Hrdlicka's study has many outstanding qualities, but it offers a poor 
substitute for the standard set of measurements of a representative sample 
of the American white population needed for comparison when Negro 
physical traits are to "be determined. 

It is no exaggeration to say that no physical difference between the 
average American Negro and the average American white, not even differ- 
ence in color, has yet been measured quantitatively by research methods 



Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics 139 

which conform to the rigid standards of statistics. The present undeveloped 
state of this field of physical anthropology should not lead us to accept 
low scientific standards and to make conclusions which are not warranted. 
At the maximum we are justified in drawing from available studies only 
rather qualitative statements concerning average differences, the actual 
quantities of which — as well as the actual spreads around the means — are 
not known or known only approximately, so that words and not figures are 
their more appropriate expressions. 

Compared to the average white man, the average Negro of the present 
day seems to exhibit the following physical traits: 6 head slightly longer 
and narrower j cranial capacity slightly less; interpupillary distance greater; 
nose broader; lips thicker; external ear shorter; nasal depth greater; nose 
and head shorter; torso shorter; arms and legs longer; pelvis narrower 
and smaller; stature shorter; skin with greater amount of black pigment; 
hair wavy, curly, frizzly or woolly; distribution of hair less thick; more 
sweat glands. Prognathism is greater, not because the brain case stops 
growing in early childhood, but because the upper jawbone continues to 
grow after the age at which that of the white man stops. A larger propor- 
tion of Negroes have brown eyes, black hair, and sacral pigment spots than 
do Old Americans. 7 This summary contains all those physical traits, 
reported by more than one anthropologist, that distinguish the American 
Negro from the Old American. The traits vary greatly among different 
groups of Negroes and in the total population of Negroes at different 
times, since — as we have seen — Negroes are not genetically homogeneous 
and stable. Stature, cranial capacity, and perhaps other traits are also 
modifiable by environmental changes over time, and the differences do 
not, therefore, necessarily, or wholly, represent hereditary traits. 

In many of these traits Negroes differ only slightly from white men; in 
nearly all of them there is some overlapping between Negroes and whites. 
The average person is, for these reasons, not aware of some of these differ- 
ences. Some of the traits are outstanding and easily visible in the average 
Negro — although nearly or entirely lacking in many individual members 
of the Negro group — such as dark skin, woolly hair, broad nose, thick lips 
and prognathism. They are the basic traits that account for the Negro's 
"social visibility." 

The white man might be aware of other differences but grossly exag- 
gerates them in his imagination, not because he has observed the differ- 
ences, but because he has certain opportunistic beliefs which he fortifies by 
hearsay testimony and by such occasional experiences of his own as happen 
to confirm his beliefs. He also usually attaches an incorrect interpretation 
to them. An example is the slightly smaller cranial capacity of the average 
Negro which the white man associates with alleged lower reasoning power 



140 An American Dilemma 

of the Negro despite the fact that no connection has been proved between 
cranial capacity and mental capacity. 

Certain traits are found only in popular beliefs and have no foundation 
at all in fact. Such are the beliefs that the time of suture closure in the 
brain case of the Negro is earlier than that of the Caucasoid, that the 
Negro's hands and feet are larger, and that his forehead slopes more. It 
would be instructive to trace the psychological significance of these and 
other false beliefs to those who hold them." To the same category belongs 
the belief that the Negro has different vocal cords. This is associated with 
the rather unique pronunciation and speech habits of a large proportion 
of the Negro population. 11 

Certain common beliefs have as yet not been checked by scientific re- 
search. This is, for instance, true of the beliefs that male Negroes have 
extraordinarily large genitalia and all Negroes a peculiar odor. 8 These 
beliefs have a strategic function in the justification of the American caste 
system. Occasionally even social scientists express the stereotypes with no 
evidence behind them. These beliefs are certainly not "the cause" of race 
prejudice, but they enter into its fixation. 

Since measurements of the American Negro are intended to be those 
of the average individual, and since the majority of American Negroes 
are mulattoes, the traits measured arc predominantly those of mulattoes. 
Little is known of the actual mechanism of inheritance of the various traits 
when races cross, except that it is far from being simple Mendelian inherit- 
ance. Anthropologists who have studied the biological effects of miscegena- 
tion have been forced to use the indirect technique of observing what 
differences are found on the average between persons of varying degrees of 
white blood. They find the changes in traks from those of the pure Negro 
type to be roughly proportional," on the whole, to the amount of admixture 
of white blood. 10 

Little is known about the functional correlates of the physical traits of 
Negroes, although if might be expected that there are some. There has 
been some speculation, for example, as to what anatomical traits of Negroes 
cause their supposed superiority in athletics, but no one has yet succeeded 
in proving any hypothesis, and, therefore, it is not known whether the 
superiority, if it exists, has a genetic basis or not. 11 

2. Biological Susceptibility to Disease 

There is one type of physical trait which has not usually been discussed 
by anthropologists but which has' occupied medical students for generations 

* See Chapter 4, Section 7. 

k Such cultural difference* will be discussed in Chapter 44. 

* See Chapter 4, Section 7, and Chapter 28, Section 5. 



Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics 141 

and which, if substantiated, would have great practical importance. We 
refer to the possibility of a differential susceptibility to various diseases. 

The discussion concerning whether the Negro is innately susceptible to 
certain diseases has had a history similar to the discussion concerning 
whether the Negro is mentally inferior to the white man. 12 The first 
inference was that the difference in specific disease rates was due to differ- 
ences in biological constitution. An elaborate explanation was built up in 
terms of the Negro's biological inability to adapt to a cold climate, the 
dark color of the Negro's viscera, the maldistribution of the Negro's nerve 
cells, and so on. The great decline in the Negro death rate since the turn 
of the century, almost paralleling, at a higher level, the decline in the 
white death rate," forced investigators to recognize environmental factors. 
The mode of investigation then became one of holding constant a few 
environmental factors — such as rural-urban residence and economic status — 
and attributing the remaining discrepancies to differences in innate suscepti- 
bility. In some studies the explicit assumption is made, without evidence, 
that there are no other relevant differences in the average living conditions 
of Negroes and whites. In other studies the same assumption is made 
implicitly. Few, if any, investigators have realized fully that the whole 
mode of existence of Negroes — with their segregation, over-crowding, 
and ignorance — helps to create a higher disease rate as compared to whites; 
and that these factors cannot be held constant completely because there 
is no group exactly comparable in the white world. 

The implication is that only an experimental procedure, in which all 
environmental factors were controllable, would answer the question as to 
what degree the present difference in disease and death rates is due to an 
inferior biological constitution on the part of the Negroes. This experiment 
would have to take into consideration the fact that resistance to disease is 
a function not only of heredity and environment at a certain time, but also 
of environmental conditions throughout the life history of the individuals 
under observation — for resistance to disease is built up in an individual 
during his childhood and even before his birth. 13 

We may briefly consider the facts concerning differences in disease and 
death rates between Negroes and whites." First, we must observe that the 
reporting of deaths and the designation of a cause of death are very 
inadequate. This has significance in studying differences between Negroes 
and whites, for Negroes are concentrated in those population groups for 
which reporting is least complete. Second, the fact that certain beliefs are 
prevalent about Negro susceptibilities, and that there is often a question 
as to what shall be reported as the "cause of death," make the official 
statistics an imperfect source for determining ethnic differences in disease. 
This is especially important in the case of those diseases to which Negroes 

' See Chapter 7, Section a. 



144 An American Dilemma 

the environmental factors to determine that the heredity of the Negro is 
such as to make him more or less susceptible to certain diseases than the 
white man. Even disease susceptibilities and immunities that are passed on 
from parent to child may not be genetic, since infection may occur before 
or after birth, and some environmental influences on the mother are visited 
upon her unborn children. 

That there may be hereditary differences in mental or physical diseases 
we cannot deny." But what we do know about the changes in the disease 
rate and the differentials in incidence under different environmental condi- 
tions leads us to the conclusion that any hereditary differentials in suscepti- 
bility (which may ultimately be detected) are likely to be small in compari- 
son to the changes which can be brought about by varying the mode of 
living and the quality of medical care. Too, susceptibility does not mean 
disease: for proper preventive efforts can reduce the ill-effects of any 
degree of susceptibility. Our practical conclusion is, therefore, that there 
is no reason for feeling complacent about the higher disease and death rates 
of Negroes on the ground that they have a greater innate susceptibility. 

3. Psychic Traits 

Most of the physical differences between Negroes and whites may be 
directly translated into terms of esthetic valuation, capacity for physical 
labor, and bodily healthiness. Except in the first respect, which, of course, 
is subjective, they do not, even if exaggerated, warrant any great depre- 
ciation of the Negro as a fellow human being. The differences, assumed 
or factual, as to size and structure of the brain have, in addition, been 
utilized for supporting beliefs in innate characteristics which are vastly 
more important — namely, the Negro's mental abilities and general psychic 
inclinations, and, consequently, his capacity for culture and morals. The 

* The fact that the Negro is somewhat different physically from the white man makes 
it likely that there are small racial differences in susceptibility. But nothing is definitely 
known about this, and the physical differences may have a complicated effect, as the 
following example will show. The black pigment in the Negro's skin is a protection against 
sunlight, and some investigators — but not all — think this involves a lessening of the amount 
of ultra-violet light absorbed by Negroes. Since ultra-violet light is a preventive of rickets, 
and since Negroes seem to have more than their fair share of rickets, some have claimed 
that the Negro's black skin has given him a greater biological susceptibility to rickets. But 
the skin of Negroes secretes more sebum, which makes ultra-violet light more potent. Too, 
diet deficiencies are a demonstrated cause of rickets, and Southern Negroes have notorious 
diet deficiencies. (See Julian Herman Lewis, The Biology of the Negro [1942], pp. 94-96.) 

Similarly, the Negro's supposed emotional traits have been advanced to explain certain 
of the diseases for which he has a high rate. For example, his excitability is supposed to 
cause hypertension of the heart, but his kck of excitability has been advanced by some to 
explain his high rate of angina pectoris — another heart disease. Neither the emotional traits 
nor their connection with the diseases in Negroes have been demonstrated. {Ibid., pp. 291- 
299.) 



Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics 145 

belief in the innate inferiority of the Negro in mental capacities and moral 
traits has naturally been central in the race dogma from the beginning. It 
is strategic in the justification of color caste. Obvious culture inferiorities, 
existing in the Negro population, made an inference back to innate cultural 
capacities not only opportune but also easy and, in fact, to be expected. 

When direct attempts were made to study scientifically these psychic 
differences and to measure their magnitude, virtually no one — or at least 
very few 20 — had any doubts that they really existed as biological traits, 
and that they were large. The history of the measurement of the psychic 
traits of the American Negro began with attempts to quantify what was 
already "known" about him. And usually the scientists found what they 
were seeking. 

Ferguson," for example, proceeding on his "demonstration" that the 
superiority of whites was "indubitable," even after various environmental 
influences were held "constant," correlated performance with skin color 
and found a perfect upward progression from pure Negro, through three- 
fourths pure Negro, mulattoes, and quadroons. 27 Ferguson even went so 
far as to attempt a quantitative statement of intelligence differences among 
the different color groups. "It is probably correct to say that pure Negroes, 
Negroes three-fourths pure, mulattoes and quadroons, have, roughly, 60, 
70, 80, and 90 per cent, respectively, of white intellectual efficiency." He 
dismissed the possibility that social differences may have caused the differ- 
ences in performance: "Among Negroes in general there are no considerable 
social distinctions based on color. A colored person is a Colored person, 
whether he be mulatto or Negro, and all mingle together as one race." 
Another example may be taken from the report of one of the earliest and 
most publicized studies of Negro-white personality differences. 28 The 
author, who concludes that Negroes are much less able to inhibit their 
impulses, significantly begins his paper with the statement: "It is with the 
issue here raised that the present study primarily concerns itself. Namely: 
what is the psychological explanation of the impulsiveness, improvidence 
and immorality which the Negro everywhere manifests?" 

For a time it seemed as if finally a firm basis was being laid for a science 
of psychic racial differences, extending our knowledge, not only by quanti- 
fying the apparent differences in innate cultural capacities, but by specifying 
the particular respects in which the Negro was inherently inferior to the 
white man. When we now look back on this stage of psychological research, 
we must remember that there was this common belief of Negro inferiority 
and, in addition, that many of the earlier studies had a direct or indirect 
connection with practical questions, such as segregation in schools, which 
tended to enforce the opportunistic bias. 

Independent of any special bias, or of the general bias inherent in the 
total cultural situation of American caste society, the scientist of that day 



14.6 An American Dilemma 

had to say to himself, as most authors are saying today, that psychic differ- 
ences simply are to be expected. We know that individuals are different, 
and that heredity is an appreciable component in individual differences. 
We know also that there are average physical differences between Negroes 
and whites, although we have not succeeded in measuring them. Hence 
why should there not be innate fsychic differences as well? Why should 
not the differences in ancestry and in the natural and cultural factors which 
have influenced biological history somewhat differently for the average 
American Negro also show up in differences as to average character, 
temperament, sensory powers and intelligence? Professor Boas, who cer- 
tainly did not share in any bias in favor of racial differences, said: 

It does not seem probable that the minds of races which show variations in their 
anatomical structure should act in exactly the same way. Differences of structure 
mutt be accompanied by differences of function, physiological as well as psychological ; 
and, as wc found clear evidence of difference in structure between the races, we 
must anticipate that differences in mental characteristics will be found. 29 

With particular reference to Negro-white differences, Boas said: 

... it would be erroneous to assume that there are no differences in the mental 
make-up of the Negro race and of other races, and that their activities should mix 
in the same lines. On the contrary, if there is any meaning in correlation of anatom- 
ical structure and physiological function, we must expect that differences exist. 30 

Such statements are made by almost everyone who touches- the problem. 

In view of these presumptions and biases, whether valid or invalid, the 
startling thing is that psychological research has failed to prove what it 
set out to prove. Huxley and Haddon — who, like most of the others, 
emphasize that "It is clear that there must exist innate genetic differences 
between human groups in regard to intelligence, temperament, and other 
psychological traits . . ." 31 — make the important remark that it is "not 
without significance that such an enormous mass of investigation has failed 
to demonstrate what so many are eager to prove." 32 This fact is of some 
importance as it should increase our right to feci confident in the results 
of the scientific trend, on the part of scientists, toward finding no psychic 
difference between Negroes and whites. The desire to attain methodolog- 
ically valid results is tending to overcome — in the long run — presumptions 
and biases. 

Research on psychic differences has, almost from the beginning, been 
dominated by methodological criticism and a.gradual refinement of research 
methods. The story has been told several times in technical and popular 
works and will not be retold here. 83 A few generalizations may suffice. 

A» is the case of the similar problems in regard to the differences be- 
tween social classes and between the two sexes, the great differences between 
individuals within each of the two groups tended from the beginning to 



Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics 147 

make judgments more relativistic concerning the differences between the 
Averages of the groups. The large amount of overlapping brought out the 
fact that both Negroes and whites belonged to the same human species and 
had many more similarities than differences. The averages themselves 
tended to come nearer each other when the measurements were refined to 
exclude more and more the influences of differences in environment, such 
as education, cultural background and experience, socio-economic class; and 
the social factors in the test situation itself, such as motivation and rapport 
with the tester. 

The intensive studies of these last influences proved, in addition, that 
no psychological tests yet invented come even close to measuring innate 
psychic traits, absolutely undistorted by these influences. They rather 
rendered it probable that average differences would practically disappear 
if all environmental factors could be controlled. Psychologists are coming 
to realize that they are not, and probably never will be, measuring innate 
traits directly but are, rather, measuring performance in a limited number 
of selected tasks, and that performance is determined — in a most complex 
fashion — by many influences besides innate capacity. 

Most of this work has concerned intelligence, as measured by the Intelli- 
gence Quotient. The inferences to be drawn are, on the whole, negative as 
far as hereditary differences are concerned: it has not been possible to prove 
beyond doubt the existence of any differences at all in innate intelligence 
between American Negroes and whites j neither has it been possible to 
prove, on the other hand, that no differences exist. In regard to environ- 
mental factors the inferences are, however, positive: it has been proved 
that environmental differences account for large differences in the measured 
intelligence performances. Present evidence seems, therefore, to make it 
highly improbable that innate differences exist which are as large as is 
popularly assumed and as was assumed even by scholars a few decades ago. 

What is here said about the general level of intelligence applies also to 
more specific mental traits. Nothing is definitely proved in the nature of 
qualitative differences j even the suggestion that Negro children have 
superior memory is not proved. 84 Neither is it made credible that there are 
fewer Negroes in the highest ranges of intelligence. 33 The earlier assumed 
difference that the intelligence of Negro youth ceases to develop at an 
earlier age does not stand criticism. 80 Nothing is proved concerning differ- 
ences between Negroes and whites in sensory powers. Other personality 
traits have been studied, but such studies have yielded no conclusions with 
regard to innate differences which could be considered valid. 37 Finally it 
should be mentioned that studies of different groups of American Negroes 
with a different amount of white blood have not given more positive 
results. 88 

These negative conclusions from many decades of the most painstaking 



148 An American Dilemma 

scientific labor stand in glaring contrast to the ordinary white American's 
firm conviction that there are fundamental psychic differences between 
Negroes and whites. The reason for this contrast is not so much that the 
ordinary white American has made an error in observation, for most 
studies of intelligence show that the average Negro in the sample, if judged 
by performance on the test, is inferior to the average white person in the 
sample," and some studies show that the average Negro has certain specific 
personality differences from the white man, b but that he has made an error 
in inferring that observed differences were innate and a part of "nature." 
He has not been able to discern the influence of gross environmental 
differences, much less the influence of more subtle life experiences. The 
fact should not be ignored, however, that he has also made many observa- 
tional errors, because his observations have been limited and biased. 

Even as long ago as 1930 — and that is long ago in this field of study, 
which is comparatively recent and has developed rapidly — a questionnaire 
circulated among "competent scholars in the field of racial differences" 
revealed that only 4 per cent of the respondents believed in race superiority 
and inferiority.'" It is doubtful whether the proportion would be as large 

* Summaries of studies using intelligence tests make it quite clear that Negroes rank 
below whites. See: (1) T. R. Garth, Race Psychology (1931)5 (z) Paul A. Witty and 
H. C. Lehman, "Racial Differences: The Dogma of Superiority," Journal of Social 
Psychology (August, 1930), pp. 394.-418; (3) Rudolph Pintncr, Intelligence Testing 
('9301 PP- 43*-433i (4) Otto Klineberg (editor), C/iatacteristics of the American Negro, 
prepared for this study; to be published, manuscript pages 1-119. Not all groups of 
Negroes have been found inferior to all groups of whites, however. In the Army intelligence 
tests during the First World War, for example, the Negroes of the Northern states of Ohio, 
Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania topped the whites of the Southern states of Mississippi, 
Arkansas, Kentucky and Georgia. See Otto Klineberg, Negro Intelligence and Selective 
Migration (1935), p. z. 

* It is not so much in the simple personality traits — measurable by existing psychological 
tests— that Negroes differ from whites, but in the complex traits connected with the cultural 
differences. Klineberg's recent summary shows that few, if any, psychological studies indicate 
Negro-white personality differences. ("Experimental Studies of Negro Personality," in 
Klineberg (editor), Clutracteristics of the American Negro, manuscript pages 1-65.) For a 
discussion of Negro personality and culture, see Chapters 36, 43 and 44. 

* Charles H. Thompson, "The Conclusions of Scientists Relative to Racial Differences," 
The Journal of Negro Education (July, 1934), pp. 494-5 1*. Although this study was not 
published until 1934, the questionnaire on which it was based was circulated in 1929-1930. 

This trend toward the repudiation of all positive findings with respect to racial differ- 
ences may be exemplified further by a statement made by Professor C. C. Brigham, whose 
A Study of American Intelligence (1923) was one of the references most frequently cited 
by those who held to Negro-white differences in intelligence. After reviewing studies made 
by others in the late 'twenties, Brigham concludes: 

"This review has summarized some, of the more recent test findings which show that 
comparative studies of various national and racial groups may not be made with existing 
tests, and which show, in particular, that one of the most pretentious of these comparative 
racial studies— the writer's own — was without foundation." ("Intelligence Tests of Immi- 
grant Groups," Psychological Review (March, 1930), p. 165). 



Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics 149 

today. The attitude of the psychologists reflects the state of the scientific 
findings in their field. 

But while they seem to be negative, these conclusions of psychological 
research have probably been more revolutionary and practically important, 
with respect to the Negro problem, than the conclusions from any other 
sphere of science. It is true that science's last word has not been said even 
on the Negro's innate intelligence and still less on his other psychic traits. 
But the undermining of the basis of certitude for popular beliefs has been 
accomplished. Also the research literature on the subject indicates that 
even if future research should be able to establish and measure certain 
innate psychic differences between American Negroes and whites, on the 
average, it is highly improbable that such differences would be so large, 
that — particularly when the overlapping is considered — they could justify 
a differential treatment in matters of public policy, such as in education, 
suffrage and entrance to various sections of the labor market. This is a 
practical conclusion of immense importance. 

For the theoretical study of the Negro problem in all its other branches 
— from breadwinning and crime to institutions and cultural accomplish- 
ments — the negative results in regard to heredity and the positive findings 
in regard to milieu are also of paramount importance. It means that when 
we approach those problems on the hypothesis that differences in behavior 
are to be explained largely in terms of social and cultural factors, we are 
on scientifically safe ground. If we should, however, approach them on the 
hypothesis that they are to be explained primarily in terms of heredity, we 
do not have any scientific basis for our assumption. 

4. Frontiers of Constructive Research 

The main need in physical anthropology is an application of some of the 
general precepts of statistics. No accurate description can be made of the 
physical traits of a group of people unless one measures a representative 
sample of that group. It may be stated bluntly that no anthropologist has 
yet measured a representative sample of Americans, or any specific sub- 
group of Americans." In making measurements, differences in age, sex, 
economic status, and ethnic background need to be taken into consideration. 
These demands on representativeness and specification will imply demands 
for larger samples than individual investigators can be expected to handle 
on their own resources and, consequently, planned cooperative work is 
necessary. 88 In the selection of traits to be measured, a more unbiased and 
comprehensive approach should be adhered to, so that interest is awarded 
equally to traits where groups can be expected to be similar on the average 
and to traits where the expectation is the contrary. Instead of reporting 
results only in terms of abstract averages, standard deviations, and coeffi- 

* See footnotes 3, 4, and 5 of this chapter. 



150 An American Dilemma 

dents of correlation, they should be presented in terms of the concrete 
frequency distributions as well, so that dispersion, exceptions, overlapping, 
and number of cases may be easily determined. 40 

The importance of environmental factors for physical traits needs more 
stress. Indeed a new direction in problems for research may be had by turn- 
ing from existing averages and limits to changes in traits which accompany 
certain unplanned or induced changes in environment and biological func- 
tions. Boas' research 41 on the changes in the physical traits of immigrants 
opened up problems for further research which are still far from solved 
after an interval of over thirty years. For the anthropology of the Negro, 
it may be observed that the possible physical correlates of the northward 
migration, of the improvements in diet, of the decline in many specific 
disease rates, of the increased wearing of shoes, and of many other changes, 
have never been studied. Controlled biological experiments on the Negro 
are not out of the question: Concentrated vitamin Bi has been administered 
to white persons and the effects of greater energy and optimism and lesser 
susceptibility to fatigue noted. 42 Is it not a reasonable and verifiable hypo- 
thesis that the administration of concentrated doses of vitamins would have 
even greater effects on Negroes, whose diets are, on the average, even 
more deficient than those of whites? 

The possibilities of redirecting psychological investigation are perhaps 
even greater. Even if the intelligence and personality measurement devices 
cannot be used to measure innate differences between Negroes and whites, 
they may be invaluable in detecting cultural differences and thereby in 
suggesting spots where education could improve Negroes. Recently, 
students of the Negro — following the lead of social anthropologists 48 — 
have been putting mental testing devices to this use. 44 In general, psycho- 
logical measuring devices can be used as instruments for detecting social 
differences, for predicting individual behavior in certain types of situations, 
and for suggesting techniques of control and improvement. 

The idea of using the intelligence tests as devices for measuring the 
psychological effects of unplanned or induced changes is not new to the 
psychologists. A large number of studies have been made of the effects of 
foster homes on the Intelligence Quotient of children. 48 In 1935, Klineberg 
reported a study in which he showed that there was a correlation between 
the I.Q. of Negro school children who had immigrated to New York 
from the South and the length of their residence in New York. 49 Canady 
has reported that a group of Negro students showed an average I.Q. six 
points higher when tested by a Negro psychologist than when tested by 
a white psychologist, and that a group of white students showed an average 
I.Q. six points lower when tested by a Negro psychologist than when tested 
by a white psychologist. 47 
While many other examples could be cited of the use of intelligence tests 



Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics 151 

to measure the influences of various environmental changes on the I.Q., 
this field has, however, as yet scarcely been tapped. With reference to the 
Negro, the writer knows of no studies which have been made to determine 
the effect on test performance of such influences as: the shock of the Negro 
child when he first learns that he is a Negro and realizes the social import 
of this fact j foster-placement in white homes; isolated development in 
white neighborhoods while still in the parental Negro home; shock of 
news about lynching as compared to other types of shock unconnected with 
race relations; group testing of Negroes isolated among white children 
as over against group testing of these same Negroes among other Negro 
children; various locations for the administration of tests to the same 
group of Southern Negroes, such as Negro schools, white schools, and 
courthouses; new schools and educational equipment in the same or differ- 
ent locales; special training in language usage, vocabulary, and logic; 
special rewards of different types (having some significance in the Negro 
world and in race relations) for high performance; and other significant 
influences. 48 To determine the effect on test performance of such influences 
the experiment must be set up very carefully. The effect of the influences 
should be noted, not only on intelligence test performance, but also on 
performance on the various types of personality trait measurement devices. 

The type of research suggested here would involve a radical change in 
point of view in psychological research. It would be freed from the tradi- 
tional discussion of racial traits and no longer look upon the environmental 
factors and their psychic effects as simple modifiers which hinder the 
attempt to determine psychic traits conceived of as static biological entities, 
a measurement of which would be eternally valid. It would rather look on 
environmental factors and their effects as the main objects for study. The 
psychic traits would be comprehended as continually changing ways of 
acting, and as the product of an individual's original endowment and all 
his life experiences as actively integrated by him into a unity. 

Environmental stimuli would be studied as experiences from the point 
of view of the individual, and effects on intelligence and personality would 
be correlated with these experiences and not simply with external economic 
status, education, housing and so on. The effect of a new experience is not 
simply one of addition or subtraction, since an individual defines this 
experience in terms of all his previous experiences. No environmental 
stimulus has the same effect upon different individuals since it affects 
different individuals after they have had different experiences in different 
succession. 

The question as to what extent and in what ways biological constitution 
determines individual differences in performance on intelligence and per- 
sonality tests can no longer be answered by conceiving of certain inherited 
traits as constituting independent variables which can be thought of as 



152 An American Dilemma 

isolated. Two of the specific questions which should be asked — from the 
point of view discussed here — to determine the role of heredity in intelli- 
gence and personality have been stated in a report sponsored by the Social 
Science Research Council: 

In studying this problem two questions should be considered. First, to what extent 
do individuals differ in degree of flexibility to environmental influences — i.e., are 
the congenital attributes of some persons less subject to modification by environ- 
mental forces than arc those of other persons? Secondly, to what extent does the 
congenital equipment of the person determine his subsequent environment — i.e., to 
what extent do his congenital traits predispose him to select or modify various 
aspects of his environment?* 

Little of the existing research on the role of heredity in the determination 
of psychic traits and capacities has been undertaken with either of these 
two questions in mind. As we have seen, the presumption has been — and 
still is, among most students — that, because there are certain physical differ- 
ences between Negroes and whites, there may also be expected to be certain 
psychological differences. This docs not necessarily follow, however, and 
the use of the presumption as a working hypothesis is a source of bias, for 
the following reason: Everything we know — from the work of the child 
psychologists, the psychiatrists, and the social psychologists — about develop- 
ment in the individual indicates that specific psychic traits, especially 
personality traits, but also the components of intelligence, 50 are not present 
at birth and do not "maturate" but actually develop through experience. 
Specific psychological traits, therefore, cannot be compared with specific 
physical traits in respect to their hereditary determination. 

Whether underlying capacities and the most general personality traits — 
speed of reaction, for example — differ in average between the two races 
is not known, but it should not be forgotten that they are never subject to 
direct observation in the same sense that physical traits are. Thus, even if 
there were some hereditary differences in psychic traits and capacities, it 
would still not be necessary for empirically observable traits and capacities 
to differ at all between the two races. It is possible that we shall never know 
if there are hereditary differences in psychic traits between the average 
Negro and the average white man. The fact of being a Negro is so inter- 
woven with all other aspects of a Negro's life that to hold constant these 
other aspects (e.g., economic and social status, education, and so on) would 
be equivalent to holding the racial factor constant also. 

From the standpoint of the attainment of pure scientific knowledge, it 
is, of course, unfortunate that the early measurement of psychic traits of 
different social groups was guided by biased assumptions. When viewed in 
an historical context, however, it becomes apparent that biased popular 
opinion gave psychologists the stimulus to go out and try to measure the 
things which were previously only the subjects of impression. After the 



Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics 153 

biased conclusions were made, they came to be criticized on grounds of 
methodological inadequacy. Thus began a trend toward improvement of 
techniques and qualification of conclusions that Jed to much of the present 
knowledge about the actual forces determining the intelligence and person- 
ality of disadvantaged groups. Such knowledge has been used and is being 
used to great advantage in the correction of popular beliefs. 

Now that this phase of scientific effort is coming to a climax, psycholo- 
gists can begin to direct their efforts in a more positive direction. While 
the pioneer outposts of this new research have given us several stimulating 
hints of the direction of this research, the field is still open for challenging 
hypotheses as yet not thought of. 



Part IN 
POPULATION AND MIGRATION 



CHAPTER 7 

POPULATION 



i. The Growth of the Negro Population 

There were about 17 times as many Negroes in the United States in 
1940 as there were in 1790, when the first census was taken, but in the 
same period the white, population increased 37 times (Figure 1). Negroes 
were 19.3 per cent of the American population in 1790, but only 9.8 per 
cent in 1940. Except for the first decade in the nineteenth century and the 
1930's, this proportion has been steadily declining. The trend in the propor 
tion has been governed by the natural increase of the two population 
stocks, by expansion of the territorial limits of the United States and by 
immigration. Since all figures on these things are uncertain, it is not possible 
to make an accurate imputation of the changes in the relative importance 
of these factors. Since descendants of immigrants after the second genera- 
tion are included in the category of "native born," it is still less possible to 
calculate what the proportion of Negroes would have been had there been 
no immigration of either race to the United States after 1 790. 

In a previous chapter we have discussed the considerable slave import, 
legal up to 1808 and illegal from then until the Civil War. After the War 
immigration of Negroes became inconsequential.* The immigration of 
whites from Europe was much heavier, even in relation to the larger white 
stock, during practically the whole period. b There is no doubt that this 
factor accounts for the great decline in the proportion of Negroes until 
recently. Additions of territory to continental United States have brought 
in a more than proportional share of whites. 

There has been a radical change in these factors, a change which promises 
to stop the downward trend of the proportion of Negroes and probably 
send it slightly upward. There have been no acquisitions of continental 
territory for a long while, and it is not likely that there will be any more. 
Immigration from Europe was largely halted by the First World War, 

'See Chapter 5, Section 2. 

b The immigration of foreign-born whites has meant much not only for its direct addi- 
tion* to the white American population, but also because the foreign-born have had a high 
birth rate. 

* Only the acquisition of Louisiana in 1 803 and of Florida in 1 8 1 9 brought in significant 
numbers of Negroes. 

M7 



i 5 8 

FlCURK I 



An American Dilemma 

Negro Population of the United States: 1790 to 1940 




c 2 - 

L2. 
GL 

a 
a. 
2. 

2. 

2. 

* 

il 
32. 

sa. 

21 

&. 

LZ. 

Li. 

y, 
-fi. 
jl 
.2. 

to 



Percentage of negroes In. 
the Total Population 
of the United states 



HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 




Percentage Increase of 
the Negro Population 



'h' fTP "up r^j* "^n fT? >7j" hj^ t' 

000000000 




Id M) VO K x S 
OOOO 



Source: United States Census. 

Note: Population of 1870 taken as midpoint between population of t86o and 1880. 



Chapter 7. Population 159 

and the restrictive legislation of the 1920V — not likely to be repealed — 
has continued to hold that immigration low. Economic stagnation during 
the 1930's operated to reduce the immigration below the legal quota, even 
when the latter was temporarily further reduced by Executive Order. 1 
Only the refugees coming after 1933 made the immigration from Europe 
at all significant. It is not likely that immigration from Europe will rise 
after the present War. We can assume that from now on, as during the 
1930's, the immigration from Europe will not greatly exceed the emigra- 
tion to Europe. 

Both white and Negro population groups are, therefore, now changing 
and will continue to change — if our assumption is correct — almost entirely 
in accord with their respective birth and death rates. One important excep- 
tion to this is the continuing immigration of Mexicans and Canadians." 
These groups will continue to provide a small but steady addition to the 
white population. Like immigration, passing may be ignored as relatively 
negligible in the estimation of probable changes in the relative numbers of 
Negroes and whites. 

While there are more statistics on population than in most other fields, 
they are less adequate for many of the problems we are interested in. 
There is continuous registration of births and deaths, compiled annually, 
but the failure to register large numbers of births and deaths makes it 
extremely hazardous to use these statistics. 2 Much more complete is the 
decennial census, but for our purposes this also is inadequate since young 
children are frequently overlooked (in different degree for the different 
regions and races), and since the census asked no direct question on internal 
migration until 1940. 8 

The inadequacies of both vital registration and census enumeration are 
greater for the South than for the North, greater for rural areas than for 
urban, and even in the same areas, greater for Negroes than for whites. 
We are handicapped also by the fact that, at the time of writing (summer, 
1942) the compilation of the 1940 Census is far from complete, and the 
1930 Census is too old to be of much use in showing the present situation. 
For all these reasons it will be somewhat hazardous to present the facts 
about population beyond the crude trends we have already noted. We shall 
present only those facts about which we feel fairly certain, but it should 
be understood that the figures cited are approximations. 

"See Chapter 4, footnote 21. 

'Although there is no provision in law setting quotas on immigrants from other 
American countries, actually there are serious restrictions which keep down this immigration. 
Every prospective immigrant must pass a strict examination before the American consul to 
whom he applies for his permit: he must meet certain standards of physical and mental 
health, literacy, and show the ability to support himself. There is no appeal from the 
decision of the consul. 

' See Chapter 5, Section 7. 



iob 



An American Dilemma 



For our first observation of Negro and white natural increase — that is, 
the balance of births and deaths — we may turn to the net refroduction rate. 
This rate is a combined measure of the birth and death rates adjusted to 
a stable age distribution of the population. It is the number of girls which 
1,000 newborn girls may be expected to bear during their lifetime, assum- 
ing existing rates of fertility and mortality. Estimates of the Bureau of the 
Census, based on a 5 per cent cross-section of the 1940 Census returns, 
indicate a net reproduction of 107 for nonwhitcs and 94 for whites including 
Mexicans (Table i).* For 1930 the comparable rates — calculated from all 
census returns — were 1 10 and 1 1 1, respectively. Despite errors in the data, 
it is possible to derive the following tentative conclusions: ( 1) that Negroes, 



TABLE 1 
Net Reproduction Rails by Color and Urban-Rural Ri-sidfncl, 

>0R THE UNIIfcD blArES, BV RtOlONi. I930 AND I94O 

(1940 data are estimates b.ised on a preliminary tabulation of a 
5 per cent cross-section of the 1940 Census returns.) 







1 


1940 








1930 




Region 






Rural- 


Rnral- 






Bural- 


R11r.1l- 


and Color 


Total 


Urban 


nonfarm 


fann 


Total 


Urbu 


n noufarm 


farm 


All Classes 














United States 


96 


74 


114 


144 


111 


88 


132 


159 


North 


87 


74 


109 


133 


103 


90 


128 


150 


South 


in 


75 


118 


150 


127 


86 


138 


165 


West 


9S 


75 


120 


138 


1 01 


80 


129 


155 


White 














United States 


94 


74 


114 


14°. 


in 


90 


133 


159 


North 


87 


74 


109 


133 


104 


91 


128 


150 


South 


110 


76 


120 


145 


132 


92 


145 


169 


West 


94 


76 


"9 


>34 


99 


79 


128 


'5 1 


Konwhite 


















United States 


107 


74 


114 


160 


no 


7* 


119 


156 


North 


83 


79 


(a) 


(a) 


87 


82 


(a) 


(a) 


South 


i«3 


71 


112 


160 


"5 


71 


116 


153 


West 


119 


M 


(a) 


(a) 


!57 


(a) 


M 


(a) 



Source: ittxieenth Census of the Untied States: 1040. Population. Preliminary Release; Series P-5, No. 13 

(a) Rates not shown for those population groups which, in 1040. had fewer than ^o.ooo females under 
5 years old. 

like whites, are not reproducing themselves so rapidly as they used to, (2) 
that probably their rate is now higher than that of the whites, and (3) 
that this differential is a new phenomenon, at least in so far as it is signifi- 
cant. If such a differential continues into the future and if it is not fully 
compensated for by immigration of whites, the proportion of Negroes in 
the American population may be expected to rise, though slowly. 6 



Chapter 7. Population 161 

While in the country as a whole, around 1930, the net reproduction 
rate for Negroes and for whites was about the same, the Negro rate was 
significantly below the white rate in each region of the country and in rural 
and urban areas taken separately. This situation occurred, of course, because 
Negroes were concentrated in the South and in rural areas, which have 
high rates for both whites and Negroes compared to other areas. In other 
words, it was only because of their unusual geographic distribution that 
Negroes were reproducing themselves as rapidly as whites. During the 
1930's, however, it would seem that a fundamental change took place: 
the white rates had dropped until they were no longer above the Negro 
rates in each region and in rural and urban areas taken separately." If the 
1940 rates for the whole country are "standardized" to show what the 
rates would be if both color groups were distributed by residence areas 
in the same proportion as the total population, the whites rise from 94 to 
97 and the nonwhites drop from 107 to 102. 7 That is, even if differences 
in regional and rural-urban residence are "held constant," Negroes now have 
a higher net reproduction rate than whites. Since the errors in the census 
are greater for Negroes than for whites and, therefore, the discrepancy 
is greater — if anything — than shown by the figures we have presented, we 
feel justified in presenting the following as a fourth conclusion from the 
net reproduction figures: (4) Even within regions and rural-urban areas 
taken separately, Negroes are no longer reproducing themselves at a lower 
rate than whites. In fact, the figures suggest that they are reproducing them- 
selves more — thus reversing the position they held in 1930 and earlier. 

2. Births and Deaths 

To determine the causes of these differentials and trends, we shall first 
have to go to the birth and death rates which compose the net reproduction 
rates. Unfortunately these rates are even more unreliable than the composite 
net reproduction rate. 8 Certain general conclusions are justified, however, 
even if we cannot rely on the exact magnitudes. 

The Negro birth rate, like the white birth rate, has been falling at least 
since 1880 and perhaps longer. 9 And since 1850 it has been consistently 
higher than the white birth rate. These important generalizations about 
the birth rate have held true in recent years: in 1928-1932 the corrected 
gross reproduction rate b was 136 for Negroes — as compared to 122 for 
whites (1930)— and by 1933-1937 the Negro rate had fallen to 130. 10 

"These rates apply in the North only to the urban areas. 

b The gross reproduction rate is a refined birth rate adjusted to a stable age distribution. 
It is the number of girl babies born to the average woman throughout her reproductive 
period. It is computed by applying crude birth rates to a life table population of 1,000 
women and summing the age specific fertility rates thus obtained. The rates for Negroes 
were calculated and corrected for under-registration by Kirk, and the rates for white! 
were calculated by Lotka from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's files. (See 



1 62 An American Dilemma 

While there are proportionately more Negro than white infants born, 
significantly fewer of the Negro infants live. During 1940, 73 out of every 
1,000 live Negro infants were recorded to have died before reaching their 
first birthday, as compared to 43 white babies out of every 1,000 born. 11 If 
the official statistics were more accurate, they would undoubtedly reveal a 
much greater differential in infant mortality rates. While a good many 
more Negro infants die than white infants, in proportion to their total 
numbers, the difference in death rates for children and mature adults is 
apparently even greater. 12 Only at ages above 50 does the Negro death rate 
apparently begin to fall to the level of the white death rate. If a Negro child 
is born alive, 18 it has (in 1930), on the average, a life expectancy of roughly 
48.5 years, while the average white newborn child can expect to reach the 
age of 60.9 years. 14 For a stationary population with a stable age distribu- 
tion, these expectancy figures would correspond to a death rate for Negroes 
of 20.6 per thousand population and for whites of 16.4. The actually 
registered death rates were, in 1930, 16.5 per thousand for Negroes and 10.8 
for whites. 15 The lower actual rates are due not only to under-registration, 
but also to the abnormal age structure: both Negroes and whites have 
a disproportionate number of young adults. 

As we said, the birth rate has been falling for both Negroes and whites. 
The fall in fertility is the major factor behind the secular decline in net 
reproduction for both population groups; the decrease in mortality has not 
been able to effect more than a rather slight checking of this decline. It is 
probable that since 1930 the birth rate for whites has fallen more rapidly 
than the birth rate for Negroes. 18 

The existing data regarding trends in the death rate are so faulty and 
self-contradictory that it is hardly worth while to quote them. The avail- 
able data do not permit us to compare trends in the Negro and white death 
rates. 17 If the death rates have been falling for both groups, it would 
seem that they were falling more rapidly for whites than for Negroes until 
1930. In 1930 the mortality rate for the Negro population was higher 
than the rate for the white population thirty years previously, in 1900. 18 
It is likely that since 1930 the death rate has fallen more rapidly for 
Negroes than for whites. 19 

The decline in the birth rate for both whites and Negroes has been chang- 
ing the age structure of the populations and this, in turn, is haying certain 
effects on both birth and death rates. Even if the age specific birth rates 
(that is, the birth rate for each age group of women) should remain constant, 
the crude birth rate (that is, the birth rate for the entire population) will 
ultimately drop as the population grows older. The crude birth rate is now 

Dudley Kuk r ? *The Fertility of the Negroes," unpublished manuscript prepared for this 
study XlJN^lvP* *+•) " ot ""I? *** the™ erro ™ due to under-registration in these calcula- 
tions, but there are also errors due to misreporting of age by women. 



Chapter 7. Population 163 

abnormally high, since there is an abnormally large number of persons in 
the child-bearing age groups (this is so because they were born in a period 
with higher fertility). This is slightly more true of Negroes than of whites, 
since most of the foreign-born are white, and they are now mostly in the 
older age groups. In 1940, 41. 1 per cent of the nonwhite females, as com- 
pared to 39.2 per cent of the white females, were between the ages of 20 
and 45. 20 The effect on the white birth rate will come sooner, both because 
Negroes have had a somewhat higher birth rate and because they, as a 
result of higher mortality and fewer foreign-born, have, and probably will 
continue to have, a relatively smaller proportion of persons in ages above 
the fertile age groups. Likewise, even though the death rate declines some- 
what for each age group of both white and Negro populations, the crude 
death rate will tend to increase as the proportion of persons in high age 
groups increases. And for the same reasons, the rise in the death rate will 
come sooner for whites than for Negroes. 

Considering the differences in age structure alone, which are causing the 
decline in the crude birth rate and the rise in the crude rate to come 
sooner for whites than for Negroes, we have another reason why — for a 
while at least — the proportion of Negroes in the total population will 
increase. It must be remembered, however, that future changes in fertility 
and mortality will change the entire pattern. Of particular interest for our 
present problem would be the effects of a large-scale disease prevention 
campaign. Since Negro death rates are now considerably higher than white 
death rates, it is more possible to bring them down. Any impartial efforts 
to reduce sickness and death in the nation will have much more effect on 
Negroes than on whites simply because Negroes have much more pre- 
ventable and curable disease to begin with." We have observed that a more 
rapid fall of Negro mortality has probably already occurred during the 
'thirties. 

Migration will continue to be a great importance for future trends 
in Negro birth and death rates. Migration from rural to urban areas 
universally reduces the birth rate. 21 It has been related to the main set of 
causal factors behind the reduction of both white and Negro fertility over 
the last 70 years. In recent decades the effects have probably been more 
pronounced for the Negroes than for the whites, since a larger proportion 
of Negroes have left the farms for the cities, and since the rural South 
and the urban North represent more the extremes of country and city 
than the places whites predominantly come from and go to. 22 Even within 
the South the places to which Negroes have been migrating— the larger 
cities and the rural areas of the Mississippi Valley 23 — are those of lowest 
birth rate. While whites also are moving to cities and to rural areas in the 
western part of the South, their birth rates are apparently not lowered so 

* See Section 5 of thii chapter. 



164 An American Dilemma 

much as those of Negroes. 3 * In the migration to dries the Negro birth rate 
is affected by two special factors: (i) When they migrate to dries, Negro 
women seek jobs more than white women do, and all urban occupations, 
especially domestic service, in which Negroes are concentrated, make 
child-bearing disadvantageous. 25 (2) When Negroes have migrated to 
dries, the men have gone more to some cities and the women more to 
other cities than in the case of the whites. This is because Negro women 
seek jobs in dries more than do white women, and they have gone mainly to 
commercial cities where there is a greater demand for domestic servants. 
Negro men, on the other hand, find more opportunities in industrial dries 
than the Negro women do. The result is that migration involves a greater 
unbalancing of the sex ratio for Negroes than for whites, and consequently 
the birth rate is reduced more. 

Also, migration has probably meant a somewhat reduced death rate for 
the Negroes, 20 but the dedine in death rate has not balanced the dedine 
in birth rate. In 1940, the nonwhite net reproduction rate for rural-farm 
areas was 154, as compared to 76 for urban areas; for whites the compara- 
ble figures were 132 and 76, respectively. 27 

The future of Negro migration is, of course, uncertain. In following 
chapters we shall find that there are reasons to anticipate that Negroes, more 
than whites, will be pushed from the Southern land and also that they, 
more than whites, will attempt to come North. If we consider migration 
alone, therefore, the effects of urbanization on fertility seem likely to con- 
tinue to be somewhat greater for Negroes than for whites. This is uncertain, 
however, as the fertility of urban whites now has dropped sharply and may 
continue to fall more rapidly than Negro fertility. The sex ratio for Negroes 
has been tending to even out and will continue to do so. Negroes are 
becoming more accustomed to the strains of city life and its effects on their 
health may not be so great as has been the case in the last two decades. The 
death rate of Negroes in Northern cities might also decrease considerably 
if better health facilities are made available to them and taken advantage 
of by them. For all these reasons, the net reproduction rate might reach 
a lower limit which would be higher than the white rate. 

Other differentials between various dasses and groups of Negroes are 
important in estimating trends in Negro population. First, there is the 
income differential. Among Negroes, as among whites, the larger the 
income, the lower the birth rate, the lower the death rate, and the lower 
the net reproduction rate. 28 These relations are characteristic only during 
the period before the practice of birth control is taken up by the lower 
sodo-ecpODmic groups. But for America as a whole, and particularly for 
t^jftfsegfiy people, this phase is likely to last for many more decades. What 
significance these differentials will have for the future of the Negro popula- 
tion it is difficult to say. As we do not foresee any great rise of economic 



Chapter 7. Population 165 

status for the masses of Negroes in the immediate future, and not even 
a great increase in the small upper and middle strata,' it is not likely that 
the factor of a rising standard of living will per se be of great importance 
for either fertility or mortality. 

The future development of welfare policy might become much more 
important, but its effect would be different from a direct rise in income. 
If the social security system is extended and if allowances are going to be 
given to children, and if other welfare policies — in regard to public housing, 
nutrition, and health — are developed and directed more upon the welfare 
of children, this might stop the decline in fertility, decrease mortality and 
raise net reproduction. These effects would be greater for poor people 
than for the well-to-do people, and therefore would be greater for Negroes 
than for whites — since Negroes are more concentrated in the lower income 
strata. If there is an increased spread of information on birth control, there 
will be a decrease in fertility, mortality and net reproduction. 

Another possible influence on the future of Negro population in the 
United States is immigration. In the 1940 Census, there were enumerated 
only 84,000 foreign-born Negroes in the entire country. 20 In 1900, there 
were 41,000 foreign-born Negroes in the country. The total Negro popula- 
tion in that year was 8,833,994. 30 The bulk of the foreign-born Negroes 
came from the West Indies. Lack of opportunities for Negroes in the 
United States makes it improbable that the rate of Negro immigration 
will become significant, but there is always a possibility. Despite the fact 
that the majority of these immigrant Negroes live in New York City, 
and most of the remainder live in other cities, they seem to have a high 
fertility. 31 

3. Summary 

Popular theories on the growth of the Negro population in America 
have been diverse. At times it has been claimed that Negroes "breed like 
rabbits," and that they will ultimately crowd out the whites if they are not 
deported or their procreation restricted. At other times it has been pro- 
nounced that they are a "dying race," bound to lose out in the "struggle 
for survival." Statistics — both of the comprehensive kind in the United 
States Census and the limited kind gathered in sample surveys — have been 
used to bolster both arguments. 32 

With the very insufficient and inadequate measures of the factors of 
change affecting the reproduction of the Negro population in America, it 
is difficult to piece together a satisfactory prediction of the future course 
of the total number and the proportion of Negroes in the United States. 
It can be stated confidently, though, that both these extremes of popular 

"See Part IV. 



i66 An American Dilemma 

ideas are wrong. In their reproduction American Negroes are like American 
whites and show the same sort of differentials by regions and groufs. 

From 1790 to 1930 the proportion of Negroes in America decreased to 
about a half of what it had been in the beginning of this period (Figure 
1). But this was due, not to any peculiarities in reproduction, but to the 
overweight of white immigration. The situation began to change during the 
First World War and the 'twenties: the immigration of whites from 
Europe fell until it was no longer significant. If there is no substantial 
change in foreign immigration again, and if conditions affecting births and 
deaths of both whites and Negroes remain about the same as they are now, 
or change so that the effect on whites is similar to the effect on Negroes, it 
is probable that the proportion of Negroes in the total population will rise 
slowly. There was a rise of one-tenth of 1 per cent of the proportion of 
Negroes in the total population during the 'thirties. This increase may con- 
tinue and even become somewhat more marked, but not much. The main 
reason for this is that Negroes are concentrated in the rural South where the 
birth rate is generally very high. 

If Negroes continue to migrate to Southern and Northern cities, the rate 
of Negro reproduction will be lowered in relation to the white rate — 
although possibly not so much as in the past. If there were an economic 
improvement among Negroes, which does not seem immediately likely, 
it would seem probable that this would also tend to decrease fertility more 
than mortality. The development of a social welfare policy, which seems 
much more probable, would in all likelihood brake the fall in fertility as 
well as decrease mortality. A mitigation of discrimination in the granting 
of medical and other health advantages to Negroes, particularly if con- 
comitant with a general improvement of these advantages for all poor 
people, would have profound effects in reducing the large Negro death 
rate and in raising Negro reproduction. The spread of birth control among 
Negroes will decrease the rate of reproduction. Immigration of foreign-born 
Negroes — which does not promise to become important — would increase 
the Negro population, not only because it adds directly to their numbers, 
but also because these immigrants seem to have a high fertility. 

Of course, changes affecting the Negro population will not go on in 
vacuo, and there will be similar changes in the white population — all of 
which will affect the future proportion of Negroes in the total population 
of the United States. A dominating factor will be the decline in fertility in 
both population groups. Comparisons with other countries, as well as 
between dtfterent groups in America, make it seem highly probable that 
this decKife will continue. But for several reasons which we have noted, 
faifffititly that, for a short time at least, the decline in the white birth rate 
wM fee more rapid than the decline in the Negro birth rate. 



Chapter 7. Population 167 

4. Ends and Means of Population Policy* 

As is apparent from what we have said, several of the factors of change 
are dependent upon policy, and we shall now turn to programs instead of 
prognoses. Our discussion of population policy will have to be most abstract 
and, in part, conjectural. For not only are the basic data poor, but there 
has been less thinking in America devoted to the broad problem of a 
rational population policy than to other spheres of social engineering. 

One reason for the inarticulateness and inadequacy of American discus- 
sion of population policy is the heterogeneity of America's population, and 
the fact that some of its component groups are commonly considered to be 
inferior. This complicates tremendously the formulation of a rational and 
unified population policy. It creates conflicts of valuations which make it 
uncomfortable to discuss the problem. The strength of church and religion 
in America presents another inhibition. Specifically, the fundamentalists 
Protestant religion in some of the regions where fertility is highest in the 
South and the Catholic Church in the big Northern cities are against discus- 
sions of population policy. 33 

We shall avoid the unsettled problem of an American population policy 
at large and restrict our treatment to the Negro angle of it. In stating our 
value fremises a distinction must be made between ends and means. 3 * 
We shall find that for the white people the desired quantitative goal con- 
flicts sharply with their valuation of the means of attaining that goal. For 
Negroes no such conflict is present. 

If we forget about the means, for the moment, and consider only the 
quantitative goal for Negro population policy, there is no doubt that the 
overwhelming majority of white Americans desire that there be as jew 
Negroes as possible in America. If the Negroes could be eliminated from 
America or greatly decreased in numbers, this would meet the whites' 
approval — provided that it could be accomplished by means which are also 
approved. Correspondingly, an increase of the proportion of Negroes in the 
American population is commonly looked upon as undesirable. These 
opinions are seldom expressed publicly. As the opinions, for reasons which 
we shall develop, are not practicable either, they are not much in the fore- 
ground of public attention. But as general valuations they are nearly always 
present. Commonly it is considered a great misfortune for America that 
Negro slaves were ever imported. The presence of Negroes in America 
today is usually considered as a "plight" of the nation, and particularly of 
the South. It should be noted that the general valuation of the desirability 

"This section will be concerned with policy only as it deals with the total number of 
Negroes in the United States. Population policy as it deals with the distribution of Negroes 
within the United States will be discussed in the next chapter. Population policy as it deals 
with the migration of the Negro people will be discussed in Chapter 17, Section 3. 



r68 An American Dilemma 

of a decrease of the Negro population is not necessarily hostile to the Negro 
people. It is shared even by enlightened white Americans who do not 
hold the common belief that Negroes are inferior as a race. Usually it is 
pointed out- that Negroes fare better and meet less prejudice when they are 
few in number. 

There is an important qualification to be made to these statements. As 
we have found at many points in this study, people are not always con- 
sistent in their valuations. Many white Southerners live by exploiting 
Negroes, and many fortunes have been built up by cheating Negroes; many 
white Southerners realize their economic dependence on the Negro and 
would not like to lose him. Many white Southerners have opposed all 
"back-to-Africa" or "forty-ninth State" movements, which would eliminate 
Negroes from their midst. When Negroes began to migrate northward in 
great numbers during the First World War, many white Southerners made 
strenuous efforts to stop them: propaganda was distributed; threats were 
made; Negro leaders were bribed; favors were bestowed; Northern labor 
agents were prohibited, fined or beaten up. The dominant upper and middle 
classes of whites in the South realize, for the most part, that they would 
stand to lose economically if the Negro were to disappear. With the 
decline of the cotton economy, which we shall analyze in Chapters 1 1 and 
12, the valuation is not so strong now asini9i7-i9i8. Too, the valuation 
is not held by most Northerners or by Southern poor whites. And this 
valuation in the economic sphere is not necessarily tied to the Negro. If 
poor whites could be exploited with the same facility, the dominant white 
Southerners would be glad to be rid of the Negro. The valuation in the 
socio-political sphere, however, « tied to the Negro: the Negro is a 
problem and practically all Southerners (as practically all Northerners) 
would like to get rid of him. More important from a practical and polit- 
ical standpoint is that the valuation in the economic sphere is only a short- 
time attitude. Southerners who gain economically from the presence of 
the Negro are concerned only that the Negro should not disappear during 
their lifetime or, at most, their children's lifetime. When they think in 
terms of a long span of future generations, the valuation that the Negro 
should be eliminated is almost completely dominant. And as we shall 
presently see, all white Americans agree that, if the Negro is to be elimi- 
nated, he must be eliminated slowly so as not to hurt any living individual 
Negroes. Therefore, the dominant American valuation is that the Negro 
should be eliminated from the American scene, but slowly. 

The Negroes cannot be expected to have the same view on the quanti- 
tative goal <>f Negro population. Of course Negroes are familiar with the 
general fact that prejudice against them is in part a function of their num- 
ber. But I have never met a Negro who drew the conclusion from this that 
a decrease of the American Negro population would be advantageous. 



Chapter 7. Population 169 

Rather it is sometimes contended that the Negro's power would increase 
with his numbers, and that the most virile people is the one that survives 
in the universal struggle. With the increase in "race pride" and "race con- 
sciousness," which is a consequence of the rising tide of the Negro protest,* 
almost every Negro, who is brought to think about the problem, wants the 
Negro population to be as large as ■possible. This is sometimes even 
expressed in writing. W. Montague Cobb, for instance, opens his summary 
"prescription" for the Negro with the following precepts: 

1. He should maintain his high birth rate, observing the conditions of life necessary 
to this end. This alone has made him able to increase, in spite of decimating 
mortality and hardships. If the tide should turn against him later, strength will be 
better than weakness in numbers. 

2. He should make a fetish of health. Progressive eradication of tuberculosis, 
venereal disease, pneumonia, and maternal and infant mortality, will give him 
sounder and more abundant parental stock and offspring. 

3. He should cultivate excellence in sports. This spreads healthful habits. 85 

While whites and Negroes have widely divergent valuations in regard to 
the desirable quantity of the American Negro population, they agree on 
the qualitative goal. It is implicit in the American Creed, with its stress on 
the value and dignity of the individual human being, that both white and 
Negro Americans in "principle -find it desirable to raise the quality of the 
Negro people Du Bois, for example, criticized those Negroes who 

... arc quite led away by the fallacy of numbers. They want the black race to 
survive. They arc cheered by a census return of increasing numbers and a high rate 
of increase. They must learn that among human races and groups, as among vegetables, 
quality and not mere quantity really counts. 1 " 1 

Since the biological principles of eugenics cannot be applied until environ- 
mental conditions are more equalized, 37 and since the American Creed places 
inhibitions in the way of applying eugenics, to improve the quality of the 
Negro people means primarily to improve their environmental conditions. 
It is true that the average white American does not want to sacrifice much 
himself in order to improve the living conditions of Negroes. This is the 
explanation of discrimination in public service generally. But on this point 
the American Creed is quite clear and explicit, and we can proceed safely on 
the value premise that the medical and health facilities and, indeed, all 
public measures in the field of education, sanitation, housing, nutrition, 
hospitalization and so forth, to improve the quality of the population and to 
advance individuals and groups physically, mentally, or morally, should 
be made just as available for Negroes as for whites in similar circumstances 
and with similar needs. This value premise has, in fact, sanction in the 
Constitution of the United States. 

* See Chapter 35. 



170 An American Dilemma 

In our further discussion of the means in Negro population policy we 
might start out from the desire of the politically dominant white popula- 
tion to get rid of the Negroes. This is a goal difficult to reach by approved 
means, and the desire has never been translated into action directly, and 
probably never will be. All the most obvious means go strongly against the 
American Creed. The Negroes cannot be killed off. Compulsory deporta- 
tion would infringe upon personal liberty in such a radical fashion that it 
is excluded. Voluntary exportation of Negroes could not be carried on 
extensively because of unwillingness on the part of recipient nations as well 
as on the part of the American Negroes themselves, who usually do not 
want to leave the country but prefer to stay and fight it out here." Neither 
is it possible to effectuate the goal by keeping up the Negro death rate. 
A high death rate is an unhumanitarian and undemocratic way to restrict the 
Negro population and, in addition, expensive to society and dangerous to 
the white population. The only possible way of decreasing Negro popula- 
tion is by means of controlling fertility. But as we shall find, even birth 
control — for Negroes as well as for whites — will, in practice, have to be 
considered primarily as a means to other ends than that of decreasing the 
Negro population. 

In the final analysis all these theoretically possible policies to effectuate 
the white desire to decrease the Negro population are blocked by the 
American Creed (except birth control which, however, is largely attached 
to other ends). This is why the desire is never publicly expressed. The 
influence of the American Creed goes even further. Should America in 
the future, when the net reproduction of the nation has decreased still 
further, embark upon a policy to stimulate the bearing and rearing of 
children, the democratic Creed of this country will come to prescribe that 
aids to families be equally available to Negroes and other unpopular 
groups, "independent of creed, color or race." 

In sum, if America does not turn fascist, the numerically and politically 
dominant white population will be driven by its national ethos to abstain 
from taking any practical measures to realize its desire to decrease the 
Negro population. Instead, it will be compelled to extend to the Negroes 
the population measures taken primarily to build up the white population. 
This is, of course, exactly what the Negroes want, and a unity of purpose 
becomes established on the basis of the American Creed. 

Meanwhile, the basic conflict of valuations on the part of the dominant 
whites is, as we pointed out, one of the explanations why there is so little 
discussion §£ broad population policy in America. It helps, further, to 
explain mflch of the discrimination and indifference about Negro welfare 
and J$te::great difficulty in stamping it out. On the other hand, it should, 
at letffc,/give an extra impetus to make effective birth control available 

'See, however, Chapter 38, Section 11. 



Chapter 7/ Population 171 

to Negroes. We can see signs of this already in several of the Southern 
states. 

5. Controlling the Death Rate 

Since there is no evidence at present that certain diseases are genetically 
more characteristic or less characteristic of Negroes than of whites — 
although it is possible that slight differences in one direction or the other 
may some day be revealed — it is not necessary to single out Negroes for 
special attention in any efforts to cure or prevent disease. The application 
of the equalitarian principles of "need" in the cure of disease and ill 
health and of "equality of opportunity" in their prevention — which are 
our value premises in this section — will suffice to eliminate any special 
Negro disabilities. 

If disease prevention work is to be effective, it must be planned on a 
national basis without regard to the color of the inhabitants. In the South 
as well as in the North there is an increasing popular recognition among 
whites that "diseases cannot be segregated," and that high rates of death, 
sickness, and poor health among Negroes carry tremendous social costs, 
directly and indirectly, even if they cannot be calculated accurately in dollars 
and cents. 

There are special social costs connected with infant mortality. There 
are costs to society as well as to the parents of bearing and raising a child 
if it dies before it contributes to the world by its labor and other personal 
qualities. From practically any point of view, it would be better not to have 
certain children born at all rather than to have them die before completing 
a normal lifetime. And if healthy children are born, it is in the interest of 
everyone to see that they are given the opportunity to remain healthy. 

These considerations apply to both Negroes and whites. But they apply 
with greater forcefulness to Negroes since differential death rates reveal 
that equalization of health conditions, even without advance in medical 
knowledge or practice, would pull the Negro death rate down sharply. To 
give Negroes adequate medical facilities fits in both with the equalitarian 
Creed and with the interests of whites. The observer finds in the South that 
the propaganda by experts and humanitarians regularly and bluntly makes 
this appeal to "enlightened self-interest." 

Medical knowledge has advanced beyond medical practice, and medical 
practice has advanced far beyond most people's opportunity to take advan- 
tage of it. A reduction in these lags would have tremendous consequences 
for the well-being and happiness of every person in the nation. Of special 
significance to the Negroes is the lag of opportunity for some people to 
obtain the advantages of medical practices available to other people. Area 
for area, class for class, Negroes cannot get the same advantages in the 

* See Chapter 6» Section *. 



172 An American- Dilemma 

way of prevention and cure of disease that the whites can. There is dis- 
crimination against the Negro in the availability to him of medical facilities. 
It is hard to separate the effects of discrimination from those of con- 
centration of Negroes in areas where medical facilities are not easily avail- 
able and in those income brackets which do not permit the purchase of 
medical facilities in the competitive market. Discrimination increases Negro 
sickness and death both directly and indirectly and manifests itself both 
consciously and unconsciously. Discrimination is involved when hospitals 
will not take in Negro patients; or when — if they do permit Negro patients 
— they restrict their numbers, give them the poorest quarters, and refuse 
to hire Negro doctors and nurses to attend them." The number of hospital 
beds recently available to Negroes in the South is not known except in 
Mississippi (1938) 38 where there were 0.7 beds per 1,000 Negroes as com- 
pared to 2.4 per 1,000 whites, and in the Carolinas (1938) 88 where there 
were 1,2 beds per 1,000 Negroes as compared to 2.1 per 1,000 whites. In 
1928 there was available in the United States one hospital bed for each 139 
of the white population, but only one hospital bed for each 1,941 of the 
colored population. This means that at that time each white inhabitant of 
the United States had 14 times as good a chance for proper hospital care 
as had the colored citizen. 40 The facilities for Negroes are generally of a 
much poorer quality than for whites. In 1937 only about 35 per cent of 
Southern Negro babies were delivered by a physician, as compared to 90 
per cent of Southern white babies and 98 per cent of Northern white and 
Negro babies. 41 In the whole United States in 1930 there were only about 
3,805 Negro doctors, 5,728 Negro nurses, and 1,773 Negro dentists, and a 
disproportionate number of these were employed in the North.* 2 It is 
true, of course, that Negroes cannot afford doctors and hospitals to the 
same extent as whites, but that does not eliminate the fact of discrimination. 
Discrimination manifesting itself against the Negro's health is indirect 
as well as direct, and fits into the pattern of the vicious circle. Inadequate 
education for Negroes, partly due to economic inability to keep young 
people in schools and partly due to inferior schools for Negroes in the 
South, not only prevents the training of Negro medical experts, but also 
keeps knowledge about sanitation and health in the general population at 
an extremely low level. Magical and superstitious practices continue in an 
unenlightened Negro population, 43 and customary patterns of behavior 
dangerous to health are brought from the South to the North. Ill health 
reduces the chances of economic advancement, which in turn operates to 



;"■» summary of the facts oh health facilities and medical care for Negroes, see 
'tpNtylsi F. Dora, 'The Health of the Negro," unpublished manuscript prepared for this 
•tMgr (1940), pp. 94a-! 14b and 131-208. Efforts by the government and private organiza- 
tions to improve health conditions among Negroes will be taken up in Chapter 1 5, Section 4. 



Chapter 7. Population 



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174 An American Dilemma 

reduce the chances of getting adequate medical facilities or the knowledge 
necessary for personal health care. 

Any intelligent efforts to reduce Negro morbidity and mortality will 
result in striking success. This we may deduce from a knowledge of the 
vicious circle mechanism and from a knowledge of existing Negro-white 
differentials. Perhaps the greatest need of the Negroes, in the way of 
reducing sickness and death, is for a dissemination of knowledge on how to 
take care of the body in both its normal and its pathological state. Other 
needs are indicated by the diseases for which the Negro rate is strikingly 
higher than the white rate (Figure 2).* These include pellagra (a result 
of dietary deficiency), syphilis (a function of inadequate information, on 
the one hand, and social disorganization, on the other), homicide (partly 
a result of cultural isolation of a subordinated people and lack of police 
protection in Negro communities), b pneumonia and influenza (a function 
of inadequate care), and tuberculosis (a result, largely, of inadequate sanita- 
tion and poor diet). These diseases not only kill, but also reduce the 
efficiency of Negroes to a much greater extent than that of whites. Pellagra, 
syphilis, and tuberculosis, at least, can easily be recognized as public prob- 
lems — the eradication of which is necessary to the health and efficiency of 
the entire nation. 

The infant mortality rate as registered is 69 per cent higher among 
Negroes than among whites ( 1940) ; the actual difference is probably even 
greater. 44 The discrepancy in maternal mortality rates between the two 
races is much higher — official figures indicate that the rate for Negro mothers 
is two and one-half times as high as the rate for white mothers (i94o).* s 
Both infant mortality and maternal mortality among the Negroes have been 
declining in the last decade. But the fact that they are still much higher 
for Negroes indicates that much can yet be done to reduce these types of 
death among Negroes. 

Ill health reduces the birth rate in ways other than killing off mothers in 
their child-bearing period. In the first place, it increases sterility among 
men and women. That there is more sterility among Negroes than among 
whites is shown by the fact that there are more childless women, both 
married and unmarried, among Negroes and that the higher Negro birth 
rate is due to a higher average number of children per mother. 46 This 
sterility is not innate, as Pearl 47 has demonstrated, but is caused by general 

* We use the data on causes of death to get an index of Negro-white differentials in 
disease. Only the causes of death which have a marked differential effect on Negroes and 
whites are mentioned here. Practically all causes have some differential effects in favor of 
the whites. The only possible exceptions — which seem to affect whites more than Negroes — 
are scarlet fever, cancer, diabetes, and perhaps a few of the minor rich man's diseases such 
as gout, i 

*&*:&«» V and IX. 

* See Cfcapter 6, Section a. 



Chapter 7. Population 175 

diseases, venereal diseases, induced abortion and organic deficiencies. All 
these things may be reduced by means available to modern science or by 
more general diffusion of a few simple items of information. The same 
causes keep the Negro stillbirth rate high, and so lower the birth rate. In 
1940, the reported Negro stillbirth rate was 58.1 per 1,000 live births as 
compared to 27.6 for whites. 48 If the unreported stillbirths and spontaneous 
abortions were added to this, the discrepancy would, no doubt, be much 
greater. 

All these types of death rates have apparently been falling recently, for 
Negroes as well as for whites. It is useless to cite statistics because the 
reporting of deaths has progressively improved and, therefore, no adequate 
comparison can be made between two periods.* But the direct and indirect 
evidence available shows a decline in the death rates. 49 The greatest prog- 
ress seems to be in reducing deaths among Negroes due to tuberculosis, 
syphilis, diphtheria, whooping cough, diarrhea, and enteritis. But the 
Negro rates are still much higher than the white rates, and there is much 
that can be done for both Negroes and whites. 

In Chapter 15, Section 4, we shall comment somewhat more in detail 
both upon what is being done in the way of public policy to prevent and cure 
disease and upon the actual discrimination against the Negroes which 
up to now has rendered the public measures less effective for them. We 
can conclude from known facts and the stated value premises that what is 
needed in the way of special attention to Negroes is constant vigilance 
against popular and official prejudice in the application of a general medical 
and health program. In view of the racial attitudes prevalent in the South, 
and in view of the generally greater needs and smaller resources of the 
South, it is almost necessary that national organizations, and specifically the 
federal government, take a firm lead in this work. A national policy, work- 
ing toward an improvement of health and a decline in disease, will increase 
the happiness and efficiency, not only of those directly served, but also of 
the general population. It will also, if carried out with intelligence and 
fairness, be a major example of the democratic process. 

6. The Case for Controlling the Negro Birth Rate 

Aside from any desire on the part of white people to check the growth 
of the Negro population, there are in the South a great number of Negroes 
— as of whites — who are so destitute that from a general social point of view 
it would be highly desirable that they did not procreate. The same is true, 
though to a much lesser degree, about the North. Many of these people are 

'It is not reasonable to compare Negro death rates even in those Northern states that 
have had adequate registration for a long while, since in these states the Negro population 
has changed drastically due to migration from the South. For the available data, however, 
«e Section a of this chapter. 



176 An American Dilemma 

so ignorant and so poor that they are not desirable parents and cannot offer 
their children a reasonably good home. The chances of their children dying 
at any early age are much greater than those of other children. No social 
policy, however radically framed, would be able to lift the standards of these 
people immediately. The most direct way of meeting the problem, not tak- 
ing account of the value premises in the American Creed, would be to 
sterilize them. The fact that most whites would want to decrease the Negro 
population — particularly the lower class Negroes — would strengthen the 
argument for sterilization of destitute Negroes. 

We find, however, that such proposals, if they are made at all, are 
almost as repugnant to the average white American in the South and the 
North as to the Negro. In general he is not inclined to consider steriliza- 
tion as a means of birth control except to prevent the reproduction of the 
feeble-minded, the insane, and the severely malformed when a hereditary 
causation can be shown. 50 Outside of those rare cases he is against steriliza- 
tion even if entirely voluntary. 

For this he gives not only the reason that in many regions of the South 
the political and judicial system is such that, for Negroes and perhaps other 
poor people, a system of "voluntary" sterilization might in practice turn 
out to be compulsory. His resistance goes deeper. He reacts against the 
idea that any individual, for reasons which have no biological but only 
social causes, should undergo an unnatural restriction of his procreative 
possibilities. Outside the narrow field of negative eugenics, sterilization is, 
therefore, excluded as a means of controlling fertility. Except for individual 
cases in which life or health is threatened by child-bearing, the average 
American takes a similar attitude toward induced abortion. In his opinion, 
life should not be extinguished. Abortion, further, is not entirely free from 
health risks." 

The type of birth control which we shall have to discuss as a means of 
population policy is thus for all practical purposes restricted to contracep- 
tion. As we have already seen, the whites' desire to decrease the Negro 
population becomes, even in regard to birth control, entirely overshadowed 
by quite other valuations centered on the health and happiness of the 
individual parents and children, which are all backed by the American 
Creed and shared by the Negroes. The full possibilities of these latter 
valuations in permitting a birth control policy in America have not yet been 
realized. Under their sanction birth control facilities could be extended 
relatively more to Negroes than to whites, since Negroes are more con- 
centratetj in the lower income and education classes and since they now know 
less abctttt modern techniques of birth control. On this score there would 
probablyv be no conflict of policy between Negroes and whites. 

*The prevalence of this political attitude does not prevent individuals from resorting 
to abortion when they want to interrupt undetired pregnancies. 



Chapter 7. Population 177 

Without going into the general reasons for spreading birth control in 
any population, 51 a few remarks on the special reasons for Negroes are in 
point. One of the most obvious misfortunes which a reduced birth rate 
could relieve is the poverty of the Negro masses. This is especially true as 
new legislation, urbanization, and technological advance operate to diminish 
child labor. It is particularly strong as long as the state shares only slightly 
in paying for the investment in a new generation and leaves the rising 
costs of bearing and rearing children almost entirely to the individual 
families. Since Negro women are employed to a greater extent than white 
women, the periods of pregnancy, delivery, and dependency are a relatively 
greater economic burden to Negro families. If pregnancies occur too fre- 
quently, the mother's health is endangered. To poor Negro mothers in 
communities which do not provide proper natal and pre-natal care for 
Negroes, any pregnancy is a health risk. 

Besides poverty, there are other conditions among Negroes which moti- 
vate birth control. One is the high disease rate. In so far as diseases of parents 
are transmitted to their children, killing or permanently maiming them, 
such parents ought to be encouraged not to have children. The special refer- 
ence here, of course, is to the venereal diseases which afflict Negroes to a 
much greater extent than whites. 02 Poindexter 58 estimates that of the con- 
ceptions of untreated syphilitic women, about 30 per cent die in utero t 40 
per cent die within the first two years of life, and the remaining 30 per cent, 
while they live past the age of two, usually have some permanent defect. 
There can be no excuse for having children under such circumstances, and 
the provision of contraceptive information and devices would be to every- 
one's advantage. There are in the United States over 2,500 clinics 6 * the 
function of which is to cure cases of venereal disease. Since a good proportion 
of the cost of these clinics is borne by the federal government, 55 they are 
roughly distributed in accordance with need. Thus the South, with only 31 
per cent of the total population but 79 per cent of the Negro population, 
had 61 per cent of these clinics in 1940. 50 In connection with the work of 
these clinics there is much publicity on the prevention and cure of venereal 
disease. It would be a simple matter, and one much in accord with the 
purpose of this work, for the clinics to provide, and give information about, 
contraceptives to those who have the diseases which they are combating. 
The funds for these activities need to be increased, and clinics set up where 
none are now available. A case could also be made for extending the scope 
of the circumstances under which physicians may legally perform thera- 
peutic abortions. 57 

A third special problem in connection with the formation of a policy 
toward Negro fertility is suggested by the extremely high illegitimacy rate 
among Negroes.* Reported illegitimate births constituted 16.2 per cent of 

* The cause* of this high birth rate to unmarried mothers will be considered ia Chapter 
43> Section a. 



178 Am American Dilemma 

all reported births among nonwhites in 1936, and 2.0 per cent among 
whites. The illegitimate child is under many handicaps and seldom has the 
opportunity to develop into a desirable citizen. 68 Even if he has a good 
mother, she cannot give him the proper care since she must usually earn 
her own living and cannot afford to place him under proper supervision. 
The absence of a father is detrimental to the development of a child's 
personality, as is the mockery from the outside world which the illegiti- 
mate child is sometimes forced to experience.* Too, the unwed mother tends 
— although there are many exceptions — to have looser morals and lower 
standards, and in this respect does not provide the proper milieu for her 
child. It would be better both for society in general and for the mother if 
she had no child. 

In all these respects the extra strength of the reasons for birth control 
among Negroes is due only to the fact that, as a group, they are more 
touched by poverty, disease, and family disorganization than is common 
among the whites in America. If caste with all its consequences were to 
disappear, there would, from these viewpoints, be no more need for birth 
control among Negroes than among whites. But the general reasons for 
family limitation would remain, and they would have a strength depending 
upon the extent to which society was reformed to become a more favor- 
able environment for families with children. 69 Until these reforms are 
carried out, and as long as the burden of caste is laid upon American 
Negroes, even an extreme birth control program is warranted by reasons 
of individual and social welfare. 

7. Birth Control Facilities for Negroes 

The birth control movement in America was one which had the support 
of liberals but met the fiercest opposition of the Catholic Church and other 
organized groups with conservative leanings. It also had to deal with the 
inertia and puritanical morality of the masses. 00 Only in the last fifteen 
years has it become possible to discuss the subject publicly without being 
criticized or condemned as immoral. Only in the last five years has the 
legal prohibition against dissemination of information about birth control 
let up significantly, and there are still all sorts of legal obstacles to the 
movement. 61 

In the last decade some significant changes have occurred. Public opinion, 
as measured by polls, is increasingly in favor of birth control. National 
magazines have had frank articles on it. The number of contraceptive clinics 
rose from 34 m 1930 to 803 in 1942. 62 In three states— North Carolina, 
South Carolina, and Alabama— £>#£/«: health authorities have taken the 
lead Mr bringing birth control clinics to rural areas, where they are most 

* There!* much less social derogation of the illegitimate child among Negroes than among 
whites. See Chapter 43, Section *. 



Chapter 7. Population 179 

needed. Several other Southern states are on the verge of following the 
example of these three. In 1937 the conservative American Medical Associa- 
tion accepted birth control as an "integral part of medical practice and 
education." These rapid changes are partly the result of the general trend 
toward social amelioration and secularization. They are also the result of 
the excellent propaganda and organizational work under the movement 
now known as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The lead- 
ing spirit in the movement, since 19 16, has been Mrs. Margaret Sanger. 

While the birth control movement is generally considered to be a liberal 
movement, and the South is generally the least hospitable section of the 
country to liberal movements, the South now leads other sections of the 
country in accepting birth control. 63 The relative absence of Roman' 
Catholics in the South, the great attention recently of the birth control 
organizations to the South, and the greater need of the South are important 
reasons for this. But it is reasonable to assume that the large number of 
undesired Negroes in the rural districts also has something to do with the 
lack of opposition on the part of the white South." 

There is some variation in the technical organization of the programs 
in the three Southern states which now have public birth control clinics, 
but there is enough in common to describe a general pattern. 64 These 
clinics were started by the action of the chief health officer in each state; 
he sent letters to each of the local health officers to ask them if they would 
accept birth control clinics as a part of their regular health clinics. Those 
who accepted" — and this now includes most of the local health officers in 
North Carolina and a significant proportion in South Carolina and Alabama 
— received advice, instruction and special supplies. The regular local health 
offices — some of which, therefore, now have birth control clinics — are paid 
for by the state governments and by the Children's Bureau of the federal 
government on a grant-in-aid basis, but they are under the control of 
locally appointed health officers. The cost of birth control supplies is often 
borne by the private birth control organization of the state. When the 
public clinics began in North Carolina, a nurse whose salary and expenses 
were paid by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America gave 
instruction and supplies to the local doctors and nurses. The climes in the 
other states had a similar start. Thus at the beginning the expenses of the 
program were borne by private groups, but there is a strong tendency 

' As we observed in the previous sections of this chapter, Southerners will never publicly 
admit that they would like to see the Negro population decrease, but they do point to the 
poverty that could be avoided if there were fewer Negroes. Another indication that the 
presence of the Negroes is a main reason for the lack of opposition to birth control in the 
South is that, despite lack of opposition to it, birth control is taboo as a subject for public 
or polite conversation even more in the South than in the North. 

* In many cases the local health officer had to get the approval of the county medial 
society. 



I So An American Dilemma 

toward state support with federal aid. Sometimes the patients pay a nominal 
fee. 

Most of the 452 privately supported birth control clinics in the United 
States in 1942 were under the sponsorship of the Planned Parenthood 
Federation of America or its local affiliates. Most of these are in cities. The 
Harlem section of New York got a clinic in 1930. The Federation — with 
funds made available by a white philanthropist — is conducting two demon- 
stration projects important to Negroes: one in urban Nashville, Tennessee, 
and the other in rural Berkeley County, South Carolina. Both projects are 
for Negroes only. The Federation has a Division of Negro Service whose 
primary function is educational. Aided by a national Negro Advisory 
Council of 34 eminent Negro leaders, it works through the Urban Leagues, 
Negro doctors and nurses, the National Hospital Association, the Negro 
press and Negro clubwomen. 05 Some 200 of the Negro Jeanes teachers 
have requested information of the Federation's Division of Negro Service, 
as have hundreds of Southern white health officers and doctors. 68 

The activity of the birth control movement's workers, the Southern 
whites, and the Negro leaders — all with the same aim of spreading birth 
control among Negroes — promises a great development of the movement 
in the future. Since few Negroes are Catholics, and since they do not live 
in areas where Catholics predominate, the chief remaining weakness, as 
far as Negroes are concerned, is the lack of funds for educational work. 
It would seem that, more and more, the Southern states are on the way to 
making public funds available for birth control work. Too, it is likely that 
philanthropy will be more willing to come into this field since it has become 
legal and popularly acceptable in the last five years. 

A more serious difficulty is that of educating Southern Negroes to the 
advantages of birth control. Negroes, on the whole, have all the prejudices 
against it that other poor, ignorant, superstitious people have. 67 More 
serious is the fact that even when they do accept it, they are not very 
efficient in obeying instructions and sometimes they come to feel that it is 
a fake. 68 An intensive educational campaign is needed, giving special recog- 
nition to the prejudices and ignorance of the people whom the campaign 
is to benefit. The use of Negro doctors and nurses is essential. 

With the growing popular and legal acceptance of birth control, it would 
seem that a shift in emphasis is needed. 69 None of the present activities 
should be cut out, but the time has come for more direct and more wide- 
spread educational work. The birth control organizations, having been 
Stung so many times, are chary of direct propaganda that might antagonize 
doctors and others among the "best people." It is true that they seek to 
reach the masses of Negroes through the Urban Leagues, Negro news- 
papers, Jeanes teachers, and Negro clubwomen. But they only tell people 
to see a doctor and so do not get over the fact that there are more easily 



Chapter 7. Population 181 

accessible devices for birth control and venereal prophylaxis than the ones 
usually prescribed by physicians. 70 

Of course special cases do require medical attention, and all persons 
should be told to see a doctor if possible. 71 Medical advice will always be 
an asset in getting over improved techniques of birth control, in adjusting 
individual problems and in securing general health improvement. But 
there is no need for all people to refrain from birth control or prophylaxis 
until they have seen a doctor. So far contraception has been most successful 
on a mass basis among city people who learn about simple methods from 
their friends, not from doctors. What city Negroes now know — as evidenced 
by their low birth rate — merely needs to be told to country Negroes. The 
birth control organizations can do this more effectively, more speedily, and 
more scientifically, than can rumors and jokes. 

The main reason for advocating this shift in emphasis is that mass 
instruction and propaganda reach more people in less time and at lower 
cost than the clinics run by doctors and nurses. 73 The need for birth control 
is common, and is only slightly touched by present activities, despite their 
high cost. If birth control is to achieve mass utilixation, there must be a 
shift in emphasis from time-consuming and expensive instruction of indi- 
viduals to a speedy and inexpensive education of groups. And there should 
not only be groups of women, but also groups of men. Birth control is 
fundamentally a simple matter, and it calls for adult education before 
clinical consultation. 



CHAPTER 8 

MIGRATION 



I. Overview 

There are no comprehensive statistics on internal migration ir j 
Census data on population increase of the several regions from ..j 
to another, and on the state of birth of individuals, will have b\ 
upon for giving what indirect information on migration they ., 
we get from these sources is merely a very approximate meas\\ 
trend of long-range net migration, between regions, of Negroes as ^ - 
pared with whites} Our interest in this chapter will be focused on migration 
defined in this way. 

Ever since they were brought to this country as slaves, Negroes have 
been concentrated in the South. There had been little use for slaves in.the 
North, and the Northern state governments early abolished what slavery 
there was. The South, on the other hand, after an initial period of experi- 
mentation, came to regard slavery as an essential part of its economy, and 
brought Negroes in as long as it was legally possible to do so, and after 
that bred and smuggled them to increase the number of slaves. Part of the 
frontier was then in the Southeast and the Negroes were brought along as 
slaves in the great southward and westward movement of the plantation 
economy. The restriction of slavery to the South, among many other 
factors, limited this forced migration to this new region. The stream of 
free Negroes and fugitive slaves to the North, though highly important 
politically, was not quantitatively significant. 8 If the southward and west- 
ward movement within the slave territory be ignored, the distribution of 
Negroes in the main regions of the country was substantially the same in 
*i86o as it was in 1790. In i860 there was only a scattering of Negroes in 
the North and practically none in the West." 

The Civil War removed the legal restrictions on Negro mobility. It 
also removed the slave owners' interest in moving the Negroes to places 
where they could be most profitably used. There was apparently much 

* In i860, 94.9 per cent of the Negroes in the United States lived in the South (including 
Missouri). Only one-tenth of i per cent lived in non-Southern states west of the Mississippi 
River, and the remaining 5 per cent lived in Northern states east of the Mississippi River. 
{Eighth Census of tht United Stout : iS 60.. TToL I, p. xiii.) 

iSa 



Chapter 8. Migration 183 

wandering locally. Perhaps, Negroes moved locally more than did whites 
in the South since Emancipation gave them a psychological release, and 
since they did not own much land to tie them down. Even today Negroes 
are less "attached to the soil" than whites, and the turnover of Negro share 
tenants is high," But there was, for a long time, little long-distance migra- 
tion out of the South, And even within the South the Negroes seem, on 
the whole, to have become rather more tied to the districts where they 
lived before Emancipation than they had been earlier when they were 
productive capital owned by the employers, and when the plantation 
economy was in its expanding stage. Outside the local migration, the only 
numerically significant migration of Negroes between the Civil War and 
the World War was from rural areas to cities within the South (including 
Washington, D.C.). 

The proportion of Negroes in the North and West b rose from 5.1 per 
cent in i860 to 10.4 per cent in 1910. In'iejio Negroes made up only 1.6 
per cent of the total Northern and Western population (it was 1.2 per 
cent in i860). In 1910, 79.3 per cent of all Northern Negroes lived in 
cities (it was 64.3 per cent in i860). The urban Negro population in the 
South increased during the same period from 6.7 to 22.0 per cent of the 
total Negro population in the region. In i860 Negroes constituted 19.3 
per cent of the Southern urban population and 24.5 per cent in 19 10. 

The Great Migration, starting in 191 5 and continuing in waves from 
then on, has brought changes in the distribution of Negroes in the United 
States. The proportion of all Negroes living in the North and West rose 
to 23.8 per cent in 1940, which signifies a total net migration between 
1910 and 1940 of about 1,750,000 from the South. 8 Negroes constituted, 
in 1940, 3.7 per cent of the total Northern population. Practically all of 
the migrants had gone to the cities and almost all to the big cities. In 1940, 
90.1 per cent of all Negroes in Northern and Western states outside of 
Missouri lived in urban areas. New York City alone claimed 16.9 per cent 
of all Negroes living in the North and West. If the Negroes of Chicago, 
Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh are added to those of 
New York, the proportion rises to 47.2 per cent. The rural North and 
West still remain practically void of Negroes. The total Negro rural-farm 
population outside the South was only 269,760 in i940 c as against 190,572 
in 19 10. In most smaller cities in the North Negroes are also absent, or 

• See Chapter 1 1, Section 8. 

b In this chapter we include Missouri in the South together with the 16 states and the 
District of Columbia, defined by the census as the South. The West, as we define it here, 
inclndes all states west of the Mississippi River except Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas 
and Oklahoma. 

* Of these 269,760 Negroes, 218,963 were rural-nonfarm Negroes and only 50,797 were 
rural farm Negroes. A comparable breakdown in the figures for 1910 is not available. 



1 84 



An American Dilemma 




Chapter 8. Migration 185 

the small stock of old Negro inhabitants has not been materially increased. 

In the South the proportion of the Negro population that lived in cities 
increased from 22.0 per cent to 37.3 per cent between 1910 and 1940. 
Negroes now make up 22.3 per cent of the total urban population of the 
South, while a generation ago the corresponding figure was 24.5 per cent. 
The Southern rural Negro population has shrunk from 78.0 per cent of 
the total number of Southern Negroes in 1910 to 62.7 per cent in 1940. 
The rural Negroes are still distributed in various parts of the South in 
much the same way as in 19 10 and, indeed, as in i860 on the eve of the 
Civil War. 

In spite of the considerable mobility in the last thirty years, the great 
majority of Negroes in the United States still live in the South (Figure 3). 

2. A Closer View 

Why has the Negro not moved around more in America? And why 
have his moves — even in the last generation — been so restricted to a few 
main streams? A satisfactory answer cannot be given because of fragmen- 
tary knowledge. Our attempted answer will have to be abstract, as practi- 
cally all phases of the Negro problem are involved." 

After Emancipation the great masses of American Negroes were concen- 
trated in the rural South, actually some four-fifths of the total Negro 
population. Theoretically, there were four possible types of places where 
they could move. First, they could leave the United States. Second, they 
could take part in the settlement of the frontier West. Third, they could 
move to the growing cities of the South or to other rural areas in the 
South. Finally, they could go North. A consideration of why the Negro 
did, or- did not, make each of these types of movements, and of his motives 
for so doing, will at least formulate some of the main problems involved. b 

Colonization abroad had been attempted in the ante-bellum South as a 
method of getting rid of the free Negroes. The back-to-Africa movement 
is interesting from an ideological point of view.' Its quantitative effects 
upon the Negro population in America were, however, almost nothing. 
Not many white people were ever deeply interested} fewer still were 
prepared to make the necessary financial sacrifices for the passage and 
settlement of Negroes abroad. Most Negroes were not willing to leave 

* For a more intensive treatment of several factors only hinted at in this chapter, we refer 
the reader to later parts of this book, particularly Fart IV on the economic status of the 
Negro. 

* Most of the factual material for this discussion has been taken from Samuel A. Stouffer 
and Lyonel C. Florant, "Negro Population and Negro Population Movements. — 1860-1940, 
in Relation to Social and Economic Factors," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study 
(194.0, levised by Lyonel Florant under title, "Negro Migration.— i86o-i940 w ' [194.1]). 

'See Chapter 38, Section 12. Also see Stouffer and Florant, of. eit., pp. 35-38. 



1 86 An American Dilemma 

America. Nevertheless, the idea of mass emigration, to Africa or some other 
place outside the United States is still not completely out of American 
thinking," although in practice it has not amounted to much so far. 

Some ten thousand Negroes went to Liberia and some thousands to 
Haiti before the Civil War, but after the War this emigration practically 
ceased. 4 Particularly after the Civil War, Negroes in small numbers 
traveled back and forth between the United States and the West Indies, 
but there has been little opportunity for any large-scale emigration to these 
heavily populated, small islands. South America — especially Brazil, where 
there is already a large proportion of Negroes — would seem to offer many 
possibilities to Negroes who wish to leave the United States. Although it 
is conceivable that the closer cultural relations now opening between the 
United States and South America will lead to a significant intermigration 
between these two areas, few have yet taken advantage of those oppor- 
tunities. 

Negroes did not participate in the settlement of the West. In fact, there 
are not many Negroes in the West even today. In 1940 only 2.2 per cent 
of all American Negroes lived west of the Mississippi River (outside of 
Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, which states may be 
considered as part of the South rather than the West). Most of the Negro 
migration to the West has occurred in the last decade: the Western popula- 
tion of Negroes increased 21.1 per cent between 1930 and 1940. But there 
was little migration when the West was a frontier, and land was cheap. 
In 1890 there were only 100,986 Negroes in the West, in 1910 still only 
135,872. 

The reasons for this are not clear, and some historian can do a service by 
investigating the problem. We know that the settlement of Negro freedmen 
in the West was a frequently discussed possibility immediately after the 
Civil War. A few movements to get away from the South developed rather 
scon. By far the biggest one was to Kansas, and may have brought as many 
as 40,000 Negroes to that state. 6 There are reasons to believe that the lack 
of capital and experience on the part of Southern Negroes is only a small 
part of the explanation as to why westward migration generally became 
abortive. There were Negroes who had the little capital necessary to get 
started on their own in the West; others could have begun as laborers, 
who were needed not only on the farms but in the huge construction work 
going on. The primary explanation seems to be that in rural areas of the 
West, white settlers decided that there were not to be any Negroes. b The. 
same seems to have been true in most rural areas of the Northeast and in 

* See Chapter 38, Section 12. 

''This is all the more incomprehensible because Chinese were imported to do the con- 
struction work in the West, and there was much greater prejudice against them than against 
Negroes. 



Chapter 8. Migration 187 

most small towns of the entire North. The closer neighborhood controls 
in smaller communities seem to have blocked the Negro from moving in 
when he was no longer protected as a slave. Even apart from actual pres- 
sure there must have been imagined pressure: individuals in a lower caste, 
like the Negroes, are always on the lookout for discrimination and intimi- 
dation and probably felt that it was not safe to venture into the loneliness 
of a small community. At any rate, it soon became a popular belief among 
Southern Negroes that the only outlet from the Southern Black Belt was 
to the cities and preferably to the big cities, where Negro neighborhoods 
were already established. Negro migration thus early tended to become 
migration between fairly large-sized Negro communities or to be stopped 
altogether. 

But there were cities in the West, and a few of these grew rapidly. In 
them small Negro communities developed, and the Negro inhabitants 
found that there was less prejudice in these new cities than even in the 
Northeastern cities. James Weldon Johnson described San Francisco, for 
example, in 1905: 

I was delighted with San Francisco. Here was a civilized center, metropolitan and 
urbane. With respect to the Negro race, I found it a freer city than New York. I 
encountered no bar against me in hotels, restaurants, theaters, or other places of 
public accommodation and entertainment. We hired a furnished apartment in the 
business area, and took our meals wherever it was most convenient. I moved about 
with a sense of confidence and security, and entirely from under that cloud of doubt 
and apprehension that constantly hangs over an intelligent Negro in every Southern 
city and in a great many cities of the North. . . . The black population was relatively 
small, but the colored people that I met and visited lived in good homes and 
appeared to be prosperous. I talked with some of them about rare conditions; the 
consensus of their comment was that San Francisco was the best city in the United 
States for a Negro. This may, of course, hare been in some degree a reflex of 
prevalent Pacific Coast boosting. 6 

It is surprising that cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle did 
not attract a greater Negro population. Perhaps the long and expensive 
journey to the Western cities has been a deterrent. The competition from 
Orientals and Mexicans as domestics and laborers also has played a role. 
But we are not satisfied with this explanation, although we have nothing 
better to offer. 

The South also had its western frontier. In i860, there was relatively 
little population in the large area which is now Oklahoma and Western 
Texas. After i860, whites began to flow in from more eastern places in 
the South. Later, as the boll weevil, erosion, and mechanization shifted 
cotton westward; and as new occupations developed in agriculture, in live- 
stock production, in mining, and in manufacturing in these areas, whites 
moved in at an increasing rate. But Negroes did not come in any significant 



1 88 An American Dilemma 

numbers. By 1940, Negroes constituted only 12.5 per cent of the population 
of Texas and Oklahoma, and they were not often employed in the new 
occupations. Oil and gas wells in these two states gave employment to 
90,000 in 1930, of whom only 800 were Negroes. In the cities, Negroes 
had little opportunity outside of domestic and personal service: in 1930 
they constituted only 8 per cent of the gainfully occupied in nonagricul- 
tural pursuits aside from domestic and personal service. Negroes did not 
even get much of a share in the new cotton production of these states.* 
Southern prejudice against the Negro seems to be the most potent factor 
in keeping the Negro out of the new opportunities in Texas and Oklahoma. 
In some towns Negroes are not permitted to remain over 24 hours; every- 
where the Negro is "kept in his place." Another factor has been the com- 
petition from the Mexicans, who went into the lowest occupations and 
filled the traditional "Negro jobs." 

Negroes did go to the Southern cities but not nearly to the same extent 
as did the whites. In 1940, Negroes constituted only 22.4 per cent of the 
population of Southern cities over 100,000, and 22.J per cent of the cities 
of that size having 20 per cent of their employed workers in manufacturing 
and construction industries. The growth of the city represents the greatest 
economic change in the South that has occurred since the Civil War. The 
Industrial Revolution, with all its connotation of modern progress and new 
opportunity, came to the South later than it did to the North, but it did 
come. Negroes, however, were not allowed to share in many of its fruits. 
The tradition persisted that Negroes could not operate machines, or at 
least this was the rationalization used to keep them from the new occupa- 
tions. Negroes lost out in many of the skilled occupations they had for- 
merly had. In the Southern city, the Negro is now mainly an unskilled 
laborer or a servant. b 

While the Negroes have probably moved around locally in the South 
a great deal since i860, the net result of this movement has been surpris- 
ingly insignificant. Negroes have not been permitted to take advantage of 
new opportunities in rural areas any more than they have been in urban 
areas. By a reclassification of the South into 140 districts which are much 
more homogeneous in regard to Negroes than the political units formerly 
used by the Census Bureau, 7 Stouffer and Wyant have shown three striking 
facts: 

1. Those Southern districts which tended to have relatively few Negroes 
in i860 grew faster both absolutely and relatively between i860 and 
1930, than those with many Negroes. The former included most of 
the districts which were destined to be most heavily urban in 1930. 

'See Chapter 11, Section 4, and Chapter 12, Section 6. 

b For a more detailed description of the Negro in Southern industry, see Chapter 13. 



Chapter 8. Migration 189 

2. Those Southern districts which tended to have relatively few Negroes 
in i860 also had relatively few in 1930. 8 

3. In 1930, as in i860, the regions of dense Negro population were 
concentrated in the crescent, sometimes narrow, sometimes broad, 
between the Potomac and Texas and between the mountains and the 
sea (see Figure 2). This old plantation belt is "black" today, as it was 
at the time of Emancipation, although the proportion of Negroes in 
the population has declined. The two great mountain regions — the 
Appalachians and the Ozarks — were still almost entirely devoid of 
Negroes, and areas in the Border states outside the mountains tended 
to show decreases rather than increases in the percentage Negro. 

Not only did the Negro not share in the expanding opportunities in the 
South, but also the areas in which the Negroes lived declined from an 
economic standpoint. Most important was the deterioration of cotton pro- 
duction in the Black Belt of the Southeast. In the states east of Mississippi, 
Negro-operated farms produced 643,000 fewer bales of cotton in 1929 
than in 1909, while white-operated farms increased production by 90,000 
bales. 8 

Thus we have seen that the Negro did not share much in the growth 
Df the West and of the South. For a long while — until the World War, 
in fact — it did not seem that he would share in the even greater growth 
of the North. During and immediately after the First World War came 
the Great Migration, and ever since then Negroes have not stopped coming 
to the urban North. 10 Negroes probably came in greater relative numbers 
than the Southern whites who had more opportunities within the old South 
and in the new South of Texas and Oklahoma, but they did not come as 
rapidly after 1915 as did the white immigrants from Europe before the 
First World War. By 1940 there were 2,439,201 Negroes living in the 
North, east of the Mississippi River, or 19.0 per cent of the total Negro 
population in the country and 3.9 per cent of the total Northern population. 
Population distribution within the South was, of course, somewhat affected 
by the northward migration after 19 14. Many Negroes went North from 
the Border states, and their number was not quite replenished by Negroes 
coming from farther South. Those portions of Virginia, the Carolinas, and 
Georgia which lie east of the mountains lost Negro population most heavily, 
but have made it up — except for the Piedmont area—by natural increase." 

The inadequate explanation that we gave in discussing lack of migration 
to the West is all we have to account for the extreme concentration in a 
few Northern cities. There is enough industrial activity, and there could 
be opportunity for anonymity, as well as a low level of race prejudice, in 
many of the smaller cities of the North to permit a significant immigration 



190 An American Dilemma 

of Negroes. That Negroes have not migrated to these places is as much 
of a mystery as the relative absence of migration to the West. 

Another mystery — which is not entirely outside our problem, as the 

conditions and behavior of Negroes are constantly compared with those 

of their white neighbors — is why poor white Southerners during the entire 

period after the Civil War did not move in greater numbers to the North 

than they did. The Industrial Revolution came to the Northern cities long 

before the Civil War. But the period since i860 has witnessed the greatest 

mechanization and expansion of industry. Over-population and poverty 

have loomed over the South all the time. It is true that the whites could 

move to the Southwest which was mostly closed to the Negroes. The 

whites also reserved for themselves most of the jobs in the developing 

industry in the South. But industrial wages were low and many whites 

were pressed down to share tenancy in the rural districts.* As compared to 

the European immigrants, who formed the bulk of the labor supply for 

the factories in the North, they should have had the advantage of knowing 

the language and of being more familiar with American ways and manners. 

In 1930 the percentage of all Southern-born Negroes who lived in the 

Northern states east of the Mississippi River was double the percentage of 

Southern-born whites living in these Northern states. Most of the Southern 

whites living in the North were from the Border states. If we leave the 

Border states out of consideration, the proportion of Negroes born in the 

Lower South and living in the North outnumbered, by a ratio of five to 

one, the proportion of whites born in the Lower South and living in the 

North. Despite the fact that most Southern-born whites living in the North 

came from the Border states, Negroes born in the Border states and living 

in the North outnumbered, by a ratio of two to one, the proportion of 

whites born in the Border states and living in the North. 12 This lack of 

migration of whites from the South is especially striking when it is realized 

that there were almost as many Northern-born whites in the South as there 

were Southern-born whites in the North. In 1930 there were 1,931,799 

Southern-born whites living in the Northern states outside of the Mountain 

and Pacific Divisions; but there were 1,821,678 whites born in these 

Northern states living in the South. 13 Even if we subtract Northern-born 

whites living in Washington, D.C., from the latter figure, we have 

1,732,120 Northern-born whites living in the South. 14 

The corresponding figures for Negroes were: 1,355,789 Southern-born 
Negroes living in the Northern states outside of the Mountain and Pacific 
Divisions and 52,338 Negroes born in these Northern states living in the 
South. Of the latter, 4,621 were living in Washington, D.C., which left 
only 47,717 Northern-born Negroes living in the rest of the South." The 
difference between numbers of Southern whites and Southern Negroes 

* See Chapter 1 1. 



Chapter 8. Migration 191 

living in the North is even more striking when it is remembered that there 
were more than two and a half times as many whites born in the South as 
there were Negroes. Thus, when discussing the causes as to why the stream 
of Negro migrants to the North before 19 15 was so small, it should be 
remembered that the Southern whites followed the same pattern. And the 
Great Migration of Negroes after 19 15 is the more significant when it is 
realized that it was much bigger — relative to the size of the respective 
population — than the corresponding migration of Southern whites. 

3. The Great Migration to the Urban North 10 

For the average Negro, living conditions in the North have always been 
more favorable than in the South. The North has — in spite of considerable 
discrimination— offered him more economic opportunities (in relief if not 
in employment), more security as a citizen, and a greater freedom as a 
human being. The concrete import of this general statement will become 
clearer as we proceed in our inquiry. Nevertheless, this great difference 
did not, by itself, cause more than a tiny stream of northward migration 
for almost two generations. 

On the whole, the difference was probably widening after 1870. Jim 
Crow legislation and disfranchisement were being perfected in the South 
in the decades around the turn of the century. Lynching and legal inse- 
curity did not start to decrease until the 1890's, and the drop was not great 
until the 1920's. Schools for Negroes were generally improved but not 
so fast as for the whites and not nearly so fast as in the North. The slow 
trend toward Negro landownership was broken just after the turn of the 
century. The natural increase of the Southern population was large, and 
the corresponding expansion of employment opportunities retarded. 
Negroes were not allowed to share much in the opportunities that did 
develop. Whites began to monopolize the new cotton growing in the 
Southwest and also to infringe on the traditional "Negro jobs." Except for 
a small proportion of Negro professionals and businessmen who served 
their own people, few Negroes in the South had opportunity to improve 
their economic position. At least in a subjective sense — which is the impor- 
tant thing in discussing human motivation — the difference in desirability 
between South and North widened as Southern Negroes became more 
educated and came to know the outside world better. 

In the North, industrial expansion was tremendous after the Civil War, 
creating new employment opportunities for millions of immigrants. The 
few Negroes in the North were largely kept out of industrial employment 
but found a ready demand as domestics and in other service jobs. In many 
places it was a fashion among the wealthy to hire Negroes as servants in 
preference to European immigrants. Many middle class whites also came 
to prefer Negroes— largely because they did not object to the hardest work 



192 



An American Dilemma 



and did not expect much in wages. A second important demand factor 
came from the big industries when white workers went out on strike. A 
third element in the migration before the First World War was the escape 



Thpuaanda 
2,200 
LZ50 
2*£00 
8,250 
2,000 
L250 
USoo 

IfOQ O 

_Z50 
_loo 
-J50 

_0 



Figure 4. The Northward Migration 

Par Cant 
22. 

ii 

14- 
-12- 

.10 
J, 

Lfi. 

4 



Total Dumber of 
Negroes In Northern 
and Western States 



£ 



■&-!=- 



Par Cant 






Negroes Living in 
Northern and Western 
States as a Propor- 
tion of All Negroes i 



8_ 
JL 

Li 

4_ 

_3_ 
2 



Negroes In Six Selected 
Northern Cities as 1 
Proportion of the 
Total Population of 
Those Cities 



*f 



f 8 i 



r-» f-* H 

vO \C \C 

■o 8 tt S 




Source: United States Census. 

Notes: In each diagram, the calculation for 1870 is based on the assumption that the 
figures are mid-way between those of i860 and 18 So. Missouri is considered as part of 
the South. 

The Bix selected Northern cities are: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleve- 
land and Pittsburgh. These cities are those Northern ones, outside of cities in Missouri, 
which contained the largest Negro populations in 1930. Brooklyn is included in New York 
City even before the date on which it was legally incorporated with it. 

of upper class Negroes who desired to improve themselves. These were 
few in number, and many managed to get placed in commerce and industry 
on an almost equal basis with the whites. 17 



Chapter 8. Migration 193 

But — except for occasional sudden influxes of Negroes as a result of the 
demands for strikebreakers — the stream of Negroes moving to the North 
never swelled much (Figure 4). In the normal case the industrial em- 
ployers found their demand for unskilled labor well filled by European 
immigrants. The workers themselves often resented Negro competition. 
This is not a full explanation of why the North did not attract more 
Negroes, however, since the labor market was immense in comparison to 
the supply of Negro labor, and since the service occupations would, even 
at that time, have been preferable to Southern Negroes, particularly when 
we remember all the other advantages for a Negro in the North. The slow 
but accelerating increase in northward Negro net migration (Figure 4) 
confirms our general hypothesis of a widening gap in the subjective desir- 
ability between the two regions as places to live. But, as we said, the rate 
of migration did not become large until the World War. Much in the 
Great Migration after 19 15 is left unexplained if we do not assume that 
there was before 19 15 an existing and widening difference in living condi- 
tions between South and North which did not express itself in a mass 
migration simply because the latter did not get a start and become a pattern. 

In this situation of accumulated migration potentialities several factors 
of change coincided and created a shock effect after 1915. In the South 
"white infiltration" into the types of work formerly monopolized by 
Negroes, the relative shift westward of cotton growing, and the ravages 
of the boll weevil made the Negro cotton farmer still worse off. Drought, 
too, made farming difficult in 191 6 and 19 17. The First World War 
stirred up people's minds and prepared them for change. The draft actually 
moved a great number of Negro men from their home communities. The 
draft of white workers, the stopping of immigration, and the general war 
prosperity forced Northern industry to turn actively to Negroes for new 
workers. There was a "push" in the South and there was a "pull" in the 
North, widening tremendously the already existing differences in oppor- 
tunities for a Negro in the two regions. When factors of inertia were once 
overcome and the northward mass migration was started, the movement 
quickly took on momentum. A new pattern of behavior was setj a new 
hope in the possibilities in the North was created. Lines of communication 
between North and South were established. 

If the migration is thus explained in terms of "conditions" and "factors" 
and a "difference in opportunities," it should, of course, not be assumed 
that an accurate picture has thereby been given of the actual motivation of 
the individuals moving. The motivation was probably different for each 
Negro who migrated, and it involved a conscious consideration of all the 
personal elements in the situation that the individual happened to think 
of and judged as relevant — not only, and sometimes not even primarily, 
the economic opportunities. 18 It also involved a number of poorly-thought- 



194 An American Dilemma 

out elements, unconscious influences and "chance" factors. The precipitating 
"cause" of migration of an individual might be such an event as the spurn- 
ing of a young man by his sweetheart, or the death of a grandmother who 
was too old to be moved. 18 

What actually happened to a great number of Negroes at the start of 
the Great Migration must have been that they were unsettled, like every- 
one else, by the War and by all the changes occurring in the industrial 
system and the labor market. They found their chances in the South 
particularly bad. In addition, they heard about new openings in the North. 
Negroes already in the North wrote letters to relatives or friends in the 
South. Such letters were often passed around the community or their 
contents were passed on by word of mouth among the illiterates. To these 
means of communication were added those of the Negro press and the 
labor agents. Negro newspapers stimulated migration not only by printing 
advertisements of specific jobs, but also by editorials and news comments 
on the better conditions for Negroes in the North. These affected individual 
Negroes and also set the topic of friendly social discussion in many Negro 
communities. 

It is impossible to estimate the influence of agents, both white and 
Negro, sent out by Northern industries. At first they were ignored by the 
Southern whites, but during the boom days of 191 7 and thereafter, their 
activities were hampered in many ways, both legally and illegally. Not 
only were there agents with specific promises of jobs and money to pay 
the railroad fare of Negroes who desired to take these jobs, but there were 
rumors of agents who did not exist except in the distorted perceptions or 
imaginations of rumor-spreaders. Negroes who were influenced by such 
rumors did not have much difficulty in getting jobs during the War, but 
they had to pay their own railroad fare when they had not expected to. 

A desire to improve oneself economically by going North was, of course, 
a chief motive for migration. Many had heard about specific job opportu- 
nities, and many had friends who had become well-to-do in the North, but 
just as important was the general myth of Northern prosperity. Generally, 
the Negro was sought as an unskilled laborer and in such an occupation, for 
the most part, he had to stay. The North, as well as the South, has been 
hesitant to mix the machine and the Negro;* and yet, whether measured 
in terms of proportions in "desirable" occupations, average income, avail- 
ability of unemployment relief, or of other types of social security benefits, 
the Negro is considerably better off in the North than in the South." 

Allied, with the desire for economic improvement was a desire for social 
improvenient. Like many other oppressed people, Negroes placed a high 
preimttm«n education. In the North, Negroes not only had access to more 

*For evidence, see Chapter 13. 

'For statistical documentation of these statements, see Chapters 13, 14, 15 and 16. 



Chapter 8. Migration 195 

and better schools, but they could more easily earn the money to go to 
them. Many Negroes also felt they could no longer tolerate their subor- 
dinate and restricted position. Both the fact and the myth of Northern 
equality played a role in stimulating some Negroes to go North. Such 
Negroes were usually those who had some taste of a society in which their 
position was not so low — such as those who read books or corresponded 
with Northern friends, or those who had served in the United States Army 
during the World War. The general freedom, excitement, and anonymity 
of city life also attracted many rural Southern Negroes. A small number 
of Negroes went North because they found themselves -persona non grata 
with Southern whites for one reason or another. 

There were a number of things which retarded migration. Even the 
Great Migration during and after the World War brought only a small 
proportion of Southern Negroes to the North. Perhaps a majority of them 
were not even considering migrating. Except during the war boom, 
Negroes realized that there were only a limited number of jobs in the 
North. Owners of Northern industry were not very willing to hire Negro 
workers except when orders were pilling up, and European immigrant 
laborers could not be had because of the War or legal restrictions on immi- 
gration. Northern industrialists often believed in the stereotype of the 
lazy and inefficient Negro, and often their limited observations strengthened 
their belief. Some had the legitimate doubt whether Negroes, used to 
forced labor on farms, could be adapted to free labor in factories. Too, 
they did not wish to offend their white workers, who were in the majority. 
Most white unions, faced with Negroes coming into their industries, fought 
the Negroes; and white workers generally opposed black competition. On 
the other hand, some Negroes were, or felt they were, fairly well estab- 
lished economically in the South. In some cases the economic tie was 
actually a chain. In the turpentine industry, for example, Negroes worked 
and lived in isolated camps, and were forced to buy in company stores. 
The owners, in order to maintain a steady and cheap labor supply, saw 
to it that the Negro laborers ran into debt, and connived with the law- 
enforcement agencies to prevent Negroes from escaping that debt. 

There were not only economic ties, but also all sorts of social ties. Few 
persons like to leave permanently their families and friends and places 
familiar to them to go to a strange place. This fear of the unknown was 
enhanced by the stories that grew up about the North as a lawless and 
licentious place. It was— being North — a cold place, where Negroes— being 
used to warm climates — died in droves. A few migrants disliked the North 
so much that they returned South, and discouraged their friends. 20 Then, 
too, many Negroes did not know how to go about getting a train ticket, 
and others did not have enough money to buy one. 

Negro leaders were divided as to the desirability of a northward migra- 



196 An American Dilemma 

tion. Some saw the North as a place where members of their race could 
get a new start in life, economically, socially and politically. Others felt 
that migration was a disrupting force, and that the Negro problem could 
not be solved by running away from it. Some professionals and businessmen 
in the South were afraid of losing their clientele, and some community 
leaders were afraid of losing their communities. A number of them joined 
in the caravan, but the ones left behind were not particularly happy about 
it all. The upper class Negroes in the North had mixed feelings with 
respect to the new migration. On the one hand, they saw their own social 
status decreasing: prejudice mounted against Negroes in the North as a 
reaction to the sudden influx of rough Southern Negroes.' On the other 
hand, the economic basis of their businesses or professions broadened as 
the Negro community grew. 

4. Continued Northward Migration 

After the First World War many of the same influences continued, 
and Negroes kept up their migration northward. After a few years of 
depression, unprecedented prosperity brought a new demand for industrial 
goods. Immigration laws effectively kept out competitors to American 
labor, except for Mexicans and a few French-Canadians. Cotton production 
in the South Atlantic and East South Central states was still in the dol- 
drums, though not so badly as during the War. Also important was the 
fact that a pattern of migration had been well started; fear and local ties 
were no longer so potent in deterring migration as they had been before 
the War. Jobs, however, were not so plentiful in the North, and a housing 
shortage for Negroes, who were kept in segregated quarters of the cities, 
caused rents to eat up a large part df the Negro's wage. 

With the depression beginning in 1929, a new set of circumstances arose 
to determine the extent of the Negro's migration northward. There were 
no longer new jobs for Negroes in the North j in fact, Negroes there were 
laid off by the thousands. In November, 1937, 39 per cent of the male 
nonwhite labor force in Northern states outside of the Rocky Mountain 
and Pacific Coast Divisions were unemployed. 21 

* An elderly upper class Negro woman who had lived all her life in the North told an 
interviewer in 1927: 

"The Negro invasion began about 191 5. Until that titne we had been accepted as equals 
but as soon as the Southern Negroes began coming in we were relegated to their class. 
Our white friends shunned us and we were really without social life until our own group 
was better organized. . . . We really do not mingle with the Southern Negro and they do 
not come near us as they know'* that we are Northerners." 

This woman was president of a local society composed of Negroes who had lived in the 
North fox at least 35 years, or their descendants. (Unpublished document in possession of the 
Social Science Research Committee of the University of Chicago, "History of Douglas," 
document No. 15). 



Chapter 8. Migration 197 

But a new form of livelihood arose to take the place of jobs. This was 
public assistance in its many forms. It was much harder for Negroes who 
needed it to get relief in the South than in the North. In 1935 around 
half of all Negro families in the North were on relief." Hence Negroes 
were again attracted northward — though not to the same extent as during 
the period of the World War and the 1920's. Many Northern states set 
up residence requirements — ranging up to five years — to keep out migrants 
seeking relief. These requirements were not rigorously enforced in the 
early days of the depression, but even when they were, Negroes felt it 
better to trust to luck for odd jobs or to their friends until the residence 
requirements had been met, rather than to meet almost sure starvation in 
the South. b Relief and the residence requirements for relief also had the 
effect of cutting down on the remigration to the South. c 

Economic conditions had become relatively worse for Negroes in the 
South during the depression. Whites who had lost their small farms or 
their better jobs in the cities began to encroach on the Negroes in the heavy 
unskilled occupations and even in the service occupations — the traditional 
jobs of the Southern Negro. Southern agriculture became worse, and the 
poorest owners and tenants — which included a disproportionate share of 
Negroes — were forced out. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration 
of the federal government — in an effort to aid Southern agriculture — 
forced out the poorest among both white and Negro agriculturists even 
more." Most of these — including practically all the whites — went on relief, 
but many of the Negroes could not get relief and so moved North where 
no color distinction was made in the administration of public assistance." 

Most experts believed, during the 'thirties, that the northward Negro 
migration had diminished considerably. Now that the preliminary results 
of the 1940 Census are available, we know that it has kept up. It was not 
so high during the 'thirties as it had been from 191 5 to 1930, but the 
remarkable thing is that it has kept up at all in the absence of employment 
opportunities in the North. 22 

5. The Future of Negro Migration 

Taking the long historical view, the main observations to be made about 
Negro migration are that the Negro people have tended to stay where 

'See Chapter 15. 

"See Chapter 16. 

'Also, persons who are able to support themselves after a fashion but know that they 
may be in need of relief sometime in the future, often consider local relief differentials 
when deciding on whether or not they want to migrate. Such potential relief clients are 
particularly numerous, of course, in the Negro group. 

* See Chapter iz. 

* For the statistical facts on unemployment, public assistance, and agriculture in the South, 
see Part IV of this book. 



19$ An American Dilemma 

they were. Their movements between the regions of the country have been 
decidedly more restricted in amount and direction than those of the whites. 
This trend is as significant as the slower growth of the Negro population 
when compared with the wh'te population, which we analyzed in the 
preceding chapter. 

The restriction of long-range mobility of Negroes is — to an extent and 
in a certain direction — a thing of the past. We found that the long immo- 
bility of the Negroes was not unrelated to the white immigration, which 
filled the demand for unskilled labor in the fast-growing industrial struc- 
ture of the North. The white Southerners had a natural increase large 
enough to fill most of those jobs in the lagging industry of the South. 
The stopping of immigration during the First World War was one of the 
factors suddenly giving the Negro a chance in Northern industry. But the 
influence of immigration as a cause of immobility and the stoppage of 
immigration as a cause, later, of greater mobility were interwoven in a 
complicated fashion with many other factors. Northern industry went into 
a period of mechanization, decreasing tremendously its demand for un- 
skilled labor. During the 'thirties a great industrial stagnation hampered 
the growth of employment opportunities. But once unleashed, the north- 
ward Negro migration continued through good and bad times. 

To forecast the future of Negro migration is, of course, difficult. It will 
be determined by social trends and by public policy. Certain of the main 
conditioning factors stand out rather clearly. 

The liberty of the individual to move freely in the country is a firmly 
entrenched principle of the American Creed. The future development will 
probably be to reinforce still more in practice the individual's freedom to 
migrate. 28 It is true that Northern cities are usually not desirous of having 
Negroes move in. There are a number of measures which can be taken 
in order to keep out Negro migrants. But none are effective, at least not 
in the big cities where Negroes have already gained a strong foothold. 
Smaller cities have often kept out Negroes by social pressure or resort to 
intimidation. In the South peonage or semi-peonage has prevented some 
Negroes from moving away. This practice has largely been stamped out 
during the 'thirties by legal action or is losing its motivation because of 
the oversupply of Negro labor." 

There would, on the contrary, be a possibility of establishing a positive 
migration policy of helping the Negroes get to the places where theif 
opportunities on the labor market are best. Such a policy would be consist- 
ent with the, American Creed." It seems not improbable that such a labor 
information service will develop as part of the public control of the labor 

'See Chapter i* *nd Chapter 26, Section 2. 

* See Chapter 9. The details of our suggestion will be presented in Chapter :•/, Section 3. 



Chapter 8. Migration 199 

market which is beginning to take shape during the present War and which 
will become still more of a necessity in the post-war economic crisis. 

Leaving this prospect aside, there seem to be good reasons to expect 
a continuation of the northward migration, in spite of depressions and 
booms. The pattern is now set and the lines of communication established. 
The War and the post-war crisis arc again stirring up the Negro people, 
and the psychological effects will probably be cumulative as in the First 
World War. The general level of education and knowledge of the outside 
world is rising among Southern Negroes. In the South the continued crisis 
in cotton growing, which we foresee, and the concentration of its effects 
on the Negro farmers will continue to act as a tremendous push." The low 
Negro reproduction rate in Southern cities will, by itself, give space for a 
continual influx from the surrounding rural areas. Industrialization in the 
South also is perhaps going to continue at a more rapid rate than in the 
North . b One would expect that this would draw whites away from the 
poorer, unskilled, and service jobs in the cities and so make more room for 
Negroes at the bottom of the Southern urban occupational structure. But 
over-population is so serious in the region and the pattern of giving all 
new industrial jobs to whites only is so firmly established that it does not 
seem likely that the industrial development will, directly or indirectly, 
give Negroes anything like the number of jobs required. 

In the North, there arc fair prospects of a somewhat decreased economic 
discrimination against Negro workers. If, in a later stage of the present 
War, Negroes are brought into industry to a greater extent/ this might 
condition white workers in the North to be better prepared to accept 
Negroes as co-workers. And there are other factors working in the same 
direction.* 1 The great size of the Northern labor market compared with the 
Negro population there also keeps employment opportunities better. The 
fact that Northern Negroes are not reproducing their numbers from 
generation to generation, while there is a»positive natural increase among 
Southern Negroes, tends also to promote a steady shift of Negroes from 
the South to the North. The existing differentials in public assistance treat- 
ment accorded Negroes between the South and the North will probably 
continue. The importance of this factor for keeping up migration in 
depressions has been seen during the 'thirties. 

With the West opened up, it would seem that it would be no different 
from the North in attracting Negroes. It is the writer's impression that, on 

'See Chapter 12. 

"The faster rate of industrialization in the South than in the North is a development 
of the last two decades. 
"See Chapter 19. 
See Chapter 45. 
* See Chapter 16. 



200 An American Dilemma 

the whole, Negroes meet relatively less discrimination in the West than 
in parts of the Middle West and the East. This, of course, does not apply, 
to much of the Southwest where Southern whites have gone and have 
brought their attitudes toward the Negro with them. The small number 
of Negroes already in the West, the relatively small amount of race 
prejudice there, and the heavy demand for servants in California will 
perhaps make the West Coast cities more popular as places for Negro immi- 
gration than Northern cities in the Eastern half of the country. The 
relatively great extent of Negro migration to California in the last decade 
is perhaps indicative of a future trend. 24 Since Negroes get practically their 
only new economic opportunities in growing cities, we may expect that most 
of the westward migration will be to the cities of the West Coast and not 
to inland cities and rural districts. 26 

A great deal will depend upon the future development of employment 
opportunities in the war boom, the post-war crisis, and the solution found 
for this crisis. The development through these future emergencies will be 
shaped, not only by the free play of economic forces in a market, but 
increasingly by governmental policies called forth by these emergencies. 
We shall come back to these problems in Chapter 19. 

As a concluding note, it should be stressed that there is no doubt that 
migration to the North and West is a tremendous force in the general 
amelioration of the Negro's position. It is even more: northward migration 
is a necessity if the economic status of Southern Negroes is not to deteri- 
orate as cotton growing disappears as a means of getting a living for the 
masses of rural Negroes. Migration out of the South, further, means not 
inly economic improvement to the Negro. It also gives him a social status 
approaching equality.' It increases the Negro vote, which might become 
of rising importance for national policy. 6 The experience of the migration 
of 1917-1919 also suggests that emigration of a significant number of 
Negroes is one of the surest ways of stimulating the Southern whites to 
give more consideration to the Negroes that remain in the South. At any 
rate it seems certain that a concentration of unemployed Negroes on relief 
in the South will only deteriorate race relations in that region. 

Many writers have felt that the partial exodus of the Negro population 
from the South to the North would "solve" the Negro problem. In doing 
this, some Northern writers have been thinking of the effects on the 
Southern white people. 28 Some others, mainly among Southern writers, 
have thought about the effect on Northern whites: They believe that race 
prejudice will rise with the proportion of Negroes present in Northern 
communities j and they feel* that when Northern attitudes become more 
like the Southern attitudes, they will lay the basis for a more unified 

•See Part VIL 
" See Part V. 



Chapter 8. Migration 20 r 

national opinion about how to treat Negroes. 27 Still others, and to this 
group belong most Negro writers, have their attention fixed on the rise 
in education, general culture, and political power of the Negro people, and 
believe that the northward migration will improve the Negro's position 
in both North and South. 28 

We shall not take part in this dispute, except to emphasize three things: 
first, that there is probably some truth in the first two statements; second, 
that, independent of this, migration to the North means a tremendous 
amelioration of the Negro's status in America; but, third, that the "solu- 
tion" of the Negro problem — even taken in a relativistic sense of develop- 
ing a gradual but steady improvement of race relations — is much too 
complicated to be solved by migration. Governmental intervention is rising, 
and this trend means that the change of race relations is no longer deter- 
mined by such "natural" developments as migration but by a complex of 
intentional policies affecting not only migration but all other spheres of 
the problem. 



Part IV 
ECONOMICS 



CHAPTER 9 

ECONOMIC INEQUALITY 



r. Negro Poverty 

The economic situation of the Negroes in America is pathological. 
Except for a small minority enjoying upper or middle class status, the 
masses of American Negroes, in the rural South and in the segregated 
slum quarters in Southern and Northern cities, are destitute. They own 
little property; even their household goods are mostly inadequate and 
dilapidated. Their incomes are not only low but irregular. They thus live 
from day to day and have scant security for the future. Their entire culture 
and their individual interests and strivings are narrow. 

These generalizations will be substantiated and qualified in the following 
chapters. For this purpose the available information is immense, and we 
shall, in the main, be restricted to brief summaries. Our interest in this part 
of our inquiry will be to try to unravel the causal relations underlying the 
abnormal economic status of the American Negro. We want to understand 
how it has developed and fastened itself upon the economic fabric of 
modern American society. It is hoped that out of a study of trends and 
situations will emerge an insight into social and economic dynamics which 
will allow inferences as to what the future holds for the economic well- 
being of the American Negro people. This future development will depend 
in part upon.public policy, and we shall discuss the various alternatives for 
induced change. Certain value premises will be made explicit both in order 
to guide our theoretical approach and to form the basis for the practical 
analysis. 

Before we proceed to select our specific value premises, let us ask this 
question: Why is such an extraordinarily large proportion of the Negro 
people so poor? The most reasonable way to start answering this question 
is to note the distribution of the Negro people in various regions and 
occupations. We then find that the Negroes are concentrated in the South, 
which is generally a poor and economically retarded region. A dispropor- 
tionate number of them work in agriculture, which is a depressed industry. 
Most rural Negroes are in Southern cotton agriculture, which is particu- 
larly over-populated j backward in production methods; and hard hit by 
soil exhaustion, by the boll weevil, and by a long-time fall in international 

305 



206 An American Dilemma 

demand for American cotton. In addition, Jrew Negro farmers own the land 
they work on, and the little land they do own is much poorer and less 
well-equipped than average Southern farms. Most Negro farmers are 
concentrated in the lowest occupations in agriculture as sharecroppers or 
wage laborers. In the North, there are practically no Negroes in agriculture. 
Nonagricultural Negro workers are, for the most part, either in low-paid 
service occupations or have menial tasks in industry. Few are skilled 
workers. Most of the handicrafts and industries in the South where they 
have a traditional foothold are declining. The majority of manufacturing 
industries do not give jobs to Negroes. Neither in the South nor in the 
North are Negroes in professional, business, or clerical positions except in 
rare instances and except when serving exclusively the Negro public — and 
even in this they are far from having a monopoly. 

The unemployment risk of Negroes is extraordinarily high. During the 
depression, government relief became one of the major Negro "occupa- 
tions." Indeed, the institution of large-scale public relief by the New Deal 
is almost the only bright spot in the recent economic history of the Negro 
people. 

Such a survey, however, even when carried out in greater detail, does 
not, by itself, explain why Negroes are so poor. The question is only carried 
one step backward and at the same time broken into parts: Why are 
Negroes in the poorest sections of the country, the regressive industries, 
the lowest paid jobs? Why are they not skilled workers? Why do they not 
hold a fair proportion of well-paid middle class positions? Why is their 
employment situation so precarious? 

We can follow another approach and look to the several factors of 
economic change. In most cases changes in the economic process seem to 
involve a tendency which works against the Negroes. When modern tech- 
niques transform old handicrafts into machine production, Negroes lose 
jobs in the former but usually do not get into the new factories, at least 
not at the machines. Mechanization seems generally to displace Negro 
labor. When mechanized commercial laundries replace home laundries, 
Negro workers lose jobs. The same process occurs in tobacco manufacture, 
in the lumber industry and in the turpentine industry. When tractors and 
motor trucks are introduced, new "white men's jobs" are created out of 
old "Negro jobs" on the farm and in transportation. Progress itself seems 
to work against the Negroes. When work becomes less heavy, less dirty, or 
less risky, Negroes are displaced. Old-fashioned, low-paying, inefficient 
enterprises, continually being driven out of competition, are often the only 
ones that/employ much Negro labor. 

Although there are no good data on employment trends by race, it 
seems {hdt the business cycles show something of the same tendency to 
wefit«gainst Negroes as do technical changes. It is true that Negroes, more 



Chapter 9. Economic Inequality 207 

than whites, are concentrated in service industries and in certain mainte- 
nance occupations (janitors, floor-sweepers, and so forth) which are 
relatively well-protected from depressions. On the other hand, the Negro 
agricultural laborer is more likely to be forced out by depressions than is 
the white farmer and farm worker. In fact, in almost every given occupa- 
tion Negroes tend to be "first fired" when depression comes. Even in the 
service and maintenance occupations, Negroes are fired to give jobs to 
white workers. When prosperity returns, the lost ground is never quite 
made up. As cycle succeeds cycle, there is a tendency toward cumulative 
displacement of Negroes. The general level of unemployment, depression 
or no depression, is always higher for Negroes than for whites, and the 
discrepancy is increasing. 

Likewise the organization of the labor market by trade unions has, 
most of the time, increased the difficulties for Negroes to get and to hold 
jobs. Even social legislation instituted in order to protect the lowest paid 
and most insecure workers — among whom the Negroes ordinarily belong — 
is not an undivided blessing to Negro workers. When the employer finds 
that he has to take measures to protect his workers' health and security and 
to pay them higher wages, he often substitutes, voluntarily or under pres- 
sure, white workers for Negroes. Sometimes sweatshop industries, existing 
only because of low-paid Negro labor, are actually driven out of business 
by legislation or union pressure, and the Negro is again the victim instead 
of the beneficiary of economic and social progress. 

Of course, Negroes are pressing hard in all directions to get jobs and 
earn a living. The number of job-seeking Negroes is constantly increased, 
as the shrinkage of the international cotton market, the national agricul- 
tural policy under the A.A.A. program, and the displacement of Negroes 
from traditional jobs, all create a growing unemployment. Negroes are 
willing — if it were allowed them — to decrease their demand for remuner- 
ation, and they are prepared to take the jobs at the bottom of the 
occupational hierarchy. But still their unemployment is growing relative 
to that of the whites. 

Again we are brought to ask: Why are the Negroes always the unlucky 
ones? What is this force which, like gravitation, holds them down in the 
struggle for survival and economic advance? To these questions — as to the 
closely related questions stated above — we shall find the detailed answers 
as diverse as the structure of modern economic life itself. But there will be 
a common pattern in the answers. 

2. Our Main Hypothesis: The Vicious Circle 

This common pattern is the vicious circle of cumulative causation out* 
lined in Chapter 3 and Appendix 3. 
There is a cultural and institutional tradition that white people exploit 



208 An American Dilemma 

Negroes. In the beginning the Negroes were owned as property. When 
slavery disappeared, caste remained. Within this framework of adverse 
tradition the average Negro in every generation has had a most disadvan- 
tageous start. Discrimination against Negroes is thus rooted in this tradition 
of economic exploitation. It is justified by the false racial beliefs we studied 
in Chapter 4. This depreciation of the Negro's potentialities is given a 
semblance of proof by the low standards of efficiency, reliability, ambition, 
and morals actually displayed by the average Negro. This is what the white 
man "sees," and he opportunistically exaggerates what he sees. He "knows" 
that the Negro is not "capable" of handling a machine, running a business 
or learning a profession. As we know that these deficiencies are not inborn 
in him — or, in any case, in no significant degree — we must conclude that 
they are caused, directly or indirectly, by the very poverty wc are trying 
to explain, and by other discriminations in legal protection, public health, 
housing, education and in every other sphere of life. 

This scheme of causal interrelation is as important in explaining why 
Negroes are so poor and in evaluating the wider social effects of Negro 
poverty, as it is in attempting practical planning to raise the economic level 
of the Negro people. The dynamics of the problem is this: A primary 
, change, induced or unplanned, affecting any one of three bundles of inter- 
/ dependent causative factors-*(i) the economic level; (2) standards of 
intelligence, ambition, health, education, decency, manners, and morals; 
and O) discrimination by whites — will bring changes in the other two and, 
through mutual interaction, move the whole system along in one direction 
or the other. No single factor, therefore, is the "final cause" in a theoretical 
sense. From a practical point of view we may, however, call certain factors 
"strategic" in the sense that they can be controlled. 

The statistics of the system can be illustrated by the following comments 
on the Negro sharecropper in the rural South: 

Shif tlessness and laziness are reported as reasons iot the dependent state, whereas, 
in fact, in so far as they exist, they are not necessarily inherent, but are caused by 
the very conditions of the share-cropping system. ... It is a notorious and shameful 
fact that the stock arguments employed against any serious efforts to improve the 
Iot of the cotton tenant are based upon the very social and cultural conditions which 
tenancy itself creates. The mobility of the tenant, his dependence, his lack of 
ambition, shiftlcssness, his ignorance and poverty, the lethargy of his pellagra-ridden 
body, provide a ready excuse for keeping him under a stern paternalistic control. 
There is not a single trait alleged which, where true, does not owe its source and 
continuance to the imposed status itself. 1 

The samf type of vicious circle controls the situation for the poverty- 
stricte&j JtJifegroes outside of cotton agriculture. Poverty itself breeds the 
conditions which perpetuate poverty. 



Chapter 9. Economic Inequality 209 

The vicious circle operates, of course, also in the case of whites. Few 
people have enough imagination to visualize clearly what a poor white 
tenant or common laborer in the South would look like if he had had more 
opportunities at the start. Upper class people in all countries are accus- 
tomed to look down upon people of the laboring class as inherently inferior. 
But in the case of Negroes the deprecation is fortified by the elaborate 
system of racial beliefs, and the discriminations are organized in the social 
institution of rigid caste and not only of flexible social class. 

3. The Value Premises 

The system of social ideals which we have called the American Creed, 
and which serves as the source of the instrumental value premises in this 
study, is less specified and articulate in the economic field than, for 
instance, in regard to civic rights. There is, in regard to economic issues, 
considerable confusion and contradiction even within this higher plane of 
sanctified national ideals and not only — as elsewhere — between those ideals 
and the more opportunistic valuations on lower planes. In public discussion 
opposing economic precepts are often inferred from the American Creed. 
A major part of the ideological battle and of political divisions in the 
American nation, particularly in the decade of the Great Depression, has 
concerned this very conflict of ideals in the economic sphere. "Equality of 
opportunity" has been battling "liberty to run one's business as one 
pleases." 

Meanwhile the battle-front itself has been moving — on the whole 
definitely in favor of equality of opportunity. American economic liberal- 
ism was formerly characterized by "rugged individualism"; it is now 
gradually assimilating ideals of a more social type. There was always the 
vague popular ideal of "an American standard of living," but now a more 
definite and realistic conception is growing out of it. A new kind of "inalien- 
able rights" — economic and social — is gradually taking shape within the 
great political canon of America and is acquiring the respectability of 
common adherence even if not of immediate realization. As an exemplifica- 
tion of the new way of thinking, without assuming that it has advanced to 
the level of a national ideal, we may quote the following statement by the 
National Resources Planning Board, which is an elaboration of President 
Roosevelt's pronouncement of "freedom from want" as one of the human 
liberties: 

We look forward to securing, through planning and cooperative action, a greater 
freedom for the American people. ... In spite of all . . . changes, that great 
manifesto, the Bill of Rights, has stood unshaken 150 years and now to the old 
freedoms we must add new freedoms and restate our objectives in modern terms. . . . 

Any new declaration of personal rights, any translation of freedom into modern 



210 An American Dilemma 

terms applicable to the people of the United States, here and now must include: 

1. The right to work, usefully and creatively through the productive years. 

2. The right to fair pay, adequate to command the necessities and amenities of life 
in exchange for work, ideas, thrift, and other socially valuable service. 

3. The right to adequate food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. 

4. The right to security, with freedom from fear of old age, want, dependency, 
sickness, unemployment, and accident. 

5. The right to live in a system of free enterprise, free from compulsory labor, 
irresponsible private power, arbitrary public authority, and unregulated monop- 
olies. 

9. The right to rest, recreation, and adventure; the opportunity to enjoy life and 
take part in an advancing civilization. 2 

The most convenient way of determining our value premises for the 
economic part of our inquiry is, perhaps, to start from the viewpoint of 
what the American does not want. The ordinary American does not, and 
probably will not within the surveyable future, rake the demand for full 
economic equality in the meaning of a_"classless society" where individual 
incomes and standards of living would become radically leveled off. Such 
an ideal would be contrary to the basic individualism of American thinking. 
It could hardly be realized while upholding the cherished independence of 
the individual. It would nullify the primary responsibility of the individual 
for the economic fate of himself and his family. It would rob the individual 
of his chance to rise to wealth and power. It would thus bury the American 
Dream. It runs contrary to the common belief that it is the individual's 
hope for economic advancement which spurs him to do his utmost and at 
the same time acts as the main driving force behind progress in society. 
The strength of these individualistic ideals is extraordinary in America even 
today, in spite of the important changes of basic conditions which we 
shall presently consider. 

Although there is a great deal of inequality of income and wealth in 
America, the American Creed has always been definitely adverse to class 
divisions and class inequalities. Americans are, indeed, hostile to the very 
concept of class." But the observer soon finds that this hostility is generally 
directed only against a rigid system of privileges and social estates in 
which the individual inherits his status, and not against differences in wealth 
as such. The American demand is for fair opportunity and free scope for 
individual effort. 

In a new nation with rapid social mobility— which is practically always in 
an upward direction as new immigrants always fill the lower ranks — this 
way, of fliiconciling liberty with equality is understandable. Social mobility 
permlttea a relative uniformity of social forms and modes of thinking to 

■See Chapter 31, Sections 1 and a. 



Chapter 9. Economic Inequality an 

exist side by side with a great diversity of economic levels of living. Cul- 
tural heterogeneity within the nation and huge geographical space also 
permitted a measure of anonymity and ignorance of distress. On account 
of the rapid tempo of economic progress and the rapidly growing market, 
economic adversities never did appear so final and hopeless." Land was 
abundant and practically free, and there was at least an avowed national 
ideal of free education for all individuals. 

The principle of noninterference on the part of the State in economic 
life, therefore, did not seem incompatible with the prinicple of equality of 
opportunity. This ideal has had, of course, more influence in America than 
in any comparable European country. There have always been qualifica- 
tions, however, even in this country. In recent times the qualifications 
have been increasing in relative importance, slowly remolding the entire 
configuration of this part of the American Creed. Probably most Americans 
are today prepared to accept a considerable amount of public control for the 
purpose of preserving natural resources. Land and other natural assets 
are today almost entirely occupied and are no longer free. In the whole 
nation, a vivid realization has grown up of the waste and damage done to 
these national assets in reckless exploitation and speculation. 

In regard to the personal resources of the nation, Americans are not as 
willing to have public control. But in the one field of education, they have 
been the pioneering radical interventionists of the world bent upon 
improving the human material by means of proper schooling. The spirit 
of interventionism by education is continually gaining in momentum. It 
early became a self-evident qualification of American economic liberalism. 
Within the last decades this spirit has spread to other fields. Social legisla- 
tion has been instituted to regulate children's and women's work, safety 
measures, and other working conditions in industry, and — later — wages, 
hours and labor organizations. A system of social insurance has gradually 
been taking form. 

The mass unemployment during the depression of the 'thirties — mount- 
ing higher than ever before and higher over a long period than in any other 
country — and the realization that whole regions and occupational groups 
can be brought to destitution through no fault of their own caused the 
development to full consciousness of a sense of public responsibility for these 
things. For the first time America saw itself compelled to organize a large- 
scale system of public relief. For the first time also, America made sub- 
stantial exertions in the field of public housing. The school lunch program, 
the food stamp plan, and the direct distribution of surplus commodities 
represent other activities in the same direction, as do also the attempts to 

"Another factor which prevented economic adversity from appearing to be so hopelen 
«n the belief in the power of private philanthropy to remedy economic distress end the 
obligation on everybody to practice philanthropy. 



212 An American Dilemma 

induce Southern farmers and sharecroppers to have year-round gardens. 
Public health programs were expanded, and the nation is even gradually 
racing the task of organizing the care of the sick in a more socially protec- 
tive way than hitherto. 

Behind this great movement there is an unmistakable trend in social 
outlook and political vaulations. As articulate opinion is gradually taking 
form that there is a minimum standard of living below which no group of 
people in the country should be permitted to fall. This idea, of course, is 
not new in America; it is a development of the spirit of Christian neigh- 
borliness which has been present in the American Creed from its beginning." 
But the emphasis is new. Now it is not only a question of humanitarianism; 
it is a question of national social and economic welfare. Neither the polit- 
ical conflicts raging around the proper means of providing help by public 
measures nor the widespread uncertainty and disagreement concerning the 
actual height of the minimum standard to be protected by those measures 
should conceal the important fact that the American Creed is c/ianging to 
include a decent living standard and a measure of economic security among 
the liberties and rights which are given this highest moral sanction. 

As usual in America, the ideals are running far ahead of the accomplish- 
ments. The new belief that the health, happiness, and efficiency of the 
people can be raised greatly by improved living conditions is already just as 
much in the forefront of public attention in America as in most progressive 
countries in Europe and the British Dominions. Nowhere are so many 
housing investigations carried out to demonstrate the correlation between 
bad housing conditions and juvenile delinquency, tuberculosis, and syphilis 
as in America. 

Contrary to laissez-faire principles, various industries have long been 
given government protection in the United States — most often by means 
of the tariff. The recent development has shifted the motivation from 
"assistance-to-business" terms to "social welfare" terms. This change in 
motivation is not always carried out in the measures actually taken. The 
agricultural policy may be pointed to as an example. If wc except the work 
of the Farm Security Administration, there are only weak attempts to 
administer the public assistance given the farmers in accordance with their 
individual needs; those farmers who have the highest incomes most often 
also get the highest relief benefits from the A.A.A. If the trend does not 
change its course, however, all economic policy is bound to come under the 
orbit of social welfare policy. 

. At the same time, social welfare policy proper— by an increasing stress 
upon the preventive instead of the merely curative aspects — is becoming 
integrated with economic policy. Social welfare policy is hound to become 
looked upon in terms of the economic criterion of national investment.* 
"See Chapter i, Section 5. 



Chapter 9. Economic Inequality 213 

Another change is that of an increasing interest in the distribution of 
income and wealth as such. The rise of taxation to pay for social policy— 
and now also for the War — is forcing public attention to this problem. The 
old idea in public finance that taxation should leave the distribution of 
incomes and wealth between individuals and classes "unchanged" has 
become impractical. There is a strong tendency to expect some leveling 
off of the differences through taxation. It is rationalized by giving a new 
meaning to the old normative formula that taxes should be imposed accord- 
ing to "ability to pay." Similarly, there is a trend away from the attempt 
to construct social welfare policies in such a manner that they would not 
have any influence on the labor market. 

All these trends are gradually decreasing the sanctity of individual 
enterprise, which is slowly coming under public control, although not 
necessarily public ownership. The American public has been critical of the 
huge "monopoly" and the "holding company" for over fifty years. The 
general trend for big business and corporate finance to grow at the expense 
of small business — which will be accentuated by the present War — has made 
Americans more and more willing to have government restrictions on 
private business. Even if big business still utilizes the old individualistic 
formulas for its purposes, the observer feels that its success in this is 
declining. 4 Private property in business itself seems less holy to the average 
American when it is no longer connected to individually-run enterprise and 
when large-scale interferences are necessitated by international crises and 
when taxation is mounting and its burden must be placed somewhere. In 
agriculture, the increase in tenancy and migratory labor and the decline of 
the independent farmer are having a similar effect. 

In all these respects the American Creed is still in flux. The change has, 
however, only strengthened the basic demand for equality of opportunity. 
But it is becoming apparent to most Americans that conditions have so 
changed that this demand will require more concerted action and even 
state intervention to become realized. It is commonly observed that the 
closing of the frontier and the constriction of immigration tend to stratify 
the social order into a more rigid class structure. Occupational mobility and 
social climbing are tending to become possible mainly by means of educa- 
tion, and a significant shift now takes two generations instead of one. The 
self-made man is a vanishing social phenomenon. 

The perfection of the national educational system, while increasingly 
opening up fairer chances for individuals starting out even from the lowest 
social stratum, is at the same time restricting opportunities to move ancUffr ; 
rise for individuals who have passed youth without having had the benefit 
of education and special training. If they are in the laboring or faring 
classes they will, in all probability, have to stay there. As this situation is 
becoming realized among the masses, and as cultural heterogeneity is 



216 An American Dilemma 

white man's burden." "Negroes couldn't live at all without the aid and 
guidance of the white people," it is said. "What little they have, they have 
got from the whites." Their own sacrifices apparently do not count. Their 
poverty itself becomes, in fact, the basis of the rationalization. "The whites 
give them all the jobs." "Actually, they live on us white people." "They 
couldn't sustain themselves a day if we gave them up." "The whites pay all 
the taxes, or don't they?" 

Then, too, economic inequality "has to" be maintained, for it is the 
barrier against "social equality":" "you wouldn't let your sister or 
daughter marry a nigger." The sister or the daughter comes inevitably even 
into the economic discussion. 

This is the ordinary Southerner explaining the matter in plain words to 
the inquisitive stranger. He is serious and, in a sense, honest. We must 
remember that the whole white Southern culture, generation after genera- 
tion, is laboring to convince itself that there is no conflict between the 
equalitarianism in the American Creed and the economic discrimination 
against Negroes. And they can never get enough good reasons for their 
behavior. They pile arguments one on top of the other. 7 

The most important intellectual bridge between the American Creed 
and actual practices in the economic sphere is, of course, the complex of 
racial beliefs discussed above in Chapter 4. Their import in the economic 
sphere is that the Negro is looked upon as inherently inferior as a worker 
and as a consumer. God himself has made the Negro to be only a servant 
or a laborer employed for menial, dirty, heavy and disagreeable work. 
And, since practically all such work is badly paid, it is God's will that the 
Negro should have a low income. Also, any attempt to raise Negro incomes 
goes against "the laws of supply and demand" which are part of the order 
of nature. The Negro is bad as a consumer too. "If you give him more pay, 
he will stop working"; he will "drink it up and start a row." "Higher 
wages will make the nigger lazy and morally degraded." This last belief 
particularly, but also many of the others, bears a striking similarity to ideas 
about the laboring class as a whole developed in a systematic form by 
European mercantilist writers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. b 

' See Part VII. 

*Sce Eli F. Heckscher, Mercantilism (translated by Mendel Shapiro, 1935) first pub- 
lished, 1931). 

The whole ideology displays a static, precapitalist^ tendency. When white Southerners 
object to a conspicuous rise in Negro levels of living, they act much like the upper classes 
in most European countries centuries ago when they frowned upon lower class people's 
rise to higher levels of consumption, and even instituted legal regulations forbidding the 
humbler estates to have servants, to own certain types of dress, and so on. An American 
Negro in a luxurious car draws unfavorable comment, and so — in previous times — did a 
Swedish maid who "dressed like a lady." In the static pre-competitivc society, tradition was 
in itself a value. 



Chapter. 9. Economic Inequality 217 

On the other hand, it is said that the Negro is accustomed to live on 
little. "It is a marvel how these niggers can get along on almost nothing." 
This would actually imply that the Negro is a careful consumer — but the 
conclusion is never expressed that way. 

This touches upon the second main logical bridge between equalitarianism 
and economic discrimination: the cost-of-living and the standard-of -living 
arguments. The first of these two popular theories is — again quoting the 
already mentioned university publication — presented in the following way: 

. . . observation alone would suggest to the unbiased observer that the negro teacher 
will be able to purchase within her society a relatively higher standard of living than 
the white teacher will be able to secure with the same amount of money. 8 

Statistical investigations are referred to which seem to indicate the remark- 
able fact that Negro teachers with smaller salaries spend less money for 
various items of the cost-of-living budget than better paid white teachers. 

Scientifically, this is nonsense, of course. A cost-of-living comparison has 
no meaning except when comparing costs for equivalent budget items and 
total budgets. That poor people get along on less has nothing to do with 
cost of living. They must get along on less, even when cost of living, in the 
proper sense, is higher for them. We have quoted this statement only to 
illustrate a popular theory which, though it now seldom gets into respectable 
print, is widespread in the South and constitutes a most important rationali- 
zation among even educated people." 

Sometimes an attempt is made to give the theory greater logical con- 
sistency by inserting the idea that "Negroes don't have the same demands 
on life as white people." "They are satisfied with less." It should be 
remembered that equal pay for equal work to women has been objected 
to by a similar popular theory in all countries. The underlying assumption 
of a racial differential in psychic wants is, of course, entirely unfounded. 

Others are heard expressing the theory of lower demands on life in the 
following way: "Their cost of living is obviously lower since they have 
a lower standard of living." Lower wages and lower relief grants are 
generally motivated in this way. A great number of more or less con- 
fused notions are held together in such expressions. Having "a low standard 
of living," for one thing, means to many to be a "no-account" person, a 
worthless individual. It also means that, being able to live as they are 

* In relief work the popular theory of the Negroes' "lower cost of living" as a motivation 
for discrimination is often given in terms more directly and more honestly related to 
actual customs and social policy. Some social workers in the Deep South explained to 
Richard Sterner that the appropriation did not suffice for the full "budgetary deficiency" of 
the clients, for they had to give each one just the barest minimum they could get along with. 
Rents usually were lower for Negro clients, since they lived in the Negro sections. It was 
readily admitted that this was so because housing was poorer in Negro neighborhoods. But 
even so, money had to be saved on the small appropriations wherever possible. 



21 8 An American Dilemma 

living, Negroes have a peculiar ability to manage a household. Oblique 
statements to this effect are often made when discussing this type of popular 
theory; one social worker in a responsible position came out straight with 
the argument. It probably also means that people accustomed to suffer from 
want do not feel poverty so much as if they had seen better days. This, of 
course, is a much more common popular theory: all over the world the 
"people who have seen better days" are believed to be worse off than other 
paupers. In the case of the Negro there is the additional belief that he has 
a particularly great capacity to be happy in his poverty. He is a child of 
nature. And he has his religion. He can sing and dance. 

The rationalizations amount to this: since Negroes are poor and always 
have been poor, they are inferior and should be kept inferior. Then they are 
no trouble but rather a convenience. It is seldom expressed so bluntly. 
Expressions like "standard of living" and "cost of living" are employed 
because they have a flavor of scientific objectivity. They avoid hard think- 
ing. They enable one to stand for the status quo in economic discrimination 
without flagrantly exposing oneself even to oneself. For their purpose 
they represent nearly perfect popular theories of the rationalization type. 
These are only a few examples to illustrate the way of thinking utilized 
in the South of today to justify economic discrimination. In the North there 
exists practically nothing of these piled-up, criss-crossing, elaborated 
theories. In matters of discrimination the ordinary Northerner is unsophis- 
ticated. Most Northerners, even in those parts of the country where there 
are Negroes, know only vaguely about the economic discriminations Ne- 
groes are meeting in their communities. They are often uninformed of the 
real import of those discriminations in which they themselves participate. 

It is generally held in the North .that such discrimination is wrong. 
When the matter occasionally comes up for public discussion in newspapers 
and legislatures, it is assumed that discrimination shall be condemned. 
Some states have, as we shall see, made laws in order to curb discrimination 
in the labor market. The present writer is inclined to believe that, as far 
as such discriminations are concerned, a large majority of Northerners 
would come out for full equality if they had to vote on the issue and did 
not think of their own occupations. Northern states and municipalities, on 
the whole, hold to the principle of nondiscrimination in relief, and this is 
probably not only due to considerations of the Negro vote but also in 
obedience to the American Creed. 

As we shall find, however, there is plenty of economic discrimination in 
the North. In situations where it is acute and where it becomes conscious, 
the average Northerner will occasionally refer to the interest of himself 
and his group in keeping away Negro competition — a thing which seldom 
or neitr happens in the South. On this point he might be cruder. His 
rationalizations will seldom go much further than presenting the beliefs 



Chapter 9. Economic Inequality 219 

in the Negroes' racial inferiority and the observation that he "just does 
not want to have Negroes around" or that he "dislikes Negroes." Southern- 
born white people in the North usually keep more of the complete defense 
system and also spread it in their new surroundings. Even in the North it 
happens occasionally, when economic discrimination is discussed, that the 
"social equality" issue and the marriage matter are brought up, though 
with much less emotion. 

A main difference between the types of rationalization in the two regions 
seems to be that the Southerners still think of Negroes as their former 
slaves, while the association with slavery is notably absent from the minds 
of Northerners. To Northerners, the Negro is, more abstractly, just an 
alien, felt to be particularly difficult to assimilate into the life of the com- 
munity. But in the South, the master-model of economic discrimination — 
slavery — is still a living force as a memory and a tradition. 



CHAPTER 10 



THE TRADITION OF SLAVERY* 



i. Economic Exploitation 

To the ante-bellum South slavery was, of course, a tremendous moral 
burden. Human slavery, in spite of all rationalization, was irreconcilably 
contrary to the American Creed. The South had to stand before all the 
world as the land which, in modern times, had developed and perfected 
that ignominious old institution. 

But, in a sense, exploitation of Negro labor was, perhaps, a less embar- 
rassing moral conflict to the ante-bellum planter than to his peer today. 
Slavery then was a lawful institution, a part of the legal order, and the ex- 
ploitation of black labor was sanctioned and regulated. Today the exploita- 
tion is, to a considerable degree, dependent upon the availability of extra- 
legal devices of various kinds. 

Moreover, slavery was justified in a political theory which had intel- 
lectual respectability, b which was expounded in speeches, articles, and 
learned treatises by the region's famous statesmen, churchmen and scholars. 
The popular theories defending caste exploitation today, which have been 
exemplified in the previous chapter,, bear, on the contrary, the mark of 
intellectual poverty. Even a reactionary Southern congressman will abstain 
from developing the detailed structure of those theories in the national 
capital. Hardly a conservative newspaper in the South will expound them 
clearly. The liberal newspapers actually condemn them, at least in general 
terms. The change in the moral situation, brought about in less than three 
generations, is tremendous. 

If we look to actual practices, however, we find that the tradition 
of human exploitation — and now not only of Negroes — has remained 
From slavery as a chief determinant of the entire structure of the 
South's economic life. The observer is told that a great number of 
Fortunes are achieved by petty exploitation of the poor, a practice some- 
times belonging to the type referred to in the region as "mattressing the 
niggers.? As contrasted with the North, there is less investment, less 
market expansion, less inventiveness and less risk-taking. Sweatshop labor 

'"^ift chapter i» the first of a set of three on Southern agriculture. 
*flg Chapter zo, Section 4. 

>'& 
, ,-* aao 



Chapter io. The Tradition of Silvery 221 

conditions are more common. Even the middle strata of the Southern 
white population depend on exploitation of labor. 

The white workers, in their turn, often seek to defend themselves against 
the potential or actual competition from Negro labor by extra-economic 
devices. They themselves are often held in paternalistic economic and 
moral dependence by their employers. As is often pointed out, the South 
as a region is competing against the North by its recourse to low-paid docile 
white and Negro labor. It has actually advertised this as an opportunity 
for outside capitalists. ". . . the South remains largely a colonial economy," 1 
complains Vance, one of the region's outstanding social scientists, and 
explains: "The advance of industry into this region then partakes of the 
nature, let us say it in all kindliness, of exploiting the natural resources 
and labor supply . . ." 2 

This pattern of common exploitation — where everyone is the oppressor 
of the one under him, where the Negroes are at the bottom and where big 
landlords, merchants, and Northern capital are at the top — is obviously the 
extension into the present of a modified slavery system. As Vance points 
out, 8 the "geography and biology" of the region are not to be blamed for 
its economic position, but it is history that has molded the type of organiza- 
tion. 

The South tries to blame its economic backwardness on the differential 
in freight rates, the national tariff system, and other economic irregulari- 
ties, but these are, in the final analysis, rather minor matters} they are 
hardly more than symptoms of poverty and political dependence. The 
destruction of material and human values during the Civil War and its 
aftermath was large, but, by itself, it does not explain the present situation. 
About three generations have lapsed since then, and we know from other 
parts of the world how rapidly such wounds can be healed. The same is 
true about the head start in industrialization which the North had: it could 
have been overcome. To complain about the lack of capital in the region 
is rather to beg the question. In modern dynamic economics we do not look 
upon capital so much as a prerequisite for production but rather as a result 
of production. The investment in the South of Northern capital has not 
been detrimental but is, on the contrary, a reason why the South is not 
more backward economically than it is. 

The explanation for the economic backwardness of the South must be 
carried down to the rigid institutional structure of the economic life of the 
region which, historically, is derived from slavery and, psychologically, is 
rooted in the minds of the people. 

2. Slavery and Caste 

In some respects, the remnants of the outmoded slavery system of the 
Old South — which we call caste — have been even more important impedi- 



222 An American Dilemma 

raents to progress and economic adjustment than slavery itself could ever 
have been. It is often argued — and in the main rightly — that the static, 
noncompetitive slavery institution and the quasi-feudal plantation system 
did not fit into modern American capitalism. The economic interpretation 
of the Civil War makes much of this thought. To quote a typical remark: 
"Slavery stands against our technical trends which demand a mobile, 
replaceable labor supply and which generate useful energy in individuals by 
offering them hope of advancement." 4 

I But in certain respects the surviving caste system shows even more 
jresistance to change than did slavery. The main economic significance of 
/slavery was that the employer really owned his labor. Because of that he also 
' had a vested interest in its most profitable utilization. This fundamental 
i unity of interest between capital and labor — as labor was capital — constituted 
a main point in the pro-slavery theory." 

It is true that the slaves were robbed of their freedom to move on their 
own initiative. But as factors of production, they were moved by the 
economic interest of their owners to their "most advantageous uses." Before 
Emancipation the Negroes took part in the westward movement of produc- 
tion and people. From this point of view the fight of the South to widen 
the realm of slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War was also 
a fight to bring Negro labor to those places where it could be put to most 
advantageous use. After Emancipation the freedmen could move individu- 
ally in the regions where they were already settled. But they were, as a 
group, practically blocked from entering new rural territory in the South- 
west. Only the cities in the South and the North left them an outlet for 
migration." 

Before Emancipation it was in the interest of the slave owners to use 
Negro slaves wherever it was profitable in handicraft and manufacture.' 
After Emancipation no such proprietary interest protected Negro laborers 
from the desire of white workers to squeeze them out of skilled employ- 
ment. They were gradually driven out and pushed down into the "Negro 
jobs," a category which has been more and more narrowly defined. 

There is no doubt that, compared with the contemporary caste system, 
slavery showed a superior capacity to effectuate economic adjustment, even 
if the slave owners and not the slaves reaped the profits. Even to many 
Negroes themselves slavery, again in certain limited respects, was a more 
advantageous economic arrangement than the precarious caste status into 
which they were thrown by Emancipation. To the owners, slaves represented 
valuable property. The prices, of slaves tended to rise until the Civil War. 8 
The slave owner had the same rational economic interest in caring for the 

•See Chapter 20, Section 4. 
k See Chapter 8. 
"See Chapter ij. 



Chapter io. The Tradition o* Slavery 243 

material welfare of the slaves, their health and productive standards, as any 
good proprietor engaged in animal husbandry. As the slaves were his own 
Negroes in a literal sense, he could develop the same pride, attachment, and 
even affection, which the devoted proprietor-manager is likely to feel 
toward his own livestock. 

The apologetic literature of the South gave much stress to examples of 
such pate, nalistic idyls. Stories of the kindly relations between masters and 
slaves are always particularly touching, both because they stand out against 
the background of the intrinsic cruelty and arbitrariness implied in a system 
under which some human beings were owned by others and because they 
represent this unreserved feeling of kindness which we can hardly feel 
toward other objects than those which are absolutely under our dominance 
as are our domestic animals. It is commonly asserted that the slaves fared 
particularly well in the slave-breeding and slave-exporting states of the 
Upper South, and that they there also showed themselves to be "happy" 
in spite of the regularly recurring necessity of leaving near relatives when 
they were sold into the Deep South." 

The rise in sickness and death rates which seems to have occurred follow- 
ing the Civil War" bears out the general opinion that the first economic 
effect of freedom was a decreased level of living for the Negro people. 
The implication would be that, since the plantation owners lost their 
property interest in upholding a level of living which preserved the capital 
value of the Negro, this level dropped below the subsistence standard. 

Important for the development of the new labor structure into which 
the freed Negro slaves were pressed and which has determined their 
economic fate and, to a considerable extent, the economic history of the 
South until this day was the fact that Emancipation was not related to any 
change of mind on the part of white people. The reform was thrust upon 
the South and never got its sanction. It became rather a matter of sectional 
pride to resist the change to the utmost. When it became apparent that 
the North could not, or would not, press its demands with force, the white 
South found a revenge for the defeat in the War by undoing as far as 
possible the national legislation to protect the freedman. This negative 
direction of Southern political will is still, three generations after the Civil 
War, apparent to the observer. The South did not want — and to a great 
extent still does not want — the Negro to be successful as a freedman. White 
Southerners are prepared to abstain from many liberties and to sacrifice 
many advantages for the purpose of withholding them from the Negroes. b 

To the whites the temporary Negro vagrancy that followed the Civil 
War 7 must have appeared as a confirmation of their dominant conviction, 
that most Negroes are inherently incapable of persistent work, unless kept 

' See Chapter 6, Section at. 
"See Chapter 10. 



244 An American Dilemma 

under severe discipline. To blame it on the inherent racial character of the 
Negro was the most convenient way out. It did not involve any new and 
strenuous thinking. It offered an escape from the difficult task of having to 
introduce a basically new pattern of dealing with labor. A well-entrenched 
system of slavery has probably nowhere been completely abolished by one 
stroke. The plantation South was ruined through the War, and the Eman- 
cipation forced upon it — ruined, it was felt, because of the Negro. Under 
such circumstances it was likely that the South would try to build up a 
labor organization as similar as possible to slavery. 

As the years passed, the old plantation system reestablished itself. Negro 
labor was on hand in spite of much short-distance wandering. A consider- 
able portion of the old plantation owners were killed in the War, went 
bankrupt or left the land for other reasons. Much land became forfeit 
to creditors and tax authorities. But, as cotton prices soared, it was profitable 
for anybody who could lay hands on cash to buy land and hire Negro 
labor. After some attempts with a wage system, sharecropping became the 
labor pattern into which the Negroes and, later on, poor whites were 



3. The Land Problem 

An economic reconstruction of the South which would have succeeded in ( 
opening the road to economic independence for the ex-slaves would have 
had to include, besides emancipation, suffrage and full civil liberties: rapid 
education of the freedmen, abandonment of discrimination, land reform. 
Some measures in all these directions were actually taken. 

Concerning land reform, there were spurious attempts to break up the 
plantation system and to distribute the land to the cultivators. There were 
some few statesmen who grasped the importance of such a basic econoihic 
reform for the Reconstruction program. Thaddeus Stevens and Charles 
Sumner saw it. 8 But their strivings came to practically nothing. A small 
amount of abandoned and confiscated land was turned over to Negroes by 
the Union Army, by Union administrators of various kinds and, later, by 
the Freedmen's Bureau. But the latter institution had to use most of its 
small appropriations — totaling less than $18,000,000 — for general relief 
or for educational purposes. Besides, it was allowed to operate for only 
seven years (1 865-1 872). 10 

To have given each one of the million Negro families a forty-acre free- 
hold would have made a basis of real democracy in the United States that 
might easily have transformed the modern world, 11 reflects Du Bois: This 
may be tjftte enough, but it should be kept clear that the historical setting 
would Itardly have allowed it. From an historical point of view it is even 
more" Utopian to think through anew the Reconstruction problem in terms 
of modern social engineering. It is not entirely useless, however, as surh 



Chapter io. The Tradition of Slavery 225 

an intellectual experiment defines our norms and gives perspective to what 
actually took place. 

After the Civil War, the overwhelming majority of Negroes were 
concentrated in Southern agriculture. Consequently, the greatest problem 
was what to do with these great masses of Southern Negroes, most of 
whom were former slaves. Even the Negroes not in Southern agriculture 
were influenced by the patterns set, since the Northern Negro laborer was 
recruited, in later decades, from the rural South. 

A rational economic reform of Southern plantation economy, which 
would preserve individual property rights to the maximum (always of 
greatest importance for a smooth readjustment) but also utilize the revolu- 
tionary situation for carrying into effect the aims of Reconstruction, could 
have included the following points besides freeing the slaves: 

. 1. Remunerating fully the slave owners out of federal funds. 
«. 2. Expropriating the slave plantations or a larger part of them and remunerating 

fully their owners out of federal funds. 
■ 3. Distributing this land in small parcels to those cultivators who wished it, against 

mortgaged claims on their new property, and requiring them to pay for the land 

in yearly installments over a long period. 

4. Creating for a transition period a rather close public supervision over the freed- 
men and also certain safeguards against their disposition of their property; also 
instituting an effective vocational education of Negro farmers, somewhat along 
the lines of the F.S.A. of the 1930's. 

5. Instituting a scheme of taxation to pay off the former slave- and land-owners and, 
perhaps, to allow repayments for the land by the new owners to be kept down 
under the actual expropriation costs. 

6. As a partial alternative, in order to relieve the Negro population pressure in the 
South and in order to help keep down the scope of the reconstruction program: 
helping Negroes take part in the westward rural migration. 

The cheapness of land in America would have been a factor making a 
land reform easier to execute than in most other countries where it has been 
successfully carried out when abolishing serfdom. Even if the burden on 
the public finances were reckoned as economic costs — which, of course, is a 
totally wrong way of calculating costs in a national economy, as they are 
meant to be profitable investments in economic progress — those costs 
would have been trifling compared with what Reconstruction and Restora- 
tion, not to speak of the Civil War, actually cost the nation. What hap- 
pened, however, was that the slaves were freed without any remuneration 
being paid their former owners j and that, with few exceptions, the f reed- 
men were not given access to land. 

The explanation of why there was no land reform in America to comple- 
ment the emancipation of the slaves, during the short period when the 
South did not have much of a say and had not yet deeply fortified its own 



aa6 An American Dilemma 

mental resistance, is usually given in terms of the reluctance of the North 
to intrude upon the rights and interests of property ownership. But the 
North obviously did not hesitate to expropriate the slave property* and let 
it loose on the region without any provision for its economic maintenance. 
The owners must have felt this to be a grave injustice inflicted upon them, 
and even Northerners must have reflected that this property was acquired 
under the law and in a system of rights where it was exchangeable for other 
property. The dominating North defended its action by asserting that 
slave property was unjust, which is a pretty revolutionary doctrine from the 
property point of view. Undoubtedly property in land stood in another 
category to the Northerners. But the Union authorities occasionally dealt 
rather harshly also with land property in the South during Reconstruction, 
even if they did not often give it away to the Negroes. 

A more important reason why there was no land reform was, in all 
probability, consideration of a narrow financial sort. The Civil War had 
left the Union with a great national debt. The North — which refused to 
let the federal government assume the war debts of the Confederate states 
and to pay for the expropriated slave property — did not feel inclined to 
carry the fiscal costs for a land reform on the national budget. 

Under these circumstances, the road to the national compromise of the 
1870's was actually well paved from the beginning. Except for a Republican 
party interest in the Negro vote and the general craving for revenge against 
the Southern rebels, there seems not to have been much interest among 
most Northerners in helping the Negroes. b This was particularly so since 
the North now acquired a frame of mind where the puritan social idealism 
of ante-bellum days, of which abolitionism had only been one of the 
expressions, succumbed for decades to the acceptance of industrialization, 
expansion, mechanical progress and considerable political corruption. 

The white South was, as has been said, for the most part violently 
against any constructive program framed to raise the Negro freedmen to 
economic independence. 12 A liberal Southerner of the older generation with 
great political experience, Josephus Daniels, tells this story: 

When I was eighteen I recall asking an old Confederate, "What was so bad about 
the promise to give every Negro head of a family forty acres and a mule? Wouldn't 
that have been better help than to turn the ignorant ex-slave without a dollar over 
to the mercy of Republican politicians, white and black, who made political slaves 

* Only the slave owners of the District of Columbia were compensated for the price of 
their slaves. See William H. Williams, "The Negro in the District of Columbia During 
Reconstruction." Tht Howard Review (June, 1924), p. to*. 

* There were many exceptions, however, and the compromise was a gradual development. 
Not only wai there a small remnant of the Abolition movement, but even a man like James 
6. Blaine Jfaade a vigorous plea in 1879 that the Negro be given full rights and oppor- 
tunities'. 't$ympo*ium: "Ought the Negro to be Disfranchised," North American Review 
[March, 1879].) 



Chapter io. The Tradition of Slavery 227 

of them? And if each Negro had been given a piece of land, for which Uncle Sam 
would pay the Southern owner, wouldn't it hare been better for the white man and 
the Negro?" 

The old man looked at me as if I were a curious individual to be raising such an 
unheard-of question. "No," he said emphatically, "for it would have made the 
Negro 'uppity,' and, besides, they don't know enough to farm without direction, and 
smart white men and Negroes would have gotten the land away from them, and 
they'd have been worse off than ever. . . . The real reason," pursued the old man, 
"why it wouldn't do, is that we are having a hard time now keeping the nigger in 
his place, and if he were a landowner he'd think he was a bigger man than old 
Grant, and there would be no living with him in the Black District. . . . Who'd 
work the land if the niggers had farms of their own . . . ? " ls 

In spite of the lack of a land reform and against heavy odds in practically 
all respects, there was a slow rise of Negro small-scale landownership in 
the South until the beginning of this century. But the proportion of Negroes 
owning their own land has never been large, and it has been declining for 
the last 30 or 40 years.* 

4. The Tenancy Problem 

But even if a rational land reform was not carried out, some of the goals 
could have been reached by a legal regulation of the tenancy system, aimed 
not only at protecting the tenants as well as the landlords, but also at 
preserving the soil and raising the economic efficiency of Southern agricul- 
ture. There were individuals who saw clearly what was at stake. The 
Freedmen's Bureau was futilely active in regulating labor and tenant 
contracts. But it had neither the political backing nor the clear purpose 
necessary to accomplish much of lasting importance. And it was not given 
the time or the resources. Hence, a most inequitable type of tenancy fixed 
itself upon the South. 

A survey of the legal organization of landlord-tenant relations in 
Southern states today reveals a system which has no real parallel in other 
advanced parts of the Western world. There are a great number of state 
laws — some of the most extravagant character — to defend the planters' 
interests. There are few laws which defend the tenants' interests. The 
tenant does not have any right to permanency of tenure on the land he 
cultivates. He seldom has any right to reimbursement for permanent 
improvements which he makes on the land. 14 The tenant is not secured in 
his contractual rights. Woofter, writing in the 'twenties, makes the rather 
obvious point that "passage of laws to the effect that no tenant contract is 
enforceable unless it is written would . . . help," but no such laws have 
been passed. 16 

On the other hand, there is, as we said, elaborate legislation to protect 

'See Chapter 11, Section 6. 



228 An American Dilemma 

the planters' interests against the tenants. Reference should here be made 
to the Black Codes, instituted by eight Southern states immediately after 
the Civil War (i 865-1 867) before Congressional Reconstruction. Mangum 
characterizes these laws as follows: 

These Black Codes gave the Negro population very little freedom. The colored 
man was free in name only in many cases. The apprentice, vagrancy, and other 
provisions of these statutes forced the Negro into situations where he would be 
under the uncontrolled supervision of his former master or other white men who 
were ready and willing to exploit his labor. 10 

The historical background for these laws was the need for some kind of 
regulations of the freedmen's labor conditions, the Southerners' disbelief 
in free labor, and their intention of restoring as far as possible the ante- 
bellum relation between the two races." The Black Codes were among the 
factors which stimulated Congress to carry out Reconstruction along more 
drastic lines. These laws were abolished, but after Reconstruction they 
made their reappearance in various forms. 

One type is the various kinds of lien laws. 18 They are sometimes 
strengthened by laws making a tenant a criminal when he is deemed 
negligent in his duties. 10 During the 'thirties, federal agencies have been 
more active in stamping out debt peonage" by bringing up test cases in 
the federal courts. Several laws of this or other kinds have been held uncon- 
stitutional by state and federal courts. 20 Nevertheless, debt peonage still 
exists. b 

Another present-day vestige of the Black Codes is the vagrancy laws. c 
They make it possible for employers to let the police act as labor agents. 
Apprehended vagrants are made to choose between accepting the employ- 
ment offered them and being sentenced by the court to forced labor in 
chain-gangs. The literature is filled with descriptions of how the police 
and the courts were utilized to recruit forced labor. Convicts were hired 
out, sometimes in chain-gangs, to planters, mine owners, road contractors 
and turpentine farmers. There were plantations and other enterprises that 
depended almost entirely on convict labor. In recent years this practice has 
been practically stamped out. d 

More difficult to stamp out has been the practice of white employers 
getting Negro tenants or laborers by paying their fines at court. It is parallel 

* The term "peonage" means a condition of compulsory service based on the indebtedness 
of the laborer to his employer; see Mangum, of. cit., pp. 164 ff. 

b See Chapter 11, Section 8; Appendix 6, Section 4; and Chapter 26, Section 2; also, 
Mangum, of. eft., p. 172. 

* The very concept "vagrancy" is a dangerous one as it has not the same definiteness as 
other crimes. In all countries there have at times been attempts to press poor people into 
peonage by such laws. 

'See Chapter 26, Section 2. 



Chapter io. The Tradition of Slavery 429 

to the transaction whereby an employer pays a Negro's debt to a former 
employer or to a merchant and, by taking over the debt, also takes over 
the worker. The police and the courts have often been active in "creating" 
the debts by exacting fines for petty offenses or upon flimsy accusations. 
Sometimes a number of Negroes are "rounded up" and given out for the 
price of the fines to interested employers who are short of labor. More 
often the police and the courts only act to enforce an existing situation of 
debt peonage. 21 

The background of the difficulty of stamping out peonage is the fact 
that the South has a weak legal tradition. As we shall show in Part VI, 
the police and the courts have traditionally been active as agents for white 
employers. Traditionally the planters and other whites have little scruple 
against taking the law into their own hands. Threats, whippings, and even 
more serious forms of violence have been customary caste sanctions utilized 
to maintain a strict discipline over Negro labor which are seldom employed 
against white labor. The few laws in favor of the Negro tenant have not 
often been enforced against the white planter. 

The legal order of the South is, however, gradually becoming strength- 
ened. But, even if we assume full enforcement — which is far from being 
reached as yet, particularly in the Black Belt where most of the plantations 
and the rural Negroes are concentrated — the entire system of laws regu- 
lating the relations between employers and employees in Southern agricul- 
ture is heavily stacked against the latter. 



CHAPTER II 

THE SOUTHERN PLANTATION ECONOMY AND THE 

NEGRO FARMER 

^■■■Mll.MMIlMlMWlllll.MllMim t ■ ■■■■■■■11W1.1MM1. MIHIIIIimiMIIHIHHIIIIHWIIIIIIIIIIUIIIIIIMIIII 

I. Southern Agriculture as a Problem 

The main facts of rural Southern poverty and the distress of the rural 
Negro people in the South have been well-known for a long time. The 
plantation-tenant system is one of America's "public scandals."" Even 
before the Civil War there were many Southern patriots who saw some of 
the detrimental factors working to undermine the welfare of the region. 
When Hinton Helper, on the eve of the Civil War, came out with his 
blunt exposure of the ante-bellum myth of how efficient and perfectly 
balanced the Southern economic system was, he could quote passages in 
support of his position like the following by C. C. Clay: 

I can show you, with sorrow, in the olden portions of Alabama, and in my native 
county of Madison, the sad memorials of the artless and exhausting culture of cotton. 
Our small planters, after taking the cream off their lands, unable to restore them 
by rest, manures, or otherwise, are going further West and South, in search of other 
virgin land, which they may and will despoil and impoverish in like manner. Our 
wealthier planters, with greater means and no more skill, are buying out their poorer 
neighbors. ... In traversing that county [Madison County], one will discover 
numerous farm houses, once the abode of industrious and intelligent freemen, now 
occupied by slaves, or tenantless. . . . Indeed, a county in its infancy, where fifty 
years ago scarce a forest tree had been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already 
exhibiting the painful signs of senility and decay, apparent in Virginia and the 
Carol inas. 1 

At least from the 'eighties, when Henry Grady coined the promising 
phrase "the New South," the propagation of an agricultural reform pro- 
gram has belonged to the established Southern traditions. Like the dedica- 
tion "the New South," this program has in fundamentally unchanged form 
been taken aver by generation after generation of public-spirited Southern 
liberals aifed is today one of their dearest aims. In fact, the same remedies 
of encouraging independent land ownership, crop diversification, and soil 
conservation have been recommended through the decades by unanimous 

'See Appendix 2, Section i. 

•30 



Chapter ii. Southern Plantation Economy 231 

expert opinion. In a sense, this is one of the most discouraging things about 
Southern agriculture, that the faults have been recognized and the remedial 
plans worked out for such a long time without much being accomplished — 
at least up to the Great Depression and the New Deal. 

The revolutionary changes within the last decade — and particularly the 
effects of the A.A.A. on rural Negroes — are less well-known. We shall 
leave those latest developments to be analyzed in the next chapter. In this 
chapter we want, mainly by way of presenting some illustrative quantitative 
relations, to give a short survey of the familiar topics: the plight of the 
rural South and of the Negro farmer. 

2. Over-population and Soil Erosion 

Rural farm areas in the United States in 1 940 had a population of about 
30,000,000. More than half of this population, or over 16,000,000, was in 
the South} and over one-fourth of the Southern farm population (around 
4,500,000) was Negro. But the South had only 25 per cent of all land in 
farms in the country, and the value of this farm land, as well as of the 
buildings on the land, the farm implements and machinery, constituted but 
28 per cent of the national figure. Only 8 per cent of the Southern farm 
land was operated by Negro owners, tenants, and croppers, and their share 
in the value of Southern farms, buildings, implements, and machinery was 
equally small. 2 For the rest, Negroes participated in the Southern agricul- 
tural economy only as wage laborers, at low wages and usually without the 
assurance of year-round employment. 

The import of these broad facts is as simple as it is significant. They are 
behind all the rural poverty of the South. The agricultural South is over- 
populated," and this over-population affects Negroes much more than 
whites. This applies particularly to the Old South, including the Delta 
district, which contains the main concentration of Negroes. In this Black 
Belt the over-population has — on the whole — been steadily increasing. 
"Since i860 the amount of land in southeastern farms has remained station- 
ary, new lands being cleared about as rapidly as old land was exhausted," 3 
while the number of male agricultural workers in the same area rose from 
around 1,132,000 in i860 to 2,102,000 in 1930. 4 

A cultural heritage from times of pioneering, colonization, and slavery 
makes the conditions even worse than can be visualized by the ratio of 
population to land alone. The early colonists and the later land speculators 
did not have to economize in their use of the land. To the ante-bellum 

* It is true that countries like Denmark have a much higher population density in their 
agricultural areas but, nevertheless, preserve a much higher living level. But both objec- 
-ive market conditions and the rural culture are incomparably more favorable than they 
can be, in the surveyable future, in Southern agriculture. Our term "over-population" ha* 
the pragmatic meaning indicated by this observation. 



232 An American Dilemma 

plantation owners, it was the slaves that represented the main capital — not 
the land. This set a pattern also for other Southern farmers. To become 
rich from the land was to become a plantation owner and a slave owner — 
not to care for the soil. This tradition has continued until the present time. 
In the fall of 1938 the writer traveled for two days through a beautiful 
forest in Tennessee. The woods were burning everywhere. The smoke 
often made driving difficult. Local newspapers told about small organized 
forces which were out to fight the fires. From the highways they were 
nowhere to be seen. There were plenty of people around in several places, 
but few, if any, seemed to care much about the fires. 

Experiences like this make it possible, for even the stranger, to under- 
stand the psychology of sod erosion, soil mining, and "selling the soil in 
annual installments." 8 A sample study made in 1933 suggested that one- 
third of the Southern land was eroded and that at least half of all eroded 
land in the country was in the South.* 

It is generally assumed that the soil in the South originally had a rela- 
tively high fertility. 7 "The South was potentially a section of varied and 
rich agriculture," writes Woofter. "It could have become fully as diver- 
sified as France. The reasons why it did not are historical and economic 
rather than physical." 8 The soil is usually light, and there is heavy rainfall 
in most parts of the region. The traditional concentration upon cash crops 
such as cotton and other plants, which fail to bind the. top soil and rapidly 
deplete fertility — without a rational scheme of crop rotation or other 
preventive measures — is a chief causal factor behind soil erosion. The high 
rate of tenancy, leaving the immediate care of the land to people who are 
not only utterly dependent and ignorant but also lack an individual eco- 
nomic interest in maintaining the productivity of the land, is another cause. 
In the final analysis soil erosion is more a consequence than merely an 
aspect of protracted rural over-population. 
Lange summarizes: 

We may therefore conclude as changes in land in farms have been rather insig- 
nificant, that the agricultural population and among this population the Negroes in 
the old South at present have less land resources to support themselves on than they 
had a generation ago. The trend is continuing in the same direction, indicating that 
if strong action is not taken to prevent further erosion the farm population will have 
in the future even less land resources at its disposal than at present. 

3. Tenancy, Credit and Cotton 

The literature, today as earlier, contains excellent descriptions of how 
the plantation system, tenancy, and the one-sided cultivation of cotton and 
corn — and, in some areas, tobacco, rice, or sugar — have contributed to soil 
erosioni-how the credit system, by favoring cash crops, has made it difficult 
to breakaway from the vicious circle} how this credit-cotton-tenancy-erosion 



Chapter ii. Southern Plantation Economy 433 

circle has become loaded downward through some of its own major effects: 
poverty for most, economic insecurity for all, widespread ignorance, low 
health standards, relative lack of an enterprising spirit, high birth rates and 
large families. 

The extent to which Southern cash-crop production is based on tenancy 
is indicated by the following figures. Almost three-fourths of all Southern 
cotton farms and more than half of the crop-specialty farms (tobacco, 
potatoes, peanuts, and so on)" were, in 1929, operated by tenants. About 
two-thirds of all tenants in the South, and almost three-fourths of the 
croppers, worked on cotton farms. Of the full owners, on the other hand, 
less than one-third had farms where cotton accounted for 40 per cent or 
more of the gross income. Most of the other two-thirds owned farms 
which were characterized as crop-specialty, general or self-sufficing. 10 

Negro farmers have always been dependent on the cotton economy to 
a much greater extent than have been the white farmers in the South. By 
1929 three out of four Negro farm operators, as against two out of five 
white farmers, received at least 40 per cent of their gross income from 
cotton. Although not more than about one-tenth of the Southern farm land 
was cultivated by Negro owners, tenants and croppers, almost one-third of 
the total output in cotton was produced on this Negro-operated land. 11 
In addition, an unknown, but probably considerable, quantity of cotton was 
produced by Negro wage labor on holdings operated by white farmers. 
The importance of cotton growing for the Negro farmer can thus hardly 
be over-estimated. 

In the main, cotton is cultivated by means of a primitive and labor- 
consuming agricultural technique which has not changed much since slavery. 
Cotton is largely responsible for the fact that the Southeast alone had to 
pay more than half of the national bill for commercial fertilizers. 12 One- 
third of the national total for all kinds of fertilizer was expended on cotton 
rarms. 13 Cotton growing, as any one-sided agriculture — if it is not lifted up 
by high techniques to a level where intelligence is constantly used and 
prosperity secured — has also psychological effects: it "limits interests . . . 
limits spiritual growth, makes people narrow, single-grooved, helpless." 1 * 
It invites child labor and causes retardation in schools. It favors large 
families. 

The wide fluctuations of the price of cotton 15 — which seem to have 

'The type of farm classification in the 1930 Census of Agriculture is based on gross 
income. Farms for which 40 per cent or more of the gross income was derived from cotton 
were characterized as cotton farms. By the same token, farms for which 40 per cent or more 
of the income came from one or several of certain specified crops (tobacco, peanuts, potatoes, 
soybeans, cowpeas, and so on) were classified as crop-specialty farms. When no product 
accounted for as much as 40 per cent of the gross income, the farm was "general." Self- 
sufficing farms were defined as those for which 50 per cent or more of the value production 
wai consumed by the farm family. 



234 An American Dilemma 

become more frequent after 19 14, due to wars, inflation, deflation, as well 
as intensified competition from other countries — make cotton a most hazard- 
ous crop, and the farmers who specialize in cotton run extraordinarily 
heavy risks which are outside their intelligent control. 18 The gambling 
tradition has been hard to overcome, although almost everybody seems to 
know that no solid material culture can ever be built on the poor man's 
speculation. But more fundamentally, the continued cultivation of cotton 
is called forth — as highly labor-consuming, simple in technique, and easily 
supervised — by the plantation and tenancy system; or, from another point 
of view, by over-population and tenancy, and — as a cash crop — by the 
dependence of Southern agriculture on short-term credit. 

The peculiar credit system of the rural South has often been analyzed. 17 
It has its historical rcots in the slavery economy and, later, in the emergence 
of the plantation system in the impoverished South after the Civil War. 
Since then the rural South has been greatly dependent on outside credit 
both because of the low standards of income and saving in the region and 
because of the comparatively high requirements on operating capital for 
cotton growing. The wide fluctuation of cotton prices and farm incomes 
have added their influence to make lending abnormally risky and, conse- 
quently, to make loans expensive. Also, from the point of view of business 
administration, the organization of banking and credit was most inadequate, 
and it remained so because of the low plane of political life in the South" 
arid the lack of active desire and ability to create large-scale cooperative 
organizations. 

As part of the federal agricultural policy, great improvements have 
lately been made by the organization of new credit agencies. 11 But still 
credit is expensive and difficult to get in the rural South, and this is undoubt- 
edly part of the explanation for the insufficient investment in land and 
buildings and for the slowness of mechanization. To the tenants, credit 
pressures mean usurious interest rates charged by planters and merchants 
for advances on food and farming necessities. For the agricultural structure 
as a whole, credit pressures — themselves partly caused by the dependence 
on cotton growing — mean a constant stimulus to keep the land in cotton. 

4. The Boll Weevil 

In this vicious system of economic poverty and exploitation of land and 
human resources, where every adverse factor is a partial cause of all the 
others, the boll weevil caused catastrophe. It is often described how it 
advanced eastward, passing the Mississippi River about 1910. 18 One state 
after anol|ier in the Old South was hit. The destruction was terrible. In 
many places, particularly in Georgia and South Carolina, farms and planta- 

* See Part V. 

'See Chapter ix, Section 11. 



Chapter ii. Southern Plantation Economy 235 

ttons were permanently abandoned. In Georgia a survey of 59 Lower 
Piedmont counties showed that the cotton production in 1922 was only 
one-third of the average for the period 1905-1914, and by 1928 it still did 
not amount to much more than half of the same average. 10 

But as one state was suffering, those west of it were recovering. Thus, 
the boll weevil helped the four Southwestern states — Texas, Louisiana, 
Arkansas, and Oklahoma — to increase their share in the national output 
from a little more than one-third in 1909 to almost one-half in 1929; and 
at the latter time they had about three-fifths of the total acreage in cotton. 20 
In these Southwestern states cotton cultivation is less dependent on Negro 
labor and is also more mechanized. For both reasons this geographical 
dislocation tended, to an extent, to push Negro tenants off the. land. The 
ravages of the boll weevil in the old Cotton Belt had the same effect. The 
total effects on employment opportunities for Negroes in Southern agricul- 
ture have never been calculated, but they must have been considerable. 

The boll weevil, in conjunction with the post-war deflation and depres- 
sion, brought about a temporary decline even in the total national output 
of cotton around 192 1, and it was one of the reasons why the relatively 
consistent upward production trend — which had been noticeable until the 
outbreak of the First World War — was broken for a time. 21 

In spite of all misfortunes, cotton was still king when the last agricul- 
tural census was taken before the general upheaval of the 'thirties. 22 More 
than half of the total acreage harvested in the South in 1929 was in farms 
for which 40 per cent or more of the gross income came from cotton. Also 
crop-specialty farms (tobacco, potatoes, peanuts, and so on) appeared much 
more important than in the nation as a whole. Self-sufficing farms, too, 
were more prevalent in the Southeast than elsewhere, which, however, 
simply reflects the relatively cashless agricultural economy prevalent among 
certain groups of poor whites. Dairy farming, on the other hand, has been 
lagging in the South: in 1929 Southern agriculture did not account for 
more than one-fifth of the national value production of milk and dairy 
products. 28 

5. Main Agricultural Classes 

These are only a few hints about the scene of the rural Negro's struggle 
for existence. The plantation system and the tenure system, in addition, 
are institutional factors to be counted heavily when explaining why the 
agricultural South is even much poorer than can be grasped simply by 
stating the ratio of population to land and by noting the soil erosion. 

The economic chances for small- and middle-sized ownership, in the 
better part of the South, have been more restricted than in most other 
American regions. Owner-operated land in 1940 had a lower acreage value 
in the South ($27.11, including buildings) than in the nation as a whole 



236 An American Dilemma 

($3 x *37)i the fact that Southern land operated by croppers had a per unit 

value ($33.28) even higher than the latter figure indicates that only in 

part is this caused by any general inferiority of the Southern soil. 24 In large 

measure this is due to the fact that so much of the best land in the South 

originally was taken by the politically, socially, and economically dominant 

plantation owners. The rest of the Southern farmers had to fight against 

heavy odds. They had to compete with slave labor at the same time as they 

had to cultivate soil of lower average quality. The Civil War failed to 

bring about any fundamental change in this condition. The owners of the 

plantations soon regained much of their political power. Their land was 

still superior on the average, in spite of the fact that it was mistreated. And 

to compete with the plantations was still to compete with sweatshop labor. 

In 1930 the total labor force in Southern agriculture — if we except the 

large but somewhat vaguely defined group of unpaid family workers — was 

constituted as in Table 1. 

Two-thirds of the Negro, as against one-third of the white, "primary" 
agricultural workers were either croppers or wage laborers. Only one in 
eight of the Negro, but more than two out of five white workers were 
owners or part-owners. (Managers constitute an insignificant group.) The 
white owners outnumbered the Negro owners seven to one. There were 
more than two white tenants (higher than cropper) for every Negro" 
tenant. The total labor force in the two lowest tenure groups, on the other 
hand, was almost as large in the Negro as in the white group. 

There are great differences in economic status and degree of dependency 
between the several types of tenants. Highest on the ladder are the renters 

table' 1 

Nkoro and White Agricultural Workers in the South, by Tenure: 1930 



Number Per Cent 



Tenure 



Negro 


White 


Negro 


White 


J ,393,ooo 


*,945,°oo 


100.0 


100.0 


183,000 
98,000 

208,000 
393)000 
5»?x» 


1,250,000 
140,000 

569,000 
383,000 
603,000 


13. 1 
7.o 

15.0 
28.2 
36.7 


424 
4.8 

•M 
i3-e 
20.5 



Total* 

Owners and managers 

Cash tenants 

Other tenants, except 

croppers 
Croppers 
Wage laborers 



Sown*: Date en owners, tenants, and eroppere are from the Fifteenth Census of the United Statu: 1030. 

Italian. VA.ll, Part 2. County Tab! ' 

> data en wa« laborer* in agriculture 1 

.ivTsuta^Rsbiaii. 

'Bxchurre of unpaid family workera. 



Afriodhm. IteL II, Part 2. County Table I. They include a small number of nonwhites other than Negroes. 
Toe data en wfea* laborer* w agriculture ore from the Fifteenth Coons 0/ the United States: 1930, Population. 
VoUIV.Suta^Sblell 



Chapter ii. Southern Plantation Economy 237 

and the cash tenants, who rent their farms for a fixed sum of money.* Cash 
tenants usually can be regarded as independent entrepreneurs — or at least 
they are not in most cases far removed from such a position. All other 
kinds of arrangements entitle the landlord to a certain share of the main 
cash crop, for instance, one-fourth, one-third, one-half, sometimes even as 
much as three-fourths. Those tenants who receive one-half (or less) of the 
crop are the sharecroppers. The cash tenants usually furnish all the work, 
stock, feed, fertilizer, and tools themselves. The other groups generally 
furnish less and less of these things the lower their tenure status. Those 
lowest down on the scale have little or nothing but their labor to offer. 26 
They are really nothing but laborers — or rather their position often tends 
to be even less independent than that of ordinary wage earners. Before we 
elaborate on this subject, however, it seems appropriate that we inquire 
into the reasons why so few of the Negro agricultural workers in the South 
have been able to reach a position of ownership. 

6. The Negro Landowner 

The story of the Negro in agriculture would have been a rather different 
one if the Negro farmer had had greater opportunity to establish himself 
as an independent owner. In that case he would have become more firmly 
attached to the soil. He would have known that he worked for his own 
benefit, that he had a real chance to improve his level of living by his own 
efforts. "All that is now wanted to make the negro a fixed and conservative 
element in American society is to give him encouragement to, and facilities 
for, making himself, by his own exertions, a small landowner," wrote Sir 
George Campbell in his survey of the South and the Negro problem in the 
late 'seventies. 20 

There was a time when it really looked as if the rural Negro had some 
chance of eventually getting established on an ownership basis. True, the 
development was generally slow, but it seemed to go in the right direction. 
The number of Negro farm homes in the United States that were owned 
by their occupants had by 1900 reached a figure of 193,000 — constituting 
about 25 per cent of all Negro farm homes. 27 This percentage marks the 
peak of the proportion of landowners in the Negro farm population. 

The absolute increase continued for some time, but at a slower rate. The 
absolute number of colored farm owners in the South reached, in 19 10, a 
maximum of about 220,ooo. 28 After 1920 it gradually declined, and it 
dropped to 174,000 by 1940. 28 Of all Southern states with any appreciable 
Negro farm population, only Virginia and Florida showed a majority of 
owners among the Negro farm operators in 1940. But even in the Virginian 
stronghold, Negro ownership was weakening, in that the number of 

* Sometimes the farm is rented for a fixed quantity of a certain crop, usually lint cotton 
("lint-rental")- We shall include them under the term "cash tenants." 



238 An American Dilemma 

colored farm owners had declined by not less than one-third since 19 10. 
And Florida depends relatively less on tenants and relatively more on 
wage labor than do other states in the South, 80 so that even there but a 
minority of the Negro farm population resided on their own places. 

There are some general factors to be accounted for in this context. On 
the one hand, the low land values in the South and the low investment in 
land improvements, houses, and machines should make landownership 
easier to attain. On the other hand, the inadequate organization of banking 
and credit, 81 referred to above, works against both the acquiring and the 
holding of land. Another general factor making landownership, when it 
is attained, more precarious than it needs to be, is the old-fashioned system 
of local real estate taxation, which the South shares with the rest of the 
nation. This means that a landowner does not get a corresponding decrease 
in his taxation in a year when his crop has failed or his income drops 
because of a price fall. The dependence on hazardous cotton growing, of 
course, makes this institutional deficiency more detrimental to the Southern 
landowners. 88 

More specifically, in interpreting the reversal in the trend of Negro own- 
ership, Southeastern agriculture after 1910, and particularly during the 
first years of the 'twenties, was hit by the boll weevil and by the general 
upheaval caused by the War and the post-war depression. The owner 
group, of course, should have been less affected than the tenant group, as 
far as living standards are concerned, but the latter had no ownership to 
lose. The fact that even the number of white owners in the South declined 
by more than one-tenth between 1920 and 1930 (from almost 1,400,000 
to 1,250,000) suggests that conditions in general were unfavorable for the 
small farm owner. Between 1930 and 1940 (when the number of white 
owners was 1,384,000), on the other hand, there was a corresponding large 
increase in the number of white owners, whereas colored ownership con- 
tinued to decline. This, however, scarcely means that the prospects for 
economic success in small ownership had become any brighter. As will be 
shown in the next chapter, it indicates rather that white owners, or those 
who were able to get into that class, were the ones who had most oppor- 
tunity to stay on the land, "if, in view of the paucity of migratory outlets, 
they preferred to do that." 38 

Data on size of farm, acreage values, and farm values (Figure 5) give 
a rather good idea of how marginal the existence of the small owner- 
operatorsiin the South tends to be. They show, further, that this is partic- 
ularly true about Negro owners. It seems, finally, that their relative 
position has become even more unfavorable than it was a couple of decades 
ago. Land operated by croppers, particularly Negro croppers, has the 
highest average value per acre. This, as we have said, is due to the fact 
that plantations, by and large, are located on much of the best land of the 



Chapter ii. Southern Plantation Economy 339 



Figure 5. Average Size of Farm, and Average Value of Land and Buildings 
per Acre and per Farm, By Color and Tenure, in the South: 1920 and 1940 




Owners Tenants* Croppers Owner* Tenants* Croppers 

Value par Acre (Dollars) 







Owners Tenants* Croppers Owners Tenants* Croppers 

Vftlae. per fWB (D9M.WB? 




Owners Tenants* Croppers 
1920------ 



Owners Tenants* Croppers 
. - 1 9 4- --- 



Source: United States Census. 

Note : *Tenants include only tenants who are not sharecroppers. 



240 An American Dilemma 

South, leaving less of first choice than of second and third choice land to 
the middle-sized and small owner-operators. Cash tenants and share renters 
used to take an intermediate position, but are now pretty close to the owner- 
operators in this respect. White owners showed a higher average acreage 
value in 1940 ($27.27) than colored owners ($23.89). The decline in 
acreage value since 1920 was in every tenure group less pronounced for 
whites than for Negro operators. 

Size of farm increases with tenure status. In every case, however, Negroes 
have much smaller farms than whites. The consequence is that the average 
size of Negro owner-operated farms (60.4 acres) is about the same as for 
white sharecroppers (58.9 acres). The mean value of land and buildings of 
the farm operated by colored owners ($1,443) is lower even than that of 
the white sharecropper's plot ($1,908). The value of implements and 
machinery that the colored owner has ($90) is only a fraction of that which 
the white owner has at his disposal ($322)." 

7. Historical Reasons for the Relative Lack of 
Negro Farm Owners 

Even apart from the general economic trends in Southern agriculture, 
there are several reasons why the Negro has been unable to make a better 
showing as an independent farm owner. 

There is his background in slavery, and the fact that he scarcely ever has 
been encouraged to show much initiative or been taught that it pays to 
look after oneself rather than to be dependent. More often he has been 
given to understand that his racial status provides an excuse for not being 
able to shift for himself, and that modest acceptance of a low position would 
rate a reward bigger than that offered for courageous attempts to reach a 
higher position. 85 In the rural South he has certainly not enjoyed much of 
that kind of legal security which is a necessary condition for successful 
entrepreneurship; at any rate, he has had far less of it than the whites 
with whom he has had to compete.* His best security has been to become 
associated with a white person of some status in the community} and that, 
in most cases, has presupposed an employer-employee or landlord-tenant 
relationship. b Since his earnings as a farmhand or tenant have always tended 
to be lower than those of white workers, he has had less chance to save 
enough money for the purpose of buying land. The belief that he is racially 
inferior and the social isolation between the two castes have also affected 
the credit rating even of those individual Negroes who otherwise would 
have been' excellent risks. His- educational opportunities in the rural South 
have been extremely poor. 

Although the influence of such general conditions cannot be measured, 

* See Put VI. 

" See Chapter a 6, Section a. 



Chapter ii. Southern Plantation Economy 241 

there is scarcely any doubt about their being highly significant. In addition, 
however, a number of specific factors have been operative. Some of them 
have already been touched upon in the preceding chapters. There is, in the 
first place, the fact that rural Negroes, to a great extent, are concentrated 
on plantation areas, where comparatively few small holdings are for sale. 
There was no general land reform, and the Negro did not participate in 
the development of the West. But even in Kansas, where one of the few 
noteworthy attempts to organize new -post-bellum Negro settlements was 
made, there were not more than a few hundred Negro owner-operators in 
1940; and some of these owners probably were the descendants of persons 
who had been brought to Kansas as slaves. Undoubtedly the attitudes of 
the white settlers constituted the main cause for this lack of success. In the 
largely over-populated, white-dominated districts of the South, these 
attitudes, if anything, were still more pronounced. 

There have, however, always been some small holdings for sale in the 
areas of Negro concentration, and more have been added to this supply as 
plantations tended to disintegrate. 30 During the years immediately follow- 
ing the Civil War, land values were low, and that was one of the reasons 
why a few Negroes, along with many poor whites, managed to get into 
the landowning class. Some ex-slaves bought land from their former mas- 
ters, and there are places where such Negro properties still constitute a 
large proportion of all Negro-owned farms. 37 

The Negro has, however, usually been at a disadvantage when competing 
with white buyers even in the Black Belt. Apart from economic and other 
factors already mentioned, he has had to overcome segregational and 
discriminatory attitudes of the rural white population. 

. . . Negro kndownership — even now — can be achieved only by means of a most 
exacting and highly selective procedure; the would-be owner must be acceptable to the 
white community, have a white sponsor, be content with the purchase of acreage 
least desired by the whites, and pay for it in a very few years. 

The Negro buys land only when some white man will sell to him. Just because a 
white man has land for sale does not mean that a Negro, even the one most liked 
and respected by him, can buy it even if he has the money. Whether a particular 
Negro can buy a particular tract of land depends upon its location, its economic and 
emotional value to the white owner and other white people, the Negro's cash and 
credit resources, and, doubtless most important of all, his personal qualities in the light 
of the local attitudes: He must be acceptable. 38 

Negro ownership emerges in areas where land is rented, rather than where it is 
worked by croppers or wage hands. Renters do not cultivate the "proud acres" of the 
plantations. They are common only where the tracts of land are too small, too 
unproductive, or too distant to warrant supervision; or where the owners, because of 
other remunerative business, make little effort to secure maximum revenue from their 
lands. On the out-of-the-way, or neglected tracts, in the nooks and corners between 
creeks and between white communities, and in areas where white community organi- 



242 An American Dilemma 

zation u disintegrating — these are the placet where renter* are most prevalent, where 
they more least often, where they are most independent and self-directed, where 
they accumulate most cash and credit. These are the tracts which are most often 
for sale to the Negro. 89 

There has always been an active solidarity among white people to 
prevent Negroes from acquiring land in white neighborhoods. The visitor 
finds, therefore, that most often he has to get off the main road and into 
the backwoods if he wants to see a Negro landowner. The intensity of 
those attitudes on the side of the whites — which closely correspond to the 
attitudes behind residential segregation in the cities* — seems to have been 
increasing toward the turn of the century. This was the time when the Jim 
Crow legislation was built up in the South." There actually were even 
sporadic attempts in the beginning of the century to institute laws in order 
to block Negro ownership in white rural districts.* It is noteworthy that 
the trend toward increase of Negro landownership was halted at about the 
same time. 41 

The last decade, finally, has brought a new competitive advantage to 
the white owner. Government regulations, which have become of great 
importance, no doubt have helped the Negro owner along with the white 
owner. The fact, however, that the local administration of the new agricul- 
tural policies is entirely, or almost entirely, in the hands of white people 
cannot fail to make the Negroes a relatively disfavored group. This 
problem will be touched upon in the next chapter. 

8. Tenants and Wage Laborers 

In 1880, 64 per cent of the Southern farms were operated by owners. 
The corresponding figure for 1900 had fallen to 53 per cent. By 1930 it 
was down to 44 per cent. A majority of the Southern farm operators were 
tenants and sharecroppers. There was a similar development in other parts 
of the country as well. But nowhere else did it go so far. 42 And nowhere 
else did this trend have quite as serious social implications. 

Behind this change are the lagging industrialization, the high rural 
fertility rates, and the relatively small opportunities for successful owner- 
ship in the South. Not only Negroes, but whites also, were affected by these 
factors. Already by 1900° there were more white than Negro tenants in 
Southern agriculture, and during the following three decades the number 
of white tenants increased by more than 400,000, or roughly 60 per cent, 
where as the corresponding figures for nonwhite tenants were 147,000 and 
37 per cent, respectively. 43 

There seems to have been a parallel trend in the case of wage laborers, 

* See Chapter 19, Section 3. 

* See Chapter a 8, Section 4.. 

* Then wm ho breakdown by color in earlier census reports. 



Chapter ii. Southern Plantation Economy 243 

although much less pronounced. In 19 10 more than half of these workers 
were Negro — in 1930 less than half of them. 44 It should be kept in mind 
that their status, by and large, is more insecure even than that of the 
sharecroppers, who, at least, are. assured of year-round employment — 
although not always of a year-round income. This, however, does not reflect 
on the wage labor institution as such. If all Southern farm labor had been 
remunerated on a straight wage basis, the conditions would have been 
entirely different. A greater proportion of the wage laborers would have 
had year-round jobs, and these year-round employees would have known 
in advance for what wages they were working — something which is not 
true about tenants and croppers. At present most Southern agricultural 
wage laborers are literally "marginal." It is only at seasonal peaks that 
most of them can count on full employment. This circumstance, more than 
anything else, accounts for their inferior position. 

The fact that nowadays almost two-thirds of the tenants are white has 
been emphasized time and again in the discussion. It does not follow, how- 
ever, that white tenancy is more serious than Negro tenancy. Rather it is 
the other way around. We have seen that Negroes, more than whites, are 
concentrated in the lower tenure groups, and that in each tenure group 
Negroes are economically much weaker than whites. In addition, there are 
certain other significant differences. 

It would be a mistake to believe that the plantation system and the 
tenant system are synonymous concepts. The majority of all tenants do 
not work on plantations, but on small holdings. In 1910, the last time an 
enumeration of plantations was made, 45 it was found that 39,000 planta- 
tions, located in 325 plantation counties, had about 400,000 tenants; 48 
whereas, the total number of tenants in the South was over i,5O0,O00. 47 
The ratio of plantation tenants to all tenants must be still lower now, for the 
number of tenants has increased much more in non-plantation counties than 
in plantation counties. 48 During the last decade there has even been a 
decrease in tenancy on the plantations." It may be, therefore, that three out 
of four tenants in the South today work on small holdings. 

While plantation tenancy belongs to the classical subjects in the rural 
sociology of the South, much less scientific attention has been given to the 
Southern nonplantation tenant. It is certain, however, that the great 
majority of these small-holding tenants are white. 40 A large number of 
them are related to their landlords. 60 For all we know, their conditions, in 
many cases, may be similar to those of white tenants in other parts of the 
country, except that, more likely than not, they have to work and live 
under poorer circumstances, and their general status, to some extent, may 
have been influenced by the plantation patterns. 

The majority of the plantation tenants, on the other hand, are Negro. 1 

'See Chapter 11. 



si 



244 An American Dilemma 

There has been a "white infiltration" even on this mainstay of Negro 
tenancy, however. 88 It even happens quite frequently that white and Negro 
tenants work on the same plantations, although usually not in the same 
capacity. White workers tend to be relatively more concentrated in the 
outlying districts, or on the least valuable parts of the plantations where 
the tenants work more independently and have a higher tenure status; 
whereas, Negroes more often make up the bulk of the labor force on the 
main part of the plantations, where they can be closely controlled and 
supervised by the owners or managers. 

Thus, some of the main factors which account for the more rapid rise 
in white over Negro tenancy, until about 1930, are: 

1. Negro tenants, more than white tenants, are dependent on the unstable cotton 
plantation economy. 

2. Tenancy has increased more in nonplantation counties than in plantation counties. 

3. Cotton culture has been moving toward the Southwest. 

4. There has been white "infiltration" into plantation areas. This, however, is not 
so much an explanation as a description of the change. It still remains a problem 
why the intensity of rural population pressure increased more for white than for 
Negro agricultural workers." 

Also of relevance in this context is the fact that Negroes are "attached 
to the soil" much less than whites — that is, they more frequently move 
from one farm to another. 53 But this does not, in any way, constitute a 
racial or cultural characteristic. In reality, it is nothing but a consequence 
of the fact that Negroes, more than whites, are concentrated in the lower 
tenure groups; the lower the tenure- status, the more frequent are the 
farm-to-farm movements." In every given tenure group, Negroes tend to 
stay somewhat longer on the same place than do white farmers. In 1935, 
38 per cent of the colored, as against 49 per cent of the white, croppers in 
the South had stayed less than one year on the farms which they were 
operating. The same proportion for other tenants were 27 and 40 per 
cent, respectively. 

It goes without saying that movements as frequent as those must have 
an adverse influence on the living conditions of the tenants. No tenant who 
expects to farm on another place the next year can have much interest in 
doing any work on his house or in developing a year-round garden; neither 
can he be interested in maintaining the soil. Negligence in these and other 
respects naturally tends to become particularly serious in cases of absentee 
ownership; I $ percent of the 646 plantations studied by Woofter in 1934 
did not Mve a. resident owner or even a special hired overseer. 86 

* See Qwjfter S. 



Chapter ii. Southern Plantation Economy 245 

9. The Plantation Tenant 

The plight of the plantation tenant 88 has been described so often and so 
well 57 that there is no need to give more than a short summary here. But 
a summary we must present. For, despite all scientific and reformistic 
publicity, these conditions are still news to a great part of the American 
people; as we see it, they could not otherwise have prevailed in their 
present form for such a long time. The subject, in a way, is a fascinating 
one. It is the problem of an antiquated paternalistic labor institution in the 
midst of modern American capitalistic society. 

If we except cash tenants — who usually, but not always, can be regarded 
as rather independent entrepreneurs, and who make up only about one- 
tenth of all Negro tenants — plantation tenants are just ordinary laborers, 
although they are designated as farmers in the census. Their work is 
usually supervised, more or less regularly, by the landlord or his repre- 
sentative. In some cases they even work by the clock and in gangs. 58 Their 
wages, however, are not determined according to supply and demand in a 
free labor market. 

Wages are not fixed per week, per month, or per annum. Nor is the 
sharecropping agreement modeled after the ordinary piece-wage system. 
The cropper, rather, gets a share of the product. The quantity of the 
product depends not only on the efforts of the workers but on the condi- 
tions of the soil and on the hazards of wind and weather; and it is not the 
quantity of the output alone but also its price that determines the final 
reward for the toils of labor. a The wages of the sharecroppers and share 
tenants, in other words, vary in such a way that there is no reason whatever 
to assume that they, except accidentally and occasionally, would satisfy the 
supply-and-demand equations of an ordinary free labor market. b 

While in other parts of our economic system it has been the accepted 
ideal that risk of investment should be directly correlated with the size of 
investment, the sharecropper and the share tenant — although nothing but 
laborers from economic and social viewpoints — have to carry a considerable 
share of the entrepreneur's risk. It is possible that it is this practice of 

'Ordinary piece-rate wages also may vary with the change in general market conditions; 
but only through the process of price formation in the commodity and labor markets and 
with a certain time-lag, and seldom, if ever, to the same extent as the price of the product. 

'As a labor or tenant contract, the share tenant agreement reveals its pre-capitalistic 
character by the fact that the wage or the land rent is not fixed in a sum of money or product 
but in a proportion which remains fixed as a matter of tradition independent of how 
prices and price relations change. The products and cost factors in the production other 
than labor are, however, priced in the market and so is land. Only labor costs (and incomes) 
are fixed in an arbitrary and traditional proportion. This indicates the dependent status of 
labor in this economic system. Labor has not even had the protection of being directly related 
to the objective conditions of price formation in an economic market. 



246 An American Dilemma 

hedging by spreading the risk over the whole tenant working force whicli 
has enabled the planters to carry on the cotton crop gamble much more 
persistently than otherwise would have been possible. It is true that the 
share tenant shares in the benefit of a good crop and favorable market 
conditions with the landowner. It is also true that he does not have much 
capital of his own. If losses run so high that at the end of the year he 
finds himself indebted to the landlord, he may often be able — at least now- 
adays — to get rid of this debt simply by moving to another plantation. 
But many a time he may find himself having invested a full season's work 
without having received anything near the wages he would have earned 
had he been a wage laborer with full employment. On such occasions, at 
least, he has to face long months of semi-starvation for himself and his 
family. That certainly is a business risk just as much as any. And should 
he have any livestock or other assets, the landlord is always free to take 
them, to cover possible debts. In nine cotton states "the landlord has the 
legal right to sell any and all property the tenant may have to secure 
payment of rent and furnishings." 58 

Indeed, any study of the concrete details of the system will reveal that 
the sharecropper or share tenant usually has most of the disadvantages of 
being an independent entrepreneur without having hardly any of the 
rights that ordinarily go with such a position. Only in relatively few cases 
are his rights and obligations set down in a written contract. 00 In most 
cases he does not sell even his own share in the cotton crop himself/ 11 
According to the crop lien laws in most states, he has no right to dispose 
of it until he has paid to the landlord all the rent due and the advances 
he has received during the season. And since he cannot well do that until 
the crop has been sold and paid for, the landlord is legally entitled to 
handle all the marketing as he sees fit. 62 Seldom is the tenant even con- 
sulted about how to sell and when. 

Worse than that, however, is the general pattern of making all kinds 
of account-keeping a unilateral affair. The tenant usually has to take the 
landlord's word for what price has been obtained for the cotton, for what 
is the total amount of advances received from the landlord, and for what 
the interest on these advances is, and so on. An attempt on the part of 
the Negro tenant to check the accounts against his own itemized annota- 
tions — if he should have kept any (which is rarely done) — will not 
accomplish much, in most cases, except possibly to infuriate the landlord. 08 
The temptation to cheat the tenants at the final settlement for the year, 
under such circumstances, must be great. Indeed, Southern plantation 
ownejs w£uld be unlike other human beings if they did not sometimes 
misuse thjS considerable arbitrary power they have over their tenants. 64 

Itt several conversations with white planters — as also with employers of 
Negro labor in cities, particularly of domestics — the writer has noticed the 



Chapter ii. Southern Plantation Economy 247 

display of a sort of moral double standard. "White people of the landown- 
ing class who give the impression of being upright and honest in all their 
other dealings take it for granted and sometimes brag about the fact that 
they cheat their Negroes. On the other hand, it is equally apparent that 
there is a strong recognition in the South of the difficulty for a landlord 
to get and keep good workers if he docs not have the reputation of dealing 
with them on a straight basis. Still, there are too many "settlement jokes" 
in the Southern folklore 05 and too many statements about the matter in 
the literature to make a student inclined to dismiss the possibility of 
outright cheating. There is social significance even in the fact — which 
every observer will be able to confirm — that "the system leaves the Negro 
tenant with the feeling that he has not been treated justly." 06 

The "advancing" of food, clothing, and other necessities of life is a 
significant part of the system. Since the tenant is ordinarily without 
resources — otherwise he would not be a tenant — he cannot usually wait for 
his wages until the crop has been harvested and sold. He has, therefore, 
to live on a credit basis at least during a large part of the year. For an 
average period of seven months, according to Woofter's sample study for 
1934, the tenant receives credit from the landlord, often in a special store 
or commissary, where he can buy household supplies up to a certain amount 
a month. This amount varies according to the size of the family, the pros- 
pects for the crop, the market conditions, and so on. The average in 
Woofter's sample was $12.80 per month and $88 per year. 87 A study of the 
Yazoo-Mississippi Delta in 1936 showed an average subsistence advance per 
year of about $94 for sharecroppers and $138 for share tenants. If operating 
credit is included, the amounts were $162 and $283, respectively. 08 

The interest rates charged for these advances are extremely high. A flat 
rate of 10 per cent is usual but, since the duration of the credit is only a 
few months, the annual rate is several times higher. According to Woofter's 
sample study in 1934, it was no less than 37 per cent. 69 A plantation study 
for 1937 on a somewhat smaller sample gave almost the same average. 
"These rates were two to three times as high as those paid by the operators 
(landlords) for short-term credit." 70 

In addition, prices in commissaries are often "marked up" to a consider- 
able extent. 71 Some people in the South, however, will tell the visitor that 
the breaking up of rural isolation and the increased opportunities for 
tenants to spend week-ends in towns and cities and see the stores has made 
this latter practice less prevalent than it used to be. When the advances 
are paid in cash, which sometimes happens, the tenant naturally has 
greater freedom to buy at ordinary market prices. 

According to Woofter's plantation study for the depression period 1930- 
1934, no less than 13-15 per cent of the tenants ended each crop year in 
debt to their landlords. This means that, in addition to their having to 



248 An American Dilemma 

start the next crop year with a deficit, they have nothing to live on during 
the winter. The average debt for these tenants varied between $89 and 
$143.™ As hinted at before, it is probable that indebted and propertyless 
tenants are often able nowadays to get rid of their debts simply by moving 
to another place. This, at least, is likely to be the case when the tenant is 
an inefficient worker, and the landlord, for this reason, is not interested in 
keeping him and considers the expense for collecting the debt higher than 
it is worth. The extremely high number of tenants who have stayed less 
than one year on their present farms is enough to indicate the relatively 
unhampered movements of most tenant operators. The practice of forcing 
an indebted tenant to stay on the plantation in order to work off his debt 
certainly became less prevalent during the period of relatively abundant 
agricultural labor which lasted from the beginning of the depression until 
the present war boom. 73 We do not know whether the present shortage 
of farm labor has brought about any new increase in such debt-peonage. 
What we do know is that the whole legal system previously gave the 
tenants but little protection against such abuses and that, so far, there has 
been no fundamental change in this legal system. In addition, the planter 
has at his disposal all the extra-legal caste sanctions. It is certain, anyway, 
fliat there is some debt-peonage left. 74 

Apart from the legal and extra-legal pressures, the terms established in 
the landlord-tenant agreements and settlements will be heavily loaded 
against the plantation tenants, because of that monopolistic element which 
was analyzed even in the time of Adam Smith: the purchasers of labor 
will be bound as neighbors, friends, and gentlemen not to bid against each 
other for tenants. This monopolistic tendency will be particularly effective 
in the plantation South where the tenants are usually absolutely unorgan- 
ized, where, further, there is a racial split and usually extreme prejudice 
among them, and where — particularly in the case of Negro tenants — the 
social distance between employers and employees is enormous. 

That such a monopolistic tendency is strong has been seen by many 
observers. 76 To begin with, no planter feels that he can afford to lose a 
tenant who has started a crop. The claims on solidarity go further, how- 
ever. To be a "tenant-stealer" is traditionally considered a bad thing. 78 
According to the prevailing custom, no landlord is supposed to accept a 
tenant whom the previous employer does not agree to release. 77 

The basis of this custom is a feeling, on the part of the planters, of a 
sort of collective ownership of the workers in the community. The resent- 
ment against any outsiders coming in for the purpose of hiring labor is 
even stronger, if possible. 78 The hostility against outside labor agents grew 
particularly strong during the period of the First World War, when 
Northern industry made its strongest bid for the Negro agricultural 
worker. Several states enacted laws against such practices. 



Chapter ii. Southern Plantation Economy 249 

The last state law against the enticement of labor was passed in Louisiana early 
in June, 1935, making it "unlawful for any person to go on the premises or planta- 
tion of any citizen between sunset and sunrise and assist in moving any laborers or 
tenants therefrom without the consent of the owner of said premises or plantation." 70 

This should be the place for "balancing the picture" by looking for 
positive aspects of the paternalistic labor relations on the Southern planta- 
tions. The system doubtless has some positive sides. Even the outsider will 
occasionally find some evidence of them. There, are good landlords, who 
really try to take care of their tenants to some extent. They arc the ones 
who get and hold the good tenants. They are rightly proud of this fact 
and tell the interviewer about it. Most studies contain some statement from 
such a plantation owner who has made the discovery that he can get the 
best out of his Negro tenant just by treating him decently and by appealing 
to his ambition to get ahead — in other words, by regarding the Negro like 
any other human being. Since the general standard is so low, it is not 
expensive to be an exceptionally good planter and have the best tenants. 

Yet the fact that planters, too, are ordinary human beings, and that 
many of them actually are better than the system which they represent, is 
not high praise of the plantation system as an economic institution. Every 
social institution, in this way, presents a whole range of cases — low 
extremes, normal cases and high extremes. Nevertheless, we can talk about 
the whole range as being low or high in relation to the corresponding 
range for alternative institutions. The benevolence of certain landlords 
certainly is a great help for many individual tenants. But it is, in the final 
analysis, nothing else than an aspect of the arbitrariness of the whole 
system. 

It is our impression that the predominant feeling among most Negro 
tenants is that they can get more or less out of the landlord depending 
upon what kind of landlord he is, and how he is approached. But not often 
have they been taught to feel that they have definite rights and definite 
obligations, and that it is up to them to make good. Several local Farm 
Security officials in the South have informed us of how the inherited 
paternalistic attitude on the part of the planters and the corresponding 
attitudes of dependence, carelessness, and lack of ambition on the part of 
the tenants constitute the toughest problems in their work. The plantation 
system, in summary, fails flagrantly to meet the standards of social and 
economic efficiency and justice. 80 

There is no lack of statements in the literature on the plantation system 
of the South to the effect that its survival through generations is a "proof" 
that it — compared with other organizations of land, capital, and labor for 
agricultural production — is superior and best adapted to the circumstances 
of the region. This is, of course, nothing but the application of the liberal- 
istic (do-nothing) doctrine that "what is, must be"— which from a scientific 



i$o An American Dilemma 

viewpoint is most doubtful in itself under any circumstances* — to a tradi- 
tion-bound, nonliberalistic, economic arrangement. The logical fault is too 
obvious to need further comment. This particular economic arrangement, 
as all others, has to be explained in historical terms and to be evaluated in 
terms of its effects compared with alternate, possible arrangements. 

In this context the changes actually occurring in the plantation system 
become important. As we have indicated, the system of slightly modernized 
Black Codes seems finally to be withering under the assaults of the 
Supreme Court and other federal agencies as well as of various pro- 
democratic organizations in both the South and the North. The relative 
abundance of agricultural labor during the 'thirties has contributed, prob- 
ably more than anything else, toward the gradual wiping out of the 
practice of debt-peonage. Attempts to organize plantation tenants have 
occurred. Efforts of the federal government to rationalize the credit struc- 
ture and other crucial elements of the plantation system have been started. 
There are some concerted efforts to begin reforming even the tenure 
conditions. The cotton acreage has been drastically curtailed. We shall 
find, however, that new problems have risen — problems which, again, have 
Affected the Negroes much more seriously than the whites. 

* See Appendix 2. 



CHAPTER 12 

NEW BLOWS TO SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE DURING 
THE THIRTIES: TRENDS AND POLICIES 

i. Agricultural Trends During the 'Thirties 

Of all the calamities that have struck the rural Negro people in the 
South in recent decades — soil erosion, the infiltration of white tenants into 
plantation areas, the ravages of the boll weevil, the southwestern shift in 
cotton cultivation — none has had such grave consequences, or threatens 
to have such lasting effect, as the combination of world agricultural trends 
and federal agricultural policy initiated during the 'thirties. These changes 
are revolutionizing the whole structure of Southern agricultural economy. 
They have already rooted out a considerable portion of the Negro farmers 
and made the future of the remaining group extremely problematic. 

For more than a century America has been the leading cotton-producing 
country in the world. But cotton growing in other countries was slowly 
increasing, and the increase became substantial in the decade following the 
First World War. American cotton production, except for annual fluctua- 
tions, remained fairly constant during this period. Still during the 'twenties 
American-grown cotton represented more than half of the total world pro- * 
duction. Meanwhile domestic consumption had ceased to increase. The 
trend of cotton prices was downward during most of the 'twenties. 1 Lange 
remarks: 

Looking back to this period, it is now rather obvious that cotton production in the 
United States had already reached its limits of practical expansion. American cotton 
had to face a keen competition on most markets abroad, as the production in certain 
foreign countries, primarily China and Egypt, was increasing and new raw material 
for textiles began to appear at the same time. 2 

But it was during the 'thirties that the over-production problem really 
became serious. It was then that the demand was declining drastically abroad 
and at home due to the depression and to the growing competition from 
other countries and to the increased use of substitutes. The cotton economy 
suffered much more from the depression and recovered much less after- 
ward than did American agriculture in general. 8 
Southern tobacco also is losing out on the international market, and the 

»5i 



2$1 An American Dilemma 

slow rise in domestic consumption has failed — at least up to the present 
war boom — to compensate for the loss. 4 Southern sugar cane is in a similar 
position." Only in one main commercial crop in the South did a rising 
demand keep pace with production — namely, the fruit and vegetable pro- 
duction in Florida and the coastal plains. But even for these crops prices 
have declined, and their cultivation offers workers still worse living condi- 
tions than does the cotton plantation. 6 

Under this onslaught on the old cash crops of the South, and also induced 
by an agricultural policy which we shall comment upon later, dairy farming 
has made some headway in the South. 7 There does not seem to be much 
hope, however, that dairy farming ever will become a major Southern 
industry. In the Lower South there are certain climatic obstacles which so 
far have been difficult to overcome; and milk and cream require a local 
market. Beef cattle and hogs, on the other hand, have shown a big increase. 8 
Yet the Southeast had, in 1940, still less than one-tenth of all the beef 
cattle in the country. 6 

These are some of the significant changes which have occurred in 
Southern agriculture during the decade before the present war boom. 
The terrific blow to the cotton economy was the most significant, particularly 
from the viewpoint of the Negro. Some of the other changes indicated a 
beginning reorientation along new lines. But none of them was large 
enough to compensate for the shattering disaster in cotton, for cotton is 
one of the most labor-consuming crops in the South. 

It has been estimated that on the average 30 million acres of land devoted to the 
production of cotton will furnish about 255 million days of work per year in 
growing, harvesting, and hauling the crop to the gin. If the same acreage were put 
in corn it would require only no million days of labor, or less than one-half the 
time required by cotton, and if seeded to oats or hay the total days of labor required 
to produce and harvest these crops would amount to from 4; to 50 million days, or 
an equivalent of one-sixth to one-fifth as much labor as if the land were devoted to 
cotton production. 10 

Thus, even under favorable circumstances it would not have been possible 
to avoid widespread unemployment of agricultural labor. But circumstances 
were not favorable. For although extensive and commendable attempts 
were made to deal with the social aspects of the problem of structural 
change, the major New Deal efforts, as we shall find, did not fit into 
constructive long-range program for a reorganization of Southern agricul- 
ture. 

The present war boom, of course, has brought temporary relief. There 
has been an increased demand and an increased production of several crops. 
The growgig of peanuts has been stepped up considerably. There is a greater 
production of tobacco, sugar cane and rice; soybeans, too, have increased, 



Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 253 

although much more so in the North than in the South. The market for 
all meats is booming. 11 There is a pronounced scarcity of agricultural labor 
in the South as well as everywhere else. This new situation may, in a 
measure, have some positive effects also on the long-range development. 
The War probably has been a stimulus to greater crop diversification in the 
South. The encouragement of out-migration from rural areas may make 
agricultural over-population somewhat less severe even after the War than 
would have been the case under other circumstances. But there are also 
great risks in this development. When the results of the destruction in 
Europe and elsewhere have been overcome, American agriculture will 
again appear as over-expanded. The long-range employment prospects 
in Southern agriculture, on the whole, are rather dark. 

2. The Disappearing Sharecropper 

Up to the time when the data from the 1940 Census were released, the 
main emphasis in the discussion was placed upon the increase in tenancy — 
a trend which had been noticeable ever since the Civil War — and upon the 
decline in number of farm owners — which became apparent during the 
'twenties. The 1940 Census, however, showed that the trends had become 
reversed. Tenancy was on the decline, for there were 192,000 fewer Negro 
and 150,000 fewer white tenants in 1940 than in 1930. Ownership, on the 
other hand, was on the increase in Southern agriculture, except for the 
Negroes (Table 1). 

TABLE 1 
Number of Farm Operators in the South, bv Tenure and Color: 

'WO, 1935. AND I94O 

(in thousands) 

Owners Tenants Other 

and Managers than Croppers Croppers 



Year Nonwhite White Nonwhite White Nonwhite White 

1930 183 1,250 3° 6 7°9 393 383 

1935 186 1,404 4.61 854 368 348 

1940 174 1,384 108 700 299 24I 



Sourcts: V. S. Bureau of the Census. Census of Agriculture: tots. Vol. Ill, pp. 106, 107,. and "6-133. 
Sixteenth Census of the United Stales: 1940. Agriculture. United States Summary. Fust Series, Table VI: 
Supplemental for the Southern States. 

The rise in ownership and decline in tenancy did not balance each other, 
however. The increase in number of owners occurred altogether between 
1930 and 1935 and was restricted to the white group. The decrease in the 
total number of tenants occurred between 1935 and 1940 and was then 
divided between the two racial groups. Before 1935, however, white cash 



254 An American Dilemma 

and share tenants seem to have become much more numerous, whereas all 
other tenant groups — Negro cash and share tenants as well as Negro and 
white croppers — had started to decline. The decrease in number of tenants 
during the following five years became much more pronounced and 
affected all four color-tenure groups. 

The final results, by 1940, of all these changes were that there was a 
somewhat larger number of white owners than in 19305 a slightly lower 
number of Negro owners; a much lower number of Negro cash and share 
tenants, and of Negro and white croppers. The total number of croppers 
had declined by almost one-third (somewhat more for whites and some- 
what less for Negroes), and the decrease in number of Negro cash and share 
tenants was at least of the same relative size. 

These rather spectacular changes do not mean, observes Sterner, 

. . . that the situation has been ameliorated. By and large it is rather the other way 
around. While the limitations in the opportunities in Southern agriculture formerly 
caused an increase in tenancy, they now seem to have been aggravated to such an 
extent that the Negro and white sharecroffing class as well as the Negro cash and 
share tenants are in the frocess of being forced out. 12 

Yet, many of the ex-tenants and ex-croppers may have stayed in agricul- 
ture. They have simply been reduced to wage laborers on the farms. This, 
of course, means only that their position, in most of the cases, has become 
still more marginal. 13 

The main reason why the Negro lost out, probably, was the fact that 
he, much more than the white operator and worker, was dependent on the 
cotton economy which was hit most severely by the depression and by the 
falling off of foreign markets. Practically all the increase in number of 
farm operators as well as the total increase in farm population during the 
period 1930-1935 occurred outside of the cotton regions; 1 * and after that 
period there were no further increases of that kind. Yet, the depression 
by itself seems to have had much more immediate effects on income condi- 
tions than on employment, for the decline in Negro tenancy before 1935 
was relatively limited compared with what was to come after that year. 
It seems, therefore, that the agricultural policies, and particularly the 
Agricultural Adjustment program (A.A.A.), which was instituted in May, 
J 933> w<w th* fator directly responsible for the drastic curtailment in num- 
ber of Negro and while sharecroppers and Negro cash and share tenants. 

It is true that behind the A.A.A. was the depression and over-production. 
If no such thing as the AAA. had ever been instituted, the cotton price 
would have remained low for so long a time that production and employ- 
ment eventually would have been severely curtailed. And A.A.A. certainly 
raised the income not only for planters and other owners, but—to an extent 
-■also for those tenants and croppers who were allowed to stay in employ- 



Chapter ia. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 255 

ment. But hundreds of thousands of them did not get any protection at all. 
They were pushed off the land, and, if anything, the A.A.A. hastened their 
elimination. 

3. The Role of the A.A.A. in Regard to Cotton 

In order to understand this, it is necessary to recall what the A.A.A. 
program is all about and how it works.' Its fundamental objective is to 
raise and stabilize farm income. This objective is sought along four princi- 
pal lines: (1) limitation of cash crop acreages; (2) removal of price- 
depressing surpluses from regular markets; (3) payment of direct subsidies 
to farmers; (4) and encouragement of conservation practices. There is an 
intimate relationship between all four main aspects of the program. The 
first two are aimed at restricting the supply brought on the ordinary 
market. The cash crop limitations make greater emphasis on soil-building 
crops and practices possible. Subsidies are paid as a remuneration for 
carrying out acreage restrictions and conservation work; their function is not 
only to let the farmers have a direct bounty, but also to encourage them 
to participate in the program, which is not compulsory but voluntary. The 
voluntary character of the participation, however, seems to be something 
of a fiction. There is, for instance, a ginning tax on cotton and a market- 
ing tax on tobacco, whereby the nonparticipant is penalized if he markets 
in excess of what he normally produces on what should be his acreage allot- 
ment. The fact that those taxes have to be approved by referendum does 
not make the participation much more voluntary for the individual opera- 
tors who would be against it. 

The cut in cotton acreage has been drastic. 16 Owing to a tendency to 
intensify the cultivation and to retain the best land in cotton and, perhaps, 
to make some improvements in cultivating technique, the production has not 
decreased to the same extent. 10 Since the acreage cuts were not made 
large enough to offset the effect of the increased acreage yields, the over- 
production problem obviously has not been solved in this way. 17 

The A.A.A. policy of keeping up the level of cotton prices by crop reduc- 
tion and removal of price-depressing surpluses from the market, of course, 
helped the United States to lose its foreign market to competing countries. 
The volume of American cotton export hit a low during the crop year 1938- 
1939. 18 On the whole, it seems that "of all our crops, cotton has given the 

'The following short description of how the A.A.A. program has affected the Negro 
Is based largely on an unpublished manuscript prepared for this study by Gunnar Lange 
(''Agricultural Adjustment Programs and the Negro" [January, w ]). Several s.gnracant 
details and qualifications, as well as certain characteristics of the program during the fin* 
years of its operation, are intentionally overlooked in the summary given m the Mm. 
Main emphasis » put on those points which facilitate the understanding of how the program 
has affected the Negro. 



2 $6 An American Dilemma 

New Deal most trouble." 1 * In 1939, however, a substantial export bounty on 
cotton was instituted. This, and perhaps still more the increased consump- 
tion during the present war, has brought temporary relief. The carry-over 
has declined, but it is still significant. 

Indeed, the whole program would have failed to bring about any 
increase in cotton prices had it not been for the removal of surpluses from 
the ordinary market. Very commendable were the efforts — now discontinued 
— to increase the cotton consumption of the needy by direct distribution of 
mattresses and by the Cotton Stamp Plan. Those measures, however, were 
expensive in relation to their results in reducing the cotton surplus. The fact 
that the cotton producer receives but 15 cents of the consumer's dollar 
spent on cotton products 20 makes it much more difficult to make a cotton 
distribution program effective than it is to take similar measures in regard 
to most other agricultural products. Therefore, this part of the removal 
program was only experimental. 

Of real importance, on the other hand, have been the commodity loans 
to individual farmers and associations of farmers for the purpose of encour- 
aging storing (The Ever-Normal Granary Plan). These loans explain 
the large carry-overs. The existence of such huge and fluctuating surpluses 
means, however, that the whole system has had complete lack of stability, 
which was contrary to the official purpose of the Granary Plan to keep the 
supply in balance. Had it not been for the present War, there could ulti- 
mately have been but two alternatives: either further drastic cuts in the 
cotton acreage, or collapse of the whole program. 11 In either case, the Negro 
would have been hurt severely. 

4. A.A.A. and the Negro 

It is something of a problem, however, that most of the reduction in cot- 
ton acreage was carried out before 1935, whereas the decrease in number of 
Negro and white croppers and of Negro cash and share tenants did not 
start to become really significant until after that year. Of course, there is 
nothing unnatural in a certain time-lag between acreage curtailment and 
effects on employment. The intensification of cultivation of the cotton land 
not eliminated by the A.A.A., the increase in certain other crops, and the 
uncertainty about the permanence in the change may have contributed to 
a certain delay in the reorganization of the labor force. The Supreme Court 
decision of 1936, invalidating the first A.A.A. program, and the actual 
occurrence of an all-time peak in cotton production in 1937 justifies, to a 
degree, the hypothesis that the change may have had the appearance to 
many planters of being only temporary. By letting the employees share 

*A third alternative would have been to rely consistently on export subsidies} but such 
1 policy t more likely than not, would have been neutralized in the long run through retalia- 
tory measures of foreign competitors. 



Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 257 

in the reduction of income which had occurred since 1929, and by letting 
newly instituted rural relief agencies" provide supplementary income for 
part of the labor force during off-seasons, it was possible for the planters 
to retain most of the tenants for some time. 

Furthermore, it was probably not only by the acreage reduction that the 
A.A.A. later gave inducement to the reduction in number of tenants. 2 * 
Another factor, perhaps equally important, was the A.A.A. benefit pay- 
ments. During the first years of the A.A.A. system there was a general 
complaint that landlords simply grabbed the benefit checks which they were 
supposed to forward to the tenants. 22 Many of these complaints turned out 
to be justified—even when investigated by county committees which were 
almost entirely white, and on which landowners were over-represented. 

These practices were, in the main, later abolished. In the last few years, 
benefits are paid direct to the tenants. Although the credit relations between 
landlord and tenant, the system of unilateral account-keeping, as well as 
the legal impotence of the Negro tenants, still may enable the landlord 
to receive a larger share of the benefits than he is supposed to get, the 
situation certainly has changed. As early as 193 5- 1936, the Consumer 
Purchases Study, for instance, showed that even sharecroppers were receiv- 
ing some A.A.A. payments. 23 The basis for the division of the payments 
between landlord and tenant, moreover, has been changed, so that the 
tenant today is to receive a larger share — about equal to his share in the crop 
— than according to former stipulations. The average benefit per plantation 
tenant, according to a sample study for some 3,000 plantation tenant 
families, had increased from $11 per year in 1934 to $27 in 1937. The 
latter figure constituted almost 10 per cent of the total net cash income of 
the average tenant family ($30o). 24 In all probability there has been a 
further increase since 1937. 

These changes in favor of the tenants, however, must have had the 
character of a two-edged sword. They gave the landlord a considerable 
economic interest in decreasing the number of tenants or lowering their 
status to wage laborers. And it is particularly during the latter part of the 
'thirties that this temptation became significant. This may well be the 
main explanation of why most of the decline in number of sharecroppers 
and tenants occurred after 1935. Landlords have always tended to change 
the tenure status of their workers whenever that has been compatible with 
their own economic interests. 20 There is no reason why they should have 
behaved otherwise when carrying out the A.A.A. regulations. 

It is true that the A.A.A. contracts have included stipulations according 
to which the landlords were obliged to maintain the normal number of 
tenants and laborers. 20 Yet such a regulation, even under the best conditions, 
must be difficult to enforce. Landlords cannot well be asked to keep the 

' See Chapter 15. 



258 An American Dilemma 

same individual tenants and workers as before. When some move away — 
and they do move often — it can always be claimed that there just are no 
others good enough to take their jobs and farms. There is another stipula- 
tion, however, which should be easier to enforce. It is prescribed that a 
reduction in the number of tenants and Croppers on a farm shall not operate 
to increase the payment to the landlord. Yet even this safeguard seems to 
have been insufficient. For Negroes, and tenants generally, have practically 
no real influence on the local administration of the program. And if a reduc- 
tion in the number of tenants "is considered justified from the viewpoint 
of 'sound management,' the stipulation preventing an increase in the amount 
of payments to the landlords shall not apply." 87 Several observers have 
noted that landlords actually have substituted wage labor for tenants in 
order to secure larger A.A.A. payments for themselves. 28 

In summary: Landlords have been made to reduce drastically the acreage 
for their main labor-requiring crops. They have been given a large part of 
the power over the local administration of this program. They have a 
strong economic incentive to reduce their tenant labor force, a large part 
of which consists of politically and legally impotent Negroes. Yet they have 
been asked not to make any such reduction. It would certainly not be 
compatible with usual human behavior, if this request generally had been 
fulfilled. Under the circumstances, there is no reason at all to be surprised 
about the wholesale decline in tenancy. Indeed, it would be surprising if 
it had not happened. 

5. The Local Administration of the A.A.A. 

A few remarks on the local administration of the A.A.A. are pertinent 
here, as a further explanation of the last point. This administration is in 
the hands of the Extension Service — that is, the County Farm Demonstra- 
tion Agents — and the County Agricultural Conservation Committees 
representing local farmers. It is our impression, based upon a large number 
of interviews, that the county agents in the plantation South, to a great 
extent, have an attitude on economic", social, and racial questions which is 
similar to that of the large landowners. Some of them actually are planters 
themselves. The committees, at least in plantation counties, are characterized 
by an over-representation of big estate owners. 20 Committee members have 
often been appointed by the federal administration upon the recommenda- 
tion of the county agent, which meant that the F<xtension Service continued 
to control the local committees. The federal administration has continued 
attempting to democratize and to decentralize the administration of the 
A.A.A. An important development is the recent organization of land-use 
planning committees for the purpose of achieving coordination and local 
adjustment of the various action programs. The Negro, however, has 
scarcely profited by these reforms. 80 



Chapter ia. New Blows to Southern Agriculture J&59 

It is true that the Negroes commonly vote in AAA. referenda for certain 
decisions, such as the establishment of marketing quotas." Their votes are 
needed, since a majority of all farmers, including tenants and croppers, 
must be in favor of the program for it to be adopted. But Negroes are 
seldom allowed to vote for committeemen. Even when Negroes do exercise 
some privileges, it seldom means that they have any real influence on the 
decisions. 

Not only Negro tenants and croppers, but Negro farm owners as well, 
are jeopardized by their relative lack of influence on the decisions of the 
local A.A.A. administration. The allotment of cotton acreage and benefit 
payments is a rather complicated affair. There are certain statistical computa- 
tions involved, and these computations, in part, are based on records con- 
cerning previous farm practices on every individual holding. The accuracy 
of the records and calculations depends on the good-will, conscientiousness, 
and competence of those in charge of the local control. If they do not ade- 
quately represent all local farm groups, it can scarcely be avoided that the 
rights and interests of under-represented or entirely unrepresented farmers 
and tenants are overlooked in many individual cases. This is more likely 
to be the case since such groups, particularly Negroes, include a large 
proportion of more or less illiterate people who are unable to understand 
the intricate regulations well enough even to find out whether or not they 
have been wronged. 31 Indeed even highly educated persons may have to 
make a special effort in order to check up on their share. 

6. Mechanization 

Before we proceed to an evaluation of the A.A.A. program, we must dis- 
cuss a factor which seems bound to add its influence in displacing Negro 
labor on Southern plantations: mechanization. We also want to look for 
tendencies toward concerted defense action on the part of the plantation 
laborers. 

Up to now mechanization has not been important. Cotton cultivation, in 
the main, is carried on by a technique which has not changed much since 
slavery. The low degree of mechanization is the reason why cotton growing 
requires so much labor and keeps this labor down to such low levels of 
living. At the same time, the cheap labor makes mechanization unprofitable. 
Otherwise it might be expected that the commercial farming of cotton on 
the Southern plantations would be more inviting to more efficient produc- 
tion methods than the subsistence production on family farms. But 
mechanization has actually been slow. 82 

In the last decade, however, there has been a tendency toward a narrow- 
ing of the still wide gap between the national and the Southeastern rates 
of mechanization. 88 That cotton planters in the Southeast would like to 

* See Chapter it, Section 3. 



26o An American Dilemma 

buy more nmchines is evident from a sample inquiry about factors retard- 
ing mechanization; half of the informants stressed the difficulty of financing 
purchases. 8 * 

It should be noted that the two Southwestern states, Texas and Okla- 
homa, show a different picture. 85 But what has happened in the Southwest 
has only a slight direct importance for Negro employment, as Negroes 
there are so relatively scarce in the rural districts. If mechanization for a 
long time should fail to become as intensive in the Southeast as in the South- 
west, there is no doubt that the Negro, nevertheless, will suffer indirectly. 
Great hindrances to mechanization have been both the difficulty of getting 
credit and the high rate of interest. The recent reforms in the organization 
of agricultural credit have reduced this obstacle considerably. The A.A.A. 
benefit payments add to the supply of cash that planters can use for mecha- 
nization, though it is true that even with these payments their incomes have 
not come to the pre-depression level. The A A. A. 'program has, however, 
another and most important influence toward increasing mechanization 
because of the premium it offers for reducing the number of tenants. 

Formerly, agricultural machines were not well-adjusted to the rolling 
terrain in some parts of the South. This is being overcome by newer types 
of machines constructed to satisfy Southern requirements. 38 As the South- 
ern market for machines increases and, perhaps, other markets contract, 
the machine manufacturers, no doubt, will direct more of their attention 
toward the specific needs of the South. The mechanical cotton picker 
eventually may be perfected to such an extent that it can be used extensively 
on an economical basis } 37 a mechanical cotton chopper, perhaps, is a nearer 
possibility. 38 But even without such innovations, there will be more motors 
running in the agricultural South. The great number of large holdings, 
in some measure, should facilitate the use of more machine equipment, and 
Negroes are concentrated in those regions where holdings are large. 

The threat against employment opportunities in the rural South is poten- 
tially greater, for the very reason that so far there have been but few 
machines on Southern farms. The displacement of labor which can be 
brought about by further mechanization is so much greater than anywhere 
else. Negroes, for several reasons, will feel the effects of this trend more 
than white workers, in the same way as they have suffered more from the 
decline in cotton economy. They are more dependent on the cash crop culture. 
They are more concentrated on plantations. They are objects of prejudice, 
especially when it comes to handling machinery. To operate an expensive 
machine is to have a position of responsibility, which, even in the rural 
South, must draw "white man's pay." Although Negroes have shown that 
they can acquire the necessary skill for the purpose, 39 there is scarcely any 
doubt that employers, more often than not, will prefer white labor if farm 
operations are mechanized. The records show that but a small part of the 



Chapter 12.. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 261 

machine equipment in the South is on farms where there are colored opera- 
tors. 40 It will always be easier for employers to find workers who know 
how to run machinery in the white group. More and more the Negro will 
be reduced to a seasonal worker, and even this opportunity will dwindle if 
chopping and picking, too, should become mechanized. 41 

7. Labor Organizations 

In view of the quantitative significance of the labor displacement during 
the 'thirties, one would have expected to find widespread evidence of unrest 
among the sharecroppers. One would have expected, further, to find a 
great number of publicized expressions of a popular concern about what 
was happening, as well as a widespread discussion of ameliorative programs. 
Finally, one would have expected concrete action to follow these discus- 
sions. 

There was unrest among the sharecroppers. There was publicity about it. 
And the federal government did make highly commendable and rather 
sizable attempts to improve the conditions by its various Farm Security 
programs." But the organized attempts of the tenants and sharecroppers 
to fight for their needs were rather weak and scattered. And the publicity, 
largely a result of certain incidents during the organizational work,* 2 was 
not extensive enough to reach far outside the ranks of such reformers, 
administrators, social workers, scientists, journalists, and others who more 
or less professionally had to follow the development. The federal govern- 
ment itself called attention to some of the problems involved by publishing 
several outstanding reports, including the Report on Farm Tenancy by the 
President's Committee, Woofter's study on Landlord and Tenant on the 
Cotton Plantation, and the Holley, Winston, and Woofter volume on 
The Plantation South, 1934-1937. But even in these otherwise enlightening 
studies there was little, if any, attention given to the wholesale decline 
in number of tenants." The general public was rather unaware of the deeper 
social significance of such incidents as occasionally made the front page of 
the press. What the federal government did for the Southern tenants, 
therefore, appeared to the average citizen more or less like a goodhearted 
and, perhaps, extravagant benevolence on the part of the New Deal. He 
usually had no idea at all that part of the distress was due to government 
policy. Popular backing for the protest movement was by no means as strong 
as it could have been had the general public been better informed. 

' See Section 12 of this chapter. 

'The explanation is largely that the statistics had not yet furnished any conclusive 
evidence on the significance of the change. One cannot help feeling, though, that the political 
necessity to defend all kinds of farm relief measures against attacks from the nonagrarian 
groups caused a certain unwillingness to admit that the A.A.A. program could have con- 
tributed to the decline in employment opportunities. 



262 An Amxoucan Dilemma 

It should not surprise us that organizational efforts among Southern 
tenants and farmhands were practically absent before the New Deal and 
remained weak even during the latter part of the 'thirties. Even in coun- 
tries where the labor movement and collective bargaining have proceeded 
far in advance of American accomplishments in this field, the organization 
of agricultural labor has always been a hard task. The spatial dispersion of 
production and of the labor force and, still more, certain elements of 
rural culture tend to increase inertia against concerted action. In the South 
these difficulties are enhanced by the low educational level and the poverty 
of the agricultural workers; by their complete lack of cooperative habits ; 
by the tradition of paternalism and dependence inherent in the plantation 
system; by the frequent moving from one locality to another; by the weak 
legal order which, in this field, has taken the form of ruthlessly beating 
down all labor organizations; and by the split between Negroes and whites. 
The last factor is of special importance because in this particular labor 
market there is intense competition between Negroes and whites. The 
whites could not possibly attain anything by organizing unions excluding 
Negroes. Whites and Negroes are exchangeable from the employers' point 
of view, and there exists a pressing labor surplus, particularly of Negro 
labor. 

This is the general background against which the first labor movement 
among Southern farm workers should be viewed. The attempt to unionize 
has been concentrated mainly in the Southwest and in the Western border 
regions of the Cotton Belt, but the movement is spreading eastward. 
Arthur Raper, writing in 1940, summarizes the situation thus: 

At present the only three labor unions of farm tenants which are strong enough 
to be of any consequence have interracial membership. They are: The Farmers' 
Union, with headquarters at New Orleans and with activities limited largely to 
Louisiana; the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of 
America (C.l.O.) with comparatively few members in the cotton area; and the 
Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee. 43 

Most of the states in the Southeast are untouched by these activities. 
Raper explains this limitation in the following way: 

The reasons are varied. In this newest cotton country a considerable proportion 
of the tenants have a background of small ownership or independent labor at sawmills. 
They hare not been so long schooled in the plantation dependency as have the 
landless families in the Southeast, where the present plantation roots back into 
slavery. In the newer plantation region, holdings are larger and absenteo ownership 
prevalent; relationships between management and workers are leas personal, and the 
presence of labor organizers 11 less noticeable. 44 

Another reason for the regional differential is that the legal order is some- 
what stronger in the Southwest. A handbill distributed in 1940 by a group 



Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 263 

called Missouri Agricultural Workers Council, contained a reference to 
a previous demonstration, which read: 

We staged the protest in Missouri, — not because cotton labor is treated more 
unfairly in Missouri than elsewhere. We know that is not true. We staged it in 
Missouri because we had less fear of bloody violence in Missouri. 4 " 

It seems that these organizations grow up largely because of the special 
problems brought about through the A.AA. and the decline in employ- 
ment opportunities. The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, which is still 
the main organization in the field, started around an organized attempt 
of sharecroppers, in the neighborhood of Tyronza, Arkansas, to get their 
share of the A.A.A. payments and to stand up for their rights not to 
be displaced as a consequence of the A.A.A. program. 48 Indirectly, the 
results of these activities have been significant, in that the limited publicity 
around them probably has contributed a great deal to induce the federal 
government to take certain actions. The direct results, on the other hand, 
seem not to have been important, except in individual cases. The S.T.F.U. 
at the beginning of 1942 claimed a membership of 15,000 of which, how- 
ever, only 2,000 were members who paid dues regularly. 47 Besides the 
general handicaps of organizing Southern farm workers, mentioned a few 
pages back, these organizations have been hampered by certain internal 
differences, particularly between the leadership of the S.T.F.U. and the 
U.C.A.P.A.W.A. The fact that whites and Negroes have been organized 
together, has, of course, been a main difficulty, but the pioneers have, on 
the whole, met it with success. It would seem that the most important 
single difficulty in the way of these movements is the lack of a legal tra- 
dition in the plantation South.* 

It is difficult to judge about the future chances of trade unionism in 
the plantation South. On the one hand, the economic pressure is likely to 
continue and might become aggravated. Reasons for unrest and dissatis- 
faction are going to mount in the future as they did during the 'thirties. 
And there are indications of a development toward greater respect for 
law in the South." In the political sphere there are reasons to expect an 
increase in participation and power for the working masses. The South 
is becoming increasingly industrialized, and in its industries unionism is 
pushing ahead. All these trends favor unionization even in the rural South. 
On the other hand, the difficulties to be overcome, particularly in the Old 
Cotton Belt where the Negroes are concentrated, are tremendous. 

* A more complete story of these attempts, interesting and significant though it might be, 
would deal more with such problems of law enforcement, or lack of it, that have to be 
considered elsewhere in our inquiry rather than with questions more immediately related 
to the social and economic conditions of the Negro in agriculture. See Part VI. 

* See Part VI. 

* See Chapters ij and 33. 



264 An American Dilemma 

It is difficult to see how the federal government would be able to cope 
more successfully with the displacement problem and with other problems 
developing as a consequence of economic trends, agricultural policy, and the 
War, without having the farm workers organized and their interests and 
opinions articulated. When after the present War the government is faced 
with the problem of reformulating its agricultural program for the South, 
we should expect that it will find it necessary at least to protect the Southern 
tenants in their legal right to organize strong unions. 

8. The Dilemma of Agricultural Policy 

If the farm workers become organized in the South, whether by their 
own efforts or by government encouragement, and if their organizations are 
able to enter into successful collective bargaining with the planters, any 
success in raising the earnings and living levels for farm labor on Southern 
plantations will accentuate, or rather make explicit in form of unemploy- 
ment, the bask over-population of Southern agriculture. Any policy which 
will improve levels of living, thereby increasing costs to plantation owners, 
will stimulate mechanization and will displace cotton by other crops which 
do not require so much labor. In the long-range view this might be desir- 
able, in terms both of economic rationality and of human welfare. But the 
immediate effect, if vigorous countermeasures to remove the surplus popula- 
tion from the cotton land are not taken, would be accentuated unemploy- 
ment, and the Negroes would be hurt the most. This is the dilemma of 
agricultural policy in the South. 

The dilemma is, of course, much more general. It is at the bottom of all 
agricultural policy in America and elsewhere. The ultimate objective in 
attempting to raise the living levels for farmers and to protect their eco- 
nomic security must be to make agricultural production more efficient — 
be it through the lowering of the credit rates, through the use of more 
mechanical equipment, through improvement of livestock and plants, 
through teaching the farmers how to use better techniques and how to plan 
their operations in a more economical manner. But all this must make the 
tendency toward over-production even more pronounced. It must lower 
the number of acres and workers required for satisfying a given demand. 
Some experts, like the agro-biologist, O. W. Wilcox, even go so far as to 
believe ". . . that if the most productive methods now known were gener- 
ally applied, then it would be possible for 1,600,000 farmers on 40,000,000 
acres to produce as much of our eight principal crops as are now produced 
by six or seven million farmers on about Z40,ooo,ooo." 4S 

This may be an exaggeration. But it seems obvious that the increase in 
production which, within a not-too-distant future, would be technologically 
possible to achieve, is large compared even with the largest conceivable 
needs of the American people. According to certain estimates, if all families 



Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 265 

with a poor diet could be given what the Department of Agriculture 
characterizes as a "moderate-cost good diet," this would, with -present 
techniques, require a crop acreage only about 20 per cent larger than was 
harvested in 1939.*' The attempts to increase the demands of low-income 
families by means of direct distribution of agricultural products, by the 
Food Stamp Plan and by school lunches, are highly commendable from 
the viewpoint of national health. But they cannot remove the over- 
production indefinitely} at best they can merely cushion the effects of it 
temporarily. 

By the same token, the attempts to make farmers go in for a system of 
almost complete self-sufficiency can scarcely do more than mitigate the 
effects of the rural over-population. 50 It is true, theoretically, that if a large 
enough number of farmers went in for self-sufficient agriculture, all over- 
production would be checked. But this would mean permanently dividing 
the farming population into two parts, of which only one would be allowed 
to go in for modern cost-saving specialization and efficient techniques. The 
other part would have to diversify its efforts and use inefficient techniques 
to an extent where they would be working hard and getting little in return, 
including practically nothing in the way of modern conveniences. This plan 
would never provide the hope of approaching what is understood to be 
"the American standard of living." Too, it would require the permanent 
stifling of ambition and an economic dictatorship to separate those retained 
in commercial agriculture from those forced into self-sufficient agriculture. 
Such a solution, if it were applied consistently and on a large scale, would 
not be acceptable to the American people. 

This basic dilemma in agricultural policy is now much greater in the 
South, where over-population is so much more pressing than in the North. 
The burden of over-population, in the form of both unemployment and 
extreme poverty among those retained in agricultural employment, falls 
much more heavily on the Negro population than on the whites. 

9. Economic Evaluation of the A.A.A. 

We are now ready to proceed to an evaluation of the A.A.A. program 
in its relation to cotton cultivation and the Negro farmer. 

From the restricted point of view of production efficiency, the reduction 
of cotton acreage, and the dismissal of tenants consequent to this and to the 
special inducement contained in the benefit payments, is all to the good. 
The Southern plantation has altogether too many workers and tenants j 
cotton cultivation, as it has been carried on in the South, involves an 
exploitation of labor that is not compatible with American standards and 
American economic possibilities. From the same point of view, mechani- 
zation also is desirable. Any rise in farm labor standards, through collective 
bargaining or social legislation, would also, for the same reason, be com- 



266 An American Dilemma 

mendable. In feet, economic progress means that we become able to produce 
our foodstuffs and agricultural raw materials with less of our available 
labor. 

But there is one important consequence of such a policy which must be 
taken into account if it is to be deemed rational: Employment must be 
found for the agricultural labor dismissed as a consequence of trends or of 
■policy. Theoretically, there is plenty of place for labor in American indus- 
try: the masses of people are in need of many more industrial products. 
Houses need to be rebuilt; people need more and better furniture and 
other household gadgets; large sectors of the American population do not 
enjoy health and educational facilities to an optimal degree. An obvious 
complement to an agricultural policy of the A.A.A. type would be, there- 
fore, a large-scale effort to move a fart of the agricultural population to 
industry. It is an equally obvious inference that this effort should be 
concentrated upon the younger generation, in which should be invested a 
vocational training making them fit for industrial work. In regard to Negro 
education in the South, this policy will require a complete reform of the 
educational system and, particularly, a reformulation of the aims of voca- 
tional education.* 

Unfortunately it happened that this agricultural policy had to be carried 
out during an unprecedentedly deep and protracted depression. Unfortu- 
nately, too, the New Deal was a conspicuous failure in its attempt to turn 
the depression into economic prosperity. 11 A general defeatism became wide- 
spread in regard to the continuation of the trend toward more and more 
industrialization. Even among experts there was defeatism. This explains 
both why this rational complement to the policy of agricultural contraction 
was never undertaken in any wholehearted fashion and why it was not 
more generally pointed out to the public by informed persons. In the 
'thirties, apparently, Americans doubted if there would ever be any place 
for more workers in American industry. This was, of course, a delusion. 
The present shortage of labor, and particularly skilled labor, for war 
production throws light on this mistake in American depression policy; 
but any improvement of business conditions would have done it, though 
not so dramatically. 

From the point of view of economic rationality a second main short- 
coming of the American agricultural policy is closely bound up with the 
one mentioned. The tremendous scope of the A.A.A. intervention in regard 
to cotton and other Southern cash crops alone makes it clear from the outset 

» See Chapter 17, Section j. 

* It is the author's considered opinion that this failure was not necessary but was due 
to specific faults in the economic theory and the coordination of practical policies of the 
American expansion program. As a discussion of this point would carry us too far and as 
it is not implied as a premise in our argument, we leave it with this note. 



Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 267 

that it was bound to have important effects, not only on acreage in various 
crops, on labor demand, and on the direction of labor demand, but also 
on the relative economic advantage of different types of landholdings and 
of forms of agricultural enterprises. This is a problem of the size of hold- 
ings; the relation between ownership, management, and labor; and so on. 
In the South and to the Negro, it is primarily a problem of whether or not 
the plantation system shall be protected and conserved. Johnson, Embree, 
and Alexander rightly emphasized that the "organization of the farm 
system is basic to reform in other matters." 51 The pretension of "neutrality" 
in this question is logically untenable when such big measures are taken. 

In the planning stage of the program and in the continuous modification, 
this matter should have been made explicit, a purposeful aim decided upon, 
and adequate means selected toward this aim. This was not done, except for 
some efforts to favor agricultural cooperation and except for a tendency — 
as the defeatism deepened in regard to turning the depression into con- 
tinued industrialization — to favor self-sufficient farming. These and other 
efforts were not clearly conceived of in the framework of the entire eco- 
nomic process and of national economic policy as a whole, and they were 
never attempted on a scale corresponding to the import of the agricultural 
trends and the scope of the A.A.A. interference in these trends. Arthur 
Raper, writing in 1936 and not having available the evidence of the 1940 
Census, nevertheless saw in his field studies the main facts and formulated 
this fundamental criticism: 

The New Deal with its cotton restriction program, its relief expenditures, and its 
loan services, has temporarily revitalized the Black Belt, has rejuvenated the decay- 
ing plantation economy. Those who control the plantations are now experiencing 
relative prosperity. On the other hand the landless farmers, though able for the 
most fart because of the New Deal to fay their rents and settle their accounts, are 
not only failing to escafe their chronic defendence but are actually losing status. 
Many tenants arc being pushed off the land while many others are being pushed down 
the tenure ladder, especially from cropper to wage hand status. 52 

The stipulations against the displacement of labor contained in the law 
may in some measure have been effective in slowing up the process (at the 
same time diminishing the gains of economic efficiency to be reached in this 
way). But they also comforted the policy makers and the general public, 
and contributed toward keeping off their minds the big unsolved task of 
moving labor from over-populated cotton-tenancy districts. 83 

10. Social Evaluation of the A. A. A. 

This brings us to a discussion of certain other social aspects of the A.A.A. 
A primary aim of the program was to bring relief to the rural population 
which had experienced a serious economic set-back. This aim was first 



268 An American Dilemma 

expressed in the price-parity and later in the income-parity formula. From 
this point of view the A.A.A. was parallel to other relief policies during 
the depression. Huge amounts have been spent for this purpose. The total 
appropriations for direct payments to farmers during the period 1 934-1 94.1 
has been estimated to be over $5,300,000,000, or more than three-fourths 
of the total costs for all farm policies (including special appropriations for 
land utilization, soil erosion, rural electrification, farm security, and so on). 8 * 
In view of these high financial sacrifices, one could have expected much 
more positive results for those within the agricultural population who 
were in particularly great need. Yet, for reasons that we have stated, large 
numbers among those most in need of assistance lost rather than gained 
because of the A.A.A. More generally, as we shall now point out, the 
benefits were not distributed in relation to needs. 

The total agricultural cash income for nine Southeastern states, according 
to certain estimates of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, was twice as 
high in 1940 as in 1932. Nevertheless, it was still more than 20 per cent 
below the 1929 level. 66 There is no way of telling how large a share in the 
income gains the Negroes have received. More Negroes than whites have 
been made to leave the land, and those who left, of course, got nothing of 
the increase of farm income or of A.A.A. benefits. In regard to wage 
workers it can be argued that the higher cotton prices and the A.A.A bene- 
fits indirectly allowed higher wages, and that this force on the labor market 
was stronger than any adverse force due to the increase of labor supply on 
account of dismissal of tenants. Independent Negro farmers have probably 
come to share in the benefits rather equally with white farmers of the same 
economic status, even if the set-up of local administration has not given 
them much of a voice. Negro tenants have increasingly received their share. 
The A.A.A. payments in these nine Southeastern states amounted to 
about $170,000,000 in 1940, or 13 per cent of the total cash income of 
agriculture for that year, and more than one-fourth of the cash income gain 
in agriculture since I932. 6a The Negroes' share in this agricultural relief 
was by no means proportionate to their numbers and still less with their 
greater needs. For every tenant and sharecropper had to let his landlord 
get part of the benefit payments for the plot of land he was operating, and 
the wage laborer received no part of it at all. And there are more white 
landlords and fewer white wage laborers. 

But this question at the Negroes' sharing in the A.A.A. benefits is only 
part of a bigger problem: the distribution of the A.A.A. benefits among 
various income groups in agriculture. As we mentioned, the distributional 
objective of the policy was defined in terms of some "parity" for the 
agricultural population as a whole,- compared with other population groups 
and with an eye on conditions prior to the First World War. Specifically, 



Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 269 

the aim in this respect was "reestablishment, at as rapid a rate as the Secre- 
tary of Agriculture determines to be practicable and in the general public 
interest, of the ratio between the purchasing power of the net income per 
person on farms and that of the income per person not on farms that 
prevailed during the five year period August 1909-July I9i4. ,m 

Such an objective is understandable in view of the fact that the relation 
between the farm and the nonfarm per capita income in the United States 
was 39 per cent less satisfactory, from the viewpoint of the agricultural 
population, in 1932 than during the period I9i0-I9I4. D8 Yet this develop- 
ment, serious though it may be, has never been the only agricultural income 
problem. Even before the First World War, there certainly were farm 
families, particularly among the Southern Negroes, who in spite of hard 
work seldom, if ever, managed to make their living conditions approach a 
real health standard. Conversely, even in 1932 many farm families had 
incomes high enough to enjoy more than such a standard would indicate. 
Nevertheless, in the A.A.A. program no reference is 

. . . made to the fact that there are striking differences as to economic conditions 
between different groups of the farm population, or that the need for aid is greate. 
for some groups than for others. The A.A.A. programs are concerned with total 
or average income only. . . . A.A.A. contains important elements of long-time planning 
already. It is, therefore, difficult to see why so little has been done to secure by legal 
provisions certain advantages of the policy for the working classes affiliated with 
commercial agriculture. 69 

One can explain this on several counts. To limit the programs in this 
way was necessary politically in order to organize a united farm bloc. 
Public assistance for the needy was to be kept in a separate compartment of 
federal activities. In the agricultural economics compartment there was to 
be "social neutrality" as far as the income distribution within agriculture 
was concerned. In an "economic" policy there was to be nothing that tasted 
of "relief." 

Logically, however, there is a flaw in the argument. As in the case of 
other relief appropriations, the idea is that the A.A.A. benefits shall be paid 
by the taxpayers of the nation. To give more out of the public budget to 
those who have more is not exactly to maintain a position of "social neutral- 
ity." A sample study for 246 Southern plantations shows that the planter's 
average net cash income per plantation was $2,528 in 1934 and $3,590 in 
1937. Out of these amounts not less than $979 and $833, respectively, 
came from A.A.A. payments. The tenants on the same plantations, on the 
other hand, had a net cash income for these two years of $263 and $300, 
respectively, out of which but $11 and $27 were A.A.A. payments. 60 Thus, 
even in proportion to their higher "basic" income, the planters received 
much more of this assistance than did their plantation tenants. 01 A few 



270 An American Dilemma 

large landlords, in the South and elsewhere, may receive as much as 
$10,000 per year in AAA. payments. 02 

It has been observed by many authors that America has to decide 
whether or not it wants to compete for the cotton world market on a low- 
wage basis with China, India, Africa and South America. If it does not want 
to enter any such low-wage competition, it must face the necessity of 
displacing farm labor on a large scale in the South. Under all conditions 
America has to face not only the existence of income differentials between 
the several classes in Southern agriculture, but the effects of its agricultural 
policy in maintaining or changing these income differentials. Woofter 
observes: 

There is no clear indication that the choice between various objectives has been 
made by those in control of policy. The A.A.A. is looked on as a temporary expedient 
which it is hoped may be gradually relaxed as the underlying economic situation of 
cotton and tobacco improves. 03 

We know now that the economic policy of the A.A.A. only aggravated the 
problem of the inability of Southern agriculture to support its population. 
The agricultural policy of the period between the two World Wars now 
belongs to history. The makeshift policy during the present War is of less 
general interest. When the War is over we shall again, in all countries, 
face the same problems of agricultural policy as we did prior to this War. 
Some of the problems will have been aggravated in the meantime. Some 
may, temporarily at least, look somewhat less pressing. Practically none 
will have been solved. There is, however, a possibility that they can be 
taken up more constructively with an international point of view and look- 
ing toward an international agreement. We need, in any case, to learn 
from experience and to analyze unreservedly the shortcomings of agricul- 
tural policy. The one-third of the American Negro people in Southern 
agriculture, who will still at the end of the War be in the bottom layer of 
the American economic system, has tremendous interests at stake in the new 
agricultural policy of America. It "is necessary for them that agricultural 
policy be planned with recognition of the serious over-population, of the 
necessity of large-scale movement of labor, and of the big income differences 
within the agricultural population. 

it. Constructive Measures 

.-J*2? a f: oun ' ° £ Am encan agricultural policy, even restricted to those 
Aspects of it v/ucA relate to cotton and the Negro, wouJd be JncomoJete if 

Wlicies wkh^l ? \™ mhe \ ° f m ° re ° r less dependent agricultural 

SoTpohdrConT 6 l0ng - ran8e ^ Much kM has ^ n *«* 
.jock ponaes than on the symptom-treating policy of the A.A.A. 



Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 271 

Some of the* other policies have begun only recently. Some— the exten- 
sion work, for instance — are carried on, more intensively than ever, along 
avenues opened up long before the New Deal. Few, if any, of these efforts 
are made primarily for the purpose of removing the basic trouble: thv. 
excess population on the Southern farm land. But there is an emphasis on 
new sources of income — both agricultural and nonagricultural. Certain 
measures, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Rural Electri- 
fication program, may facilitate to an extent the growth of nonagricultural 
rural industries. And even regardless of the over-population, there are, of 
course, plenty of agricultural problems which need constant attention if 
any substantial part of the rural people is to have an economically sound 
future on the Southern farm. 

We cannot give an exhaustive description of other agricultural programs 
now in effect. The array of measures is too wide for even a short summary. 
No one can fail to become duly impressed by the diversification of efforts 
when he tries to get some idea of what is going on, either by studying the 
literature, by running round in the huge buildings of the Department of 
Agriculture in Washington, by contacting those working in the field in a 
rural county, or just by looking at the periodical farm supplement of one 
of the better Southern newspapers. There are soil conservation projects} 
there is farm demonstration and home demonstration work} there are 4-H 
Clubs; rural electrification; substantial reforms in the farm credit system; 
county planning; encouragement of agricultural cooperation; technical 
research and experimentation; and many similar things. And last but not 
least, there is adult education, both as a separate program and as an aspect 
of almost every single part of the entire system of agricultural policies. 

Even if the success cannot well be the same all along the line, it is certain 
that huge gains eventually will be reaped from all these varied activities. 
An outsider may in the beginning have some doubt about what substantial 
reforms can be brought about by cooperative planning work in a Southern 
plantation county, where there is little democracy and social participation, 
and where issues of any deeper social significance are taboo at public 
discussions — not to speak of the fact that Negroes are not allowed to partici- 
pate on an equal footing with whites. Yet exactly in such communities there 
is a particular need for courageous attempts to democratize agricultural 
policies, however futile these attempts may seem to be at the start. The 
very fact that farmers of different social strata get into the habit of coming 
together for organized discussions cannot fail to bring about some increase 
in the mutual insight into the problems of the other man; and some real 
cooperative efforts eventually may come out of it. 

The farm and home demonstration work, which has been gradually 
developed since 1904, is highly significant, and the more so the lower down 
it reaches on the social ladder. The work with tenants, however, is largely 



272 An American Dilemma 

dependent on the good-will of their landlords. The latter have often 
objected to Negro farm and home demonstration agents approaching 
families on their holdings — sometimes even to any direct contact between 
the Extension Service and the tenants. "The Negro tenant farmers and 
croppers might best receive aid on the agricultural side principally through 
the white agents working with the landlords and managers," says the 
Extension Service of the Department of Agriculture, 6 * and this admission 
confirms statements that we have received when interviewing Negro agents 
in the South about actual conditions in many localities. We have also been 
told, on the other hand, that nowadays an increasing number of plantation 
owners do want their tenants to have the benefits of this educational work. 
The cuts in cotton acreage and the decline in income during the depression 
made many landlords see the need of more home-use production on the 
tenants' plots. 

Still, it does not seem as if the particularly urgent need for extension 
work among Negroes has been met to the same extent as has the corre- 
sponding need of the white farm population. Even though white agents 
may give some part of their time to work among the Negro farmers and 
croppers, they cannot be expected, as a rule, to be as intensively interested in 
the welfare of the colored people, as are the Negro agents; nor are they as 
likely to gain the confidence of the Negro farmers. By January 1, 1942, 
there were altogether 558 Negro extension workers in the South, or about 
1.2 per 10,000 Negro persons on the rural farms. 65 The corresponding 
figure for the total rural farm population in the South by mid-1939 was 
more than twice as high or 2.7. 66 

Our previous discussion of the practice of "advancing" credit for neces- 
sities to croppers and tenants has suggested an unsatisfactory organization 
of credit. But planters and other landowners, as well as croppers and 
tenants, have suffered in the same respect. They still have to pay exorbitant 
interest when borrowing money. But a reform of the credit market is under 
way. The financial collapse during the depression, which hit both land- 
owners and financial institutions, finally made the federal government 
intensify its efforts to reform the credit market. 67 

The accomplishments have been particularly noteworthy in the field of 
mortgage credit. Of the total amount of farm mortgage loans held on 
January 1, 1939, not less than 39 per cent were Federal Land Bank or Land 
Bank Commissioner loans; the corresponding proportion for the South was 
even higher (45 per cent). 68 In the much more difficult sphere of produc- 
tion credit, on the other hand, there has been less success. 60 The average 
interest rates for all short-term loans, as a consequence of this development, 
have decreased substantially. Yet it is still very high. The real expense 
even for government loans, in Woofter's sample study of 1937, was no less 
than 11..9 per cent. This is not a satisfactory situation. 70 Conditions may 



Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 273 

have improved since 1937, however, and the gradual development of the 
government credit system will give some advantages even to the Negroes, 
at least in an indirect way. The direct gains, on the other hand, have been 
very slight so far. Sharecroppers and share tenants can seldom use these 
sources of government credit, for the lien laws, in most cases, make them 
unable to present any security. 71 The Negro owners and cash renters, how- 
ever, should have some theoretical chances of getting assistance through 
the government credit agencies. As usual in cases when government credit 
activities are based on "ordinary business principles," there are no data by 
race which would allow us to present any direct evidence. But there is this 
simple fact, that Negro owners and cash tenants have much smaller and 
less valuable farms than have their white colleagues and cannot present as 
much of any kind of security. Therefore, their share in this new govern- 
ment credit must be far smaller than is the proportion of Negroes even 
among the more independent Southern farmers, who are predominantly 
white. 

Indeed, in all probability it is even smaller than can be explained solely 
on the ground of the limited resources of the Negro farmers. For the local 
administration of some of the most significant credit agencies is in the 
hands of credit cooperatives such as the farm loan associations for Federal 
Home Loan Bank loans, and the production credit associations for produc- 
tion credit loans. These associations naturally are dominated by white 
farmers. We have found already* so much evidence on how white farmers 
have misused administrative power given to them under other new eco- 
nomic programs that we cannot believe that this case should constitute an 
exception. It can almost be taken for granted that the temptation to discrim- 
inate against the Negro in many cases has been too strong to resist. 

12. Farm Security Programs 

So far we have examined, briefly, only those farm policies which are 
intended to help agriculture in general. There is, however, a special series 
of programs for the little man in the farm business — the Farm Security 
programs. Having observed that the major part of agricultural subsidies and 
relief has not been administered according to need but has often favored 
the classes in agriculture which are relatively best off, we must add that 
this minor part, represented by the Farm Security Administration, has 
had the function of bringing help to the neediest. 

Hundreds of thousands of Southern farm families have received assist- 
ance under these programs. As we shall presently show, Negroes have 
received a substantial share in the F.S.A. benefits — almost as much, as a 
matter of fact, as would correspond to their population ratio in Southern 

* See also the data on the Negro's share in the benefits under the Farm Security program 
in Section 1 2 of this chapter. 



274 An American Dilemma 

farm areas. Even so, it must be said from the beginning that, however 
well-directed and otherwise commendable these efforts are, they do not 
quite measure up to the size of the problems involved. We have found 
that $5,300,000,000 was appropriated for A.A.A. policies during the period 
I934-I94 1 ** Most of this was A.A.A. benefit payments, a disproportionately 
large share of which went to the big landlords. The outlays for Farm 
Security programs during the same period amounted to about one-fifth of 
this amount ($1,121,000,000), and a considerable part of this sum con- 
sisted of loans on which repayment could be expected. 72 And, as for the 
Negro's share, it must be strongly emphasized that it does not compare 
with his relative needs. It is, as we shall indicate, much more difficult for a 
Negro than for a white farmer in similar circumstances to receive assistance 
in this form. 

The explanation of this is simple. The disadvantaged groups in Southern 
agriculture, and particularly the Negroes, are politically impotent." The 
consequence is not only that the program that has been instituted in their 
behalf is more limited than is other farm aid, but also there is less assur- 
ance about its being continued. At the end of 1941 a congressional com- 
mittee, headed by Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, one of the leading 
Southern politicians, while wanting to maintain the A.A.A. payments, in 
all seriousness proposed that all Farm Security activities be abolished in the 
interest of wartime economy. There are several reports about the Farm 
Bureau, under the chairmanship of an Alabama planter, having pushed 
similar demands. 73 The result was a serious curtailment in the budget of the 
F.S.A. in 19425 otherwise it has so far been saved. But the incident is an 
indication of the usually rather noncooperative, and sometimes outright 
hostile, attitude toward the Farm Security work among those who have 
command of the power in Southern politics — an attitude which those who 
attempt to find out about the situation in the South cannot avoid observing 
time and again. There actually seems to be a notion that since this kind of 
assistance is given to poor people it is "relief" and, consequently, bad, 
whereas the fact that A.A.A. payments are distributed to all farmers, so 
that those in higher income brackets receive a much larger share than others, 
makes them "business" and not "relief." Farm Security benefits are like 
manna coming from heaven and there are those in the South who welcome 
it even outside the beneficiaries themselves. But those who favor the F.S.A. 
do not have political power. 

The differential treatment of the Negro can be explained on similar 
grounds. The local administration is not entirely in the hand of the officials 
of the Farm Security Administration. Clients, to be accepted, usually have 

'The increase in prices brought about by the A.A.A. can be counted as an additional 
subsidy. 

"See Chapter ai. 



Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 275 

to be passed on by committees of local farmers, over which Negroes have 
practically no influence. 74 Under such circumstances, it is surprising that 
Negroes have received a share which almost corresponds to their propor- 
tion in the population. The Farm Security Administration has, from the 
beginning, been fighting courageously and persistently against differential 
treatment} the agency openly refers to it as "discriminatory" in several of 
the surveys which it has made. 

In a just appraisal of the program all such difficulties must be taken into 
account. But there are still others. The laws and the system of law enforce- 
ment give the tenant little protection against the landlord— in fact, they are 
largely used for the purpose of making it easier for the landlord to exploit 
the tenant." This situation must be considered in any evaluation of the 
Farm Security Administration. It is obvious that it would have been more 
efficient under a strong and impartial legal system. Further, to rehabilitate 
tenants or other impoverished farmers, it is not enough merely to give 
them loans, and then to sit back and expect them to pay it all back while 
improving their economic status. It is a major educational job, and the great 
thing is that the F.S.A. has faced it. 

It is a question of teaching farmers, who have known about little but 
specialized cash- and feed-crop production, to diversify their efforts, to grow 
at home much of what they need for their own consumption. Farmers who 
have been nothing but dependent tenants have to become independent 
entrepreneurs. Former croppers, who have been exploited by the planters 
and have known few other ways of improving their status than to induce 
their landlords to give them as high advances as possible — and to move 
away if they fail to get as much as they think they can get some other place 
— have to learn quite a new kind of game. They have to learn that they, 
from now on, have definite rights and definite obligations, and that it 
usually pays to stay at the same place. Detailed farm and household plans 
are made up for them — if they do not know how to do it themselves; and 
it is seen to that they stick to those plans as far as possible. They are 
taught how to keep accounts. Some are illiterate; their children sometimes 
must be made to help them out. Many clients are without any resources 
whatever when they start out. Their meager cash income, while they are 
on the program, may dwindle to almost nothing because of unemploy- 
ment, occasional crop failure or other circumstances. For such reasons they 
need not only loans, but also straight subsidies. Clients who retain their 
status as tenants have to fulfill their obligations to the landlords as well as 
to the Farm Security Administration; in such cases, there is often a rather 
complicated three-cornered problem where much depends on the coopera- 
tion of all parties concerned. Many clients have difficulties because they are 
sick; a cooperative health program is organized for them. 76 

* See Chapter 1 1 and Part VI. 



276 ' An American Dilemma 

Many critics of the program have railed to recognize all of these dif- 
ficulties. Their criticism should not be directed so much against the Farm 
Security Administration as against the traditional social and economic 
patterns in Southern agriculture — against the fact that the small entre- 
preneur has had so little encouragement, and that the typical tenant has 
not been accustomed to much independent action and independent plan- 
ning. This is not to say that no mistakes have been committed. There is no 
doubt that, particularly during the earlier stages of the development when 
there had to be much improvisation and experimentation, several projects 
were unnecessarily expensive. Too, there seems to have been some uncer- 
tainty about the objectives. The existence of a considerable rural over- 
population, the apparent over-production, and the growing belief that 
industrial stagnation could never be broken, brought about a wide-spread 
feeling that the only solution would be to let the excess population on the 
rural farms establish themselves on a basis of almost complete self-suf- 
ficiency. The feeling that small owners have difficulties in surviving without 
an elaborate system of agricultural cooperation was behind the organiza- 
tion of resettlements, where clients were given the chance of becoming 
owners while engaged in certain cooperative activities. Certain doubts as to 
whether ownership is really the best form of tenure for the small farmer 
explain the organization of settlements of rental cooperatives which are 
particularly favored by the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union. 76 These 
settlements of various kinds, however, since they are expensive to organize 
and since many of them have both Negro and white clients working 
together on the same footing, have caused much resentment in the South. 
Therefore, this particular part of the program, except for the rental coopera- 
tives, is not being pushed any more. 

Already before 1935, during the period of the Federal Emergency Relief 
Administration (F.E.R.A.), it occurred to some interested persons that it 
would be far better to help needy rural families, who were competent and 
willing to work, to grow their own food and earn a little cash income on 
farms, rather than to give them -cash doles. A program to this end was 
inaugurated in 1934." The activity was soon taken over by the Resettle- 
ment Administration and, later, together with certain related programs 
started by other agencies, by the Farm Security Administration, which was 
instituted in 1937. 

The so-called rehabilitation program, which includes assistance of various 
kinds on an individual basis, takes up the major part of the work and the 
appropriations of the F.S.A. The total amount of loans made under this 
program until the middle of 1941 was $574,000,000} the grants amounted 
to $132,000,000. The South, although containing more than half of the 
rural farm population — and an even greater part of those in need of this 
assistance — has received less than half (43 per cent) of the loans and 



Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture 277 

grants. 78 By December, 1939, there were in the South 1 54,000 white and 
45,000 Negro "standard rehabilitation borrowers." Thus, while more than 
one-fourth of the Southern rural farm population is Negro, the number of 
Negroes on the program constituted a somewhat smaller proportion (23 
per cent) of the total number of clients. Compared with the total estimated 
number of white and colored farm families which either were on relief or 
had an income of less than $500, the participation in the program amounted 
to 22 per cent of the whites and 1 1 per cent of the Negroes. This suggests 
that a low-income white family has had about twice the chance of a Negro 
family in the same circumstances of being accepted on the program. Too, 
the average amount of loan advances was somewhat higher for white 
($659) than for colored ($606) clients.™ 

It is true that not all of these discrepancies are due to "direct discrimina- 
tion." The selection of clients and the size of the loans do not depend on 
need alone. Even in the Farm Security work great attention is given to the 
credit rating of the individual client, and since Negroes start out with much 
smaller average resources than do whites, they are more likely to be 
excluded from the program and less likely to receive large loans. 80 Such 
an application of "business principles" in relief work, however, can well be 
called "indirect discrimination," for it must have been obvious from the 
beginning that it would limit the opportunity to give the Negro a share 
of the benefits which would correspond to his relative needs. Moreover, 
there is definite evidence that Negro clients have been selected in a much 
more cautious manner than have white clients. Although their gross cash 
income during 1939 was 40 per cent lower than that of white clients in the 
South, their repayment record was a slightly better one. The absolute 
amount repaid on the loans actually was almost the same in both cases 
(about $250). The net income of the Negro clients was rather low — less 
than $100 in cash and about $240 in home-use production — whereas the 
corresponding figures for white clients were about $200 and $275, respec- 
tively. Both groups of clients bettered their conditions to a considerable 
extent during the time they were on the program — Negroes relatively more 
than whites. 81 

The other F.S.A. programs are rather insignificant, as far as Negroes are 
concerned. By mid- 1940 there were less than 2,000 Negro families on vari- 
ous types of F.S.A. settlements and rental cooperatives. They constituted 
roughly one-fourth of all such families in the South. About 1,900 Negro 
families were on the so-called tenant-purchase program; there were four 
times as many white families in the South on the same program. 83 Thus, 
there was about the same amount of discrimination in these cases as in the 
rehabilitation work. In the last year (1 941-1942), however, the F.S.A. 
has provided camps for migrant agricultural workers in various parts of 
the North, and Negroes get a considerable share of these facilities. 



278 An American Dilemma 

Nobody who has had any contact with those doing field work for the 
Farm Security Administration can escape becoming impressed by these 
attempts to rehabilitate farm families by making up plans for almost every 
aspect of the farm-and-household economy and by "helping the clients to 
help themselves." Attempts are made to introduce written contracts of more 
than one year's duration for the clients who are tenants — the so-called flexi- 
ble farm lease. Most tenants on the rehabilitation program have such leases 
with their landlords. 83 States are urged to adopt legislation for this pur- 
pose — so far, however, without any success as far as the South is con- 
cerned. 84 The Farm Security work, after this period of rather diversified 
experimentation, has provided the kind of practical administrative experi- 
ence which would be needed for a major reform of land and tenure condi- 
tions. But it is not likely that there will be enough popular backing for such 
a system in the South — until the Southern farm population has been hit by 
at least one more major economic crisis. The coming post-war crisis might 
furnish this needed impetus. 



CHAPTER 13 

SEEKING JOBS OUTSIDE AGRICULTURE 

^rtMwmiiiimHiwiliiwuMiiiiiiiiii lii»iinwiiiiHiinniiiiinHiiiMmimiHiiiliiiiiiiiliiwiiwimiwiiHNi 

i. Perspective on the Urbanization of the Negro People 

Only a part of the present farm population in the South has any future 
on the land. This is particularly true of the Negro farm population, as has 
been amply demonstrated in the preceding chapter. It is necessary to remind 
the reader of this important fact. For outside a limited group of experts, 
few white people realize that, already, almost two-thirds of the Negroes 
live in nonfarm areas, and that eventually all Negroes, except for a small 
minority, will have to become integrated into the nonagricultural economy 
of America. Even the experts, including Negro college teachers in agricul- 
ture, seem to have an exaggerated belief in the Negro's possibilities in 
Southern agriculture. More generally, there is a widespread attitude in 
the cities that the Negro ought to stay where he belongs — on the Southern 
farm land. The nonfarm parts of the country simply do not want to accept 
the responsibility for Negroes who previously have made their living in 
agriculture. This protectionist attitude is not typical of Americans only. 
Nor is it confined to the Negro problem alone. In America, as well as in 
many other countries, there are strong tendencies to build walls around 
one's own community in order to keep out all sorts of low income people 
who would press down wage levels, add to the housing shortage and pos- 
sibly become liabilities in public relief. The recent tendency to make 
residence requirements for relief more severe is only one of the devices 
used in this policy of social protectionism. 

There is no doubt, however, that this attitude is especially pronounced in 
regard to rural Negroes from the South. Because of the decadence of agri- 
culture and the constitutional impossibility of raising barriers against inter- 
nal migration, this attitude will not be able to stop the gradual urbanization 
of the Negro people. As we saw in Chapter 8, this has been going on all the 
time, and since the First World War the Negro farm population has 
actually been declining because of migration. But the popular attitude that 
the Negroes had better stay where they are has given, and will probably 
continue to give, a basis for segregation and discrimination both in housing 
and in employment. It even tends to perpetuate the ignorance about Negroes 
by making everyone want to look the other way. The belief that the agri- 

*79 



280 An American Dilemma 

cultural South can still accept the main responsibility for the Negroes is a 
most important ingredient in the "pass-the-buck" mentality which we 
touched upon in Chapter 2. 

In this chapter we shall sketch in broadest outlines the history of the 
Negro breadwinner outside agriculture and attempt to ascertain where, in 
more recent times, he has entered industry or has remained unemployed. 
The sketch is largely based on the facts presented in Appendix 6. The. 
reader who has a special interest in these things will find all the material 
of this chapter set forth in greater detail in Appendix 6." In Chapter 17 
we shall discuss in more general terms the several adverse factors which a 
Negro encounters when he tries to gain entrance into industry. 

2. In the South 

Slavery, and the concomitant suppression of free Negroes, gave to 
Southern Negroes a degree of monopoly on labor for a few years after the 
Civil War. This was the situation not only on the rural plantations but — 
excepting areas where Negroes constituted but a minority of the popula- 
tion — in most other types of unskilled work as well. Unskilled work was 
tainted with inferiority. Negroes were the domestics and the laborers. 
Negroes were also, to a large extent, the craftsmen and the mechanics. 
They were carpenters, bricklayers, painters, blacksmiths, harness makers, 
tailors and shoemakers. For even skilled labor was degraded, and whites 
had often been denied the opportunity of acquiring training since so many 
masters had preferred to work with slaves. The high price paid for skilled 
slaves had encouraged their training in the crafts. 1 Thomas Nelson Page 
says: 

In 1865, when the Negro was set free, he held without a rival the entire field 

of industrial labor throughout the South. Ninety-five per cent of all the industrial 

* Appendix 6 is based mainly on a research memorandum, "Negro Labor and Its Problems," 
prepared for this study (1940) by Paul H. Norgrcn. Collaborating with Dr. Norgren were 
Lloyd H. Bailer, James Healy, Herbert R, Northrup, Gladys L. Palmer, and Arnold M. 
Rose. 

No references will be given when statements in the text are based on Appendix 6. 

The literature on the Negro wage earner, although it contains much material that we have 
not used in this brief summary, is characterized by a certain lack of balance. While great 
attention has been given to many small industries, particularly when, during recent decades, 
they have given an increased share of the jobs to Negroes (e.g., the meat-packing and 
slaughtering industry), other occupations where a much larger number of Negro workers 
are employed seem to have been largely overlooked. This is true, for instance, about truck, 
transfer, and cab companies which had 41,000 Negro workers in 1930. It is true also of 
the menial occupations in wholesale and retail establishments (laborers, porters, and helpers 
in stores, janitors, chauffeurs, truck drivers, delivery men, elevator tenders, charwomen, 
and so on) which, in 1930, included over 110,000 Negro w< rkers. (IT. S. Bureau of the 
Census, Negroes in t/ie United States: 1910-1933, pp. 354-357.) Perhaps even more 
significant would be an intensive study of Negro exclusion in those lines of work where 
few, if"any, Negroes are employed. 



Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 281 

work of the Southern States was in his hand. And he was fully competent to do it. 
Every adult was either a skilled laborer or a trained mechanic. 3 

This is a considerable exaggeration. There was, outside agriculture, a 
fairly large white laboring class, too. And the great majority of Negroes, 
even in the cities, were domestics and unskilled laborers. But, skilled or 
unskilled, their protection was that their work was characterized as "Negro 
jobs" and was usually badly paid. 

Right from the beginning the Negroes' position in the Southern non- 
agricultural labor market has been influenced by two forces or trends of 
change working in opposite directions. One force is the general expansion 
of the Southern nonagricultural economy. This tends constantly to increase 
the employment opportunities for Negroes as well as for whites. The other 
force is the competition from white job-seekers. This tends to exclude 
Negroes from employment and to press them downward in the occupational 
hierarchy. Regarding the second trend, it should be observed that there 
had been plenty of racial competition before the Civil War. White artisans 
had often vociferously protested against the use of Negroes for skilled 
work in the crafts. But as long as the politically most powerful group of 
whites had a vested interest in Negro mechanics, the protesting was of little 
avail. Even many of the free Negroes had their white protectors. After 
Emancipation the Negro artisan was on his own. His former master did 
not have the same interest in protecting him against white competitors. 
White men usually had little economic interest in having the young Negro 
trained for skilled work. 

In some cases there were still personal ties between the former slave 
owners and their ex-slaves. The Black Codes and the dependent status 
of the Negro still made him amenable to exploitation. But all this could 
only cushion the effects of Emancipation. It was unthinkable that the white 
class of ex-masters would protect the Negroes against their white com- 
petitors in the same manner as they had done earlier. Many of them were 
impoverished because of the War. Their places were taken by other whites 
who had not been brought up in the tradition of "caring for their Negroes." 
Many of them actually shared the competitive viewpoints of the white 
working class. This was true for the most part of those contractors, for 
instance, who rose from the class of white building workers. Generally, the 
Civil War, the Emancipation, the Reconstruction, and the Restoration were 
all characterized by a trend toward a consolidation of white interests. And 
the poorer classes of whites got more of a say, at least as far as the "place" 
of the Negro was concerned. 

The result of this pressure is well known and often discussed by both 
whites and Negroes in the South. Examples of how Negroes have been 
driven out from one kind of a job after another are constantly being 
pointed out. There seems to be a definite pattern in this process. It starts 



280 An American Dilemma 

cultviral South can still accept the main responsibility for the Negroes is a 
most important ingredient in the "pass-the-buck" mentality which we 
touched upon in Chapter 2. 

In this chapter we shall sketch in broadest outlines the history of the 
Negro breadwinner outside agriculture and attempt to ascertain where, in 
more recent times, he has entered industry or has remained unemployed. 
The sketch is largely based on the facts presented in Appendix 6. The, 
reader who has a special interest in these things will find all the material 
of this chapter set forth in greater detail in Appendix 6." In Chapter 17 
we shall discuss in more general terms the several adverse factors which a 
Negro encounters when he tries to gain entrance into industry. 

2. In the South 

Slavery, and the concomitant suppression of free Negroes, gave to 
Southern Negroes a degree of monopoly on labor for a few years after the 
Civil War. This was the situation not only on the rural plantations but — 
excepting areas where Negroes constituted but a minority of the popula- 
tion — in most other types of unskilled work as well. Unskilled work was 
tainted with inferiority. Negroes were the domestics and the laborers. 
Negroes were also, to a large extent, the craftsmen and the mechanics. 
They were carpenters, bricklayers, painters, blacksmiths, harness makers, 
tailors and shoemakers. For even skilled labor was degraded, and whites 
had often been denied the opportunity of acquiring training since so many 
masters had preferred to work with slaves. The high price paid for skilled 
slaves had encouraged their training in the crafts. 1 Thomas Nelson Page 
says: 

In 1865, when the Negro was set free, he held without a rival the entire field 

of industrial labor throughout the South. Ninety-five per cent of all the industrial 

* Appendix 6 is based mainly on a research memorandum, "Negro Labor and Its Problems," 
prepared for this study (1940) by Paul H. Norgren. Collaborating with Dr. Norgren were 
Lloyd H. Sailer, James Healy, Herbert R, Northrup, Gladys L. Palmer, and Arnold M. 
Rose. 

No references will be given when statements in the text are based on Appendix 6. 

The literature on the Negro wage earner, although it contains much material that we have 
not used in this brief summary, is characterized by a certain lack of balance. While great 
attention has been given to many small industries, particularly when, during recent decades, 
they have given an increased share of the jobs to Negroes (e.g., the meat-packing and 
slaughtering industry), other occupations where a much larger number of Negro workers 
are employed seem to have been largely overlooked. This is true, for instance, about truck, 
transfer, and cab companies which had 41,000 Negro workers in 1930. It is true also of 
the menial occupations in wholesale and retail establishments (laborers, porters, and helpers 
in stores, janitors, chauffeurs, truck drivers, delivery men, elevator tenders, charwomen, 
and so on) which, in 1930, included over 110,000 Negro wi rkers. (I!. S. Bureau of the 
Census, Negroes in the United States: 1910-1932, pp. 354-357.) Perhaps even more 
significant would be an intensive study of Negro exclusion in those lines of work where 
few, if* any, Negroes are employed. 



Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 281 

work of the Southern States was in his hand. And he was fully competent to do it. 
Every adult was either a skilled laborer or a trained mechanic. 2 

This is a considerable exaggeration. There was, outside agriculture, a 
fairly large white laboring class, too. And the great majority of Negroes, 
even in the cities, were domestics and unskilled laborers. But, skilled or 
unskilled, their protection was that their work was characterized as "Negro 
jobs" and was usually badly paid. 

Right from the beginning the Negroes' position in the Southern non- 
agricultural labor market has been influenced by two forces or trends of 
change working in opposite directions. One force is the general expansion 
of the Southern nonagricultural economy. This tends constantly to increase 
the employment opportunities for Negroes as well as for whites. The other 
force is the competition from white job-seekers. This tends to exclude 
Negroes from employment and to press them downward in the occupational 
hierarchy. Regarding the second trend, it should be observed that there 
had been plenty of racial competition before the Civil War. White artisans 
had often vociferously protested against the use of Negroes for skilled 
work in the crafts. But as long as the politically most powerful group of 
whites had a vested interest in Negro mechanics, the protesting was of little 
avail. Even many of the free Negroes had their white protectors. After 
Emancipation the Negro artisan was on his own. His former master did 
not have the same interest in protecting him against white competitors. 
White men usually had little economic interest in having the young Negro 
trained for skilled work. 

In some cases there were still personal tics between the former slave 
owners and their ex-slaves. The Black Codes and the dependent status 
of the Negro still made him amenable to exploitation. But all this could 
only cushion the effects of Emancipation. It was unthinkable that the white 
class of ex-masters would protect the Negroes against their white com- 
petitors in the same manner as they had done earlier. Many of them were 
impoverished because of the War. Their places were taken by other whites 
who had not been brought up in the tradition of "caring for their Negroes." 
Many of them actually shared the competitive viewpoints of the white 
working class. This was true for the most part of those contractors, for 
instance, who rose from the class of white building workers. Generally, the 
Civil War, the Emancipation, the Reconstruction, and the Restoration were 
all characterized by a trend toward a consolidation of white interests. And 
the poorer classes of whites got more of a say, at least as far as the "place" 
of the Negro was concerned. 

The result of this pressure is well known and often discussed by both 
whites and Negroes in the South. Examples of how Negroes have been 
driven out from one kind of a job after another are constantly being 
pointed out. There seems to be a definite pattern in this process. It starts 



284 An American Dilemma 

As a laborer, the Negro is not so satisfactory as formerly. The old-time Negro, 
trained in slavery to work, has about passed away and his successor is far less 
efficient and faithful to duty. Lately, large numbers of Negro laborers have shown a 
tendency to leave the farms for work on railroads, in sawmills, and in the cities, 
large numbers migrating to the cities of the North. They like to work in crowds 
and this often results in making more work for the police. 7 

In a relative sense there was an element of truth in those statements, at 
least in so far as fewer and fewer young Negroes could keep up skills when 
they were not allowed to compete under the better working conditions 
and the improved techniques, and when they had difficulty in getting train- 
ing. This was what Booker T. Washington saw when he started out with 
his endeavor to give Negroes vocational training for crafts and trades.' 

All these things are, as we said, much in the foreground of public discus- 
sion in the South. We must ask: How have the rising numbers of urban 
Negroes earned their living when they have had all these factors working 
against them? The explanation is the contrary force or trend, which we 
mentioned earlier: that there has been a great expansion going on in non- 
agricultural industries in the South during most of the time since the Civil 
War. The urbanization of the South has meant, for one thing, that there is 
a growing number of upper and middle class white families in the cities 
who can employ domestic servants. This is especially important since it is 
traditional in the South that every family which can afford it, even down to 
the lower middle class, should have domestic help. The growing industries, 
furthermore, created a considerable number of laboring jobs for Negroes, 
even when they were excluded from the machines. And they did get into 
some industries. 

The employment losses to the Negroes, therefore, have often been 
more relative than absolute. Even if the Negroes were pressed down in 
relative status in the occupational hierarchy, and even if they did not get 
their full share in the number of new jobs so that the proportion of Negroes 
declined, the absolute number of Negroes for the most part increased, 
except in stagnating crafts and industries. At least during parts of the 
period up to the First World War the absolute gains in job opportunities for 
Negroes in the South, in spite of the relative losses, were considerable. Since 
then, however, even those absolute gains have declined drastically. 

3. A Closer View 

From 1890 to 19 10, the total number of white male workers in non- 
agricultural industries in the South more than doubled. The number of 
Negro male workers in nonagricultural pursuits increased by two-thirds, 
or by more than 400,000 (Table i). b The latter increase was due mainly 

"See Chapter 41. ' 

* There are no occupational census data by race prior to 1 (90. 



Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 285 

to expansion in certain typical "Negro job" industries, such as saw and 
planing mills, coal mining, and maintenance-of-way work on railroads. 8 
From 1910 to 1930, on the other hand, the number of Negro males 
engaged in nonagricultural pursuits in the South increased by less than 
one-third and, in absolute numbers, by less than 300,000. This slowing up 
of the increase of the Negro nonagricultural labor force in the South 
occurred in spite of the general expansion of industry — which was about as 
large as during the previous two decades — and in spite of the fact that the 

TABLE 1 

Number of All Male Worker.* and of Neqro Male Workers in 
Nonagricultural Pursuits, by Section: 1890-1930* 



Number of All Male 
Section Workers (in thousands) 



Number of Negro Male 
Workers (in thousands) 



Negro Workers as 
Percentage of 
All Workers 





1890 


1910 


«93° 


1890 


1910 


1930 


1890 


1910 


»930 


United States 


II.OS3 


19,508 


28,516 


824 


M96 


2,170 


7-5 


7.2 


7.6 


The North 
and West 


9,028 


15,595 


22,179 


I90 b 


350 


831 


2.1 


2.2 


3.8 


The South 


2,025 


3>9>3 


6,337 


634 


1,046 


J. 339 


3". 3 


26.7 


21.1 



Sources: Eleventh Census of the United States: iSgn, Population, Vol. a. Tables 78, 79. 8a and 116; Thirteenth 
Census of the United States: tgxo. Population. Vol. 4, Tables a, s, 6 and 7 ; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical 
Abstract of the United States: 1938, Tables si, 53 and 53; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United 
States: 1020-1032, pp. 303-309. 

• Turpentine farm workers have been consistently included among workers in nonagricultural pursuits, in 
accordance with the procedure adopted in the 1930 Census. In the 1890 Census, however, they were nut 
separated in a special group, but were included in the category "other agricultural pursuits" (Table 70). For 
Southern states, this group contained mainly turpentine workers, but for the Northern states certain other 
occupations predominated. Therefore, the workers included under this heading were considered as nouagricul* 
tural for the Southern states, and as agricultural for other areas. 

b This figure includes a few nonwhite workers other than Negro. 

previous growth in the Negro farm population had been superseded by a 
decline. Also during the 'thirties, as we shall show presently, the Negro 
lost in relative position. This was the more serious because industrial expan- 
sion in the South was now much slower, because there were great losses in 
agricultural employment, and because there were no new openings in the 
North. 

It was of major importance that Negroes were partially excluded as 
ordinary production workers in the textile industry since it developed into 
the South's leading industry. The unimportant textile manufacturing which 
had existed in the South before the Civil War had been based largely on 
Negro labor, partly slave labor. But the new textile industry broke with this 
tradition. It arose as a civic welfare movement to create work for poor 
white people. The Negroes were not needed, as the labor supply of poor 
whites from the agricultural areas and from the mountains was plentiful. 



286 An American Dilemma 

If those white workers were paid low wages and held in great dependence, 
they could at least be offered the consolation of being protected from Negro 
competition. Another factor strengthening the exclusion of Negroes from 
the textile industry was the employment of white women. 

The tobacco industry in Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky, up to 
the Civil War, had had but a small minority of white workers. After the 
War, however, there were two important innovations which precipitated an 
increase in the proportion of white labor. One was the taking up of a new 
line of manufacturing: that of cigarettes. The other change was the intro- 
duction of machinery. Both these changes gave an excuse for breaking the 
traditional Negro labor monopoly. Much of the work became neat and 
clean, requiring little physical strength, and was adapted to the employment 
of white women. Negroes were retained, however, as stemmers and in other 
laboring jobs. The ratio of Negro to white workers around the turn of the 
century became stabilized at a two-to-one level in these three tobacco-pro- 
ducing states. This ratio seems to have been kept almost constant until 
about 1930, allowing Negroes to share in the general expansion." 

In the skilled building trades, the development had proceeded so far 
by 1890 that white workers were in the majority although they were not 
yet represented by any strong unions in the South. The development has 
continued ever since and the appearance of trade unions in the South helped 
to give the white building workers even greater power in keeping the 
Negro out. They have been particularly successful in the new building trades 
where Negroes had no traditional position. The fact that the proportion of 
Negroes in these trades already by 1890 had been reduced to 25 per cent 
or less in the Upper and Lower South made it comparatively easy for the 
organized white workers to disregard the interests of the Negro workers. 

In the trowel trades (bricklayers, masons, plasterers, and cement fin- 
ishers), on the other hand, the situation is somewhat different. Negroes had 
managed to retain a large proportion of the jobs when unionization began 
in the South, and it is probable that it was this circumstance which forced 
the organizations in these trades to take a more friendly attitude toward 
Negroes. Discrimination may occur locally, but the national leadership 
occasionally takes action against such practices. The proportion of Negroes 
in these trades — roughly one-half in the Upper and Lower South — has 
remained relatively unchanged during the whole period between 1900 and 
1930. The situation is similar in unskilled building work. Negroes and 

"This and the subsequent discussion concerning occupational trends from 1890 to 1930 
is based on the following sources: Eleventh Census of the United States: 1890. Population, 
Vol. a, Table u6j Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Population, Vol. 4, 
Tables i, 6 and 7 s Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. Ill, Part 1, 
p. 23, and State Table 1 o, Parti 1 and a j Vol. IV, State Table 1 1. See, also, various sources 
cited in Appendix 6. 



Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 287 

whites are usually organized in the same locals even in the South, and race 
relations in these unions are often comparatively amicable. Nevertheless, 
there has been a decline in the proportion of Negro, workers in Southern 
states. But Negroes are probably still in the majority in the Upper and 
Lower South. Taking the building industry in the entire country as a whole, 
there was a decrease even in the absolute number of Negro workers between 
1910 and 1930, in spite of the fact that the total man-power remained 
unchanged, and although the migration of Negroes to the North broadened 
the market for their services. 8 

Comparing 19 10 and 1930, one finds that, except for a temporary boom 
during the First World War, the expansion had ceased in some of the most 
significant "Negro job" industries, such as saw and planing mills, turpen- 
tine farms and maintenance-of-way work on railroads. This was one of the 
main reasons why the general expansion in job opportunities for Southern 
Negroes was less pronounced during this period than during the previous 
two decades. In the railroad services the number of Negro engineers, which 
had never been large, was reduced to virtually nothing. There was, as we 
mentioned, a decline also in the number of Negro firemen and brakcmen. 
The railroad brotherhoods, most of which exclude Negroes more con- 
sistently than almost any other American trade union, eventually became 
sufficiently powerful to keep the Negroes out of any job which was — or 
which, through technical development, became — attractive enough to be 
desirable to the white man. 

Again Negroes failed to get into most of the new and expanding 
industries in the South. Only one per cent of the workers employed at 
Southern oil and gas wells in 1930 were Negroes. Only as wood cutters 
and in certain other laboring capacities did Negroes get into the paper and 
pulp industry. Gas and electric companies have never used Negroes to any 
appreciable degree. Negroes do not operate streetcars and buses. Tele- 
graph and telephone companies exclude them almost altogether. Furniture 
factories depend in the main on white labor. The vast expansion in whole- 
sale and retail trade, banking, insurance, and brokerage benefited the 
Negroes only in so far as they could be used as delivery men, porters, 
janitors, charwomen and so on. The policy of excluding them from 
production jobs in the textile factories continued. 

There were not many lines of work in which Negroes made any appreci- 
able gains during this period. Coal mines and steel mills continued to expand 
in the South, and the Negroes had employment gains from their expan- 
sion. The same was true of longshore work where Negroes traditionally 
had such a dominant position in the South that the trade unions never could 
exclude them to any significant degree, even though there was some local 
discrimination. Fertilizer factories, which constitute one of the most typical 
"Negro job" industries, showed a particularly rapid expansion between 



288 An American Dilemma 

i 9 io and 1930, but this industry is too small and too seasonal to provide 
much steady employment. There were some cases where Negroes shared in 
the expansion brought about by motorization: The number of Negro 
teamsters, truck drivers and chauffeurs increased. So did the number of 
Negro maintenance and construction workers on streets, highways, sewers 
and so on. Yet the white labor force in those occupations increased even 

TABLE 2 

Changes in Population and in Male Labor Force in 
Selected Northern and Southern Cities: 1930-1940* 





Percentage of Negroes in 


Percentage Increase or Decrease (-) 
1930-1940 


Group of Cities 


Total 
Population 


Male Labor 
Force 
14 years and Over Negroes 


Whites 




1930 1940 


1 930 1 940 


Total Male 
Popu- Labor 
lation Force 


Total 
Popu- 
lation 


Male 
Labor 
Force 


11 Northern Cities 
15 Southern Cities 


7.2 8.6 
25.7 26.9 


7-6 7-8 
27-7 25.4 


22.8 1.9 
20.7 12.1 


1.6 


-0.1 
13.3 



Source: Sixteenth Census of the United Stales: 1040. Papulation, Second Serifs, State Table 4.1. 

* The labor force figures for 1930 refer to the number of gainful workers. The concept of gainful worker 
in the 1930 Census was approximately the same as that of labor force in the 1940 Census; both include unem- 
ployed workers. The cities included in the table are: 

In the North: New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Chicago, 
Detroit, St. Louis and Kansas City (Missouri), 

In the South: Louisville, Baltimore. Washington, D.C., Richmond. Norfolk. .Atlanta, Jacksonville, Miami 
Memphis, Chattanooga, Nashville, Birmingham, New Orleans, Houston and Dallas. 

more. Soon the white workers were in the majority in these traditional 
Negro jobs. Rather limited, also, were the employment gains Negroes 
derived from the appearance of filling and greasing stations, garages, auto- 
mobile agencies and automobile factories in the South. In 1930 only about 
one-tenth of all workers at such establishments were Negroes. 

4. Southern Trends During the 'Thirties 

So far we have discussed, mainly, the development in the South up to 
about 1930. The depression during the 'thirties hit the industrial economy 
in the South much less severely than in the North, the reason being that 
the South had fewer heavy industries and that the secular trend of 
industrialization moves more definitely upward in the South than in the 
rest of the nation. The number of wage earners employed in manufactur- 
ing industries was 1.6 per cent higher in the South in 1939 than in 1929, 
whereas, the nation as a whole showed a decrease of 10.6 per cent. 10 Even 



Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 289 

so the industrial depression was a serious matter in the South, particularly 
for Negroes." 

Since Negroes, during the 'thirties, were driven out of agriculture at a 
more rapid rate than were the white farm workers in the South,* there 
is nothing surprising in the fact that the large and middle-sized cities in the 
South showed a greater increase of the Negro than of the white popula- 
tion (Table 2). Negro farm workers, who had been forced out of employ- 
ment in rural areas, sooner or later had to go to the cities, which offered 
varied, even if scarce, employment opportunities. A large labor market 
always seems to offer a chance; in a plantation area where farm workers 
are dismissed there is no hope left. Also there were more liberal relief 
standards in the cities than in rural areas. 

The more rapid increase of the Negro than the white urban popula- 
tion in the South during the 'thirties meant that an earlier trend had been 
broken. During previous decades, when migratory outlets for Negroes in the 
North had been more ample, there had been a definite decline in the 
proportion of Negroes in the urban South. 11 In spite of this changing popu- 
lation trend, however, Negroes continued to lose in importance as an ele- 
ment in Southern urban labor. While the white male "labor force" — 
including unemployed as well as employed workers — increased at about the 
same rate as the white population, the Negro labor force did not expand 
even as much as the number of employed white workers. Thus, although 
the proportion of Negroes in the population showed an increase in the 
urban South, there was a decline in the percentage of Negro workers 
in the total male labor force. Undoubtedly the proportion of unemployed 
among Negro workers in the South increased more than that among white 
workers during the Great Depression, even if there are no reliable statistics 
available to prove it. 12 

The general increase in unemployment during the 'thirties made white 
workers try even more to "drive the Negroes out." That this is one of the 
main factors behind the continued decline in the proportion of Negro 
workers in nonagricultural pursuits seems even more probable when we 
study the data for specific industries in Tabic 3. To be sure, we have to be 
cautious in interpreting these figures, for certain technical improvements 
introduced in the 1940 Census make it difficult to trace the development 
during the previous decade. Yet we can scarcely be mistaken in the observa- 
tion that the relative position of the Negro in Southern industry has 
deteriorated further during the 'thirties. 

The textile industry continued to grow tremendously, 13 but only 26,000 
out of its 635,000 Southern workers in 1940 were Negroes. Food manu- 

* See the unemployment rates by race presented in Table 6 of this chapter. 
"See Chapter 11. 

* See the footnote* to Table 3. 



a*?© 



An American Dilemma 

TABLE 3 



Number amd Proportion or Nonwhite Workers in Selected Industries, 1940; 

AND NeOROKS At A PERCENTAGE Or THE GAINFUL WORKERS, I93O— W THE SoVTH 



Industry 



Nonwhite Employed 
Workers in 1940 



Number 



Percentage 
of All Races» 



Percentage of 

Negroes Among 

GainfulWorkers 

in I930 b 



8. 

9- 

to. 



1,026 

108,68$ 

37,39° 


0.9 
17.8 
15.8 


1. a 

22.2 
I9.I 


96,134 
33.'°i 


4-1 

33-S 


6.6 

19.2 


156,468 
9,802 
5,»39 


36.8 

19.1 

5-o 


37-6 
17.8 

4-5 



16. 
17. 

1 8. 
19. 

20. 
21. 



Coalmining 34.949 'S-9 '9-4 

Crude petroleum and natural gas produc- 
tion 

Construction 

Food and kindred products 

Textile-milt products; apparel and other 
fabricated textile products 

Chemicals and allied products 

Logging, sawmills and planing mills; furni- 
ture, store fixtures and miscellaneous 
wooden goods 

Paper and allied products 

Printing, publishing and allied industries 

Iron and steel and their products; machin- 
ery; transportation equipment, except 
automobiles 4°, ,( ^9 14-9 18.5 

Automobiles and automobile equipment; 
motor vehicles and accessories, retailing, 
and filling stations; automobile storage, 
rental, and repair services 45,855 144 11.7 

Railroads (including railroad repair shops 
and railway express service) 

Trucking service 

Utilities 

Wholesale trade; food and dairy products 
stores and milk retailing; other retail 
trade 

Finance, insurance and real estate 

Professional and related services 

Government 

Hotels and lodging places; eating and 
drinking places 

Laundering, cleaning and dyeing services 

Domestic service; miscellaneous personal 
services 837,687 70.9 76.7 



62,997 
15,856 
14,678 


21.0 
15.6 
12.5 


25.0 

(c) 

(c) 


146,402 

136,500 
29,884 


10.6 
n.s 
16.8 

5-4 


10.4 

15.0 
(c) 


129,862 
43.973 


3».» 
34-6 


39-8 
40.1 



Sources: Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930. Population. Vol. 3. Part r. p. 13; Sixteenth Cent** of 
the United States: 1940. Population, Second Series. State Table !8a and (8b. 

• The comparability between the data for 1030 and 1940, in some cases, is affected by changes in the 
industrial classification. In order to overcome this difficulty, as far as possible, we have added together cer- 
tain of the original groups. The iron, steel, machinery, and transportation equipment groups in the 1040 Census 
have been compared with the total for the following 1930 groups: "blast furnaces and steel rolling mills"; 
"electrical machinery and supply factories," "other tron and steel industries." (This means, however, that 
workers in ear and railroad shops have been included in the 1930 figures for the steel group, whereas in 1040 
most of them were counted as railroad workers.) Construction is compared with the total for "building 
industry" and "construction and maintenance of streets, roads, and sewers in the 1930 Census. In regard to 



Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 291 

facturing expanded, but Negroes did not get their full share in the employ- 
ment gains. The same was true about hotels, lodging places, restaurants, 
and of laundering, cleaning, and dyeing establishments, where the pro- 
portion of Negro workers declined to about one-third. The contraction of 
railroad employment during the 'thirties made Negroes lose heavily, 
probably even more than did the white workers. In the iron and steel group 
they also declined, absolutely as well as in relation to the whites. There is 
no indication of any gain for the Negroes in coal mining, construction, saw- 
mills or other woodworking industries. It seems that they did share, how- 
ever, in the expansion in paper, pulp, printing, publishing, and allied 
industries, but the total number of Negro workers in these groups was not 
higher than 15,000 in 1940. Domestic service, which is the most important 
of all "Negro job" industries, seems to have had but a limited expansion 
during the 'thirties, and it is doubtful whether the Negro gained anything 
at all, although he still holds a practical monopoly in the South. 

5. In the North 

At the close of the Civil War the Negro wage earner in the North had a 
quite different position than in the South.* The mere fact that there were 
few Negroes in the North implied that no occupations could take on the 
character of "Negro jobs." There had not been slavery in the Northern 
states for some two generations. The Negroes, therefore, had not been 
protected in their jobs by the vested interests of a white master class. The 
competition from white workers had always been intense. 14 In most indus- 
trial and commercial centers of the North where there were any appreciable 
number of Negroes, the three decades prior to the Civil War saw recur- 
rent race riots, growing out of this competition for jobs. In the few 
localities in the North where Negroes actually had come to monopolize 
certain types of work, their exclusion had thus started much earlier. In 
1853 Frederick Douglass complained: 

Every hour tees the black man [in the North] elbowed out of employment by 
some newly arrived immigrant whose hunger and whose color are thought to give 

lumber and lumber products, the total for the groups "logging." "sawmills and planing mills," and "furniture 
(tore fixtures, and miscellaneous wooden goods" was compared with the 1930 total for "forestry," "saw and 
planing, mills." and "other woodworking and furniture industries." This procedure was recommended by 
Dr. Philip M. Hauler, Acting Chief Statistician for Population. Bureau of the Census (letter of May 8, 1942). 
Certain other minor rearrangements are self-explanatory, since the descriptions in the stub consist of the cate- 
gory titles which comprise the given industry groups in the 1040 Census classification, and from this the 
comparable 1930 categories may be determined by inspection. 

Although the table probably gives a fairly correct general impression — at least if one considers the further 
Qualifications presented in footnote (b) — the comparison is not quite exact in every detail. The increase in 
the proportion of Negroes in banks, insurance, and real estate companies, for instance, may depend, at least in 
part, on changes in the classification. 

b Gainful workers in 1930 included unemployed workers. Since Negroes are usually unemployed to a 
greater extent than whites, the proportion of Negro workers may not necessarily have changed if the figure 
m column 3 is slightly below that in *•"'■■«"" 4. A difference of several percentage points, however, probably 
indicates a real change. 

• Comparable data not available. 

* The paucity of statistical or other reliable sources for earlier decades makes it necessary 
for us to be somewhat vague in several of the following statements. 



292 An American Dilemma 

him a better title to the place; and to we believe it will continue to be until the 
last prop is leveled beneath us — white men are becoming house servants, cooks, and 
stewards on vessels; at hotels, they are becoming porters . . . and barbers — a few 
years ago a white barber would have been a curiosity. Now their poles stand on every 
street . . . ls 

The constant stream of European immigrants to the North continuously 
provided new supplies of cheap labor which competed with Negro labor for 
even the lower jobs such as domestics and common laborers. The trade 
unions were early stronger in the North than in the South and they were 
concentrated in the crafts. Most of the time they effectively kept Negroes 
out of skilled work. 10 They could do it the more successfully as the North- 
ern Negroes did not have the head start which the handicraft training under 
slavery gave the Southern Negroes. 

Having all these things in mind, it is easy to explain why it early became 
a stereotyped opinion that, as far as the chance to earn a living was con- 
cerned, the Negro was actually better off in the South than in the North. 
This opinion, for natural reasons, became particularly cherished by Southern 
whites. Henry W. Grady emphasized that the Negro "has ten avenues of 
employment in this section [the South] where he has one in the North." 17 
And Edgar G. Murphy declared: 

The race prejudice is ... as intense at the North as it is anywhere in the world. 
. . . The negro at the North can be a waiter in hotel and restaurant (in some) ; he 
can be a butler or footman in club or household (in some); or the haircutter or 
bootblack in the barber shop (in some); and 1 say "in some" because even the more 
menial offices of industry are being slowly but gradually denied to him. 18 

Booker T. Washington regularly endorsed this view, and it had a 
strategic importance in his whole philosophy, particularly in his educational 
program: 

. . . whatever other sins the South may be called upon to bear, when it comes to 
business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man's chance 
in the commercial world . . .** 

Much the same thing is often told the observer in the South today, when 
it most certainly is an exaggeration. But even for earlier times the proposi- 
tion sounds questionable. We do not have the comprehensive statistics which 
would be necessary to ascertain how the two regions actually compared in 
the opportunities they offered Negroes during various periods. Much 
scattered information, however, gives an impression quite different from 
the Southern stereotype. In a general way, the tremendous industrial 
development in the North and the small number of Negroes compared to 
the total labor demand were factors which worked to the Negroes' advan- 
tage. If we look over the whole period from the Civil War up to 1940, 



Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 293 

the general picture is that, while the Negroes in the South have been 
gradually losing out in most lines of work where they had been firmly 
entrenched at the time of slavery and have been allowed to get a favorable 
position in but a few of the new industries, Negroes in the North have 
made some fairly significant gains in some occupations which are new or 
where few if any Negroes were allowed to work before. Still Negroes are 
completely, or almost completely, kept out of many manufacturing lines 
in the North. 

The employment gains of Northern Negroes are not a result of a regular 
trend. It would be much nearer the truth to characterize them as a series 
of unique happenings. Some of the Northern employers started hiring 
Negroes on a large scale, as previously explained, 11 mainly because of the 
temporary scarcity of labor, due to the booms during the First World War 
and the 'twenties, and to the decline in immigration. The Negro, along 
with the Southern white worker, actually was the "last immigrant" to 
the North. At that time there was a much greater need for unskilled labor 
than is the case nowadays. Then, too, white workers, in so far as they did 
not come from the South, had little race prejudice. Later many of them 
developed a deep race prejudice. 

Thus, it was a combination of factors which explains the Negroes' gains 
in the North — but a combination that could not last. The same was true 
about some of the secondary motives which induced employers to use 
Negro labor. Many of them wanted to keep their labor force heterogene- 
ous so as to prevent unionization. Some of them even used Negroes as strike- 
breakers. This had happened several times before the First World War. 
In many of these cases Negro workers were dismissed when the labor 
conflict was ended. But, sometimes — particularly between 19 10 and 1930 — 
they actually managed to gain a foothold in this way. The motives of these 
employers, however, could be significant only as long as they believed that 
there was a possibility of keeping the unions away from their plants. Now 
they are gradually getting away from this belief and have no reasons to 
engage Negro labor for this purpose. 

6. A Closer View on Northern Trends 

Between 1890 and 19 10 the increase in number of male Negro workers 
in the North was only about 160,000 (Table 1). Apart from the service 
occupations (domestics, laundresses, cooks, waiters, janitors, barbers, and 
so on) there were in 19 10 no particular occupations where Negroes were 
concentrated. The largest proportion of Negroes in any of the nonservice 
groups was in the category "general and not specified laborers," many of 
whom were construction workers j others may have been merely "jacks-of- 
all-trades." Other groups including a few thousand Negro workers were: 

' See Chapter 8. 



294 An American Dilemma 

farm laborers; helpers in building and hand trades; road and street 
laborers; draymen and teamsters; delivery men and helpers in stores; 
dressmakers and seamstresses. There were some Negro longshoremen in 
New York and Pennsylvania; coal miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 
Illinois; iron and steel workers in Pennsylvania. By and large, however, 
the Negro had scarcely any place at all in ordinary manufacturing industries 
in the North. 20 

Between 1910 and 1930, on the other hand, the number of male Negro 
workers in nonagricultural pursuits in the North increased by no less than 
480,000 (Table 1). This means that the Negro male labor force in the 
North more than doubled. Even the absolute increase was much larger than 
that in the South (about 295,000). 

Most of the increase occurred in the nonmanufacturing groups: domestic 
and nondomestic service workers, helpers and delivery men in stores, 
draymen, teamsters, truck drivers, and so on. The building industry gave 
the Negro many additional jobs despite the fact that many craft unions 
were almost as hostile to the Negro in the North as they were in the South. 
Indeed, by 1930 almost half of the Negro building workers were in the 
North. Some gains were made in street and road construction work, as in 
the maintenance-of-way departments of the railroads. The proportion of 
Negro longshoremen increased in New York and Philadelphia. Garages, 
greasing stations, and automobile laundries in the North gave more new 
jobs to Negroes than did corresponding establishments in the South. The 
number of Negro coal miners in Pennsylvania quadrupled, even causing 
some displacement of white workers; still the Negroes did not constitute 
even 3 per cent of the total labor force in Pennsylvania coal mines by 1930. 
The bulk of the Negro mine workers remained in the South. 21 

In addition, Negroes managed, almost for the first time, to get a real 
place in certain purely manufacturing lines in the North. The gains were 
particularly noteworthy in the iron, steel, machinery and vehicle industries. 
In 1930, over 100,000, or about 60 per, cent of all Negro workers in this 
group, were in the North. The majority of them were working in blast 
furnaces, steel rolling mills and automobile factories. Much less significant, 
but nevertheless noteworthy, were the gains in clothing industries and 
certain food industries, particularly slaughter and meat-packing houses. 

But most other Northern manufacturing industries failed to hire Negro 
workers in any appreciable numbers. The Negro wage earner in the North 
has little or no chance in textile factories, sawmills, electrical machinery 
and supply factories, shoe factories, bakeries, or furniture factories — to 
mention just a few examples of the numerous Northern manufacturing lines 
where the Negro has been unable to get in. Only in exceptional cases did 
Northern railroads use him for other than unskilled jobs. He was not 
hired by the utility companies. Thus, even in the North, the Negro 



Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 295 

remained confined to certain jobs — either those where he had earlier 
acquired something of a traditional position or where he managed to gain 
a foothold during the extraordinary labor market crisis of the First World 
War. a 

This should be emphasized: large employment gains for Negroes in the 
North — except for the present war boom — occurred only daring the short 
period from the First World War until the end of the 'twenties. During 
the 'thirties (Table 2), the upward trend in number of Negro workers was 
broken even more definitely than was the case in the urban South — and this 
in spite of the fact that the Negro population in the large Northern centers 
of Negro concentration increased by as much as 23 per cent between 1930 
and 1940. The white population in the urban North, on the other hand, 
was almost stationary, as was the white labor force. Thus, while the pro- 
portion of Negroes in the total population continued to increase, there was 
scarcely any change at all in the relative number of Negro male workers. 
Further, as we shall point out later in this chapter, the unemployment 
among these Negro workers was much greater in the North than in the 
South. 

All this is explainable on several grounds. The depression hit the North 
worse than the South. Nevertheless, Negroes continued to go North to 
such an extent that the relative increase in the Negro urban population was 
even greater in the North than in the South. As pointed out in Chapter 8, 
this cannot mean anything but that, once the isolation had been broken and 
the northward migration had become a pattern, Negroes continued to go 
North whether or not there were any employment openings for them there. 
In addition to the general difference in social conditions — less segregation, 
greater legal security, superior educational and hospital facilities, higher 
earnings if any jobs are to be had, and so on — the North offers much more 
public relief to Negroes in economic distress than does the South. 6 This fact 
has undoubtedly been behind much of the Negro migration to the North 
during the 'thirties/' Also, as in the South, public relief has contributed to 
the decline in the proportion of Negro youth and Negro aged persons 
who offer their services on the Northern labor market.* 1 

Thus, it was not all due to any greater negligence about the Negro in the 
North that — as far as employment was concerned — he fared even worse 

' This fact, of course, is one of the main reasons why most of the outstanding Negro 
leaders are not inclined, during the present War, to postpone the fight for Negro rights 
until after the War is over. (For a representative expression of their attitude, see Tress 
Service of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People." [July 17, 

*See Chapter 15. 

'See Chapter 8. 

* See Section 8 of this chapter. 



296 An American Dilemma 

there, during the 'thirties, than he did in the urban South. In part it was 
just because the North, in other respects, treated him better than the 
South did that the Northern Negro population tended to outgrow the 
employment opportunities for Negroes. Still, the record of the North 
certainly is not a good one either. Many labor unions discriminated against 
the Negro worker. So did many employers, especially when it came to 
skilled work. 

7. The Employment Hazards of Unskilled Work 

We have found that the Negro's participation in the Southern non- 
agricultural economy has steadily become relatively less significant. In the 
North there was no further improvement in the Negro's share of the jobs 
during the 'thirties; the Negro, if anything, lost even more than did the 
white worker because of the depression. 

There is one factor behind this development to which wc have not yet 
given enough emphasis: the fact that the Negro is concentrated in unskilled 
occupations (Table 4). This circumstance must be considered in any evalua- 

TABLE 4 

Negro and White Male Workers in Nonaoricultural Pursuits 

by Social-Economic Status, in the North and in the South: 1930 

(Cumulative Percentages) 





All Male Workers 


Negro Mule Workers 
The North 


White Male Workers 




The North 




The North 




Occupational 


and 


The 


and 


The 


and 


The 


Status 


the West 


South 


the West 


South 


the West 

100 


South 


All workers 


100 


100 


100 


100 


TOO 


Clerical or lower 


83 


«3 


9S 


95 


82 


79 


Skilled or lower 


65 


67 


91 


93 


64 


60 


Semi-skilled or lower 


43 


48 


83 


86 


4' 


3« 


Unskilled 


23 


32 


. 66 


7i 


ZJ 


20 



Sourct: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Alba M. Edwards, Social-Economic Grouting of the. Gainful Workers 
tftiu Unittd Statu. 1030 (1938), pp. 36-59. 

tion of future prospects. Indeed, the Negro's low occupational status con- 
tains a greater danger for future employment than is usually realised. It 
means generally that his chances not only of getting ahead but of keeping 
any employment at all are more restricted. The expansion in unskilled 
occupations has been limited during recent decades compared with that in 
occupations above the unskilled class. 22 It is necessary to emphasize this 
point. For, just as many persons believe that Negroes would be able to get 
along if they only had sense enough to stay in agriculture, there are 
those who think that Negroes are over-ambitious when they try to get out 



Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 297 

of their position as common laborers. Negroes must become skilled workers, 
since the demand for unskilled workers is declining. 

The proportion of unskilled workers in the nonagricultural labor force 
is much greater in the South than in the North (Table 4). One of the 
reasons is that the iron, steel, and machinery industries, with their great 
need of skilled labor, are less well represented below the Mason-Dixon line 
than they are in certain other parts of the country. Then, too, there has been 
comparatively little incentive to mechanization in the low wage regions of 
the South. But this means, on the other hand, that there are in the South 
many more laborers who can be displaced by mechanization. The Wages 
and Hours Law tends to spur mechanization by raising wages. It goes 
without saying that the Negroes are, and will continue to be, the main 
sufferers in such a development. Over 70 per cent of the Negro males in 
nonagricultural pursuits in the South were in unskilled occupations; the 
corresponding figure for Southern whites was 20 per cent. The Southern 
Negroes were, in this respect, somewhat worse off than the Northern 
Negroes. Southern industry was more "saturated" with unskilled Negro 
labor than Northern industry. Almost half of all unskilled male workers 
outside agriculture in the South were Negroes. 23 The occupational status 
of the Southern whites, on the other hand, was somewhat higher, in certain 
respects, than was that of the Northern whites. The reason is obvious: 
white workers in the South had a near monopoly on the higher jobs but were 
less well represented in the lower occupations.* 

If the Negro's occupational status was particularly low in the South, 
it does not mean that it was high in the North. Actually there was little 
difference: about two-thirds of the male Negro workers in the North were 
in unskilled occupations. But since these Negro workers constituted only 
about one-tenth of all laborers in the North, 24 there should be more room 
for the Negro in the North, even if he remains confined to the bottom of 
the occupational ladder. 

8. The Size of the Negro Labor Force and Negro Employment 

Considering all the limitation that Negroes face in every occupation, 
even those where they are not completely excluded, it is pertinent to ask: 
What proportion of Negroes have any jobs at all? Is the Negro merely 
exchanging his position as a dependent and exploited sharecropper for that 
of an urban unemployed person and a relief client? 

In nonfarm areas of the United States in 1940, 47 per cent of all non- 

* This observation about the occupational status of Southern and Northern whites agree? 
fairly well with the finding about urban incomes in the South and the North. See Chapter 
16. Median incomes for white families, contrary to common belief, are not lower in the 
urban South than in the urban North, the reason being that the Southern white population 
— due to the presence of the Negro— has an "incomplete lower clan." 



300 



An American Dilemma 



discouraged from offering their services and, thus, ceased to belong to either 
the actual or the potential labor force. 83 

This development had gone so far by 1940 that, in urban and other non- 
farm areas, the proportion of the male population 14 years old and over 
that belonged to the labor force (those who were either actual workers 
or job-seekers) was exactly the same in both racial groups (78 per cent; 
see Table 5). The relative number of female workers and job-seekers, on 

TABLE 6 

Labor Force as a Percentage of All Persons, 14 Years or Aoz and Over, and 
Unemployed Workers as a Percentage of Total Labor Force, in 
Selected Large Cities, by Sex and Race: 1940 





Labor Force as a 


Percentage of All 


Unemployed (exclusive of emer- 




Persons, 


,14 Years 


1 of Age ar 


id Over 


gency workers) as a 


Percentage of 














Total Labor Force 




City 


Male 


Female 


Male 


Fern 
Negro 


lale 




Negro 


White 


Negro 


White 


Negro 


White 


"White" 


New York 


80.8 


81.1 


50.7 


3 2 .5 


20.1 


15.2 


18.1 


1 4.8 


Philadelphia 


78.5 


80.8 


43-6 


3^-9 


33-1 


15-4 


23.7 


14.6 


Cleveland 


79-5 


I14 


33-0 


3°-3 


16.7 


12.4 


22.4 


ir.3 


Detroit 


84.7 


84.7 


30.0 


28.1 


16.1 


9-7 


19.4 


n. 3 


Chicago 


77-9 


82.4 


35-7 


33-3 


17.2 


11. 1 


23.2 


9-5 


St Louis 


81.6 


82.9 


37-4 


32.8 


19.6 


IO.J 


20.4 


9.2 


Louisville 


79-7 


81.8 


45-7 


29.9 


17.6 


10.4 


18.6 


9-8 


Baltimore 


79-6 


80.8 


46.8 


29.8 


13-2 


7-3 


10.8 


7-9 


Washington, D.C. 


81.0 


80.7 


5'-7 


43-o 


10.6 


5-4 


"•3 


5-' 


Richmond 


79-J 


81.7 


56.1 


36.1 


»J.J 


6.6 


I3.I 


6.8 


Atlanta 


82.0 


83.0 


54-4 


35-5 


W 


6-7 


11.6 


7-6 


Birmingham 


82.0 


81.9 


39-9 


26.7 


15.9 


7-0 


14.9 


9-1 


Memphis 


85.4 


82.5 


44-8 


30.9 


H.5 


6.8 


15.5 


7-4 


New Orleans 


80.7 


Si.i 


43-4 


28.9 


15.3 


10.2 


15.2 


9.6 


Houston 


84.0 


83.8 


53-7 


. 2«-7 


11.9 


7.2 


9-7 


7.0 



Sowet: Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population. Second Series, State Reports, Tables 41 
and 43 ((or Washington, D.C, Tables 13 and 21). 

the other hand, continued in most places to be much higher in the non- 
white than in the white population, even if the difference was smaller than 
before. White women still left the labor market at a much faster rate after 
having reached the age of 25 than did Negro women. 34 

The equalization in the proportion of white and Negro men and women 
who are workers or job-seekers has proceeded further in the urban North 
than in the urban South. It has also proceeded further in the cities than in 
the farm areas of the South. Even in the male agricultural population of 
the South in 1940 there was still a higher proportion of actual and potential 
workers in the Negro than in the white group. 85 This may be due, in part, 



Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 301 

to the fact that unemployment among Negroes is greater in the North 
than in the South, and much greater in urban than in rural areas. Also, it 
is an index of the differences in economic standards. Both relief grants 
and nonrelief earnings are much more adequate in Northern than in South- 
ern cities; both are particularly inadequate in farm areas of the South." 

We should not, however, be hasty in jumping to the conclusion that 
"relief has demoralized the Negro." Of course, something of the sort may 
have happened in many individual cases, both in the white and in the 
Negro group. But, by and large, the moral indignation against the Negro 
that is implied in this stereotype is entirely misplaced. We must keep in 
mind that so far no appeal has been made to the ambition of the Negro to 
better himself economically. On the contrary, white people, by means of 
the severe job restrictions they have imposed upon the Negro — and by 
denying him sufficient public health facilities — have forced him to accept 
public relief as one of his "major occupations." Therefore, if the Negro, 
in a sense, has become "demoralized," it is rather because white people 
have given him a smaller share of the steady and worth-while jobs than of 
the public assistance benefits. 

It should be emphasized, further, that, in spite of the more liberal relief 
policies of the last decades, there are still, proportionately, a greater number 
of workers and job-seekers in the Negro than in the white population. The 
decline has occurred mainly among aged persons who should be allowed to 
retire, 30 among youth who can use some additional school education, and 
among women who have their own homes and families to attend to. 

In the future, however, this problem may become of increasing signifi- 
cance. There is still, as we shall show," much discrimination against the 
Negro in the relief system. If these discriminatory practices are removed — 
and the federal government is working toward that end — but if present job 
restrictions are maintained, then, of course, there is a real danger that the 
Negro will become a burden on the national economy. This is the basic 
dilemma in the problem of the Negroe's integration into American economic 
life. It must be faced squarely. 

9. Negro and White Unemployment 

Wc have seen that there are more Negroes than whites, in proportion, 
who offer their services on the labor market. More Negroes need employ- 
ment than do whites, for the simple reason that the pay for each job that a 
Negro can get usually is so much lower than arc the earnings that a white 
person can get. Yet the unemployment is much higher for Negroes than for 
whites. About 25 per cent of the non white male labor force in nonfarm 
areas was without any employment on the labor market in 1940; and 15 

* See Chapters 1 5 and 1 6. 
"See Chapter 15. 



302 An American Dilemma 

per cent did not even have any work relief assignments (Table 5). The 
corresponding figures for white males (16 and 11 per cent, respectively) 
were significantly lower. There was a similar difference, although on a 
somewhat lower level, between white and nonwhite females. When the 
number of jobless female workers is related, not to the "labor force," but 
to all women, 14. years of age and over, one finds that the unemployment 
rate was more than twice as high (7 per cent) for Negro as for white 
women (3 per cent)." 

Conditions, however, are different in different areas. In the rural farm 
areas of the South, where only few persons are registered as unemployed, 
the rates were actually lower for Negroes than for whites. The nonfarm 
areas of the South show conditions only slightly worse for Negroes than for 
whites. It is mainly in the cities that unemployment is so much more wide- 
spread among Negroes than among whites (Table 6). The difference was 
usually quite large both in Northern and in Southern cities, but since the 
North had a higher general level of unemployment, Northern Negroes, 
of course, were even more adversely affected than were the Negroes in the 
urban South. In Philadelphia, about one-third of the Negro males, not 
counting those on work relief projects, were registered as unemployed; in 
New York and St. Louis the proportion was one-fifth. Negro female 
workers, as well, showed high unemployment rates in several of the large 
Northern cities. 

Perhaps Negro migration is the cause of this situation. The Negro mi- 
grant, as we have seen, prefers the large city. Whenever possible, he wants 
to go North. It is possible that he could have had a better chance in 
Southern villages and small cities. But, as explained before,* it is natural 
that the Negro prefers to go where he can escape injustice and restric- 
tions, which are usually particularly great in the small Southern community. 

Young workers are suffering from unemployment much more than 
others. In urban areas roughly one-third of the total labor force in the age 
group 14 to 19 was without jobs. Nonwhite males (36 per cent) were some- 
what above, and white females (29 per cent) were a little below the aver- 
age j but there was no substantial race differential except in certain indi- 
vidual cities. The situation was better for middle-aged people, but more so 
for white than for Negro workers. This finding from the 1940 Census is 
corroborated by other studies. 

The Health Survey data for urban male and female workers in 1935-36 . . . 
and the information from the 1937 Unemployment Censm . . . substantiate the 
conclusion that the Negro-white difference in unemployment risk is mainly a 
■problem of the Negro's inability to improve his chances on the labor market with 
increased age and experience to the same extent as the white worker. If age and 

'Ser Chapter 8. 



Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 303 

experience help the Negro worker less than the white worker, how about education? 
Data from the National Health Survey . . . indicate that the unemployment risk 
for white urban workers, 16-24 years old, declines progressively with the increased 
scholastic achievements. About 56 per cent of the male white workers with less than 
a sixth-grade education were unemployed in 1935-36, whereas only eighteen per 
cent of those with a college education were jobless. Among urban Negro youth, on 
the other hand, there was no consistent trend of this kind at all except that persons 
with college training were somewhat better off than those with less education. Colored 
urban youth, whose education extended no higher than the sixth grade were somewhat 
better off than white youth with a similar lack of formal training. The colored and 
white youth who had completed the seventh grade had the same amount of unemploy- 
ment (50 per cent for males and 38-39 per cent for females). It was only because 
such a large proportion of white youth had gone farther than the seventh grade 
that their general position was better than that of colored youth. 38 

These findings are certainly extremely significant — in fact, so important 
that one would like to see them confirmed by other similar studies. It seems, 
however, that they are plausible enough. If white boys and girls do not 
care for openings that may be available immediately, they can, more often 
than colored youth, afford to postpone their entry into the labor market. 
This may explain why those among them who have little education may be 
even less successful in getting employment than are young colored workers. 
Since Negroes are seldom in demand for fobs for which education is neces- 
sary, there certainly is nothing surprising in the conclusion that they, unlike 
whites, usually fail to improve their opportunities by staying in school 
longer. Somewhat more astonishing is the finding that those with college 
education constitute an exception in this regard. But they are not depend- 
ent entirely on the white economy, as are most of the less-educated Ne- 
groes. The segregated Negro community offers a small but increasing 
number of jobs to Negro professionals.* 

'See Chapter 14, Section 1. The lower unemployment risk found for youths with college 
education may be partly fictitious, however, in that many of those who fail to get 
employment simply continue their studies and, thus, are listed as students rather than as 
unemployed. 



CHAPTER 14 

THE NEGRO IN BUSINESS, THE PROFESSIONS, PUBLIC 
SERVICE AND OTHER WHITE COLLAR OCCUPATIONS 

miHIIIIIUIIIIIIIIItlllllllltlllll|IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIHIIIMI|IIIIMIIIIIMIMIIIIIIillllllllllllllllllllllllMlllllllllllHt»lll 

i. Overview 

The position of the Negro in business, professions, public service, and 
white collar jobs is far different from that of the Negro wage earner. 
As a wage earner the Negro is excluded from many trades. Where he 
works he is commonly held down to the status of laborer and is excluded 
from skilled work. But there are always possibilities for him to enter these 
jobs, and he is always struggling to do so. In the occupations traditionally 
associated with upper or middle class status, the exclusion policy is usually 
much more complete and "settled." This is because it is fortified by 
"social" considerations, as well as by economic ones." 

The overwhelming majority of all other Negro workers serve the 
general white-dominated economy, but most Negro businessmen, pro- 
fessionals, and Negro white collar workers are either dependent on the 
segregated Negro community for their market or they serve in public 
institutions — like schools and hospitals — set up exclusively for the use of 
Negroes. (Some civil service employees are the only significant exceptions.) 

This has important consequences. The exclusion from the larger white 
economy means a severe restriction of the opportunities for Negroes to 
reach an upper or middle class status. It represents one of the main social 
mechanisms by which the Negro upper and middle classes are kept small. 
It also makes the occupational distribution in those classes skewed: While 
the Negro community gives places for a fair number of Negro preachers, 
teachers, and neighborhood storekeepers, it does not offer much chance 
for civil engineers and architects. The latter have to work in the white 
economy which does not want Negroes in such positions. The Negroes' 
representation among managers of industry, if anything, is still smaller. 

The poverty of the Negro people represents a general limitation of 
opportunity for Negro businessmen and professionals. Since they are 
excluded from the white market, it becomes important for them to hold 

'The term "social" it here used in the sense of the man in the street, especially the 
Southerner, and thus has the connotation of "intimate" and "personal." (See Chapter *S.) 

304 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 305 

the Negro market as a monopoly. The monopoly over the Negro market 
of teachers, preachers, undertakers, beauticians and others is generally 
respected. The Negro storekeeper, on the other hand, is in severe competi- 
tion with the white storekeeper, and only a small fraction of the pur- 
chasing power of Negro patrons passes his counter. To a lesser extent this 
is true also of the Negro doctor. The Negro lawyer has an even worse 
competitive position. The Negro journalist does not have to compete with 
whites in the Negro press but, to an extent, the Negro press has to compete 
with the white press. All Negro businessmen and professionals have to try 
to make as much use as possible of racial solidarity as a selling point. This 
means that the entire Negro middle and upper class becomes caught in an 
ideological dilemma.' On the one hand, they find that the caste wall 
blocks their economic and social opportunities. On the other hand, they 
have, at the same time, a vested interest in racial segregation since it gives 
them what opportunity they have. 

In the rest of this chapter we shall describe the economic position of 
upper and middle class Negroes. We shall first present a summary of the 
situation and then go on to examine each of the occupations separately. 

In 1930 there were only 254,000 Negro workers in white collar and 
higher occupations (Table 1). This means that only one out of fifteen 
Negro workers in nonagricultural pursuits had a status higher than that of 
wage earner. In the white nonfarm population as many as two out of every 
five workers were in business, managerial, professional, and white collar 
jobs. 1 The number of Negro workers in such occupations had increased by 
more than three-fourths between 19 10 and 1930. But the corresponding 
increase of white workers had been somewhat greater, so the relative 
position of the Negro had not improved. In 1910, 1.8 per cent of all these 
professional, managerial and clerical workers were Negroes. In 1930, 1.7 
per cent of them were Negroes. Thus, in spite of the fact that the Negro's 
share in these jobs was so extremely low, there was no tendency toward 
equalization. There was not even any great increase in the proportion that 
professionals, businessmen, and white collar workers constituted of the 
total Negro labor force in nonagricultural pursuits. In 1910 this proportion 
was 6 per cent. In 1930 it was 7 per cent. 

Conditions differed, however, for different categories. The Negro has 
had slightly better chances in the professions than in other occupations in 
this group. Indeed, in 1930 the number of Negro professional workers was 
larger (116,000) than that of clerical workers (83,000), whereas in the 
white population there were almost three clerks and kindred workers for 
every professional person. That the Negroes have as much as a 4 per cent 
representation among the professional workers is due to two main factors: 
the segregated Southern school system, and the segregated Negro church 

' See Chapter 38. 



306 



An American Dilemma 







TABLE 1 










Necbo Workers ijt Business, Professional, and 
Occupations, by Sex: 1920, 1920, and 


White Collar 
1930 




Sex and Occupation 


Number of Negro 


Workers 


Negroes as a per- 
centage of all 
Workers 




I9I0 


1 920 


»930 


1910 


1920 


1930 


Boch Sexes 
Professional persons 
Wholesale and retail dealers 
Other proprietors, managers, 

and officials 
Clerks and kindred workers 


64,648 
20,894 

19,103 
38,698 


77,118 
23.593 

17,610 
63,095 


"S.765 
28,343 

27.648 
82,669 


4.0 
1-7 

1.6 
1.0 


3-8 
i-7 

».3 
1.1 


3-9 
1.6 

1.5 

1/3 


Males 
Professional persons 
Wholesale and retail dealers 


35.815 
17,888 


39,434 
2o,455 


55.610 
24,493 


3-9 
i-5 


3.7 
1-5 


3-7 


Other proprietors, managers, 

and officials 
Clerks and kindred workers 


15,487 
31,926 


13,309 
48,046 


21,196 
62,138 


1.2 


1.0 

«-4 


1.2 

i-3 


Females 
Professional persons 
Wholesale and retail dealers 


a8,83J 
3,oo6 


37,684 
3,138 


60,155 
3,850 


4.0 

4-4 


3-8 
3-9 


4-i 
3-4 


Other proprietors, managers, 

and officials 
Clerks and kindred workers 


3.615 
6,772 


4,3W 
15,048 


6,452 
20,53 1 


6.6 
0.6 


55 

0.7 


4-9 

o.7 



Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census. Alba M. Edwards, Social-Economic Grouping of thr. Gainful Workers of 
the United Slates, ipjo (1938). PP- 7 ">d 13. 

with its numerous small congregations. Teachers and ministers account for 
almost two-thirds of all Negro professional workers. The small number of 
Negro clerical workers — only two-thirds of one per cent of all female 
clerks and kindred workers were Negro — is the result of the fact that few 
white establishments use any Negro workers in such capacities while most 
Negro-owned establishments are too small to give employment to others 
than the entrepreneur and members of his family. Negro storekeepers, 
other business entrepreneurs, and business officials had an intermediate 
position between these two groups. They numbered 56,000 and constituted 
about 1.5 per cent of all American businessmen. 

The North is almost as strict as the South in excluding Negroes from 
middle class jobs in the white-dominated economy. The very lack of segre- 
gation in most Northern schools makes it more difficult for a Negro to get 
a teaching position. Since the educational ladder is made completely avail- 
able for Negro youths, this subsequent barrier against employment, except 
as laborers) is more deeply discouraging. 3 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 307 

The subsequent detailed account of the various groups of occupations 
will show that, by and large, the prospects for Negro workers of higher 
than wage earner status are even more limited than can be learned from 
the summary data we have just examined.* 

2. The Negro in Business 

In 1939 there were not quite 30,000 Negro retail stores, including eating 
and drinking places, giving employment to an almost equal number of 
proprietors, and less than 14,000 hired employees, or — apart from 1,000 
unpaid family members — a total of 43,000 persons. Thus, Negro retail 
trade, in terms of employment, is not totally insignificant. Compared with 
the size of white retail trade, however, it is negligible. The total sales in 
1939 were a little more than $71,000,000, which was less than two-tenths 
of one per cent of the national total. The annual payroll amounted to a 
little over $400 for each full-time employee. 8 There were no signs of 
improvement in the relative position of Negro retail trade. The proportion 
of Negroes among all retail dealers was, if anything, smaller in 1930 than 
in 1 9 10 (Table 1). The same trend downward is visible during the period 
of 1929-1939. Total sales declined by 28 per cent in Negro-owned stores 
and restaurants from 1929 to 1939, whereas the corresponding figure for 
retail trade in the entire United States was 13 per cent. 4 

The Negro population has much less than one-tenth of the total con- 
sumer income in the United States. Certain estimates made of Negro and 
white family income allow us to guess that the Negro's share in the national 
income does not exceed 4 per cent, and is probably around 3 per cent. b As 
savings constitute generally a larger part of higher incomes, the Negro's 
share in total consumption is probably somewhat greater than his share of 
the national income, though not much. But even when the relatively low 
level of Negro purchasing power is taken into account, Negro-owned stores 
and restaurants probably do not have more than 5 or 10 per cent of the 
total Negro trade. The rest goes to white businesses. 

It goes without saying that the small size of the average Negro store 
increases costs, and thereby causes a competitive disadvantage. Prices tend 
to be higher than in the white-operated stores, or the margin of profit 
smaller. It is difficult for the Negro dealer to have a large variety of goods. 
Rcid cites an inquiry made by the Negro Business League in New York's 
Harlem in 1932, according to which a sample of Negro housewives blamed 

* The facts for the subsequent analysis will be taken, in large part, from an unpublished 
research memorandum prepared for this study (1940), "The Negro in the American 
Economic System," by Ira DeA. Reid in conjunction with Norgren's investigations cited 
in the previous chapter. It deals with the Negro in business, banking, retail trade, profes- 
sions and white collar occupations. 

"See Chapter i« 



308 An American Dilemma 

the insufficient variety of stock and the higher prices as the main reasons 
for their failure to patronize Negro-owned stores to any large extent. The 
extreme poverty of most customers puts another difficulty in the way of the 
Negro dealer: since he must depend on immediate cash turnover, he must 
avoid giving credit; at the same time he knows that he will lose many of 
his patrons by not granting them credit. 8 Housing segregation is a factor 
which generally helps Negro business. When a city, however, contains 
several small Negro neighborhoods, as often happens in the South, scarcely 
any one of them can support a prosperous Negro store. 6 Negro sections 
never contain any primary shopping centers; indeed there are few places, 
except in the North, where there are even secondary shopping centers in 
Negro areas. Negroes often reside close to principal business districts where 
no Negro entrepreneur can ever hope to rent a store. 7 

These things go a long way to explain how narrow the prospects of the 
Negro retail dealers are. Still, it is not only because Negro consumers buy 
in white business districts that the Negro dealer gets so little of their 
patronage. Negro areas, at least in large cities, have a great number of 
stores and restaurants catering exclusively, or almost exclusively, to Negroes 
but operated by Jews, Greeks, Italians and other whites. Sometimes this 
may be a matter of tradition, since it was only a few decades ago that many 
of the principal Negro neighborhoods in the North had entirely or predom- 
inantly white residents. Or it may be that real estate owners — most of 
whom are white even in Negro areas — do not believe that the Negro dealer 
is a dependable rent payer. Such an attitude, of course, must jeopardize the 
Negro's chances of getting a good location. Reid claims, in addition, that 
the Negro businessman himself has not always seen the advantage of 
locating his store in a competitive area: 

Besides the fact that the Negro grocery retailer is barred from the main shopping 
districts by social and economic factors, he believes that his business experiences 
greater success in a non-competitive area' where there are no other stores selling 
similar merchandise. The general economic truth that competition increases the 
volume of business does not apply to him, he feels. Such an attitude gives rise to 
isolation of Negro grocery stores even within the Negro community. The complaint 
of Negro householders that Negro establishments are inconveniently located is 
well founded. 8 

The Negro businessman, furthermore, encounters greater difficulties in 
securing credit. This is partly due to the marginal position of Negro 
business. It is also partly due to prejudiced opinions among the whites 
concerning the business ability and personal reliability of Negroes. In 
either case a vicious circle is in operation keeping Negro business down. 
Part of this circle is the fact that Negro business generally is not of the size 
and efficiency necessary to offer many positions which would give good 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 309 

traning to Negro youths who want to prepare themselves for a business 
career. 

Whether or not such factors as those mentioned above are sufficient to 
excuse the Negro's poor showing in business is, of course, a question of 
judgment. Particularly striking is the fact that only seldom, and then 
mainly because segregation has provided a monopoly, have Negro business- 
men succeeded in getting all or most of the Negro trade. In addition to the 
10,500 Negro restaurant owners in 1930, there were some 14,000 owners 
of Negro hotels, boarding and lodging houses (Table 2), constituting 7 
per cent of all such entrepreneurs in the country. They probably owned 

TABLE 2 

Number of Negro Entrepreneurs and White Collar Workers in 
Selected Trade and Service Industries: 1910* 



Industry and Occupation 



Banking and brokerage: officials, clerks, accountants, etc. 
Insurance: officials, managers, agents, clerks, etc. 
Real Estate: officials, agents, clerks, etc. 
Wholesale and retail trade: 

Retail dealers (except automobiles} 

Undertakers 

Clerks, salesmen, Saleswomen, and other white collar 
workers 
Hotels, restaurants, boarding houses, etc. 

Hotel, boarding and lodging housekeepers and managers 

Restaurant, cafe, and lunchroom keepers 

Clerks, bookkeepers, and other white collar workers 
Cleaning, dyeing, and pressing shops: 

Owners and managers 

Clerical workers 



1910 


1930 


634 

2,45° 
950 


994 
9,325 
4,695 


20,644 b 
<)S1 


27,743 " 
2,946 


10,989 


21,017 


",574 

f',3"9 

838 


14,173 

'0,543 

1,248 


c 
c 


',734 
156 



Sour e: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Nrgroes in the VS.: 1020-1932, pp. 355-358. Thirlmlh Census 0/ 
the U.S.: 1910. Population, Vol. 4, pp. 418-433. It should be noted that these figures differ somewhat from the 
classification used by Edwards, op. cit., in that, for instance, Edwards includes messengers among white collar 
workers, which has not been done in this table. It is evident that every classification of this type has to be 
arbitrary. 

* Only such trade and service groups as have any appreciable number of Negro entrepreneurs and white 
collar workers have been included. Regarding barbers and hairdressers, see text 111 this section. 

b Figures do not quite agree with those in Table z because they are based on different classifications. 

• Data not available. 

most lodging and boarding houses located in Negro sections; few white 
entrepreneurs would consider competing for this trade. Most of these 
Negro entrepreneurs were women, usually widowed. The majority of 
their places probably differed little, if at all, from ordinary private homes 
with lodgers. 

A real "business group," on the other hand, were the 3,000 Negro 
undertakers, constituting nearly one-tenth of all undertakers in America. 
In the South they have an almost complete monopoly on Negro funerals, 
as whites would not want to touch the corpses. In the North their competi- 



310 An American Dilemma 

tive position is almost as strong. They never handle white funerals. Since, 
in addition, Negroes are likely to spend relatively much on funerals, the 
funeral homes represent one of the most solid and flourishing Negro 
businesses. Barbers, beauticians, and hairdressers also have a complete mo- 
nopoly for similar reasons. In 1 930 there were 34,000 Negro entrepreneurs 
and employees occupied in this line of work, and they constituted almost 
one-tenth of all such workers in the country. 10 But these are the only Negro 
businesses in which Negroes are protected from white competition. In all 
other businesses of any consequence Negro businessmen are able to keep 
only a small portion of the Negro market. Seldom have Negroes succeeded 
in keeping a substantial white market. 

The Negro's showing in business appears particularly poor when com- 
pared with that of certain other "alien" groups. The immigrants offer a 
case in point. The foreign-born are "under-represented" among industrial 
entrepreneurs, business managers, officials, and white collar workers, but 
they constitute a larger proportion of the retail dealers than corresponds 
to their proportion in the population. In fact, one out of every three whole- 
sale and retail dealers in the United States in 1930 was a foreign-born 
person. 11 This high proportion may be caused, of course, by their having 
greater difficulties than native Americans in getting employment in many 
other occupations. At the same time, it indicates a certain resourcefulness 
in the struggle against unemployment. 

Particularly interesting is the great number of stores and restaurants 
operated by Chinese and Japanese. In 1929 they owned one-and-a-half 
times as many stores, restaurants, and eating places per 1,000 population 
as other residents of the United States. Negroes, on the other hand, oper- 
ated but one-sixth of the number of such establishments as would corre- 
spond to their proportion in the population. Nor is this all. The stores and 
restaurants operated by the Orientals were larger and gave employment 
to an average of four persons per store (proprietors and employees), 
whereas the corresponding ratio for Negro establishments was but 1 .6. The 
net sales of the Oriental-operated stores ($89,000,000) were not much 
lower than those of the Negro-owned stores ($101,000,000), in spite of 
the fact that the Negro population was about fifty times larger than the 
Oriental population of the country. 12 

It is a problem to explain why the Chinese have been able to build up a 
prosperous restaurant business with white patronage, whereas Negro-owned 
eating places nowadays have but few white customers, except in a couple 
of "tourist spots" in the amusement area of Harlem and one or two other 
publicized Negro sections in other Northern cities; and even those are not 
always owned by Negroes. 13 It is true that the Chinese restaurant profits 
from the special appeal that a foreign culture always seems to have to the 
American. But Southern cooking, in a measure, has a similar reputation 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 311 

outside the South. Since the servants of the Southern aristocracy have 
usually been Negroes, well-trained Negro cooks and waiters have not been 
lacking, and one would have expected that the Negro-owned restaurant 
would have had a particularly good chance, once the Negro had actually 
made some headway in this business. 1 * There are many reports about Negro 
restaurants having been popular among the white upper class in earlier 
times. 

But already in the 1890's Du Bois described how the Negro caterer was 
losing out. 16 Part of the explanation is probably the change in the character 
of the upper class restaurant business. In earlier times, the main require- 
ment was good cooking and service} the caterer may have appeared more 
as a favored "collective" servant to an upper class circle than as a business- 
man. But soon requirements were increased. It became necessary to invest 
large capital in restaurants intended for the wealthy. Or, as Du Bois puts it: 

... it is the old development from the small to the large industry, from the house- 
industry to the concentrated industry, from the private dining room to the palatial 
hotel. If the Negro caterers of Philadelphia had been white, some of them would 
have been put in charge of a large hotel, or would have oecome co-partners in some 
large restaurant business, for which capitalists furnished funds. ... As it was, 
the change in fashion and- mode of business changed the methods of the Negro 
caterers, and their clientele. They began to serve the middle class instead of the rich 
and exclusive, their prices had to become more reasonable, and their efforts to excel 
had consequently fewer incentives. Moreover, they now came into sharp competi- 
tion with a class of small white caterers, who, if they were worse cooks, were better 
trained in the tricks of trade . . , 10 

Not only has the Negro caterer lost out because he has not had capital, but 
also because he has often failed to modernize his business and be efficient 
generally. There have been, of course, social and political pressures, as well 
as economic ones, against Negro caterers. The few remaining Negro 
caterers and restaurant owners serve whites mainly, and their business has 
the character of a novelty rather than of a regularly accepted business. 

The famous old Negro barbershops went the same way as the Negro 
restaurants. Laundry work represents a somewhat similar example. There 
are more Negro workers in this field than in any other occupation outside 
of agriculture and domestic service. But it was the whites and the Chinese 
who started the commercial laundries, which have taken hundreds of 
thousands of job opportunities away from the Negro home laundresses. 
There were only a few hundred Negro owners of commercial laundries in 
1930, representing about 2 per cent of the total. Not only his experience 
as a worker but also his self-interest should have provided an inducement 
for the Negro to go into this kind of business as an independent entre- 
preneur. Yet he failed to do so. 

The building trade offers another example of how the Negro has failed 



Jia An American Dilemma 

as an entrepreneur, even when he— viewed superficially at least— would 
seem to have had a comparatively good chance. There are more skilled 
Negro workers in this industry than in any other line of work. Contractors, 
at Jeast formerly, were recruited from the ranks of the skilled workers. 
At the time when, in view of the small size of most construction jobs, most 
contractors were not much more than master workmen, many Negroes had 
a certain position in this field in the South, but soon after the Civil War 
the South started to become industrialized. Many factory buildings and 
large apartment houses had to be erected, and they required huge amounts 
of capital. Whites formed an increasing proportion of the skilled workers, 
and they attempted to monopolize the work on the large projects where the 
latest technical methods were used. Only in exceptional cases did they 
accept work under Negro contractors. Under such circumstances it was 
impossible for Negroes to make any headway. By 1910 there were but 
2,900 Negro contractors constituting 1.8 per cent of the total. In 1930 the 
number was down to 2,400, or 1.6 per cent. 

The fact that the Negro has never been able to establish himself as an 
entrepreneur in ordinary manufacturing industries* is less surprising. The 
public, of course, is not always aware of the racial identity of those who 
produce. For this reason, the Negro, perhaps, would have been able to sell 
on the white market had he been allowed to become a manufacturer. But 
the obstacles have been too great to overcome. In most manufacturing lines 
he has not even been able to become a skilled worker, much less a foreman, 
engineer or office worker. The chances of acquiring managerial skills, under 
such circumstances, were scant. Lack of adequate training made him infe- 
rior. His background in slavery enhanced his feeling of inferiority. The 
general belief that his inferiority was due to his race meant that even those 
individual Negroes who would have been able to overcome all other diffi- 
culties were stopped short. For one thing, it put the would-be Negro 
entrepreneur at a tremendous disadvantage in respect to the all-important 
problem of credit. One can almost ccAjnt on the fingers of one hand the 
number of types of production where the Negro, as an ordinary working- 
man, has been allowed to enter when he was not well entrenched already 
during the time of slavery. If whites put up great restrictions against his 
activity as a wage earner, how could they be expected to risk their money 
on his attempts to become an independent producer? In the South it would 
have been against the doctrine of the inequality of the races. In the North 

'Outside the building industry there were only a little over 1,300 Negro manufacturers 
in 1930. The main groups were the owners of suit, coat, and overall factories, automobile 
repair shops, and saw and planing mills. Most of these Negro establishments were probably 
small and marginal. Some of the largest individual Negro-owned establishments are those 
producing hair and facial preparations. In most other manufacturing lines there were less 
than five Negro entrepreneurs. (Edwards, op. cit., pp. 90-113.) 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 313 

there were few persons of the moneyed class who had any close contact 
with individual Negroes so that they might judge a Negro on the basis 
of his personal qualifications. 

A comparatively recent development which may have some influence 
on the Negro's position in business is the "don't buy where you can't work" 
campaign which started over a decade ago." On its face, this movement is 
an attempt to get Negro workers into white-owned stores, but it may be 
considered here because, in part, it is stimulated by Negro businessmen who 
hope to attract Negro customers away from white-owned business. The 
right of the Negro to boycott and picket establishments which discriminate 
against him was long contested from a legal standpoint. It was not until 
1938 that this right was finally established through a decision by the 
Supreme Court." This made it possible for the movement to develop. 

The direct purpose of the movement is to increase the number of 
Negroes employed in white-owned stores, movie theaters and other estab- 
lishments in Negro districts. Since usually the aim is not to remove white 
workers already employed but only to make the establishments hire some 
proportion of Negroes when new workers are taken on, the results cannot 
immediately be of great quantitative significance for Negro employment. 
The comparatively small number of white collar workers in most stores 
with large Negro patronage indicates that even the complete success of 
the movement must be rather limited. There may be some secondary 
results, however, in that a number of Negroes receive practical training in 
efficiently managed businesses — a training which is badly needed but for 
which there has been little opportunity so far. It may eventually broaden 
the basis for the recruiting of Negro entrepreneurs. Reid points out that 
this boycott movement has been used mainly in the urban North where 
the Negro has greater political and citizenship rights than in the South. 18 
Too, it is probably principally in the North that there are a great number 
of white-owned stores in Negro areas which are large enough to have any 
employees of white collar status. 19 

Since the boycott movement has had but a few years of full freedom 
from legal restraint — and in the South, of course, is still met with severe 
intimidation — one can, perhaps, expect more from it in the future, partic- 
ularly if the organizations behind it become stronger and more permanent. 
But we should not forget the limitations of this strategy. Even if all jobs 
in white stores in Negro sections were given to Negroes, it would be just 
a drop in the bucket compared with the number of jobs Negroes need to 
have. The Negro's main concern must be to break down job segregation 
and job discrimination in the white economy. He might even — as some 
Negro writers point out 20 — jeopardize this greater objective by asking for 

* From an ideological and organizational point of view this movement will be treated 
in Chapter* 38 and 39. 



314 An American Dilemma 

all-Negro personnel in Negro neighborhood stores. For this reason he has 
to content himself with removing practices of complete exclusion of Negroes 
in such establishments. Not even the ultimate gains can be large under these 
circumstances. 

The very fact, however, that one of the Negro's most spectacular fights 
for economic improvement has been directed on such rather limited objec- 
tives is an indication of how desperate his situation really is. One can well 
understand his excitement about it. The all-white establishment in the 
Negro neighborhood has been an offense that he could not possibly be 
expected to stomach. Even allowing for a possible greater success in the 
future of the "don't buy where you can't work" campaign, one finds no 
trend toward any real decisive improvement in the Negro's position in 
business. He may get a slightly better representation among the white 
collar workers, and there may be more Negroes who would become com- 
petent entrepreneurs. But the days have passed when there was much of a 
future for the small entrepreneur generally, whether Negro or white. 

3. Negro Finance 

Since the credit situation certainly has been one of the major obstacles 
barring the way for the Negro businessman, it is possible that the chances 
for the Negro in trade might have been somewhat better had he been able 
to gain a position in the field of finance. But the Negro has been, and still 
is, almost completely insignificant as a banker. There were not even 1,000 
Negro bankers, brokers, cashiers, and other white collar workers in banks 
in 1930 (Table 2), or less than one for every 600 white workers in such 
occupations. 

The story of the Negro in banking is a story about a handful of fairly 
successful small institutions — and a somewhat larger number of failures. 
The Negro has made more progress in the field of insurance. In 1930 
there were 9,000 Negro officials and white collar workers in this business, 
but they constituted scarcely 2 per cent of the national total. 21 It is a well- 
known fact that one white company has more Negro business than have 
all Negro-owned establishments together. 

Already before the Civil War there were numerous Negro attempts in 
the field of banking, but the Freedmen's Savings Bank and Trust Company 
— backed by the Freedmen's Bureau — represented the first noteworthy 
attempt in the field. It had branches in 36 cities and had an almost phenom- 
enal success; its total deposits at one time reached $57,000,000. Although 
most of the deposits were covered by United States securities, there was 
some unwise use of reserve funds, and this contributed to the failure of the 
bank in the depression of 1874. This event cooled the enthusiasm of the 
Negroes for ventures of this kind for a long time. Sir George Campbell, 
traveling in the South during the late 'seventies, had this to report: 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 315 

I hear much of the Freedman's Savings Bank, which failed with a loss of 4,000,- 
000, which has never been replaced; and the loss causes much distrust among Negroes 
inclined to save. 22 

The Capital Savings Bank in Washington started in 1888 and failed in 
1904, partly because of unwise and speculative investments and partly 
because of misappropriation of funds. During the early 1900's a great 
number of Negro banks were founded, but most of them disappeared after 
a short time. The bankruptcy rate of small white banks also was high during 
this period. Conditions became somewhat better, however, after the organ- 
ization of a state bank inspection system in 19 10. In 1940 there were 14 
members of the National Negro Bankers Association (organized in 1924). 

Today many Negro banks, like almost all white-managed banks, have 
their deposits insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. 
Although Negro banks certainly are much safer than they used to be, they 
suffer from several shortcomings. For one thing, they are small, which 
tends to make operating costs high. This is claimed to be one of the reasons 
why they invest relatively less in low-yielding government securities than 
do most other banks. Investments are made in Negro real estate, but they 
are not easily negotiable, because of the restricted market for Negro prop- 
erty. Financial interests in Negro business arc often quite unsafe. A 
comparatively large part of the borrowers use the loans for consumption 
rather than for production purposes. Because of the poverty of the Negroes 
and the relative weakness of most Negro banks, only a small minority of 
all Negro families residing in localities where Negro banks exist have any 
savings or checking accounts with them. Some writers believe, however, 
that Negro banks have brought about certain secondary beneficial effects; 
white banks are said to treat Negro customers with greater respect whenever 
there is a competing Negro bank in the locality. It may happen, on the 
other hand, that the presence of a Negro bank gives the white banks an 
excuse for advising Negro customers to use their own bank. 23 

The difficulties of the Negroes who wanted to build their own homes 
and were almost entirely unable to get any assistance from white financial 
institutions was one of the main driving forces behind the foundation of 
Negro-managed building and loan associations. The first one started in 
Virginia in 1883. These associations have shown great progress, but also 
there have been a great number of failures. By 1930 there were some 70- 
odd Negro associations with assets totaling $6,600,000, or less than 1 per 
cent of the total assets of all American building and loan associations. The 
depression hit the whole group of institutions severely. The Negro institu- 
tions were hurt somewhat more than were the white associations, and, by 
1938, there were about 50 Negro building and loan associations — 22 of 
which were in Pennsylvania— with combined assets of $3,600,000. It is 



316 An American Dilemma 

significant that some of the most successful Negro-managed institutions 
had a partly white clientele, which means that they had a larger business 
and a greater diversification of risks than they otherwise could have had, 
if all the activities were concentrated in one or a few Negro neighborhoods. 

Most Negro associations, however, are small, which tends to make costs 
rather high. The actual average interest rate charged on building loans in 
1935-1938 was between 7 and 8 per cent, which was somewhat higher than 
that charged by white-managed institutions. Obviously, it is practically only 
upper and upper middle class Negro families who can afford to use them 
for the purpose of financing their homes. It seems that, at least until 1938, 
few of the Negro establishments had started to use federal insurance in 
order to safeguard the depositors and the shareholders, and but a handful 
of them were affiliated with the Federal Home Loan Bank system. Some 
of the associations may have done some Federal Housing Administration 
business, but in all probability it was less than for white-operated institutions. 
These various federal-sponsored services, by which deposits are made secure, 
loans inexpensive, operations more rational, and building programs better 
planned, have more or less revolutionized the whole system of credit, 
particularly in the housing field. It is a safe bet that Negro-managed institu- 
tions will have increased difficulties in competing, unless they are willing 
and able to qualify for such services, and the various federal credit and 
housing agencies are prepared to put in jome special efforts in order to do 
something about the Negro's desperate need for better housing. 24 

The fact that Negroes have made much better headway in the life insur- 
ance business is due to several factors. For one thing, ever since the 1880's, 
Negroes have been subject to differential treatment by white insurance 
companies in that some of them, at that time, started to apply higher 
premium schedules for Negro than for white customers, whereas others 
decided not to take on any Negro business at all. 25 The underlying reason, 
of course, is the fact that mortality rates are much higher for Negroes 
than for whites." This, however, is a social and economic, rather than a 
racial, phenomenon, and most Negroes in the upper and middle classes 
must consider the practice as highly discriminatory. And even when this 
differential treatment is economically justifiable from the point of view 
of the life insurance companies, it is only natural that it must be resented 
by all Negroes, and that they will be inclined to get around it by founding 
their own insurance institutions. 

Discriminatory practices have been followed by other white financial 
institutions as well. But there is this difference: insurance is used even 
among the poorest families, Negro as well as white, in America. Sometimes 
the majority of all families with an income of but $500-$ 1,000 have some 
form of insurance, and even among those with less than $500, usually a 

• See Chapter 7. 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 317 

quite substantial percentage pays insurance premiums. 20 This type of low- 
income insurance is, at best, mainly burial insurance. At worst, it gives little, 
if any, protection, in that persons who are not likely to keep up their 
payments for more than a few years are induced to take life insurance. 27 

But even when payments are kept up and small life insurance policies 
reach maturity, they usually fail to give real protection for anybody except 
the mortician. The burial business in most countries tends to be more or 
less of a racket, capitalizing on the reluctance of the relatives of a deceased 
person to economize the last time they can make any sacrifices for him. 
The American mortician business is no exception. The prices quoted in this 
country often appear high, at least to an outsider. 28 One cannot avoid the 
impression that great ingenuity is used to induce even poor patrons to buy 
unnecessary luxuries. This happens in the Negro communities as well. 

We have found that the Negro undertakers numbered around 3,000 in 
1930, and that they constituted not far from one-tenth of the total number 
of such professionals in the country. In other words, one of the few groups 
of entrepreneurs which has almost the same proportion of Negroes as has 
the general population happens to be one of those most likely to exploit the 
consumer. This, incidentally, does not reflect so much on the Negro as on 
the general pattern of this business. The Negro has had a chance as an 
undertaker because of the character of his work; corpses usually are segre- 
gated even more meticulously than live people. Then, too, there is a close 
relation between this business and the churches and lodges which are 
almost completely segregated, both South and North. And Negro insur- 
ance men often work hand in hand with the morticians. 20 

Like other Negro financial institutions, the Negro insurance business was 
originally based in a large measure on Negro church congregations and 
lodges. This is not to be wondered at, for white-managed insurance has 
developed similarly. The most direct origin of the insurance company, of 
course, is the benevolent society, of which there are a great number among 
the Negroes. New Orleans alone, in the middle of the 'thirties, had several 
hundred Negro benevolent societies. One of these was founded in the 
1780's. It is obvious that most of these societies are extremely small and 
that they cannot be organized on particularly rational principles or be 
made to work efficiently. It is not unusual that as much as one-third, or 
even more, of the expenditures is for administrative purposes, particularly 
officers' salaries, which means that the sick and burial benefits have to be 
reduced in proportion. 80 

In 1939 there were 67 Negro insurance companies with 1,677*000 
policies and a total income of $13,000,000. They gave employment to 
about 8,000 workers. Those were the Negro companies which had weath- 
ered the depression during the 'thirties. Some of them, nevertheless, have 
serious shortcomings. 81 



Ji8 An American Dilemma 

When evaluating the Negro's performance in the world of finance, one 
should not overlook the fact that similar white institutions have once passed 
through a period when inefficient and even irregular practices prevailed. 
In the case of banks and of building and loan associations, that time was 
not so long ago. The early 'thirties, when thousands of banks failed, re- 
vealed some appalling weaknesses in American banking organization. Thus, 
the difference in performance between Negro- and white-managed institu- 
tions may, in part, be a difference in the stage of development. This is not 
to say, however, that there is much prospect that there will be a second 
stage in the development when Negro institutions will grow strong enough 
to be comparable in quality with white financial establishments. The Negro- 
managed bank and insurance company will not get away from the fact that 
the Negroes are poor and that the segregated Negro community cannot 
offer any range of investment opportunities such that investment risk can 
be minimized. 

Indeed, it is difficult to sec a real future for a segregated Negro financial 
system. Basically, it is nothing but a poor substitute for what the Negroes 
really need: employment of Negroes in white-dominated financial institu- 
tions and more consideration for them as insurance or credit seekers. 

4. The Negro Teacher 

In 1930 over 5 per cent of all male workers in nonagricultural pursuits 
and almost 15 per cent of the female nonfarm workers were professionals, 
that is, teachers, clergymen, physicians, dentists, trained nurses, musicians, 
artists. The corresponding figures for Negro workers were much lower: 
2.6 and 4.5 per cent, respectively. 32 Thus the Negro's chance of getting a 
job as a professional was only one-third or one-half that of the white 
worker. Still, compared with the Negro's chances in other "higher" occu- 
pations, this is a relatively good record. 

For the total American population, the professional occupations had 
about the same relative importance in the nonagricultural economy in the 
South as in the North. For Negroes, however, it was different, particularly 
for women. In the South, more than 5 per cent of the Negro female workers 
were in professional occupations. The corresponding figure for the North 
was less than 3 per cent. 33 The main reason, of course, is that the Negro's 
chances in the teaching profession are much smaller in the North than in 
the South. 

School teaching, of course, is the principal Negro profession. Yet Negroes 
did not have more than about half the representation in the teaching profes- 
sion as in the total population. There has been a spectacular increase in the 
number of Negro teachers, but the white school system, too, has been 
growing rapidly, so that since 19 10 the relative gain for Negroes was 
limited, except on the college level. 31 By and large, the limitations in the 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 319 

Negro teaching profession are those of Negro education in general — a 
subject dealt with elsewhere in this book.' Where there are segregated 
schools the Negro teacher has usually a complete monopoly on the jobs in 
Negro schools." Where schools are mixed, Negroes have difficulty in 
getting in. 

The Negro teacher in the segregated school has a heavier teaching load 
than has the white teacher. In Southern elementary schools for Negroes 



TABLE 3 
Principal Groups of Negro Professional Workers: 1910 and 1930 













Negro 


Workers 


as a 




Number of Negro 


Percentage of all 


Groups 




Workers 






Workers 






I9IO 






1930 


1910 




193° 


Teachers (school) 


2 M3 2 






54,439 


4-9 




5-2 


Clergymen 


17.495 






25,034 


14.8 




16.8 


Musicians and teachers of music 


5,606 






io,583 


4.0 




6.4 


Trained nurses 


2,433 






5,587 


3-0 




1-9 


Actors and showmen 


2,345 






4,130 


4.8 




5.5 


Physicians, surgeons, 
















vetcrin nries 


3,139 






3,939 


2.0 




2.4 


College presidents and 
















professors 


242 






2,146 


«-5 




3-5 


Dentists 


478 






1,773 


1.2 




2.5 


Lawyers 


779 






1,17S 


0.7 




0.8 



Source: Thirteenth Census of the Untied Slates: 10m. Population. Vol. 4. pp. 428-431; and Fifteenth Census 
of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. 5, pp. 574-576. 

there were 43 pupils for every teacher in 1933-1934, as against a ratio of 34 
in schools for white children. 80 This means that 26 per cent more Negro 
teachers would be needed in Southern elementary and secondary schools 
if the pupil load in Negro schools were to be brought down to the white 
level. And the need would be even greater if differences in school attend- 
ance were to be eliminated. While Negro teachers had less education than 
white teachers, on the average, the discrepancy in educational attainment 
was much smaller than that in salary. The average salary in Southern 
Negro elementary schools in 1935-1936 was only $510; in Southern white 
schools it was $833. The corresponding figures for Mississippi alone were 

1 See Chapter 15, Section 3; Chapter 41 ; and Chapter 43, Section 4. 

b The only important exceptions are some private colleges. 

'Almost 25 per cent of the Negro teachers in Southern elementary schools had received 
no formal education beyond high school, compared to 6 per cent of the white teachers. 
The difference was less marked, however, in respect to the proportions of those having at 
least three years of colleges they were 22 and 28 per cent, respectively. 



J20 An American Dilemma 

$247 and $783, respectively, but in the District of Columbia Negro and 
white teachers earned an identical high-average salary of $2,376. Apart 
from the District of Columbia, Delaware, and Missouri, every Southern 
state paid lower salaries to Negroes than to whites. 80 When the school term 
is over, the Negro teacher, more often than the white teacher, has to take 
up some other gainful work — often in domestic service or in agriculture. 

Indeed, there are few major cases of racial wage discrimination so clear- 
cut and so pronounced as that found in the teaching profession in the South. 
In most other cases there is not so much direct wage discrimination as there 
is a tendency to let whites monopolize jobs in skilled occupations or in 
high-paying and expanding industries. Those having the political power 
in the South have shown a firm determination to maintain these salary 
differentials in the Negro schools. The writer has heard several rational- 
izations for it." The only one which has any logical validity is that Negro 
teachers are not so well trained as whites. But even this argument is not 
strong. The trouble with it is not only that salary differentials certainly are 
larger than the differences in competence — and that they exist even when 
the excuse does not apply — but also that the argument has the character 
of a vicious circle. By keeping down all appropriations for all kinds of 
Negro schools," including teachers' colleges, one can, of course, perpetuate 
the inferiority of training. Frequently Southern school authorities have 
even gone so far as to hire Negro teachers without teaching certificates only 
because they could have them at sub-standard salaries. 37 

These facts of discrimination in Negro teachers' salaries have been well 
known and openly discussed for a long time. Recently, under the general 
direction of the N.A.A.C.P., the inequality in teachers' salaries has been 
taken before the courts. Teachers' salary differentials based on race alone 
were declared unconstitutional in I940. as This court decision and the 
continued fight in many Southern states have not persuaded Southern 
school authorities to retreat from their illegal practice. Only the state of 
Maryland and a few other localities have abided by the decision. Other- 
wise those states and communities that have shown any readiness to comply 
have usually contented themselves with plans for a gradual equalization 
over a period of years. When Negro teachers considered these periods too 
long, or when the authorities were absolutely unwilling to comply, new 
court cases were introduced. 30 In spite of this delay," equalization of teach- 
ers' salaries is under way in the South. The coming rise in the economic 
6tatus of the largest Negro professional group will represent a change of 
no small importance. It is quite likely that it will have certain beneficial 
secondary effects on Negro education and on Negro leadership. 

* See Chapter 9, Section 4. See also Horace Mann Bond, The Education of i/u Negro in 
the American Social Order (1934.), pp. 270-271. 
b See Chapter 15, Section 3. 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 321 

5. The Negro Minister 

Clergymen constitute the second largest group among Negro "profes- 
sional" workers. They also enjoy a complete monopoly behind the caste 
wall. The ministry is the only profession in which Negroes have more 
representatives than they have in the general population (Table 3). There 
are several possible reasons for the large number of Negro ministers: that 
Negroes are more divided in their religious interest than whites; that 
restricted opportunities in other desirable fields make a larger number of 
Negroes become preachers; that more Negroes attend church than do 
whites." 

The educational level of Negro ministers shows great variations; the 
average is extremely low. b The same is true of salaries. A few large Negro 
churches may pay as much as from $5,000 to $7,500 a year, and salaries of 
$3,000 or more are not infrequent in the larger city churches. At the other 
extreme are those ministers, particularly in rural areas, who have to be 
content with a salary of a few hundred dollars a year or with a fluctuating 
collection. 40 It goes without saying that a great number of Negro clergy- 
men have to have other employment on the side; it may even be that the 
ministry is a sideline which gives them their opportunities in other occupa- 
tions. Some ministers are teachers. Others may be farmers or laborers. 
Sometimes ministers are offered free shares in business enterprises in return 
for using their influence in behalf of such economic ventures. 41 Some Negro 
ministers arc associated with morticians. Small gifts from benevolent whites 
also play a role in many Negro ministers' budgets. Their outside economic 
connections give some Negro ministers an extra influence over their congre- 
gations. The income of many a minister of a small congregation "depends 
solely upon his ability to demand it from the members for religious pur- 
poses." 42 In the Holiness and the Church of God congregations it has been 
usual that pastors demand a tithe. Even plain misappropriation of money 
has occurred: once three bishops of the Methodist Church were suspended 
for this reason. 43 

Although many Negro ministers have been guilty, at one time or another, 
of these malpractices, it docs not follow that they are characteristic of the 
entire Negro clergy. Part of the explanation is that the position of most 

'See Chapter 40. While over 16 per cent of all clergymen in 1930 were Negroes, the 
value of the Negro church edifices in 1926 did not constitute more than about 5 per cent 
of that of all church buildings in the United States. Even this, however, is a pretty good 
record compared with the Negro's share in the entire property valuation of the United States 
which amounted to about 2 per cent (See Carter G. Woodson, T/te Negro Professional Man 
and the Community [1934], p. 66.) 

" See Chapter 40. 

* See Chapter 40. 



322 An American Dilemma 

Negro ministers is marginal and insecure, that their educational level is 
low, and that they have to sell out to the whites in the South where the 
latter demand it. 

In Chapter 40 we shall deal with the future prospects of the Negro 
church. It is losing out among the young people, mostly because the Negro 
preacher has lagged behind the rest of the Negro community and, particu- 
larly, behind other professionals, in acquiring a better education. Still the 
Negro church retains its hold over the Negro community and will continue 
to give livelihood to a large proportion of Negro professionals. 

6. The Negro in Medical Professions 

The total number of physicians, surgeons, and veterinaries in the United 
States was almost stationary between 1910 and 1930. The number of Negro 
doctors, on the other hand, increased by almost one-fourth (Table 3). The 
main reason for this is that Negroes have migrated to the North and to 
cities, where they are more inclined to patronize doctors, and especially 
Negro doctors. The overwhelming majority of Negro physicians reside in 
cities, and particularly in large cities.* 4 Since the Negro urban population 
almost doubled during this same period, there was actually a decline in the 
Negro physician-to-population ratio if we count only communities which 
are served at all by Negro doctors. In 1930 the Negro's representation in 
the medical professions, for the whole country, was less than one-fourth 
that of the whites. There has been no appreciable change since then. In 
1940 there were about 4,000 Negro physicians and surgeons, 45 and, if we 
add the veterinaries, the number was only slightly higher. 

There are several reasons for the limitations in the opportunities for the 
Negro doctor. Most whites would not ordinarily turn to a physician of 
Negro extraction — partly because of race prejudice, partly because they 
would not trust his ability. There are some significant exceptions, however, 
particularly in certain Northern, Eastern, and West Coast centers, where 
over half the Negro physicians in Woodson's sample said that they had 
some white patients, mainly among the immigrants. Even in the South it 
occasionally happens that white patients go to a Negro doctor. But this 
practice is largely — though not always — of a questionable character, in that 
some white patients want to conceal venereal diseases and pregnancy from 
their white friends. 46 In the upland areas of the South — for instance in 
West Virginia, western Virginia, North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and 
so on — where race prejudice is less intense, there are a few Negro doctors 
who have quite a sizeable white practice. Some of it, of course, consists of 
cases of abortion and venereal disease, but there are also others, partly 
because low income whites often have difficulty in getting service from 
other than inefficient white doctors. 47 

This white clientele has never been large. It is possible that it is shrinking 



Chapter. 14. The Negro in Business 323 

with the assimilation of immigrants and with the gradual institution of 
public health services for low income families. The Negro doctor, in the 
main, must depend on Negro patronage. And the overwhelming majority 
of both the white and the Negro patients of the Negro doctor are poor. 
Expenditures of private families for medical care increase with income at 
least proportionately, and sometimes more than proportionately. 48 

Only some of the dollars expended by Negro families on doctor's fees 
are paid to Negro physicians. Carter G. Woodson, on the basis of certain 
inquiries he has made, tentatively estimates the proportion of the Negro 
trade that goes to the Negro doctor to be about 60 per cent. He complains 
about 

... the large number of Negro leaders who after preaching race patronage and even 
boasting of our competent physicians and surgeons as proof of race progress, never- 
theless have employed white surgeons in undergoing operations, 40 

He goes on to explain how the trade the Negro doctor gets is not always 
indicative of any original appreciation of his competence among the Negro 
people. It has happened that white physicians have had to talk to Negro 
patients in order to make them believe that doctors of their own race are 
any good. Often it is only because white physicians want to restrict their 
practice to white patients that Negroes turn to Negro doctors. 110 

Another reason for the limitation of opportunities for Negro doctors is 
the fact that most public health services in the South are poorer, in relation 
to the need, for Negroes than for whites. 8 Even when there are facilities 
for Negro patients, it does not always mean that they offer any work 
opportunities for the Negro doctor. White professionals take care of the 
patients both in the white section and in the "colored wing" of a typical 
Southern hospital. Dorn observes: 

Until the Flint-Goodridge Hospital was built in New Orleans with the assist- 
ance of the Rosenwald Fund and the General Education Board, there was not a 
single modern hospital in Louisiana where a Negro physician could practice. In 
Mississippi . . . there arc no modern hospitals where a Negro physician may take his 
patients. A corresponding situation prevails in most of the other southern states. North 
and South Carolina are an exception due mainly to the assistance of the Duke 
Endowment Fund. 51 

There are only a few hospitals in the United States, such as Harlem Hospi- 
tal in New York City, where Negro and white doctors work together under 
a system of absolute equality. Concerning the situation in the South, Reid 
cays: 



Even in cities like Atlanta and Richmond where white medical colleges have con- 
trol over large public wards of local hospitals, Negro physicians are not permitted 
* See Chapter 15, Section 4. 



324 An American Dilemma 

to participate in their programs. When the Negro physician receives his degree in 
medicine and is licensed to practice there is little distinction between his training and 
that of any other American physician — but the equality ends there, for race pro- 
scription then begins. Opportunities for internships and residences are circumscribed, 
hospital and clinical facilities are denied, membership in county medical and other 
professional and scientific societies is refused (in the South). Hence the Negro 
physician becomes the general practitioner par excellence — isolated and serving a 
low income group. 62 

The prospects of the Negro physician are becoming increasingly uncer- 
tain because of the present growth of all kinds of public health facilities. 
This trend cannot fail to take the low income clientele away from the 
private practitioner, and this, of course, means that the Negro doctor may 
lose almost all his patients unless he is given a place in the new public 
health system. Many Negro doctors, particularly in the South, are quite 
pessimistic about their chances of getting such a place, and, for this reason, 
one sometimes finds the most ardent opponents of any program of "social- 
ized medicine" among Negro doctors. S3 They are undoubtedly right in 
assuming that an extension of the public health services to low income 
families would constitute a tremendous risk from their point of view. At 
the same time, however, there are definite possibilities for them in such a 
development j if they do succeed in getting a fair representation on the 
public health programs, there will be more employment for them, since 
these programs must cause a tremendous increase in the use of medical 
services among low income groups. 

The fact that the Negro doctor has such small opportunities for hospital 
training and specialized work is the reason why there is some justification 
for the belief that the Negro is less well trained than the white man as a 
physician or surgeon. The basic training is generally considered adequate. 
Only a small minority of Negro doctors are trained at white schools. About 
four-fifths of them get their education at two Negro medical schools: 
Meharry in Nashville, Tennessee, and Howard in Washington, D.C. The 
percentage of failures at state board examinations is about the same for 
graduates of Negro schools as for graduates of white schools. 6 * It is 
obvious, however, that these institutions cannot offer any wide range of 
opportunities for specialized work. 58 

According to a sample study by Johnson — which contained 510 cases — 
the median income of the Negro doctors was $2,726.41 in 1936. 58 Never- 
theless, some Negro physicians were comparatively wealthy men. Woodson 
found a few having fortunes of over $50,000. A large proportion of the 
Negro physicians, however, get a considerable part of their income from 
sources other than their practice. Several of them work for Negro insurance 
companies and benevolent societies. Some have made fortunes in real 
estate. There are those who own drug stores. Others have their own private 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 325 

hospitals, benefiting from a monopoly arising from segregation in public 
health service.* There are observers who characterize some of these business 
practices as exploitative. In addition, they help to keep down the profes- 
sional record of the Negro doctor. 57 

Having dealt at such great length with the conditions of the Negro 
physician, we can content ourselves by touching on the rather similar prob- 
lems of the Negro in other medical professions. There were only 5,600 
Negro nurses in 1930, constituting less than 2 per cent of the total number 
of nurses in the United States (Table 3). The reason why the proportion 
of Negroes is even smaller among the nurses than among the physicians is 
obvious: nurses cannot count on much private practice; usually they have 
to depend on the public health system, which offers few opportunities for 
Negro professionals. One would expect, however, that these limitations 
would be somewhat less rigorous in respect to nurses, since it would seem 
to be inconsistent with Southern ideas to let white women care for Negro 
male patients. But a solution to this delicate problem has been found other 
than that of letting the Negro nurse monopolize the work in the colored 
hospital wings. White nurses may treat Negro patients, but they are assisted 
by Negro maids who do most of the dirty work. 118 

The Negro dentist has a position much like that of the Negro physician. 58 
He may have some white trade, particularly among foreigners in the 
North, but also in some Southern communities. On the other hand, large 
numbers of Negro patients turn to white dentists, in spite of the fact that, 
in the South at least, they are treated on a segregated basis, with separate 
instruments, in a separate chair. The fact that Negro dentists, like other 
Negro professionals, have little representation in rural areas, forces many 
Negroes to use white dentists even if they want to go to a Negro. The 
average income of the Negro dentist is somewhat lower than that of the 
Negro doctor. Like the physician, he is often a businessman on the side. 
In his practice he may, sometimes, be unethical. It is often alleged that 
there is a group of Negro dentists — the so-called "glorified blacksmiths" — 
who satisfy the vanity of patients by decorating sound teeth with gold or 
by substituting more beautiful artificial teeth for healthy natural teeth. 
The writer has been told by some observers, however, that this pattern is 
gradually declining, owing to the rising educational level of the patients. 

7. Other Negro Professionals 

Potentially, there should be great opportunities for Negro lawyers. So 
often is the Negro wronged — in the South at least — and so little do most 
white people understand his plight, that there should be a tremendous 
need for Negro attorneys to assist Negro clients. Actually, however, the 

* It has even happened, in Detroit for instance, that municipalities which do not want 
to accept Negro patients in city hospitals subsidize second-rate Negro-owned institution*. 



326 An American Dilemma 

legal insecurity of the Negro is such that the Negro attorney often has but 
little chance before a Southern court." Protection by a "respectable" white 
person usually counts more in the South for a Negro client than would 
even the best representation on the part of a Negro lawyer. 

In 1930 less than 1 per cent of all lawyers were Negroes (Table 3). 
Almost two-thirds of the 1,200 Negro lawyers resided outside the South. 
Most Negro lawyers are the products of white law schools in the North. 
In Mississippi there were but 6 Negro lawyers, as against more than 1,200 
white lawyers. The corresponding figures for Alabama were 4 and 1,600, 
respectively. Of all those in the South only a minority are believed to 
devote themselves to their law practice, and rarely do they appear in court 
to defend Negro clients against white parties. Their main legal work con- 
cerns internal Negro affairs, such as those connected with churches, fraternal 
associations, domestic relations and criminal matters. 80 

In 1930 there were less than 1,000 Negroes registered as social workers. 
The New Deal, however, has brought about a tremendous change in this 
respect. According to a recent estimate made by Forrester B. Washington, 
there were over 4,000 Negro social workers in 1940. It is significant that 
more than half of these were in the North. 01 The South certainly has a 
smaller representation of Negroes on social work staffs than corresponds 
to the relative relief needs of the Negro population. This is so for two 
reasons. One is that, particularly in rural areas of the South, it is usually 
more difficult for Negroes than for whites in similar economic circumstances 
to get on the relief rol]s. b A second reason is that most Negro public 
assistance clients in the South are handled by white workers. This is quite, 
understandable. The new institution of large-scale public relief for both 
whites and Negroes in the South has been received with rather mixed 
feelings by those in power. The appointment of numerous Negro relief 
officials would have increased the resentment tremendously. 68 

Under such circumstances, it seems like something of an achievement 
that the Negro, even in a state like Mississippi, is at all represented in the 
social work profession. There are now Negro case-workers all over the 
South. Some N.Y.A. officials are Negroes. Negro housing projects usually 
have Negro management, at least in part. There are Negro officials in the 
Farm Security Administration and in farm and home extension work." 
This progress is due, largely, to the influence of the federal government. 
Then, too, Negroes have had the benefit of two rather good schools of 
social work, one at Howard University and the other at Atlanta University. 

* See Chapter z 6. 
'See Chapter 15. 

* Concerting' the under-representation of Negroe* among farm and home demonstration 
agenti, m Chapter u, Section ti. 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 327 

8. Negro Officials and White Collar Workers 
in Public Service 

In previous sections we have touched upon certain groups of Negro 
officials and white collar workers, all or some of whom are employed in 
public service: teachers, physicians and surgeons, nurses, social workers, 
extension service workers and so on. These categories include the majority 
of all Negro workers of higher than wage earner status employed by 
federal, state or county agencies. 

The largest of the remaining occupations is postal service, which had 
18,000 Negro workers in 1930, of whom 7,000 were clerks, 6,000 were 
mail carriers and the rest were in various minor categories. This meant a 
trebling in Negro postal employment since 1910, whereas the number of 
white workers had increased to a far lesser extent. The gain was due, 
mainly, to the development outside the South. In Northern states Negroes 
generally had many more representatives, in proportion, among the postal 
employees than in the total population, but in the South — and particularly 
in the Deep South — they were grossly under-represented in the postal 
service. 08 

In other public services" there were scarcely 6,000 Negro officials and 
white collar workers in 1930, constituting only about 1 per cent of the 
total. Of these, less than 2,000 were policemen, sheriffs, and detectives; 
and more than 3,000 were clerks and kindred workers; the remaining 1,000 
were in a large variety of other categories. 64 There had been some increase 
since 1910, but this seems to have been due largely to the development in 
some Northern state and municipal administrations. 65 

Negroes were driven out of Southern state and local government service 
after Reconstruction. The decline of Negroes in federal jobs was more 
gradual. During the Wilson administration, the Negro's position in the 
federal government became even more critical than previously. The num- 
ber of Negro postmasters declined from 153 in 19 10 to 78 in 1930, and 
several other Negro officials of the federal government were removed. 
Segregation was introduced into Washington offices where it had scarcely 
occurred before. The rule was devised that federal agencies, when employ- 
ing civil servants, were allowed to choose among the three applicants with 
the highest rating. Later exclusion of Negroes was made even easier by 
the requirement that every applicant was to supply his photograph. 08 
Moton observed that ". . . an almost perfect system had been devised for 
eliminating Negroes without violating any specific regulation or officially 
sanctioning discrimination on account of race." 07 Its effects on the employ- 
ment of Negroes in federal service was counteracted, to some extent, be- 
cause of the expansion in the federal administration during the First 

'The armed forces are discussed in Chapter 19, Section 4. 



328 An American Dilemma 

World War and — at least in the case of postal service — the rapid increase 
in number of Negro voters in the North. 68 

The New Deal had a more friendly attitude toward employment of 
Negroes in the federal administration, and this trend has become even 
more apparent during the present war emergency when the federal govern- 
ment, as well as certain state and municipal governments, have become 
increasingly concerned about racial discrimination. 3 There are no statistical 
data available at this time that would enable us to get any idea about how 
great the improvement has been. We know that the Negroes have made 
appreciable gains in the number of white collar and higher jobs in public 
service. But as the general expansion has been extremely rapid ever since 
the inauguration of the New Deal, it is not even certain that the proportion 
of Negroes in such positions has increased. 

The stipulation about appending photographs to job applications has 
recently been abolished. This does not mean that discrimination cannot go 
on. It is almost always possible to ascertain the race of the person certified. 1 * 
Professional workers are almost never employed without having had an 
interview with the official under whom they are to work. For this reason 
there are — outside of the special divisions for Negro affairs — only a few 
Negro federal workers having professional status. When a newly appointed 
person turns out to be a Negro, it is possible to find his work unsatisfactory 
and to have him dismissed after a while. Also there is always the possibility 
of barring Negroes from advancement. In most offices, Negroes — either 
voluntarily or involuntarily — sit together. Negro stenographers seldom 
get assignments as private secretaries; most of them work in "pools." 69 
In some places there is a more or less rigid segregation in cafeterias, but 
there are other places where such segregational patterns have been broken 
up. 70 

The future prospects, of course, are uncertain, but there is more hope 
for the Negro in public service than in most other work. Government work, 
for one thing, is steadily expanding; after the War there will, perhaps, be 
a temporary reduction, particularly of the federal payrolls, but the general 
trend, more likely than not, will continue upward. Then, too, employment 
in public service is susceptible to political pressure. It will take a long time, 
of course, before any efficient pro-Negro pressure can be brought on South- 
ern administrations. On the other hand, it seems that Negroes have not yet 
exhausted their present possibilities of forcing the federal government and 
the Northern state governments to employ an increased number of Negro 
workers. The principle of nondiscrimination is there established and undis- 
puted. The present war emergency, the realization of the low morale 
among Negroes, and the new consciousness of the American Creed are 

'See Chapter 19. 
'See Chapter 19. 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 329 

forcing the authorities to take action against racial discrimination in civil 
service." 

9. Negro Professionals of the Stage, Screen 
and Orchestra 

The Negro is often praised for his artistic talents — frequently in a rather 
derogatory way, for the implication is that this is the only domain where 
he is capable of noteworthy achievements. Many white persons know the 
names of some outstanding Negro singers and jazz-band leaders, and 
believe that this is the one professional field where the Negro has been 
able to make good. He has succeeded in this field to a certain extent, but 
even here his representation is not as great as in the total population. In 
the 1930 Census there were about 15,000 Negroes registered as musicians, 
teachers of music, actors, showmen, and showgirls, and this figure consti- 
tuted only about 6 per cent of the national total. 71 It is probable that it 
includes a great number of persons who were not competent, and that 
many made most of their income in other occupations, including illegal 
work, such as prostitution. b This is true, of course, in respect to many white 
workers as well. 

It is obvious that the competition must be much keener among Negro 
than among white artists, and this probably for two reasons. The market 
is smaller, and a number of ambitious Negroes, who, had they been white, 
would have had a range of good careers to choose from, are likely to try 
the artistic profession as almost the only one which seems to hold any 
promise. The relative limitations qf the market formerly were even greater 
than they are now. Before about 191 5, Negroes could not make up much 
of an audience, partly because few of them lived in cities, and it took some 
time before white people got into the habit of seeing performances of 
Negro showmen. Even when Negro characters were presented to white 
audiences, the parts were originally played by whites. This was true of one 
of the earlier classical caricatures of Negro life, the "Jump Jim Crow," 
given from 1830 on. After that came a series of so-called minstrels, who 
were white showmen with blackened faces. Soon, however, Negroes were 
allowed to help as assistants, and eventually they started out on their 
own. 72 

The northward migration has helped the Negro artist tremendously. 
The number of artists doubled between 1910 and 1930, whereas the in- 
crease for white artists was far smaller. The majority of Negro workers in 
this profession are in the North. 73 They are particularly concentrated in 
New York, which has one permanent Negro stage, the Apollo Theater. 
In addition, there are intermittent opportunities for Negro actors at down- 

*See Chapter 19. 

b However, less than one-third of these 15,000 Negro artists were women. 

° See Chapter 44., Section 5. 



330 An American Dilemma 

town theaters. Nightclubs, dancing halls, and other places, both in white 
and in Negro sections, provide additional employment. Most of these 
places are owned by whites, even though the entertainers are entirely 
Negro. 74 There are a few hundred Negro artists in Hollywood, but the 
pattern of using Negroes almost exclusively as extras or in minor parts — 
which, with a few exceptions, caricature the Negro — makes the economic 
opportunities for the Negro screen actor extremely limited. In 1935, for 
example, the total salaries paid to Negro actors by the film industry did 
not amount to more than $ 57,00a 75 Negro musicians usually belong to 
the powerful American Federation of Musicians (A. F. of L.). In the 
South they are generally organized in separate locals, and the same segre- 
gational practice prevails in many Northern cities as well. New York is one 
of the few centers where Negro musicians are treated as equals by the 
union. White locals often have jurisdiction over radio stations, theaters, 
and other large places of employment, and Negro musicians, in such cases, 
cannot work there without special permission from their white competi- 
tors. 76 

10. Note on Shady Occupations 

In the cities, particularly in the big cities, there is a Negro "under- 
world." 77 To it belong not only petty thieves and racketeers, prostitutes 
and pimps, bootleggers, dope addicts, and so on," but also a number of 
"big shots" organizing and controlling crime, vice, and racketeering, as 
well as other more innocent forms of illegal activity such as gambling — 
particularly the "policy," or the "numbers," game. The underworld has, 
therefore, an upper class and a middle class as well as a lower class. 

The shady upper class is composed mainly of the "policy" kings. They 
are the most important members of the underworld from the point of 
view of their numbers, their wealth and their power. The policy game 
started in the Negro community 78 and has a long history. 79 This game 
caught on quickly among Negroes because one may bet as little as a penny, 
and the rewards are high if one wins (as much as 600 to 1 ). In a com- 
munity where most of the people are either on relief or in the lowest 
income brackets such rewards must appear exceptionally alluring. The 
average amounts bet each year, however, often amount to a staggering 
sum in relation to the average incomes in the Negro community, 80 and the 
financial return is, of course, nothing for most people. From the entre- 
preneur's point of view, the game is a sure thing. During most of its history 
the policy racket in the Negro community has been monopolized by 
Negroes. 81 Otherwise respectable businessmen have had a controlling inter- 
est in the numbers racket 82 (perhaps because large returns in other enter- 
prises were rare), and many bona fide gangsters often own real estate and 

' Crime statistics, as further explained in Chapter 4.4, Section 2, give a grossly exaggerated 
idea of how Negro crime and vice compare with white crime. 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 331 

other Negro businesses, partly as a "front" to give respectability to their 
gambling enterprise and partly as normal and sound investments for their 
profits. 

While the members of the shady upper class are not accepted by the 
respectable Negro upper and middle classes, the observer finds that they 
have a great deal of status in the eyes of lower class Negroes and are not 
greatly condemned by agencies for Negro concerted action or by the Negro 
press. There are several reasons for this. Most important is the fact that the 
policy "kings" are wealthy, and that they are generous in a poor com- 
munity. 88 Also significant is the fact that when the organized white gangs 
became interested in the numbers racket, many of the original Negro 
entrepreneurs, having grown wealthy and not liking violent criminal 
activities, retired; they thus acquired a sort of second-hand and late respect- 
ability. Negroes have not usually been organized into gangs involved in 
all kinds of criminal activities as have the white gangs; they tend to be 
individual entrepreneurs usually in the gambling rackets and in machine 
politics — businesses which are illegal but tacitly accepted by public opinion. 

The power of these big racket kings is derived not only from their 
wealth and their political tie-ups, but from the fact that they provide a large 
number of jobs in a poor and unemployed community. The numbers racket 
requires a great number of middlemen who are small fry from the point 
of view of those at the top but who are not only rich in relation to most 
members of the community but also lead a free and easy, rather romantic 
and exciting life. 84 The young Negro fresh from the rural South is even 
more impressed than is the Northern Negro youth, but even the Northern 
youth is restricted by caste from the satisfying and economically advanta- 
geous jobs and must admire a person who has plenty of money, adventure 
and status. 

The high popularity and prestige of large-scale gamblers and racketeers 
is a general American pattern and not restricted to the Negro community. 
This American pattern is exaggerated not only in the Negro ghettos but 
in all isolated and economically disadvantaged metropolitan groups. Funda- 
mental to its explanation is the odd American tradition of keeping a large 
number of human activities illegal — for instance, the sale of liquor during 
prohibition and now gambling — in spite of the fact that they are commonly 
indulged in by the citizens without serious restrictions by law-enforcement 
agencies.* The American tradition of entangling normal and permitted 
activities by a great number of impractical, expensive or unenforceable 
proscriptions has similar effects. 

There are several reasons why it is to be expected that the Negro com- 
munity should be extreme in sheltering a big underworld. One reason is the 
very great restriction of economic and social opportunities for young 

"See Chapter 1, Section* 8, 9 and 10. 



332 An American Dilemma 

Negroes in ordinary lines of work, and the consequent experience of frus- 
tration. This is particularly strong in the North where educational facilities 
are flung open to Negroes, and public policy and public discussion are 
permeated with the equalitarian principles of the American Creed. The low 
expectation on the part of white people generally and the quite common 
belief, particularly in the lower classes of whites, that Negroes are "born 
criminals" must also have demoralizing effects. The Negroes' respect for 
law and order is constantly undermined by the frequent encroachments 
upon Negro rights and personal integrity, permitted in the South and 
sometimes in the North," which are widely publicized throughout the 
Negro world by the Negro press. This, and the general experience of exclu- 
sion and isolation, makes for a fatalistic sense of not belonging. Quite 
ordinarily the Negro is deprived of the feeling that he is a full-fledged 
participant in society and that the laws, in this significant sense, are "his" 
laws. 8 " The crowdedness in the Negro ghettos — often bordering white 
"red light districts" — the poverty and the economic insecurity, the lack of 
wholesome recreation, are the other factors which all work in the direction 
of fostering anti-social tendencies. The great unemployment during the 
'thirties must have strengthened these tendencies.* 

In addition, we must remember that much of the vice seen in the Negro 
community is there, not for Negroes, but for whites; it is carried on in the 
Negro sections because they are disorganized, without adequate police 
protection, but with police and politicians looking for graft. This is espe- 
cially true of vices other than gambling. Elaborate and expensive brothels 
cater to whites 89 (who have the money to pay for these pleasures) and are 
largely owned by whites. 87 The ordinary Negro streetwalker is in an unpro- 
tected, 88 economically disadvantaged 89 and overcrowded occupation. The 
peddling of dope, obscene pictures, and other appurtenances of vice, like 
prostitution, is part of organized vice rings owned by whites. 

There are no investigations which allow us to gauge what the Negro 
underworld means in terms of employment and business opportunities. 90 
As to employment, the chances are, as we have pointed out, that, except for 
the numbers racket, relatively little employment is given, and that what 
there is is accompanied by a low money return and vicious exploitation. 
But the numbers racket probably does give a considerable amount of 
employment at decent pay. As to the extent and size of the business, we 
cannot even have a reasonably substantiated opinion whether "protected" 
businesses mean more in the Negro community than in other socially and 
economically disadvantaged American groups. The observer can testify 
that he sees much of it in the Negro communities of the bigger cities, both 
South and North. In the smaller cities and in rural districts, it shades off 
into petty poolroom and dance hall businesses. 

**•' Part VL 

* Nepro crime will be dealt with in Chapter 44, Section a. 



CHAPTER 15 

THE NEGRO IN THE PUBLIC ECONOMY 



1. The Public Budget 

In the preceding four chapters we have been studying the Negro as a 
factor of production and as an income earner. We have seen how he tries 
to sell his labor and other productive services in the economic market and 
what difficulties he meets in competition for jobs with the whites. Further 
study of the Negro's economic status must now proceed to an analysis of 
the income he actually earns and the consumption he procures for himself 
and his family on the basis of his income. 

Such a study becomes framed in the general terms of the family budget, 
which we conceive of as an account over a period of time, usually a year, 
of the individual household's income and expenditure. But the analysis 
would be incomplete if we forgot that everyone in our society is a partner 
in the public budgets, ranging all the way from the budget of the local 
municipalities to the budget of the federal government. To these public 
budgets everyone contributes by paying various indirect and direct taxes. 
And everyone partakes in the consumption of goods and services financed 
by the public budgets. In modern society the economic status of any 
individual is to a large and increasing extent determined by how much he 
puts into the public budgets and how much he gets out of them. 

In fact, one of the significant social trends, in America as elsewhere, is the 
relative growth of the public budgets. The range of "collective consump- 
tion" has been steadily increasing. The public budgets are also coming 
more and more to supplement private budgets, as, for instance, in relief 
and "social security" payments. Governments have always provided public 
services in kind, such as police protection j the use of highways, parks, and 
playgrounds; and free public schools. These public services are continuously 
improved. Whole items of consumption expenditures are transferred from 
private budgets to public budgets and at the same time minimum standards 
are secured, as when to the free schools are added school meals, free school 
materials and health services for the children. At the same time a gradual 
centralization and equalization of the public household is going on, so 
that the higher budgets — the federal budget as compared to the state 
budgets and the state budget as compared to the municipal budgets — take 

333 



334 An American Dilemma 

over more and more items of expenditure from the lower budgets, or pro- 
vide funds for the lower budgets in order to pay for certain expenditures. 
Control follows financial responsibility, and minimum standards are raised. 
This trend works toward equalization between regions and individuals. 
It is, indeed, an important part of the general process toward economic 
democratization in our society. There is a corresponding trend in the struc- 
ture of taxation. Taxation as a whole is becoming more "progressive," that 
is, the rate of taxation increases more than proportionately as we go up the 
income scale. The trend in public services is that they are being made avail- 
able to all citizens who care to make use of them, or otherwise are being 
distributed equally according to "needs" as denned in laws and relations. 
We shall take these two ideals, "ability to pay" for taxation and "equal 
distribution according to need" for public services, as our value premises 
for this chapter. 

In both respects the principles are still somewhat fluid. The predom- 
inance of indirect taxation makes it highly probable that the total burden 
of taxation, at the outbreak of the Second World War, was "regressive," 
that is, proportionately higher for the poorer people. 1 In the higher income 
brackets, however, taxation was steeply progressive. The principle of 
"need" also is in flux as there is no definite and fixed dividing line between 
social welfare provisions — as, for instance, unemployment relief — and 
general benefits for all citizens. Free schools were once for the poor only. 
Today they are for everybody. Free or subsidized hospitalization can, in 
this country, usually be used only by low income families. There are other 
countries where such services are enjoyed by everybody. There is a trend 
visible in America, as in the rest of the world, not only to increase public 
benefits for the needy but to make them available to everybody. 

Deciding upon the rules to determine the actual distribution of the tax 
burden among the citizens, and the availability of the public services to 
them, constitutes a major part of the activity of legislative bodies in a 
democracy. One principle has been settled for a long time, however, and 
constitutes a main basis for the legal structure of any democracy: the prin- 
ciple that the individual citizens have equal duties and rights in relation 
to the public household. In America this principle has constitutional sanc- 
tion. Our value premise in this chapter is this principle: that the Negro 
should partake of the burdens and the benefits of the public economy like 
other citizens in similar circumstances* 

2. Discrimination in Public Service 

There is no evidence that there is any direct racial discrimination in 
regard to taxation, and it has never played much of a role in discussion, 

"This is only a corollary of the premise of nondiscrimination stated in Chapter 9, 
Section 3. 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 335 

although the whites in the South certainly have the power to assess Negro- 
owned property differently than they assess white-owned property. In 
regard to public benefits, on the other hand, there is little doubt about the 
factual situation. Widespread discrimination exists in the entire South. In 
the North there is little, if any, direct discrimination. In the North the 
commonly accepted doctrine is that there should be no difference on account 
of "race, creed or color," and this doctrine is fairly well upheld in all public 
activity. What inequality there is in the Negro's consumption of public 
services in the North is due mostly to poverty, lack of education, and other 
disabilities which he shares with other lower class persons in the region. 

In the South, too, all the laws are written upon the principle of full 
equality. Even the Jim Crow regulations, which in many respects facilitate 
discrimination in public services and, in fact, have discrimination for their 
purpose, follow the formula "separate but equal."" The actual practice, 
however, is quite different. It is more difficult for Negroes than for whites 
in similar economic circumstances to get on the relief rolls, and relief grants 
are often lower for Negroes than for whites. There is an amazing discrim- 
ination against Negroes in the segregated school system of the South. 
Virtually the whole range of other publicly administered facilities — such as 
hospitals, libraries, parks, and similar recreational facilities — are much 
poorer for Negroes than they are for whites. This is true in spite of the 
fact that the higher sickness rates and the inferior housing conditions in 
Negro sections make the need for all sorts of health and recreational facili- 
ties so much greater in Negro neighborhoods. Every visitor to the South 
who has given the matter any attention at all knows that streets are not 
kept up in Negro sections of Southern cities the way they are in white 
sections. Public utility equipment is often less complete in Negro than in 
white neighborhoods. Police and judicial protection in the South is not so 
much organized for Negroes as against them. 1 ' The Negro's representation 
on public payrolls is almost everywhere — and particularly in regard to 
high-paid jobs — much smaller than that of whites. As we have seen, there 
is discrimination against Negroes in agricultural policy. It can be generally 
ascertained that, as a result of the relative growth of the federal budget 
and the increased responsibility for and control of public services by federal 
agencies, discrimination has been decreasing during the New Deal. The 
fight between Washington and the Southern state and county administra- 
tions goes on continually, yet much discrimination remains. 

The popular motivation for discrimination in public service in the South 
contains, in addition to the elaborated popular theories referred to in 
Chapter 9, one specific argument which relates to the fiscal sphere. The 
observer is frequently told by white Southerners that, since Negroes are so 

* See Chapter »8. 

* See Part VI. 



336 An American Dilemma 

poor and pay virtually no taxes, they are actually not entitled to get more 
public services than the whites care to give them. Whatever they get is a 
charitable gift for which they should be grateful. There can be no sense 
in talking about discrimination, it is held, as Negroes have no right to any- 
thing, but get something out of the whites' benevolence. Negroes are here 
considered as an "out-group" not on a par with white citizens. Otherwise 
the same argument would hold true even in regard to poor whites, which 
is usually not intended. 

This popular theory is, of course, contrary to the American Creed and 
to the Constitution, 2 and also to the democratic individualistic legal struc- 
ture of the Southern states themselves. The discrimination that exists, there- 
fore, has to be carried out against the laws. Rights, in our Western legal 
order, are not given to a group or to a race but to individuals. An individ- 
ual's right to receive public services is not related to the actual amount he 
has paid in taxes. The poor man should share equally in public consumption 
with the rich, though his taxes are lower. 

Furthermore, there are some Negroes who pay quite high taxes, but they, 
nevertheless, meet discrimination in getting public service. There are 
examples of whole Negro communities which actually pay more in taxes 
than is expended upon the particular public services supported by the 
taxes. 8 Too, there is plain stealing in giving Negroes public services: when, 
for example, counties receive state or federal grants on the basis of school 
population and misappropriate the funds in favor of the white schools. 

We shall analyze the basic conflict in the Southern whites' concept of 
law and order in later parts of this inquiry.* It should be observed that the 
argument of "low taxes, little service," which apparently means so much to 
the average white Southerner, is no longer publicly expressed by any person 
who is in a responsible position or who cares for his intellectual reputation. 
It is openly repudiated by Southern liberals.* The factual assertion that 
Negroes pay practically no taxes because they are so poor is, of course, mis- 
taken or grossly exaggerated. The false belief is explainable only by the 
fact that most people are inclined to disregard indirect taxes. 8 We have 
already observed that American taxation, in part, is "regressive" (except 
for high income groups). 8 

Federal agencies or other groups who want to favor the Negro some- 
times have to content themselves by working for the realization of a com- 
promise formula: that Negroes and whites share in the benefits from the 
public economy in proportion to their numbers. 1 * This norm is in conflict 
with the Constitution, since it refers to the Negro group and does not 

"See Part VI. 

'We have already met this in the activity of the Farm Security Administration; see 
Chapter it, Section it. 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 337 

guarantee individuals their right." It has its utility only as a practical yard- 
stick in the fight against discrimination. Its very presence in the public 
debate, and sometimes in public regulations, is an indication of the existing 
discrimination. b 

Quite apart from the inappropriateness of distributing public services 
to any group in relation either to its contributions to the public budgets or 
to its numbers, it would be highly interesting to be able to analyze in some 
detail what the Negroes, as a group, do contribute, directly and indirectly, 
to the public budget and what they do get in return. No such studies have 
been made. Our analysis in this chapter has to be far from complete. To 
begin with, we shall have to leave out altogether, for lack of data, the 
problem of how much Negroes pay in taxes. In regard to benefits, we shall 
not be able to give anything like a full account. 

3. Education 

A great proportion of the total budgets of local municipalities and an 
increasing part of the state and federal budgets are earmarked for public 
education. From the individual citizen's point of view this form of collec- 
tive consumption ranks high in importance among public services. The 
general facts about Negro education are well known, as they have been in 
the center of public discussion for a long time. In this section we shall 
restrict our treatment to a presentation of some summary figures on the 
fiscal costs of education for Negroes as compared to whites, leaving it to 
other chapters to analyze what these figures mean in terms of what amount 
and what type of education the Negroes receive. 

There are no financial statistics for the North which separate the amount 

* See footnote 2 of this chapter. The population norm lies somewhere between the con- 
stitutional norm and the actual discrimination practiced in the South. In several respects, 
the Negroes as a poor group do not receive a share in public services as large as their pro- 
portion in the population, though there is no discrimination in the constitutional sense. Since 
Negroes have fewer automobiles than do whites, for instance, they make less use of public 
highways. Also Negroes cannot afford to keep their children in school for as long a time as 
whites can, on the average, but this fact alone does not involve any legal discrimination. Only 
in one main item of the public budgets do Negroes, in the South as well as in the North, 
seem to get somewhat more than their share in proportion to their numbers: this is in social 
welfare. The explanation is that their need for economic assistance is so much greater than 
is that of the whites that the total sum paid out for relief to Negroes is relatively higher, in 
spite of discrimination. The causes of their higher needs are, as we have seen: job restric- 
tions everywhere, lack of ambition, poorer educational facilities, higher sickness and 
disability rates, greater family disorganization and other direct and indirect effects of dis- 
crimination. 

" Theoretically, the population norm could occasionally work to the unusual advantage 
of the Negroes. For example, to give them a 10 per cent share of desirable jobs would 
actually wipe out almost the entire problem o£ economic discrimination. The norm is, of 
course, never brought up when it refers to such a situation. 

'See Chapter 41, and Chapter 43, Section 4. 



338 An American Dilemma 

spent on the education of Negroes from the amount spent on the education 
of whites. In the North, the principle is not questioned that schools should 
have equal standards, independent of whether a school is all white, all 
Negro or mixed. It is mainly the Negroes' poverty which keeps them from 
utilizing existing educational facilities as much as do whites. In fact, were it 
not for this reason, the Northern Negroes would on the average be better 
off than the Northern whites, since Negroes are more concentrated in the big 
cities where school facilities are superior to large. parts of the rural North 
where only white people live. In actual practice, however, schools in needy 
districts tend to be somewhat older, less well equipped and often more 
over-crowded. A main cause of this is the migration of Negroes from the 
South to the slum areas of Northern cities. European immigrants who 
come to these slum areas also have inferior schools. School facilities have 
not been adjusted to the rapidly growing need. The city authorities who 
know about the much more inadequate school facilities for Negroes in the 
South, and who are usually somewhat reluctant to increase the incentive 
for Negro migration to their localities, have often not been so active in 
widening school facilities in Negro districts as they would have been had 
the districts been white. But the differentials are seldom large and would 
probably disappear altogether if migration should cease. 

In the South, school facilities are generally much poorer. In the year 
1935-1936 the average current expenditures per pupil in daily attendance in 
all public elementary and secondary schools in the country was $74. The 
range between the different states was extremely wide. In three Northern 
states, New York, Nevada, and California, the amount was over $115. 
On the other hand, all the states in the Upper and Lower South, as well 
as some of the Border states, were far below the national average. At the 
bottom of the scale were Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, where the 
average expenditure was less than $30 per pupil. 7 

Obviously, these conditions are related to two factors: the South has the 
lowest income level and, at the same time, the highest number of children 
in the whole nation. 8 For these two reasons the South actually sacrifices 
more for education, in relation to its economic ability, than does the rest of 
the country, on the average. It has been calculated, for instance, that Mis- 
sissippi expends about twice as much on schools, compared with its taxable 
income, as does New York State. 8 Undoubtedly, this goes a long way to 
explain the lower level of educational facilities in the South. There are two 
qualifications, however, which we should keep in mind. One is the fact that 
certain states outside the South, such as Utah, Arizona, and the two Dako- 
tas, where the calculated taxability per child was about as low as in some 
pf the most prosperous Southern states, for example, Virginia and Texas, 
nevertheless showed much greater expenditures per pupil in 1935-1936. 10 
Thus, although public education is burdensome for the Southern economy, 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 339 

there are regions in this country where, relatively, still heavier financial 
loads for education have been accepted. The other qualification concerns the 
unequal treatment of Negro and white schools, which makes the claims 
regarding Southern financial sacrifices for education sound less genuine 
than they may appear at first sight. 

Racial discrimination in the apportionment of school facilities in the 
South is as spectacular as it is well known.' The current expense per pupil 
in daily attendance per year in elementary and secondary schools in 10 
Southern states in 1935-1936 was $17.04 for Negroes and almost three 
times as much, or $49.30, for white children. In Mississippi and Georgia, 
only about $9 was spent on every Negro school child, but five times more 
on the average white pupil. There were two Border states, however (Dela- 
ware and Missouri), and one state farther South (Oklahoma) which did 
not, in this way, discriminate against Negroes. 11 The District of Columbia 
Negro schools received only slightly smaller appropriations per pupil than 
did the white schools. They received more than the white schools in any 
of the Southern states. 12 

The great difference in expenditures per pupil in Negro and white 
schools in most of the Southern states was due to several factors. The most 
important one was the great differential in regard to teachers' salaries. b 
Second, there was a difference in number of pupils per teacher." Third, 
less transportation was provided for Negro children: in 10 Southern states, 
where Negro children constituted 28 per cent of the total enrollment, only 
3 per cent of the public expenditures for school transportation in 1935-1936 
was for their benefit. 14 Certain savings on most expenditure items were made 

* It is not well known to the general public, though. In spite of the fact that few 
aspects of racial discrimination have been discussed as intensively as this one, the visitor 
to the South frequently meets white persons even in the educated class who seriously believe 
that educational facilities for Negroes and whites are quite equal. The very fact that there 
are Negro schools on different levels is to them enough evidence that Negroes are as well 
served as are whites. Several times it has happened, for instance, that whites have referred 
to a nearby Negro college, which they have heard about and passed on the road, to tell 
me that there Negroes get graduate training to the top. "They graduate lawyers, doctor* 
and all sorts of bigs shots," a white collar girl in Mississippi told me about a poor denomina- 
tional Negro college in the same city. Such experiences are interesting in several respects: 
first, they exemplify the growing isolation between the two groups and the ignorance among 
whites about their Negro neighbors; second, they indicate that the legal fiction which is 
necessary for constitutional reasons ("separate but equal") actually comes to be believed 
as true) third, they make it probable that even in this respect ordinary white people in 
the South would be prepared to give Negroes more justice if they knew the facts. 

Another observation is that among ordinary white people in the South it is not well known 
that Northern philanthropic organizations have much of the credit for the fact that Negro 
education is not lower than it is, and still less that Negro communities often contribute 
to building their schools. This distortion in the popular beliefs is, of course, opportunistic. 

* See Chapter 14, Section 4. 



340 An American Dilemma 

by keeping the average school term in Negro schools about 13 per cent 
shorter than in white schools. 15 

The same discrimination may be noted in whatever item in the school 
budget is considered. Every traveler in the South becomes easily aware of 
the difference in general appearance between Negro and white schools. In 
rural areas there is still a great number of Negro one-teacher and two- 
teacher schools, 18 whereas the consolidation movement has proceeded far in 
respect to white schools. The value of Negro school property per child in 
10 Southern states was scarcely one-fifth of the corresponding figure for 
whites. This was so in spite of the fact that as much as one-third of the 
total value of Negro school property was in buildings partly financed by the 
Rosenwald Fund. 11 

Additional savings are made on Negro education because only few 
Negroes go to high school, and still fewer attend public colleges. In 18 
Southern states, where Negroes constituted 23 per cent of the population in 
1930, their representation among the high school students in 1933-1934 was 
but 9 per cent. They had only 6 per cent of the enrollment in publicly con- 
trolled institutions of higher learning in iy Southern states. 18 Savings are 
also made on Negro education by forcing the Negro community to con- 
tribute money or work for its school." 

Particularly remarkable is the fact that the differential in school expendi- 
tures is often greatest in states which have the highest proportion of 
Negroes. There is a similar tendency among the counties within each state. 
A tabulation of the conditions in 7 Southern states in 1929-1930 indicated 
that the school expenditure per Negro child showed a pronounced tendency 
to be lower, the higher the proportion of Negro children in the total popu- 
lation of the county. The expenditures for white children, on the other 
hand, showed a somewhat less marked, but nevertheless unmistakable, 
tendency to increase with the proportion of Negroes in the counties in spite 
of the fact that the counties with many Negroes tended to be the poorer 
counties. 1 * In counties with comparatively few (less than 12.5 per cent) 
Negro children, the expenditure level in white schools was less than twice 
as high as that in Negro schools j but in counties where the overwhelming 

' "The situation differs, of course, town by town. In a neighboring town the Negroes 
were given a shell of a building for a school and in one way or another the salaries of the 
teachers were eked out. The rest of the work was done by Negroes, and an unexpected lot 
it was. Negro carpenters and masons contributed the work on remodeling the building. 
Negroes collected the funds to furnish the school with desks, blackboards, and other 
accessories. No money is provided annually for supplies or fuel by the townj so Negroes 
contribute for the school supplies and cut and haul their own fuel. This is done in a com- 
munity where Negro working habits are generally reported to be bad) it is done of course, 
by zealous individuals with the bright American goal of social advancement before their 
eyes." (John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town [1937], p. 194.) 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 341 

majority (at least 75 per cent) of the children were Negro, the standard 
was more than 13 times higher for white than for Negro pupils. 

The explanation of this phenomenon is simple. State appropriations tor 
educational purposes are usually apportioned on a per capita basis. Counties 
with a high proportion of Negro children, consequently, have a bigger 
opportunity than have other counties to deprive Negro schools of money 
intended for them and to use it for white schools. 20 For, in such counties 
there is more money to "rob" from the Negroes, and the temptation to do 
it, therefore, must be particularly great. The same principle works even 
when schools, in the main, depend on local support. If, for instance, there 
are twice as many Negroes as white children, every dollar per pupil taken 
from the Negro group means two dollars per pupil added to the appropri- 
ation for the white group. This, in conjunction with the low general level 
of school expenditures in states with a heavy Negro population, explains 
why it is that expenditures per Negro pupil are so much smaller, the higher 
the proportion of Negroes among the school children. 21 

It is generally said that school segregation increases the cost of the educa- 
tional system. This, of course, is quite true. A given average standard can 
be achieved at a lower expense if the overhead costs can be minimized. This 
is particularly apparent in respect to higher educational institutions. To 
maintain two sets of state universities must involve a greatly increased cost. 
Also, the cost of providing transportation for the children in a consolidated 
rural school system must be higher when Negro and white children are 
segregated. And whenever either of the two population groups is small, 
or distances are large, a segregated system must have a pronounced effect 
on costs. It seems that only in cities, with a large population of both 
Negroes and whites, and with a rather clear-cut housing segregation, can it 
be possible to maintain two separate elementary — and possibly even 
secondary — school systems without any significant increase in cost. 

Yet these conclusions are applicable only when we assume that the prob- 
lem is to achieve an equal standard at minimum cost. If the objective, how- 
ever, is not to have equal standards, but rather to use a given appropriation 
intended for two population groups so as to maximize the benefits for one 
of them — then, of course, segregation becomes a means of economizing. 
Whenever the proportion of Negroes in the population is high, and the 
standard of Negro schools is kept well below that of white schools, the white 
educational system can derive substantial gains from segregation. Segrega- 
tion makes discrimination possible; discrimination means lower expenditures 
for Negro schools, and the white population thus gets a vested interest in 
separation. If the principle "separate, but equal" were to be realized in prac- 
tice, and Negro schools were to be just as well provided for as white schools, 
there would still be a social motive for segregation.* White people would, 

' See Chapter 28. 



34* An American Dilemma 

however, lose their economic interest in segregation. In fact they— and the 
Negroes — would have to pay for it in higher taxes, in so far as a segregated 
set-up would then be more expensive than a mixed school system. It is open 
for speculation to what extent this would change popular attitudes in respect 
to segregation. 

The whole system of discrimination in education in the South is not only 
tremendously harmful to the Negroes but it is flagrantly illegal, 22 and can 
easily be so proven in the courts. The main organization for guarding civil 
liberties for Negroes, the N.A.A.C.P., has not waged, up to now, an exten- 
sive legal campaign against school discrimination. Recently it has selected 
a few strategic frontiers for an attack: equalization of teachers' salaries* 
and the admittance of graduate students to Southern universities. b In these 
fields, it is exerting a considerable pressure upon Southern authorities. Not 
only educators but politicians, even in the Deep South, are heard to say that 
they must "do something" to raise Negro education so as to avoid too great 
legal embarrassment. Northern philanthropic institutions have, for a long 
time, been active in raising Negro education in the South. Many white 
Southerners are trying to bring about reforms. 

There is no doubt that under all these influences a gradual improvement 
of school facilities for Negroes, as for whites, in the South has been going 
on and is still in progress. It is less certain, but probable, that Negro schools 
have lately been improving faster than white schools in the South — that is, 
in the sense that the percentage increase in expenditures may have been 
greater for Negro than for white schools. 6 But measured in absolute 
amounts the difference is even larger than it used to be. ss If we consider 
the whole Negro group, there is no doubt that the most important factor 
working to raise the educational level is the continuous migration out of the 
South to the Northern cities with their good schools. 

In the South, the discrimination is still so tremendously great; it is so 
ingrained; and it is so profitable for, the whites, that it is difficult to see 
how any more rapid reform will be possible unless the federal govern- 
ment enters the field and starts giving financial assistance to the Southern 
school system. This will mean two things. First, there will be a regional 
equalization in educational standards over the whole country, from which 
the South, especially, cannot fail to gain. Such an equalization, as has often 
been pointed out, is well justified in view of the high birth rate in the 
South and the migration, which forces the South, as well as other low 
income, high fertility, "out-migration" areas, to make heavy investments 
in the education of children who afterwards spend the productive period 

* See Chapter 14, Section 4. 
b See Chapter 29, Section 5. 

' For "the nation as a whole there is, undoubtedly, an equalization in educational oppor- 
tonities, as the proportion of Negroes living: in the North is increasing'. 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 343 

of their lives in other states. Second, the federal government is likely to 
attempt to mitigate discrimination against Negroes. It will acquire an influ- 
ence over Southern school policies and might eventually stamp out racial 
discrimination in the school system. This is why, incidentally, many South- 
ern politicians — invoking the doctrine of "states' rights" — are against fed- 
eral aid in the school system in spite of the fact that their states will gain 
financially from it. 

Federal aid to the educational system would not be an entirely new 
venture. Indeed, the federal government laid the financial basis for public 
education in several states by making substantial land grants to them. Con- 
siderable discrimination against Negroes has been the rule, however, in 
these federal educational activities, or, rather, in the way they were carried 
out by state authorities in the South. In 1 935-1 936, Negro colleges received 
only 5.2 per cent of the federal funds given to land-grant colleges in 17 
Southern states. 34 Still, land-grant institutions enrolled nearly three-fourths 
of the students in all public institutions of higher education for Negroes 
and about one-third of the total in public and private institutions com- 
bined.* 5 Howard University — in many respects the best Negro university in 
the country — is supported almost entirely by the federal government. 

The New Deal has greatly increased educational benefits to Negroes: 
The Public Works Administration paid 55 per cent of the costs of building 
new schools, when the states and the communities paid the rest. But the 
South saw to it that its whites were provided for much better than its 
Negroes — despite the much greater needs of the latter. Of some 91 million 
dollars of federal funds spent for new schools in 16 Southern states, only a 
little over 7 millions went for Negro schools. 20 Northern communities were 
much fairer, and — although there are no statistics which distinguish between 
white and Negro schools in the North — there is reason to believe that 
Negroes received a share of the P.W.A. funds larger than their proportion 
in the population, since they lived in older neighborhoods where the schools 
were more dilapidated. The Works Progress Administration put on its 
gigantic adult education program employing large numbers of unemployed 
teachers and educating millions of people; 27 400,000 Negroes were taught 
reading and writing.* 8 There is also the student aid program of the 
National Youth Administration and the energetic educational efforts of the 
Agricultural Extension Service and the Farm Security Administration. 

Two national commissions, appointed by administrations of each of the 
major political parties, have concluded that provisions for adequate educa- 
tional opportunity for all American children can be made only if the fed- 
eral government assumes responsibility. 20 When the federal government 
does give money for education, it usually allows the states to spend it. 
This grant-in-aid system permits discrimination against Negroes to arise. 
If the federal authorities take positive action, however, they can reduce 



344 An American Dilemma 

discrimination. The trend seems to be in the direction of decreasing discrim- 
ination in the distribution of federal aid, and the increasing weight of the 
Negro vote in the North is strengthening this trend. 30 In spite of all, there- 
fore, we believe that the Negro cannot fail to gain if the federal govern- 
ment should start giving aid on a permanent basis even to the main body 
of American educational institutions. Some further observations on the 
problem of federal aid to education will be made in the last section of 
Chapter 41. 

4. Public Health 

Mortality in all age groups is much higher among Negroes than among 
whites.* Negroes suffer more from nearly all sorts of illnesses. We have 
shown that at least the major part of these differentials is not due to greater 
susceptibility on the part of Negroes" but to the impact of economic, educa- 
tional, and cultural handicaps, directly or indirectly imposed upon Negroes 
by discrimination." The fact that Negroes are in greater need of health 
facilities than are whites, and that discrimination in providing them health 
facilities hurts the whites themselves, is gradually becoming realized. 

The Negroes' need for public health services is higher also because 
poverty, in conjunction with segregation, prevents them from utilizing 
private health facilities to the same extent as do whites. Negro families 
(not on relief) spend only one-third or one-half as much for medical 
services as do white families (not on relief). 31 Although federal, state, and 
local governments nowadays carry about half the financial burden for all 
hospitalization, 8 " private hospitals and clinics continue to play a larger role 
in this country, proportionately, than in most European countries. Even 
in the North there are many private hospitals which do not accept Negro 
patients. True, there are several private all-Negro hospitals, both North 
and South, 33 but they are usually small and qualitatively inferior. 

In spite of the greater need for public health services and the interest 
of the whole society that this need be filled, the pattern of public hospital- 
ization is about the same as that for public instruction. The general level is 
comparatively high in the North, and there Negroes are seldom discrim- 
inated against.* 1 The general standard of public hospitalization is much 
lower in the South. 34 Although no comprehensive data seem to be avail- 
able on the total number of beds (private as well as public) available to 

* See Chapter 7. 

* See Chapter 6. 

* For example, Negro sections of Southern cities have less adequate street cleaning and 
garbage removal services than white sections. These tilings are related to disease. 

4 We have already cited one case of discrimination in the North, that of Detroit, where 
public subsidies have been given to a second-rate Negro hospital so as to exclude Negroes 
from the ordinary public hospitals. 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 345 

Negroes in Southern hospitals, there is enough scattered information to 
establish the fact that discrimination exists.* 

Since the inauguration of the New Deal, appreciable progress had been 
made, part of which consisted of the building of hospitals under the 
P.W.A.* 8 The federal government, like most of the philanthropic founda- 
tions, usually sees to it that Negroes get their share of the new hospital 
facilities. Standards have been raised — but, so far, only in a few areas. One 
Southern city may have a large, completely modern hospital where a great 
number of indigent people may get treatment free or for low fees. In the 
next city the main hospital for low income people may be dilapidated and 
so small that it cannot possibly accommodate more than an insignificant frac- 
tion of those in need of hospitalization. Rural hospital facilities are totally 
inadequate almost everywhere in the South, especially for Negroes. 

In this field, as in public education, it seems that no uniformly satis- 
factory standard can ever be achieved except through a program of perma- 
nent federal aid and control. The President's Interdepartmental Commit- 
tee to Coordinate Health and Welfare Activities published in 1938 a 
national health program which included a plan for continued federal 
assistance to public hospitals. On the basis of this program the so-called 
National Health Bill was introduced in Congress in 1939, and the Hospital 
Construction Bill in 1940.*° Although these proposals have not yet been 
acted upon, they have helped to focus public attention on the problem, and 
they seem to indicate the general line of future action. 

There seems to be less discrimination against Negroes — and in many 

* Substantiation of this point may be found in Chapter 7, Section 5. Concerning public 
hospitals alone, the following evidence may be added: 

Only 40 of the 450 beds in the State Sanatorium in Mississippi were available to Negroes; 
almost half of all the beds for the tuberculosis patients were idle because of insufficient 
funds. (Harold F. Dorn, "The Health of the Negro," unpublished manuscript prepared for 
this study [first draft, 1940], p. 113. Data based on Council on Medical Education and 
Hospitals, "Hospitals and Medical Care in Mississippi," Journal of the American Medical 
Association [1939LPP. 2319-2332.) 

Sterner visited two of the five state charity hospitals in Mississippi in January, 1940. 
Both were in bad repair with leaking roofs. Water was dropping down on the floor 
in one place. In these hospitals half the beds were for Negroes. The doctor in charge of 
one of the hospitals complained of the inadequate appropriations; about one-sixth of the 
beds were not in use because of shortage of funds. The reason, he explained, was that 
money was apportioned by a state board composed of county physicians, who retained as 
much as possible of state aid for their privately-run county hospitals. He explained, 
further, that the hospital was unable to receive any normal delivery cases; only emergency 
cases could be taken care of. Others have to be treated in their homes by midwives. Patients 
who have any means are asked to make voluntary payments. Others are treated free. 

An entirely different impression was given by a new State Charity Hospital in New Orleans, 
which was visited in January, 1940. As far as the layman could ascertain, it was quite ade- 
quate. It had been built as a P.W.A. project. Half the beds were for Negroes. None of 
the physicians or surgeons was Negro, however, and there were only a few Negro nurses. 



346 An American Dilemma 

cases no discrimination at all — in respect to the so-called "out-patient" 
services of public health institutions. For this there are several reasons. 
These services usually cannot be apportioned beforehand between Negroes 
and whites in the strict manner in which hospital wards are segregated. 
The federal government has given considerable assistance on a permanent 
basis to certain important aspects of this medical work. Much of the work 
concerns venereal diseases, and white people everywhere seem to have 
become aware of what the high rates of venereal diseases among Negroes 
mean to themselves. 37 

The building up of a system of general public health clinics, as well as of 
maternal and child health clinics, is far from completed in America, 38 but 
there is no doubt that tremendous improvements have been achieved in 
recent years, and that Negroes have shared in the benefits. One criticism, 
however, is that too much of the work has been organized on a "categorical" 
basis. Drives are started against one disease after another," and the objective 
of rendering assistance to those most in need, regardless of the type of dis- 
ease they have, has often been almost forgotten. This has sometimes been 
unfortunate from the point of view of the Negro. 80 

5. Recreational Facilities 

America is probably more conscious than any other country of the great 
importance of recreation. The need for public measures to promote whole- 
some recreation has been shown to be particularly great for youth in cities 
and especially in such groups where housing conditions are crowded and 
unsanitary, where incomes are low and consequently opportunities for 
enjoying sound commercial entertainment restricted, where many mothers 
have to leave their homes for gainful work during the day, where the 
proportion of disorganized families is great, and where juvenile delin- 
quency is high. This all means that, on the average, Negroes have greater 
need for public recreational facilities than have whites. 

In the North there is, occasionally, segregation «nd discrimination not 
only in commercial enterprises for entertainment but also in public facilities, 
as, for instance, in swimming pools. b In the South segregation and dis- 
crimination are the general rule for all recreational facilities. The visitor 
finds everywhere in the South that not only beaches and playgrounds, but 
also public parks, are often entirely closed to Negroes, except for Negro 

'During his field trip in Mississippi (December, 1939- January, 1940), Sterner heard 
public health officers and nurses talk about the syphilis campaign which had started about a 
year earlier (before then little, if anything-, had been done about it by public health agencies). 
But he heard nothing about gonorrhea until one public health officer explained that available 
appropriations were insufficient for treatment of gonorrhea on a large scale in his county. 

k $ee Chapter 29. We shall include among public recreational facilities those organized 
by civic groups and by philanthropists. 



Chapter 15. The Negro m the Public Economy 347 

nurses watching white children. Public funds are used everywhere in the 
region for these facilities available to whites only. Often no substitutes at 
all, or very inferior ones, are offered the Negroes. Like white people, 
Negroes can use their schools as community centers but they are unsatis- 
factory for many recreational purposes. More than half of all cities having 
special Negro community centers listed in the Negro Year Book for 1937- 
1938 40 were in the North and West. 41 

Damaging from both cultural and recreational viewpoints are the restric- 
tions of public library facilities for Negroes. In 1939 lt was found that of 
774 public libraries in 13 Southern states only 99, or less than one-seventh, 
served Negroes. Of the 99 libraries, 59 were concentrated in four states." 

For a full appraisal of the Negro's share in public recreational facilities, 
it would be necessary to have access to more material on the quantitative 
and qualitative adequacy of such facilities for both Negroes and whites. 
There is no doubt about the fact, however, that provisions for Negroes are 
much inferior to those for whites. For reasons already suggested, this is a 
question of no small importance. The visitor finds Negroes everywhere 
aware of the great damage done Negro youth by the lack of recreational 
outlets and of the urgency of providing playgrounds for the children. In 
almost every community visited during the course of this inquiry, these 
were among the first demands on the program of local Negro organ- 
izations.* 

The Southern whites are unconcerned about how Negroes use their 
leisure time, as long as they are kept out of the whites' parks and beaches. 
Recreation involves "social" relationships, and, therefore, Southern whites 
are strongly opposed to mixed recreation. Nevertheless, considerable 
improvements have been made even in the South in recent years. Again 
the federal agencies have been instrumental in giving the Negroes slightly 
more of their rights. There have been many P.W.A. and W.P.A. projects 
for new playgrounds, community centers, and other facilities,* 8 and 
Negroes have- received some share of them. There are community rooms, 
playgrounds, nursery schools, and other similar provisions in or around new 
housing projects for low income families. 44 The National Youth Admin- 
istration, the Agricultural Extension Service, the Farm Security Adminis- 
tration, and other new agencies, have assisted both Negroes and whites. Yet, 
there is still a long way to go. So far, only a small part of the distance 
between "nothing at all" and "full adequacy" has been covered. And, par- 

•When visiting Birmingham, Alabama, in the fall of 1938, we were taken around the 
town by one of the leaders of the Negro community. "See those tennis courts," said our guide, 
"they are not much good, as you see. The whites don't care to use them any more. But in 
•pite of that, we had to beg and beg before we got the privilege to play on them. They 
are the only public courts in town that we are allowed to use. It's just one of those things 
that make one see red." 



348 An American Dilemma 

ticularly, it has yet to be recognized that quite special provisions are 
required for the Negroes in order to offset some of the economic, cultural 
and moral disadvantages from which they suffer. 

6. Public Housing Policies* 

Before the depression of the 'thirties, there were few attempts made by 
public bodies in this country to improve the housing conditions for low 
income people. Moreover, housing credit was rather unorganized: financial 
institutions were extremely numerous, there was little integration among 
them, and the whole system lacked stability and efficiency to such an extent 
that interest costs on mortgage loans were usually much higher than neces- 
sary. High property taxes, then as well as now, also had a damaging effect. 45 
These and a number of similar circumstances made decent housing econom- 
ically unobtainable for millions of families who would have been able to 
pay the full price if housing had been more efficiently organized. 

The Great Depression, however, brought a change. The breakdown of 
private building construction and the widespread unemployment made the 
glaring housing needs appear even more irrational than ordinarily. Why let 
people go unemployed when there is so much work to be done? On top of 
that, there was the near-collapse in housing credit. These circumstances 
weakened the resistance against public interference in housing to such an 
extent that it was possible to launch some rather significant government 
programs. 

Recent housing policies, apart from city planning, building control, and 
similar activities, have in the main two aspects: making credit available for 
private housing and providing public housing for low income groups. Quan- 
titatively most important are the credit reforms, carried out by the Home 
Owners' Loan Corporation (H.O.L.C.), the Federal Home Loan Banks, 
and the Federal Housing Administration (F.H.A.). The H.O.L.C. was set 
up primarily for the purpose of rescuing home owners who were threatened 
with losing their homes during the depression. It is now liquidating. In 
terms of long-range policies, the F.H.A. is the most important of these 
housing credit agencies. Its many important contributions are so well 
known that they scarcely need to be emphasized here. 46 The loans are 
made by private institutions, but since the insurance eliminates the risk 
for the lenders, interest rates arc kept down to such an extent that F.H.A. 
houses are well within the reach of middle class and more secure working 
class families. Particularly significant is the fact that, year by year, it has 
been possible to reach deeper down into lower economic strata. In spite of 
that, less than 30 per cent of the main category of new borrowers on one- 

* For a fuller treatment of the important problems dealt with in this section, see Richard 
Sterner and Associates, The Negro's Share, prepared for this study (1943), Chapters 9, 10 
and 18. 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 349 

family homes in 1940 had incomes under $2,000 and but 5 per cent had 
less than $1,500." 

Under such circumstances, it is apparent that Negroes cannot have had 
any great benefit from the F.H.A., nor, for that matter, from any other of 
the federal credit agencies which are organized on the basis of so-called 
"ordinary business principles."" The failure of the F.H.A. to help the 
Negroes goes even further than can be explained on the basis of their low 
income. This federal agency has taken over the policy of segregation used 
by private institutions, like banks, mortgage companies, building and loan 
associations, real estate companies. When it comes to developing new sub- 
divisions, the F.H.A. is obviously interested in getting such a layout that 
property values can be maintained. Private operators, in order to secure 
F.H.A. backing, usually follow the advice of the agency. 48 One of the 
points which property valuators of the F.H.A. are specifically urged to 
consider is whether the area or property to be insured is protected from 
"adverse influences." This, in the official language of the agency, "includes 
prevention of the infiltration of business and industrial uses, lower class 
occupancy, and inharmonious racial groups." 49 In the case of undeveloped 
and sparsely developed areas, the agency lets its valuators consider whether 

. . . effective restrictive covenants arc recorded against the entire tract, since these 
provide the surest protection against undesirable encroachment and inharmonious use. 
To be most effective, deed restrictions should be imposed upon all land in the imme- 
diate environment of the subject location/' 

The restrictions, among other things, should include "prohibition of the 
occupancy of properties except by the race for which they are intended." 51 

This matter is a serious one for the Negro. It is one thing when private 
tenants, property owners, and financial institutions maintain and extend 
patterns of racial segregation in housing. It is quite another matter when 
a federal agency chooses to side with the segregationists. This fact is 
particularly harmful since the F.H.A. has become the outstanding leader 
in the planning of new housing. It seems probable that the F.H.A. has 
brought about a greatly increased use of all sorts of restrictive covenants 
and deed restrictions, which are the most reliable legal means of keeping 
Negroes confined to their ghettos. It may even be that those income groups 
of the white population which are particularly served by the F.H.A. 
formerly lived in areas which were much less covered by such restrictions." 
The damage done to the Negroes is not only that the F.H.A. encourages 
segregation. There is also the fact that this segregation is predominantly 

"We state this in an a priori manner since none of the federal housing credit agencies 
presents any information on the racial composition of their clientele. 

"There is little definite knowledge, however, on these matters. A study testing the 
hypothesis mentioned in the text would be extremely valuable. 



350 An American Dilemma 

negative. It would work much less hardship on the Negro people if it 
were merely a question of keeping Negroes and whites apart, and not, 
predominantly, of keeping the Negro out. In other words, if the policy of 
segregation were coupled with large-scale positive efforts to give the Negro 
additional new living space, it would be much less harmful. Also such a 
two-sided policy of segregation, in the end, would have a much greater 
chance of being successful. The urban Negro population is bound to 
increase. The present Negro ghettos will not suffice. The Negro will invade 
new urban territories. Unless these changes are properly planned, they 
will occur in the same haphazard and friction-causing manner with which 
we have been only too well acquainted in the past. This, for one thing, will 
jeopardize the objective of keeping the character of white neighborhoods 
intact. 

The general credit reforms, however, constitute just one part of the 
present housing policies. The subsidized housing projects for low income 
families are an entirely different matter. About 7,500, or one-third, of the 
dwelling units in projects built during 1933-1937 by the Housing Division 
of the Public Works Administration are for Negro occupancy. The build- 
ing of subsidized housing projects has since been carried on by local housing 
authorities with the financial assistance of the United States Housing 
Authority (U.S.H.A.).* By July 31, 1942, there were 122,000 dwelling 
units built by or under loan contract with the U.S.H.A. and intended for 
low income families. About 41,000, or ^i per cent, of those were intended 
for Negro occupancy." 2 

Thus, the Negro has certainly received a large share of the benefits under 
this program. Indeed, the U.S.H.A. has given him a better deal than has 
any other major federal public welfare agency. This may be due, in part, 
to the fact that, so far, subsidized housing projects have been built mainly 
in urban areas, where, even in the South, there is less reluctance to consider 
the Negro's needs. The main explanation, however, is just the fact that the 
U.S.H.A. has had the definite policy of giving the Negro his share. It has 
a special division for nonwhite races, headed by a Negro who can serve 
as spokesman for his people. Many of the leading white officials of the 
agency, as well, are known to have been convinced in principle that dis- 
crimination should be actively fought. 

So far, however, only about 3 per cent of Negro urban families live in 
subsidized housing projects. This is a good beginning, but unless these 
efforts continue, the results are a drop in the bucket compared with the total 
need." 

. "All housing activities of the federal government were in 1942 brought together into 
one unit, the National Housing Agency. The F.H.A. and the U.S.H.A. are maintained as 
departments within this agency. The name of the U.S.H.A. was changed to Federal Public 
Housing Authority. 

* For a discussion of actual housing conditions for Negroes, see Chapter 1 6, Section 6. 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 351 

It seems that the U.S.H.A. program is well planned in many respects. 
Yet there are some obvious shortcomings. One is its connection with the 
slum clearance program. By law, slum dwellings eventually have to be 
eliminated at the same rate as new units are constructed. It seems that the 
purpose of this clause is mainly to appease the real estate owners who are 
afraid of an abundance of housing." It is unfortunate when housing projects 
are built on old slum sites, and the slum houses have first to be torn 
down. Such practices work particular hardship on the Negroes since there 
is usually no place where they can go while the new projects are being 
built. 

Several housing projects, however, among them Negro projects, have 
been located on vacant land. The experiences, in many cases, have been 
rather encouraging. Sites for projects have been found where utility services 
are complete and where streets are well kept up. When there is additional 
vacant land adjacent to the area, there is the opportunity for the develop- 
ment of some new private housing for Negroes. It seems that such pro- 
cedures should be followed generally for Negro housing projects. They 
could and should always be utilized for the purpose of giving the Negro 
additional "living space" in urban areas — never for binding him with new 
ties to the over-crowded sections where he is being kept. 

Generally, this connection between slum clearance and new construction 
has made it difficult to make new housing projects fit into constructive and 
all-inclusive city plans. b In too many cases it has been a question of sub- 
stituting good houses for bad ones without enough consideration of how 
such piecemeal work can be integrated into a rational city plan. This, of 
course, is all right for those individual families who happen to get a new 
dwelling, but it scarcely prepares the ground for an ultimate solution of the 
housing problem of the entire city. Particularly is this true about Negro 
housingj Negro sections are almost invariably among the least well- 
planned areas in a city. 

In city planning, which will be necessary for the continuation of the 
subsidized housing program on a larger scale, the issue of housing segre- 
gation will have to be faced squarely. This is the one feature which makes 
the problem of housing for Negroes different from that of housing for 
other low income families. The chances are that, in the South at least, 
segregation will have to be accepted in the surveyable future, for the 
simple reason that local opposition against subsidized housing projects will 
otherwise be so strong that no projects can be built. In such cases, the only 
thing that can be insisted upon is that Negroes get, not only new houses, 

'From a social viewpoint, the only rational thing to do would be to eliminate alum 
houses whenever there is a sufficient supply of adequate houses — regardless of whether the 
supply is due to the building of subsidized housing projects or to other causes. 

b This is a criticism often heard among American planners. 



352 An American Dilemma 

but also additional space, and that both old and new Negro areas become 
better planned. 

In the North, on the other hand, there is some chance that the evils of 
segregation can be removed by means of the gradual abolition of housing 
segregation itself. In some Northern places, such as New York City and 
Albany, there are already projects where white and Negro tenants live 
scattered within a single project. 68 

Another major problem concerns the financial feasibility of building sub- 
sidized housing projects for all families who, for economic reasons, are 
suffering from bad housing conditions. The American public needs to know 
whether or not this program will ever solve the entire housing problem for 
ail low income households, or whether it is just going to assist a more or 
less arbitrarily selected small part of the ill-housed families. This problem 
has not been adequately faced." Yet a complete financial plan is essential 
for a rational continuation of the program, as well as for the purpose of 
convincing the American public that continuation is worth while. 

Connected with this matter is the problem of tenant selection. The 
L7.S.H.A. rehouses only families between an upper and a — somewhat 
unofficial — lower income limit. A great number of relief families are 

"The average federal net subsidy (gross subsidy minus government profit on loans), 
according to the U.S.H.A., amounts to $77 per family per year. (Federal Works Agency, 
Second Annual Refort, 1941.) ' n addition, there are municipal subsidies, usually in the form 
of tax exemptions, averaging $60 (ibid., pp. 145 and 160; United States Housing Authority, 
"What Does the Housing Program Cost?" [1940], pp. 14-15), which makes a total subsidy 
of about (137. This means that over 7,000,000 families, or one-fifth of the total in the 
United States, can be rehoused for an annual cost of $1,000,000,000. It would be necessary, 
in addition, to make all relief benefits high enough to enable all recipients of public assistance 
to pay the rents in public housing projects. Such a large program, however, would involve 
rural families, for which the cost certainly would be considerably smaller. Also, its comple- 
tion would require several decades. The general income level may be so much higher at the 
end of this period that the assistance could be restricted to a much smaller number of families. 
Possible cuts in building and other costs may have the same effect. Even under present 
conditions, it is doubtful whether the number of households which, for economic reasons, 
suffer from intolerably bad housing conditions, is really so large; it should be kept in mind 
that some slum families have incomes which would enable them to purchase adequate housing 
if they only cared for it. Since the building of the projects ought to be concentrated in 
periods of unemployment, a substantial part of the cost should be charged to the unemploy- 
ment relief budget, and not to the housing budget. In other words, as unemployed construc- 
tion workers must be given jobs on public works programs during depressions, the cost for 
rehousing slum families is reduced by the utilization of these "free services." 

A real cost estimate should include quite a number of such considerations: the future 
trend in number and size of rural and urban families; the extent to which bad housing con- 
ditions are caused by factors other than low income; the intensity of the need of various 
groups living in substandard houses; the extent. to which existing houses can be utilized for 
subsidized families. Our unpretentious experiment with figures has been made in order 
to bring home one point: that it is not economically impossible to give the whole people 
a certain minimum standard of housing. 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 353 

ineligible because they are unable to pay the rents, which in 1941 averaged 
$18 per month, including utilities. The average income of the families in 
the projects was $832." Several projects, particularly those occupied by 
Negroes, showed much lower rent and income levels. Even so, however, it 
certainly is true that the U.S.H.A. helps an economic group somewhat 
above those most in need of assistance. This, of course, is particularly unfor- 
tunate in the case of Negroes. To meet this problem a much closer integra- 
tion between the work of the housing authorities and that of other welfare 
agencies is needed. 

There is one group of economically disadvantaged families to which too 
little consideration has been given: the large families, partly because they 
are poorer and cannot pay the rents, and partly because very large dwell- 
ings are not provided in public housing projects. The average family size 
in public housing projects in 1941 was 3.9 which is about the same as for 
all urban families, exclusive of unattached individuals. This is remarkable 
in view of the fact that large families suffer much more from bad housing 
conditions than do small households, at the same time as they are less often 
economically able to purchase good housing. 58 

It is possible to add other similar criticisms. Still we should not overlook 
the fact that the problems are extremely complicated, particularly during 
the initial period of the program. The U.S.H.A. has given two valuable 
experiences. It has demonstrated that rehousing of slum families can be 
done in America. And it has shown that a federal agency, with only 
financial and no administrative power in the local communities, can give the 
Negro a square deal even in the South. 

The lack of integration between the various federal housing programs, 
however, has been great, especially as the programs have affected Negroes. 
It is only recently, under the pressure of the war emergency, that the 
various federal housing offices have been combined into one agency, the 
National Housing Agency. It remains to be seen to what extent this move 
will bring about greater consistency. 

7. Social Security and Public Assistance 

We have already discussed some of the major social welfare programs, 
the farm security work, the public health activities and the low cost housing 
projects. Also, we shall touch upon certain government interferences with 
the labor market. We want to consider here other principal welfare pro- 
visions, such as social security, work relief, youth programs, categorical 
assistance, home relief, school lunches and other direct distribution of 
means of subsistence. Under the pressure of shrinking employment oppor- 
tunities in agriculture and of industrial depression and job restriction in the 
cities, public relief has become one oj the major Negro occupations; all 
through the ''thirties it was surpassed only by agriculture and possibly by 



354 An American Dilemma 

domestic service. We must go into some detail in describing how the Negro 
fares in this substitute form of breadwinning,* 

Prior to the New Deal period public relief was entirely insignificant in 
this country. Until the First World War even a state like New York 
expended less money for relief through public agencies than it did through 
private charities. In the South such a situation prevailed until the beginning 
of the 'thirties. 66 Participation on the part of the federal government was 
restricted to aid to veterans and similar special groups. Most of the states, 
prior to 1929, enacted programs for aid to dependent children and for 
workmen's compensation j and some states made special provisions for the 
blind and for the aged. Otherwise most of the social welfare work was 
carried on by counties and cities, or by private charity organizations; the 
poor farm or the almshouse was the main local institution of public wel- 
fare." 7 The practice was based on the theory: ". . . making relief deterrent 
by sending all destitute people to a local almshouse would be a means of 
preventing pauperism." 68 It was the time of "rugged individualism. 1 ' 

We have previously characterized the institution of large-scale public 
relief during the 'thirties as the one bright spot in the recent economic 
history of the Negro. Negroes, for obvious reasons, have gained even more 
from it than have whites. This is not to say, however, that their needs have 
everywhere been as much considered as have those of white families in 
economic distress. On the contrary, in many instances there has been 
pronounced discrimination against the Negro. Negroes have often found 
it more difficult to receive any relief at all than have whites in similar 

* We cannot give anything like an exhaustive treatment of the subject. We shall omit, 
for instance, any discussion of the institutionalized welfare programs — asylums, reform 
schools, institutions for crippled children, child nurseries. We shall fail to deal with the 
implications to the Negro of certain major gaps in the social welfare system. Had we dis- 
cussed all these things, our picture would scarcely be any brighter. Indeed, it would 
be darker. It is a well-known fact that all institutions for handicapped groups tend to 
be less adequate for Negroes than they are for whites in the South. The result is that the 
proportion of feeble-minded and insane persons who are not taken care of in institutions 
is higher for Negroes than it is for whites — something which, of course, affects the 
Negro crime rate; a whole Negro community may have to pay for what one subnormal 
Negro does to a white woman. Negro reform schools in the South usually have a lower 
standard and are more crowded than are white reform schools. The consequence is that 
a greater proportion of Negro than of white juvenile delinquents has to be cared for in 
homes; in the Negro communities there are fewer homes which fit the purpose than there 
are in white communities. Other juvenile delinquents are simply sent to ordinary peniten- 
tiaries when they cannot be taken care of in reform schools. Negroes need more child 
nurseries than do white people, since their homes are less adequate for the purpose of 
rearing children, and Negro homemakers more often have to take up gainful work. Yet, 
at least ja the South, they have fewer of them than have whites. There is no public health 
insurance m America. This is more serious for Negroes than it is for whites, since Negroes 
have higher rates of sickness. The absence of any adequate form of aid to migrants, likewise, 
ItaiBper* Negroes more than it does whites. 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 355 

economic circumstances. Moreover, average relief grants per client have 
often been smaller for Negroes than they have been for whites — and this 
particularly in communities where Negro relief recipients, to an even 
greater extent than white recipients, were selected from the poorest people. 
In such cases Negro clients would have needed even greater assistance than 
would have been needed by white clients, but relief agencies could not see 
it that way. The difference, in many cases, may not be more than a few 
dollars a month, but, still, it counts j for the general level of relief grants 
in such communities always tends to be low. 

The situation, however, is different in various regions. By and large, 
there are three types of areas that need to be distinguished: urban North, 
urban South, and rural South. 

The urban North has the highest standards in all sorts of social welfare. 
It shows much more of a consistent pattern than does the South, in respect 
both to the general level of relief expenditures and to the apportionment 
of public funds between Negroes and whites. There is no evidence of any 
direct discrimination against Negroes in respect to any major relief pro- 
grams. The proportion of Negroes on relief is everywhere higher than is 
the corresponding proportion of whites, and the difference is so large that 
it seems that Negroes have about the same chances of receiving public 
assistance as do whites of equal economic status. Both the Consumer Pur- 
chases Study and the National Health Survey indicate that, in the middle 
of the 'thirties, roughly one-half of the Negro families in the urban North 
were on relief. This usually was three to four times more than the corre- 
sponding proportion of whites. The small residual of nonrelief families 
with an income of less than $500 was not significantly higher for Negroes 
than it was for whites."' 

In the urban South as well, there is usually a higher percentage of relief 
recipients among Negroes than there is among whites. The difference, in 
most cases, is quite marked, but it is, nevertheless, much smaller than in 
the North. Taking a simple average of the relief rates, according to the 
National Health Survey, for 9 large and middle-sized cities in the 
South, one finds that in 1935, 25 per cent of the Negro and 11 per cent 
of the white families were receiving public assistance. The corresponding 
figures for 9 small cities were 15 and 10 per cent, respectively — indicating 
a much smaller difference. The Consumer Purchases Study gives about the 
same impression; it was particularly in the small cities and villages that 
the difference between the proportions of Negroes and whites on relief 
was small. This study shows, moreover, that the residual of families who 
were not on relief but who had incomes of less than $500 was small in the 
white - group in Southern cities and villages, but in the Negro group it was 
high, often making up as much as one-third or more of all the families. 
There was even a significant number of Negro families with less than $250 



356 An American Dilemma 

who foiled to receive any relief. 60 This, of course, means that, in spite of 
the higher total relief rates for Negroes, it was usually more difficult for 
them to get relief than it was for whites with similar needs. 

In Southern rural farm areas, the pattern was different. Relief rates 
were, in the first place, generally lower than they were in the cities and 
villages. Moreover, in all counties in four Southern states (North Carolina, 
South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi), where both Negro and white 
farm families were included in the sample investigated by the Study of 
Consumer Purchases, there were relatively fewer Negroes than whites on 
the public relief rolls. Thus, not even on a straight population basis did 
the Negroes get their proportionate share in the relief appropriations. 
Also, there was a pronounced divergence in the relief rates between various 
groups of counties. Of the white farmers and croppers, from less than i 
per cent to 15 per cent were on relief j the corresponding rates for Negroes 
varied between a fraction of one per cent to 1 1 per cent. 61 

We have chosen to establish these patterns on the basis of the Consumer 
Purchases Study and the National Health Survey, because they are the 
only major materials in which data on relief are combined with information 
on the income distribution of the nonrelief families. Owing to this circum- 
stance, we have been able to prove that discrimination against Negroes may 
exist even when, as in the urban South, Negro relief rates are two or three 
times higher than the white rates. Otherwise, however, wc can pick almost 
any material for those years and arrive at substantially the same conclusions 
concerning the general relations between relief rates for Negroes and 
whites. 62 

8. Specialized Social Welfare Programs 
During the Period After 1935 

For the years after 1935 there is little information available on the 
Negro's share in all benefits from the social welfare programs. Generally 
there are few data by race in the current reports of federal, state, and local 
governments — and even less for those states in the Deep South where the 
Negro population is most dense and discrimination against the Negro is 
most strongly entrenched. 68 

For most of the specialized programs, however, there are one or several 
special investigations concerning the representation of Negroes in the 
clientele and — at least in some cases — their share in the benefits. The main 
impression from these studies is that there has been no significant change 
in the Negro's relative position in the public welfare system. He continues 
to be best off in the North, where the general level of relief expenditures 
is highest, and where there is little or no direct discrimination against him. 
In the urban South he usually receives a larger share of the total relief 
benefits than corresponds to his population ratio, but this difference is much 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 357 

less pronounced than in the North. He is worst off in the rural South, 
where the most apparent racial discrimination is shown, at the same time 
as the general relief standards are very low. The South continues to be 
inconsistent in its treatment of Negroes. 

There seems to have been a change for the worse, however, in the 
position of the Negro women. Those among them who cannot receive 
old age benefits, old age assistance, or aid for their dependent children 
seem io have greater difficulties in getting public assistance — other than 
surplus commodities — than they experienced prior to 1936. On the whole, 
there is, at least in the South, and particularly in the rural South, little 
adequate provision for such needy people who happen not to be provided 
for in any of the specialized programs administered, financed or sponsored 
by the federal government. There is no public assistance for many unem- 
ployed able-bodied workers, for instance, who are not covered by unem- 
ployment compensation or when W.P.A. grants do not suffice for more 
than a part of them. On the other hand, there are certain categories of 
Negro and white clients who may receive larger grants than were usual 
under the previous program. 

9. The Social Security Program 

Conditions arc different, however, in different parts of the social welfare 
system. "Social security" has a position quite apart from the ordinary relief 
programs. Whether or not there is much direct discrimination against 
Negroes in the administration of the Social Security Law is difficult to say, 
since there is comparatively little direct information available on how 
Negroes are actually treated. Conditions may vary from one part of the 
system to another. There is little likelihood of any direct discrimination in 
the old age benefit system which is administered entirely by the federal 
government." Unemployment compensation is technically administered by 
the states, but there is a certain federal collaboration, and the basic provi- 
sions are comparatively uniform since they were more or less sponsored 
by the federal government, and all are geared to the federal Social Security 
Act of 1935. Workmen's compensation for injuries in the course of employ- 
ment, on the other hand, is entirely a matter of state initiative and state 
administration. 

What we do know, however, is that all these social insurance systems 
are so constructed that Negroes, along with certain groups of white work- 

"The Old Age and Survivors' Benefit System should be distinguished from Old Age 
Assistance. The latter is a form of tax-financed relief supported by both federal and state 
(and often local) governments. The Old Age Benefit System is financed by means of payroll 
taxes paid by both employers and employees. (See alphabetically listed articles on the various 
subjects in Russell Sage Foundation, Russell H. Kurtz [Editor], Social Work Yearbook, 
'94' C I 94<i] a »d Richard A. Lester, Economics of Labor L194.1], p. 438.) 



358 An American Dilemma 

era, are in a disadvantaged position.* In other words, there is what might 
be called "indirect discrimination." Particularly, coverage is limited. In 
the case of the old age pension system there is really no reason at all why 
it should be related to the labor market, covering only wage earners and 
salaried workers in specific occupations. 

Here some short circuit in thinking must be at work which involves the position 
that industrialism is to blame for modern economic problems, so that they have to be 
remedied by special measures for those connected with industry. ... It is fallacious, 
however, to believe that the problem of dependency for maintenance operates only 
in the sphere of wage earning. . . . Just as old age, death, and illness are not limited 
to industrial workers, so the risk coverage should not be so limited. 64 

What especially works hardships on the Negro is, of course, the fact that 
agricultural and domestic workers are excluded. In respect to old age 
insurance there is some information available which enables us to judge 
the quantitative significance of these exclusions. 85 

The development of workmen's compensation has depended entirely on 
state initiative, and there is a great variation in standards. 68 Mississippi 
does not even have a law requiring compulsory insurance of industrial 
accident risks. 87 Agriculture and domestic service usually belong to the 
"uncovered occupations." It has been estimated that only 40 per cent of all 
gainful workers are within the insurance system. 68 Laws enforcing accident 
preventive measures are often inadequate in the South. 68 

Thus the Negro's position in the social security programs to some extent 
differs from that in most other systems of social welfare. By and large, 
Negroes receive a much smaller share of the social security benefits com- 
pared to what they get under most other social welfare programs. They 
are always "under-represented" among the recipients of benefits, not only 
from the viewpoint of need, but also in comparison with the proportion of 
Negroes in the population. 

10. Assistance to Special Groups 1 " 

Among the recipients accepted for old age assistance during the period 
1 937-1 940 about 12 per cent were Negroes, whereas of all persons 6$ years 

'The following criticisms are directed solely against social insurance systems in the 
United States, not against workmen's compensation systems. The latter, of course, have other 
faults. 

'The Social Security Act of 1935, as amended, entitles the federal government to lend 
financial assistance to states, on a matching basis (50 per cent of total cost), for public 
assistance to three distinct categories of needy persons: aged, blind, and children under 
16 (sometimes 18) years of age in broken families, provided that state plans adopted for 
the purpose meet certain specified federal standards. These three programs are called Old 
Age Assistance (O.A.A), Aid to the Blind (A.B.), and Aid to Dependent Children (A.D.C.). 
Many states share their parts of the cost with the local communities. The assistance it dis- 
tributed by local Departments of Welfare. 



Chapter 15. The Negro m the Public Economy 359 

of age or older, according to the 1940 Census, only 7 per cent were 
Negroes. 70 Thus, the proportion of Negroes among recipients of old age 
assistance is much higher than among aged people in general. The differ- 
ence is particularly pronounced in the North. In the South it is less marked. 
Mississippi and Oklahoma differed from the other states in the South; in 
these states Negroes, in spite of their greater poverty, were actually less 
represented among the old age assistance recipients than among all aged 
people. 71 It is quite possible that similar flagrant cases of discrimination 
occurred in the rural areas of some of the other states; but no data exist 
which would allow us to test this assumption. 

The average benefits are much lower in the South than elsewhere. 72 
All the Southern states paid lower benefits to Negroes than to whites. The 
largest race differential appeared in Mississippi, where the average was $7 
for Negroes and $11 for whites. 

The two other categorical relief programs, aid to the blind and aid to 
dependent children, are quantitatively much less important than is old age 
assistance. The need of such relief, however, is particularly urgent among 
Negroes. It has been estimated, for instance, that the incidence of blindness 
is twice as high for Negroes as for whites. This means that about one-fifth 
of all blind persons in the United States are Negroes. It is obvious that 
Negroes constitute an even higher proportion of those blind persons who 
are in need of cash assistance. From this viewpoint, Negroes were certainly 
discriminated against, even though they constituted 20 to 23 per cent of 
all recipients accepted for aid to the blind during the years 1937-1940. 
The average benefit in 1 939-1 940 was $12 for Negroes and $22 for 
whites. This difference was due, mainly, to the fact that grants tended to 
be much lower in the South than they were elsewhere. In addition, many 
of the Southern states paid lower benefits to Negroes than they did to 
whites. 73 

Aid to dependent children is intended, primarily, for broken families 
with children. In view of the great number of widows and widowers in 
the Negro population, and its high divorce, separation, and illegitimacy 
rates, it is quite apparent that Negroes need this assistance much more 
than do whites. In 193 7- 1940 from 14 to 17 per cent of all recipients 
accepted for such aid were Negroes. In 7 of the Southern states, however, 
the proportion of Negroes among those accepted for aid to dependent 
children was smaller even than the proportion of Negroes among all 
children under 16 years of age. The discrimination was particularly pro- 
nounced in Georgia where, in 1940, 38 per cent of all children under 15 
were Negroes, where as the proportion of Negroes among those accepted 
for aid to dependent children during 1937- 1940 was but 1 1 to 12 per cent. 74 

Why is it that, in some Southern states, discrimination can go to such 
extremes in the case of aid to dependent children? It is quite possible that 



360 An American Dilemma 

the special eligibility requirements contained in most state laws concerning 
the "suitability" of the home may have something to do with it. A few 
state laws even specify that the parent or guardian be a "proper" person.' 8 
Such regulations, of course, may easily lend themselves to rather arbitrary 
interpretations whereby, in particular, many Negro families can be cut 
off from any chance of receiving this kind of assistance. According to 
popular belief in the South, few Negro low income families have homes 
which could be called "suitable" for any purpose; and, of course, it is 
literally true that the poorer the home the less acceptable it tends to be as 
a place for rearing children. If standards of conduct have to be considered, 
unmarried mothers may easily be at a disadvantage; and since often prac- 
tically all Negroes are believed to be "immoral," almost any discrimination 
against Negroes can be motivated on such grounds. Even though it is 
unlikely that professional welfare workers in the South would be taken in 
by such exaggerated notions, many of them, particularly in rural areas, 
may have to follow a compromise policy, the actual meaning of which is 
that Negro children are punished for the real or imaginary faults of their 
parents. 

Average benefits are comparatively high. In 1939-1940 they amounted 
to $30 to $31 per family, or $13 per child for Negroes and whites alike. 
Some Northern states even paid higher benefits to Negro than they did to 
white clients. In the South, of course, it was most often the other way 
around. 70 

11. Work Relief 

Except for unemployment compensation which, as we have seen, is 
inadequate for Negroes, work relief is the only special form of public 
assistance to able-bodied unemployed workers in so far as they cannot be 
placed under any of the youth programs.' 1 This situation is unfortunate, 
for, as we shall find, general relief is virtually nonexistent in many 
Southern areas, and it is not possible' to give work relief to all unemployed 
persons who fail to get any unemployment compensation benefits. Work 
projects, for one thing, cannot easily be enlarged and contracted with the 
fluctuations in total employment and, therefore, they must be kept well 
below the average level of unemployment. Actually the American work 
relief system is kept at an even lower level in relation to total unemploy- 
ment than is necessary. 77 Under such circumstances, an unemployed worker 
is fortunate if he manages to get on W.P.A. — and the more so since the 
earnings on work relief are usually much higher than the benefits from 
the unemployment compensation system or from direct relief. 

In April, 1941, there were 237,000 certified Negro workers assigned to 
work under the Work Projects Administration. They constituted 16 per 
* See Section iz of this chapter. 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 361 

cent of the total labor forces on W.P.A. This means that Negroes had a 
somewhat larger share in the work relief jobs than corresponded to their 
representation among the unemployed workers; for, according to the 
Census of 1940, there were about 13 per cent nonwhites among all persons 
who were without jobs and who were seeking work, or who were on 
emergency work. 78 

As usual, however, the situation was different in the North from what it 
was in the South. Many Northern states had at least twice as high a pro- 
portion of Negroes on the W.P.A. rolls as there was among the job seekers, 
but in most of the Southern states Negroes were less well represented on 
the work relief rolls than they were among the unemployed workers. 79 

It was particularly in the rural areas of the Southern states that there 
were relatively few Negroes among the W.P.A. workers. Virginia, exclu- 
sive of Richmond and Norfolk, for example, had a lower proportion of 
Negroes on the work relief rolls than there was in the total population. The 
same was true about Louisiana, outside of New Orleans. A state like 
Mississippi, of course, showed even worse conditions in this respect: in 
counties where there was no city with as much as 10,000 population, only 
18 per cent of the W.P.A. workers were Negroes, although they had about 
as many Negroes as whites in the total population and, no doubt, had a pre- 
ponderance of Negroes among all persons in need of unemployment relief. 80 

Since wage differentials on W.P.A. are extremely pronounced, the ques- 
tion of what job rating a person gets is important. The lowest wage that is 
paid the lowest group of unskilled workers in Southern counties with no 
city or town having as much as 5,000 population was — prior to a recent 
insignificant raise — $31.20. The highest wage received by professional 
and technical workers in Northern and Midwestern cities of 100,000 and 
over was $94.90. Thus, there is social discrimination on the W.P.A., and 
the consequence is, of course, that average wages for Negroes must be much 
lower than those paid to white workers. Even the lowest wage rate, how- 
ever, is higher than that which many Negro workers can receive in private 
employment. 

12. Assistance to Youth 

The New Deal has instituted some significant programs for youth. On 
the one hand, there are the various activities administered by the National 
Youth Administration. On the other hand, there was the Civilian Conserva- 
tion Corps, which was abolished in June, 1 942." 

In the early days of the C.C.C. programs there were but 5 or 6 per cent 
Negroes among the boys in the camps. From 1936 until 1941 the propor- 
tion varied between 9 and 1 1 per cent. This means that, after 1936, Negroes 
shared in the benefits of the program in proportion to their numbers in the 
population, but that no allowance was made for the much greater needs J» 



362 An American Dilemma 

the Negro population. As usual, however, this general average conceals the 
differences between the South and the North. In the Fourth Corps Area, 
comprising 8 Southern states, 21 per cent of the C.C.C. boys, in May, 1939, 
were Negroes. Since no less than one-third of all males 14 to 24 years of 
age in these states in 1940 were non white, this means that Negroes were 
grossly under-represented in the program. In the rest of the country, on the 
other hand, Negroes had more representatives proportionately in the 
C.C.C. camps than they had in the general population. 82 

The N.Y.A. programs show similar conditions. In January, 1940, 13 per 
cent of the workers on the N.Y.A. out-of-school program were Negroes. 
The corresponding proportion for the school program was 10 per cent. 
Excepting college and graduate aid, Northern states gave Negroes a much 
larger share of this assistance than corresponded to their proportion in the 
population j but in the South they did not receive as much of it as their 
relative numbers would warrant. In some cases this depended on the dif- 
ficulties in the South of getting local sponsors for Negro projects. In 
respect to the school aid, of course, one could explain it simply by the fact 
that there are much fewer Negroes, in proportion, in secondary and higher 
schools than there are whites. This explanation has, however, the character 
of a vicious circle. The purpose of the school aid, of course, is to help low 
income boys and girls get an education. The fact that so few of them get 
it is an indication of the need for additional assistance rather than a reason 
for limiting the aid. 83 

13. General Relief and Assistance in Kind 

For categories of people in need of aid, other than those mentioned, 
there are no chances of receiving any federally subsidized cash relief. In 
the South this means that their chances of receiving any cash relief at all 
are extremely small. Ordinary direct relief is insignificant in most of the 
Southern states. In February, 1941, the proportion of households receiving 
general relief varied in the South from 2.7 per cent (West Virginia) down 
to 0.3 per cent (Mississippi). The average benefits per month ranged, in 
January, 1941, from $25 (District of Columbia) to less than $3 (Missis- 
sippi). 84 

There are few data on the subject by race, owing to the fact that general 
relief is entirely a responsibility of the states and localities. This lack of 
information, however, does not matter much. The existence or nonexistence 
of discrimination against Negroes is in this case much less significant than is 
the fact that both racial groups are inadequately provided for in the South. 

Of great quantitative importance, on the other hand, is the direct distri- 
bution of federal surplus commodities through local relief agencies. In 
June, 1940, over 10,000,000 persons, or 8 per cent of the total population, 
were receiving this kind of assistance, either in combination with other relief 



Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy 363 

or independently. There was great unevenness in the apportionment of this 
aid among various states. Some states in the South used but little of it. 
Mississippi, on the other hand, gave this aid to almost one-fifth of its 
population. There, as well as in certain other Southern states, federal sur- 
plus commodities were actually the mainstay of the whole relief system. 84 

This surplus commodity program may fulfill a real function when used 
for the purpose of supplementing other relief. In the South, however, 
surplus commodities are often used as the only form of assistance to families 
in great need. In such cases, of course, they are totally inadequate. The 
program may even be harmful, then, in that it provides an excuse for not 
organizing more efficient aid. 

The food stamp plan and the school lunch program constitute more 
rational and better organized attempts to supplement ordinary relief, 
improve the dietary standards among low income people, and increase the 
market for agricultural commodities. Just as there is no reporting about how 
many Negroes and whites arc receiving surplus commodities, there is little 
or no information on how many Negroes there are among the millions of 
children who eat their school lunches at federal expense every day or on 
the extent to which food stamps are given and sold to Negroes. Yet these 
activities include some of the most significant attempts that have ever been 
made to raise the health standard of the people; and we ought to know 
whether or not the Negro has received his just share of these benefits, of 
which he is in such great need. 



CHAPTER l6 

INCOME, CONSUMPTION AND HOUSING* 



i. Family Income 

In a general way we know why the Negro is poor. As a farmer, he has 
been kept in a dependent position and has been exploited. He was tied to 
cotton agriculture where the risks were such that at one time it brought sud- 
den riches to white people but now forces surplus workers, particularly 
Negroes, to leave the Southern land. As a city worker, he has been kept 
out of jobs, especially the good ones. He has seldom been allowed to prepare 
himself adequately for jobs requiring high skill or professional training. 
Because of residential segregation, he is confined to slums to an even greater 
extent than his low purchasing power makes necessary. He does not share 
equally with his white fellow citizen in the free services given by the 
government. 

Now, let us ask: What is the result of all this? Just how poor is the 
Negro? What is his annual income? Does he get a sufficient diet? In what 
kind of house does he live? How does his level of living, in terms of actual 
consumption, compare with that of the whites? 

The typical Southern Negro farm family has an income of but a few 
hundred dollars a year. It is considerably lower than that of the average 
white farm family. This is due, in part, to the fact that Negroes are more 
concentrated at the bottom of the "agricultural ladder" than are whites. 
This is not the whole explanation, however, for the income of the average 
Negro family at any given tenure status, is always much lower than is the 
income of the average white family. Negro farm families of higher than 
sharecropper status are not any better off, on the average, than are white 
sharecroppers. 1 

Extremely low, also, are the incomes of most Negro families in the 
villages of the South. The Consumer Purchases Study indicates that half 
the "normal" b Negro families in 34 Southern villages — located in Georgia, 
Mississippi, and the Carolinas — had incomes under $330 in 1935-1936. 

* This chapter is based principally on Richard Sterner and Associates, The Negro's Share 
(i943)< This book was prepared for our study. 

k A "normal" family consists of at least husband and wife, living together, with or 
without children. 

3<4 



Chapter 1 6. Income, Consumption and Housing 365 

The corresponding median income for "normal" white families was $1,220. 
About 17 per cent of all the "normal" Negro families in villages had 
incomes under $250, but were, nevertheless, not on relief. Only 4 per cent 
of the Negro households had incomes of $1,000 or more. 2 It goes without 
saying that the income level would have appeared still lower if broken 
families had been included in the estimates. 3 

Small cities in the South showed similar conditions, except that the 
income level for Negro families was somewhat higher. 4 It was still higher 
in the middle-sized and large cities of the South (Table 1). Nevertheless, 
half the "normal" Negro families in Atlanta had less than $632, and half 
the broken Negro families had less than $332. White families had more 

TABLE 1 
Median Incomes or Negro and Native White Families in Selected Cities: 1935-1936 





Norm 


il Families 








Broken Families 


New York Chicago 
Race N. Y. 111. 


Columbus AtlantaColumbia 
Ohio Ga. S. C. 


Mobile 
Ala. 


Atlanta Columbia 'Mobile 
Ga. S. C. Ala. 


Negro families #980 ■ 
White families 1930 


1687 


#831 

1622 


#32 
1876 


?576 
I876 


$481 
1419 


$332 
940 


$254 $301 
I403 784 



Sources: U.S. Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Study of Consumer Purchases, Urban 
Series, Familv Income in Chicago, 1035-36, Bulletin No. 642, Vol. 1, family Income (1939), p. 162; Family 
Income and Expenditure in New York C*ty, 1035-36, Bulletin No. 641. Vol. x, Family Income (1041). p. 19; 
Family Income in Nine Cities of the East Central Region, 1035-36, Bulletin No. 644. Vol. i, Family Income 
(1939). PP- 33 and 443; Family Income in the Southeastern Region, 1035-36, Bulletin No. 647. Vol. 1, Family 
Income (1939). pp. 46-48. 

•New York City, so-called "native area" only. 

than twice and, in some cities, more than three times as much. Northern 
cities showed a substantially higher income level for Negroes. In New York 
City the median income for normal Negro families was $980 and in 
Chicago it was $726. Moreover, the differential between whites and Negroes 
was less pronounced than in the South. The reason for this is that — con- 
trary to common belief — the white urban population in the North does not 
have any significantly higher median incomes than has the white urban 
population in the South. 

These conclusions are based not only on the small group of cities 
sampled in the Study of Consumer Purchases. The National Health Survey 
for 1935-1936, containing information on income of Negro and white 
families in 16 Northern and 18 Southern cities, confirms both that race 
differences in income are much more marked in the urban South than in 
the urban North, and that median incomes for white urban families are 
about the same in the South as in the North. 5 The explanation is simple. 
The urban white population in the South has an "incomplete lower class," 



366 An American Dilemma 

doe to the presence of the Negro. Domestic service as well as certain other 
low wage jobs are more or less completely filled by the Negroes. Since, 
on the other hand, almost all well-paid work is monopolized by the whites, 
the average income of white workers is fairly high. This more or less 
balances the consequences of the fact that, in almost any given job, earnings 
tend to be lower than in the North. In other words, because the Negro is 
kept down, and because such a large part of the total urban income is 
retained by the whites, the white population in the urban South is not appre- 
ciably worse off than the urban population in the North — in spite of the 
greater general poverty in the South. 

It goes without saying that the majority of the Negro families are 
economically unable to live in a way compatible with any modern concepts 
of a "minimum health standard." The Works Progress Administration has 
made up, for 59 cities, as of March, 1935, an "emergency budget" which 
averaged around $900 per year, estimated on the basis of the needs of a 
family of four persons. 6 This standard can scarcely be characterized as a 
real health standard. 7 Yet more than three-fourths of the "normal" Negro 
families in Columbia, South Carolina; Mobile, Alabama; and Atlanta, 
Georgia, had incomes below this limit. The conditions were much better in 
Columbus, Ohio, and in Chicago, Illinois, but even there the majority of 
the Negro families had sub-standard incomes. In the white urban popula- 
tion of these five cities, on the other hand, almost four out of five "normal" 
families had incomes high enough to buy at least an "emergency standard." 
Other income studies confirm that these differences are rather typical. 8 

2. Income and Family Size 

The large majority of Negro families have to live on a standard which 
represents a constant threat to their health. Conditions are difficult for the 
large families: Family income did not show any consistent tendency to be 
higher when the number of children under 16 in the family was greater. 
Sometimes it was even lower when there were more children in the family.* 
There is, of course, nothing surprising in this absence of any significant posi- 
tive correlation between income and number of children. In the main, it 
can be explained rather easily; and one finds the same phenomenon in other 
countries. 10 But the phenomenon is a serious one, and it does not seem as 
though the full implications of it were generally understood. 11 True, large 
families nowadays are not numerous. But, still, they rear the main part of 
the coming generation. 12 The condition of these large families, therefore, 
is much more significant than is suggested by their numbers. This is particu- 
larly true about Negroes, who have a greater proportion of large families 
than has the white population. Then, too, it must be considered that Negro 
incomes are usually so low to begin with that there is absolutely no leeway 
in the budget for children. Therefore, it* happens more frequently in Negro 



Chapter 1 6. Income, Consumption and Housing 367 

than in white families that the arrival of children forces the level of living 
below any minimum health standard — that is, when it was not already below 
such a standard even before the children arrived. 

If family income fails to increase with the number of minors in the 
family, it does increase somewhat, on the other hand, with the number of 
adult family members. This is so for two reasons. First, families in which 
one or more of the children have reached mature age are likely to have a 
family head who is in his more "productive" age. This factor, however, 
is much less significant for Negro than for white families. The average 
earnings of the husbands varied more with age in white than they did in 
Negro families 18 which is quite understandable in view of the fact that 
Negroes have slim chances of being promoted, or even of getting "steadier" 
jobs, as they become more experienced." 

The second reason why income tends to increase with the number of 
adult members in the family is, of course, that, on the average, there are 
more supplementary earners in the family when it is large. This is particu- 
larly true about Negro families. Their greater poverty forces family mem- 
bers out on the labor market much more often than happens in white 
families. 11 

3. The Family Budget 

The Negro is generally believed to be an inefficient consumer. The truth 
of the matter is that, with few exceptions, we are all more or less bad 
consumers, regardless of our income and the color of our skin. However, 
when poor people use their income in a reckless manner, it is, of course, 
particularly harmful. We have a strong reason, then, to plan educational 
measures in order to ameliorate the situation, and such educational measures 
may well become a significant complement to other social welfare efforts. 
But the need for them should never be used as a moral excuse for not 
doing anything about poverty itself. 

Most Negroes have little education. We cannot expect them to know 
more about a balanced diet than do the rest of us. Their incomes are not 
only low but also insecure, which, of course, tends to make budgeting and 
planning very discouraging. Many of them work in hotels and restaurants 
where white people do not always display habits of thrift. In the urban 
areas there are many children of Negro migrants from the rural South who 
do not believe that their parents can teach them how to organize one's 
life in a city. In the slums to which they are confined they do not see much 
prosperity based on thoughtful economic planning, but they may listen to 
poolroom tales about somebody's making easy money in the numbers 

*See Chapter 13, Section 9, where it is pointed out that unemployment risks of Negro 
workers show a much less pronounced tendency to decrease with age and experience than do 
the unemployment risks of white workers. 



368 An American Dilemma 

racket. They, just like white youth in similar circumstances, may too easily 
be taken in by shallow values. Conspicuous consumption is one of them. 
The answer to such conditions, of course, is more education, better housing, 
increased economic security — not moral indignation. 

Every observer knows that there is some conspicuous consumption and 
reckless spending even among poor Negroes. It is not possible to say, how- 
ever, whether there is more or less of it than there is among whites of equal 
economic and social status. There are studies made on the subject, of course. 
By far the best one is the Consumer Purchases Study for 193 5- 1936. The 
information on expenditures, however, is limited to nonrelief families, 
which means that it is less representative for Negroes than for whites. 15 
It is limited, furthermore, to such households from which it was possible to 
obtain information concerning their expenditures for an entire year. In 
spite of all commendable efforts to contact different sorts of families, and 
the extensive use of field-workers, we cannot assume that anything near 
the right proportion of the bad consumers were included in the study; 
for they generally are much less likely to give reliable information about 
their expenditures during a whole year than are others. Despite such limita- 
tions of the Consumer Purchases Study, it is the best of its kind in the world 
and can be used to understand all sorts of problems connected with income 
and consumption. 

One result of the study seems especially surprising. Negroes consistently 
balance their budgets better than do whites in the same income groups. In 
the low income groups where expenditures usually exceed the income, the 
average deficits are smaller for Negroes than they are for whites. In the 
middle income groups (there are too few Negroes in the higher brackets to 
be considered) the average surpluses are higher for Negroes than they 
are for whites. It goes without saying, of course, that when all income 
groups are combined, Negroes have much smaller surpluses — or higher 
deficits — than have whites, but that is just an effect of the greater Negro 
poverty. In comparable cases Negroes almost always seem to be the more 
careful budgeters}* 

These findings are, perhaps, not as unreasonable as they may appear at 
first sight. There may be several explanations of the phenomenon. Negroes 
may have greater difficulties in obtaining credit. The lower and lower- 
middle income groups may include a greater number of whites than of 
Negroes who have "seen better days" and have not yet become adjusted to 
their present condition; or who anticipate improved conditions and, for 
that reason, spend more than they happen to earn at the moment. Negroes, 
to a greater extent, can be expected to be "adjusted" to their low incomes 
and, of course, they usually have no economic raises to look forward to. 
Finally) because of the general limitations in the opportunities for Negroes, 



Chapter 1 6. Income, Consumption and Housing 369 

it is possible that these income groups include a great number of Negro 
families whose general economic ability surpasses their actual earnings. 17 
Of course, there is always a possibility of a bias in the sample. Yet it is 
hard to see how such a bias could so consistently affect the Negro group 
differently from the white group. At any rate, it seems to have been ascer- 
tained that the general notions about Negro improvidence are greatly 
exaggerated. The Negro population includes a substantial number of 
families who know how to balance their family budgets better than the 
average white family of corresponding means. 









TABLE 


2 








Per Cent Distribution of 


Total Family Con: 


SUMPTION 


Items, for 


Normal NoNREUEr 


Families in ! 


Selected 


Community 


and Income Grouts," by Race: 1 935-1 


[936 












Household 


Clothing 














Operation 


and 




Community and 








Hous- 


and 


Personal 




Income 


Race 


Total 


Food 


ing 


Furnishings 


Care 


Other 


New York 
















fl, 000-1,499 


Negro 


1 00.0 


3S-3 


28.2 


1 1.4 


10.3 


14.8 




White 


1 00.0 


39-4 


25-7 


1 1.4 


8.4 


15.1 


Atlanta 
















$$00-999 


Negro 


I00.0 


36.7 


17.8 


I4.2 


»2.t 


1 9.2 




White 


1 00.0 


39-9 


16.S 


17.2 


IO.5 


15.8 


$1,000-1,499 


Negro 


100.0 


31.0 


16.6 


1 4.6 


14.3 


23-5 




White 


100.0 


33-o 


16.8 


17.0 


I2.0 


21. 1 


14 Southern Villagei 
















$500-999 


Negro 


100.0 


41.2 


12.4 


13.0 


I4.2 


19.2 




White 


100.0 


38.0 


134 


16.6 


13.7 


18.3 


Georgia and Mississippi farm 














owners and tenants, except 














croppers 
















Under $500 


Negro 


1 00.0 


63.O 


5-4 


IO.S 


9.8 


11.3 




White 


1 00.0 


59-7 


7-3 


10.3 


10.5 


12.2 



Sources: Adapted from U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Study of Consumer Pur- 
chases, Urban Series. Family Expenditure >n New York City, lQii-3*, Bulletin No. 643. Vol. a. Family Ex- 
penditure (1939). Tabular Summary. Tables 2, 3, and 4; Family Income and Expenditure in Selected 
Southeastern Cities, 1031-36, Bulletin No. 647, Vol. 2, Family Expenditure (1940), Tabular Summary, Tablea 
3,3, and 4; and U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics, Study of Consumer Purchases, 
Urban ana Village Series, Family Income and Expenditure, Five Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 306, 
Part 2, Family Expenditure (1040), particularly Table 40; Farm Series, Family Income and Expenditure, Five 
Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 465, Part 2, Family Expenditure (1941), particularly Table 35- 

• Where there were too few white families in the sample for income groups most typical for Negro families, 
it was necessary to select higher income groups. Most other income groups in these communities show about 
the same race differentials. Data for Columbia, South Carolina, and Mobile, Alabama, indicate about the 
same race differentials as those for Atlanta, Georgia. 

There are many details in the data on family budgets which indicate how 
Negroes have been taught by their tradition of poverty to economize even 
more than do white families of similar economic status. To a greater extent 
than these comparable white families they do their laundry at home rather 
than send it to a commercial laundry; rarely do they hire any household 



370 An American Dilemma 

help; more often do they bake their own bread rather than buy it; less often 
do they purchase processed foods. They have fewer cars, washing machines, 
and vacuum cleaners than have white families in similar economic circum- 
stances — partly, perhaps, because it is more difficult for them to obtain 
installment credit. Most of these things mean that there is more work for 
Negro women to do in their own homes. Yet they take on gainful work, 
outside their homes, tc a much greater extent than do white women. 18 

It should be mentioned, too, in this context, that expenditures for sup- 
port of relatives and friends are higher among Negroes than they are among 
whites even at given income levels. 18 The explanation of this is simple 
enough. A Negro with an income of, say, $800 is much more likely than 
a white person with the same earning power to have relatives who are still 
worse off. 

Also it seems that urban Negroes allocate a somewhat smaller fart of their 
total expenditure to basic necessities, such as food and sometimes housing?* 
and a greater fart of it for clothing, fersonal care, and certain miscellaneous 
items, such as tobacco, recreation, reading, medical care, than do white 
families with similar incomes (Table 2). This may possibly be due, to some 
extent, to poor spending habits. 21 There does not seem to be any significant 
difference of this kind in rural areas, however. It must be emphasized, 
further, that the absolute amounts that most Negro families can spend on 
things other than basic necessities are extremely small. 22 Most Negro 
families are much too poor to develop into real spendthrifts. 

4. Budget Items 

This becomes even more apparent when the detailed data for various con- 
sumption items are inspected. Let us consider clothing. The absolute amount 
spent by nonrelicf Negro families in Atlanta with an income of less than 
$500 was only $24. Those in the income group $500-$999 spent $72, which 
was exactly the same amount as tha.t expended by white families of equal 
economic status. These two income groups, together with the relief families, 
included more than four-fifths of all "normal" Negro families in Atlanta, 
whereas almost three-fourths of the white families had incomes above this 
limit. At successive income levels, Negro outlays for clothing showed a 
somewhat more rapid increase than did corresponding expenditures in 
white families. 28 Much more important is the fact that clothing expenditures 
are so restricted in these income groups in which most Negroes are con- 
centrated. 24 

Expenses for medical care for Atlanta Negro families with incomes under 
$500 averaged $19. For the group $500-$999 the amount was $42. When 
we know that white families having incomes of $3,000 and more, although 
iMiS&d by sickness to a much lesser extent," spent an average amount of 

* Sae Chapter 7, Section 5, and Chapter 15, Section 4.. 



Chapter 16. Income, Consumption and Housing 371 

$253 for the same purpose, we get some idea about the tremendous health 
needs in the low-income Negro population. It has been estimated that 
adequate medical and dental care, when purchased on a group basis, can 
be had for about $25 per person per year and for about $100 for a family 
of four. 25 The corresponding minimum cost for Negroes, usually buying 
such services on an individual basis and suffering from much more illness 
than the white population is, of course, much higher; it may well run into 
several hundreds of dollars per family per year. The effect of poverty, in 
the absence of cooperative organizations and of adequate public health 
provisions, means that most Negro and white low income families fail to 
get nearly as much medical care as they need. In addition, some families 
may have their finances completely upset when hit by severe disease or 
physical accidents requiring extensive medical care. There were some Negro 
and white families in Atlanta with incomes under $1,000, who had to spend 
$100 to $200, or even more, for medical care during the year 1935-1936. 20 

Expenses for recreation and tobacco were quite small for Negro families 
in the average Negro income brackets. 27 The difference in standard was even 
greater than the figures indicate, since Negioes had much less access than 
did whites to free public recreational facilities, like parks, libraries and so 
on." 

One gets the same impression whatever part of the family budget one 
takes up for closer inspection. The effects of Negro poverty are apparent 
everywhere. In order to avoid too much detail we must concentrate our 
attention on the two main items: food and housing. Those are the items for 
which one would expect the racial differences in standard to be least pro- 
nounced. For low income people generally spend a larger part of their 
budgets on these basic necessities than do more well-to-do families; and for 
this reason, the percentage of the total Negro income used for buying food 
and housing is higher than is the corresponding percentage of the white 
income. Yet we shall find enormous racial differentials in standards even in 
respect to these items. 

5. Food Consumption 

Dietary conditions are crucial. The progress of the science of nutrition 
during the last few decades has made us understand that there is a large 
difference between barely avoiding starvation and enjoying a real "health 
diet." We have in this case a more objective basis for formulating the 
requirements for a minimum standard of living than we can find in regard 
to any other major item of consumption. 

It goes without saying that there are huge differences between the diets 
of Negro and of white families. In the main, they depend on the obvious 
fact that Negroes are so much poorer than whites. In addition, however, 

"See Chapter 15, Section 5. 



37* 



Am American Dilemma 



there seem to be certain interesting differences even when income is kept 
constant. One may call these latter differences "cultural," but that does not 
mean that they have nothing to do with economics. In part they may depend 
on traditions from a time when the Negro's economic conditions were dif- 
ferent. In part they may depend on circumstances inherent in the Negro's 
present economic status. We cannot go into this question and can only state 
the factual situation. 

For one thing, as we have already pointed out, the average food expendi- 
ture per family often tends to be somewhat lower for Negroes than it 
is for whites even in the same income group. This condition, of course, helps 
to make the food consumption of Negroes different from that of whites 
even at given income levels. 28 The general differences for all income 
groups combined, of course, are much larger. 20 

If a group has a low average consumption of milk and vegetables, it does 



TABLE 3 

Percentage of Normal Nokreuef Families Who Durinq a Survey Period of One Week 
in 1936 Failed to Consume Specified Foods 











Southern 


Atlanta, Colum- 




Southern Farm Counties 


Villages 


bia and Mobile 




Negro 




White 












Owners, 




Owners 










Family Type 


Tenants 


White 


and 


Negro 


White 


Negro 


White 


and Kind 


and 


Crop- 


Other 


Fami- 


Fami- 


Fami- 


Fami- 


of Food 


Croppers 


pers 


Tenants 


lies 


lies 


lies 


lies 


All Normal Families 
















Fluid Milk 


33-7 


15.9 


1 1.2 


31.2 


"•3 


29.0 


9-3 


Eggs 


33-6 


17.1 


"4 


48.6 


10.2 


20.2 


3-8 


Fresh Fruits 


66.2 


47-a 


33-7 


51.6 


10.6 


27.6 


5.1 


Fresh vegetables 


»3-6 


9.0 


'8.3 


17.7 


3-8 


5-o 


1-7 


Potatoes and sweet 
















potatoes 


48.0 


29.8 


26.2 


43-6 


13-3 


29.2 


8.9 


Large Families » 
















Fluid milk 


37-8 


30.0 


8.9 


34-7 


10.7 


16.S 


(b) 


Eggs 


37-2 


19.4 


1 1.4 


54-2 


16.8 


^3-3 


(b) 


Fresh fruit 


68.7 


52-4 


3*-3 


56.9 


16.8 


25.1 


(b) 


Fresh vegetables 


J 5.0 


8.8 


5-7 


13.9 


2.3 


4.2 


(b) 


Potatoes and sweet 
















potatoes 


48.1 


31.8 


»7-3 


45.8 


J5-3 


254 


(b) 



Soiree: Adapted from U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Study of Consumer Pur- 
chases, Urban Technical Series, Family Expenditures in Selected Cities, J0JS-3H. Bulletin No. 648. Vol. a, 
Food (1040), Tabular Summary, Table 4; and U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics, 
Consumer Purchases Study, Urban and Village Series. Family Food Consumption and Dietary Levels, Five 



Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 452 (1041), Tables 30. 33, and 34. and Farm Series, Family Food 
f-muumption and Dirtary Levels, Five Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 405 (1041 >. Tablet 48, si and 52. 
• FamTfiea of husband and wife and three to four children under 16; and families consisting of husband. 



wife, one child under 16, as well as four to five others, regardless of age. " 
' Data net available. 



Chapter 1 6. Income, Consumption and Housing 373 

not mean that every family in the group consumes the same small quanti- 
ties of these foodstuffs. Some use more than the average. Others have no 
regular consumption of them at all. Roughly 30 per cent of the "normal" 
Negro nonrelief families in the South did not consume any milk during a 
whole survey week in 1936 (Table 3). There was a similar proportion of 
Negro families reporting no consumption of eggs. Almost half the Negro 
farm and village families consumed no potatoes or sweet potatoes. Two- 
thirds of the farm Negroes, one-half of the village Negroes and over one- 
fourth of the city Negroes failed to cat any fresh fruit during the week. 
In rural areas there was a significant number of Negro families who did 
not get any fresh vegetables. These proportions were in many instances 
rather high for white families as well, particularly for white croppers. Yet 
in every single case Negroes were worse off. It should be recalled that all 
these percentages would be much higher and that the race differential would 
appear still more pronounced if all the low income groups had been ade- 
quately represented in the study. 

Such deficiencies in diet, of course, are highly dependent upon income. 
In Atlanta, Columbia, and Mobile the proportion of nonrelief Negro 
families who failed to drink any milk during the week was 43 per cent 
when the income was below $500, but 18 per cent when the income was 
$2,ooo-$2,999. The corresponding figures for white families were 26 and 
6 per cent, respectively. 30 These differences seem to be rather typical; 
similar observations can be made for other foodstuffs, and other community 
groups. 81 They show, however, not only that income means much, but also 
that it does not mean everything. The fact that even some families in the 
economic middle class fail to consume milk and other important protective 
foods is often due just to bad consumption habits or to ignorance. It seems 
that this particular kind of unwise consumption is especially prevalent 
among Negroes, since they tend, in every income group, to expend less for 
food than do whites. 

It is startling to find that even among large families, many of whom 
have three or more children under 16, there are many who do not have 
any regular consumption of milk, eggs, fresh fruits or potatoes. The pro- 
portion of such cases, at least among farm and village Negroes, is often 
higher among large than among small families. The explanation, of course, 
is simply that income does not tend to increase with the number of chil- 
dren. This more than offsets the fact that large families always tend to 
spend a greater proportion of their income on food than do small families. 82 
Therefore, the value per meal per food-expenditure-unit (or "average- 
adult")* tends to decline drastically with increased family size (Table 4). 

'The food-expenditure unit, for which we use the phrase "average-adult," is a measure 
of the need of an average adult person. The needs of children are expressed in terms of this 
unit need for purposes of comparison. See footnote (a) to Table +. 



374 An American Dilemma 

TABLE 4 

Avexaoe Value (in Cents) per Meal per Food-Expenditure-Unit* vk 
Small and Large Normal Nonreuet Famiue*, by Race 





Southern Farm Areas 




Southern Villages 


Negro 
Owners 
Tenants and 
Family Type h Croppers 


White 
Croppers 


White 

Owners 

and Other 

Tenants 


Negro 
Families 


White 
Families 


Small families 8.6 
Large families 4.9 


10.8 
6.8 


12.6 
8.8 


9-7 
3.8 


14.1 
8.0 



Sources: VS. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics. Consumer Purchases Study, Farm 
Stria, Family Food Consumption and Dietary Lntls, Five Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 405 (1941), 
pp. 176-178, and Urban and Village Series, Family Food Consumption and Dittaryl Levels, Five Regions, 
Miscellaneous Publication No. 453 (1041), p. 06. 

• Persons 20 years or older are counted as 1.0 food-expenditure-unit; persons 13 to 19 years as t.t food- 
expenditure-unit; persons 6 to 12 years as 04 unit, and children under* years as 0.6 unit. 

• Small families are those consisting of husband and wife without children. Concerning large families, 
see Table 3, footnote (a). 

This is particularly true in the case of Negroes, since they usually have no 
room whatever in their family budget for the increased needs brought 
about by a large number of children. Large Negro families in Southern 
villages expended less than 4 cents per meal per "average-adult." This was 
not even half of what corresponding white families expended, and it was 
about 60 per cent less than the figure for Negro two-person families. The 
plight of the large Negro families is only too evident. 

In the economic groups most typical for Southern Negroes, 88 the majority 
of the families had diets which failed by far to meet modern "optimal" 
requirements regarding content of proteins, minerals and vitamins. 8 * Half 
the Negroes studied in farm areas and villages, having a food expenditure 
of $0.69 — $1.37 per week per "average-adult," even failed to get the energy 
value standard of 3,000 calories a day, and between one-fourth and one- 
fifth of them got less than 2,400 calories — this in spite of the fact that 
Negroes are concentrated in heavy work for which the requirements are 
often much higher than is the usual standard. Conditions were decidedly 
better when food expenditures were from $1.38 to $2.07 per unit per week, 
but even in this group there were a large number of Negro and white 
families who failed to get real "health diets." 

On the lower levels — that is, in income groups and food-expenditure 
groups most typical for the Negro population — the majority of the families 
had diets which failed to meet certain even more restricted requirements 
and which, for this reason, were characterized as "poor" by the Bureau of 
Home Economics (Table 5). 315 
It seems, therefore, that* we are entitled to draw this rather general but, 



«43 





4 


96 


I09 


3 


17 


80 


114 


7 


3° 


63 


114 


4 


3° 


66 


89 


19 


39 


4» 


133 


26 


41 


33 



U5 


ii 


22 


66 


83 


11 


37 


5i 


124 


45 


25 


3° 



Chapter 16. Income, Consumption and Housing 375 

TABLE 5 

Diets or Normal Nonrelief- Negro and White Families in 
the Southeast Classified by Grade: 1936-1937" 

Food Expenditure Group, 

Income Class, Number Percentage of 

Community Group, of Families Diets Graded 

and Race b in Sample Good Fair Poor 

1. Families classified by weekly food value per food- 
expenditure-unit* 

$o.6v-$i.37 

Negro city and village families 

Negro farm owners, tenants, and croppers 
$i.38-$2.oj 

Negro city and village families 

White city and village families 

Negro farm owners, tenants, croppers 

White farm owners and tenants, except croppers 

2. Families classified by income 
$25o-$4W 

Negro city and village families 126 14 19 67 

$5oo-$999 

Negro city and village families 
White city and village families 
White farm owners and tenants, except croppers 

Sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economic*, Consumer Purchases Study, Urban 
and Village Series, Family Food Consumption and Dietary Levels. Fme Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 
45a (104O, pp. 55-60 ana 71; Farm Series, Family Food Consumption and Dietary Levels, Fine Regions, Mis- 
cellaneous Publication No. 405 (1941), pp. 83-89. 101 and 106. 

■ Diets were classified as poor if they failed to meet any one of the following requirements in regard to the 
food content per nutrition unit per day: protein 50 grams, calciuino.45 gram, phosphorus 0.88 gram, iron 10 
milligrams, vitamin A 3,000 International Units, thiamin 1.0 milligram or 33J International Units, ascorbic 
acid 30 milligrams or 600 International Units, riboflavin 0.9 milligram. They were classed as fair if they met 
all these requirements by less than a 50 per cent margin with respect to one or more nutrients; as good if the 
diets contained at least 50 per cent more of each nutrient. Not even the last standard is as high, in every 
respect, as the "dietary yardstick" recommended by the National Research Council (.New York Times [ May 
36, 1041]). The ( Bureau of Home Economics, however, used a somewhat comparable, standard (the so-called 
exceUenl diet) which was 100 per cent higher in respect to vitamins and 50 per cent higher in respect toother 
nutrients than was the fair diet. (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Miscellaneous Publication No. 452, op, cit., 
pp. 55-56.) There were too few Negro families with such diets to warrant special consideration. 

^Groups with less than 75 representatives in the sample are excluded. No income grouping has been 
published tor Negro farm families. Income and food-expenditure groups are included only in so far as the 
sample for them contained at least 75 Negro families. 

• Food-expenditure-unit is roughly equal to one person. See footnote (a) of Table 4. 

nevertheless, significant conclusion: the majority of the Negro population 
suffers from severe malnutrition. This is true at least about the South. 
Conditions may be somewhat better in the North, for which we do not have 
any adequate information. 

6. Housing Conditions 

Housing is much more than just shelter. It provides the setting for the 
whole life of the family. Indeed, whether or not any organized family 
life will be at all possible depends very much on the character of the 
house or dwelling unit. Children cannot be reared in a satisfactory manner 
if there is no place for them at home where they can play without con- 



376 An American Dilemma 

stantly irritating the adults or being irritated by them. Over-crowding may 
keep them out of their homes more than is good for them — in fact so much 
that family controls become weak. The result is that some of the children 
become juvenile delinquents. This danger may become even more pro- 
nounced if there are insufficient recreational facilities in the neighborhood, 
something which is often characteristic of Negro areas.* Children in crowded 
homes' usually have great difficulties in doing their home work; their 
achievements in school may suffer in consequence. The presence of boarders 
in the homes, or the "doubling up" of families in a single residence unit, 
which is much more frequent in Negro than in white families, usually 
means that there cannot be much privacy; often it means a constant threat to 
family morals. Crowding, in general, has similar effects. In addition to the 
moral and mental health risks, there are all the obvious physical health 
hazards. 

In fact, the correlation between poor housing, on the one hand, and 
tuberculosis, venereal diseases, prostitution, juvenile delinquency, and crime, 
on the other hand, has been demonstrated so often by American experts 
that we do not have to add anything to the evidence. 86 This point should 
be kept in mind in any evaluation of Negro family life, of Negro crime and 
of Negro sickness. 

Nothing is so obvious about the Negroes' level of living as the fact that 
most of them suffer from poor housing conditions. It is a matter of such 
common knowledge that it does not need much emphasis. We shall, there- 
fore, only sample the great amount of available data. 

Let us consider, first, the conditions in rural areas. The South, generally, 
has the poorest housing conditions in the country. 87 The Negro in every 
respect is worse off than is the white farmer. Half the white, and four out 
of five of the Negro farm homes, were made of unpainted wood. The pro- 
portion of houses having foundations, floors, roofs, in poor condition, 
although high for white farmers, was still higher for Negro farm families. 
One-half of the Negro farm homes in 1 1 Southern states had foundations 
in poor condition, and about an equal number had roofs and interior walls 
and ceilings in poor condition. More than three-fourths of the Negro farm 
houses were unscreened, and only 3 per cent of all Negro homes — as 
against 24 per cent of the white homes — had screens which were in good 
condition. The Consumer Purchases Study, although low income families 
are under-represented in its sample, shows that 10 per cent of the Negro 
farm families and over 2 per cent of the white farm families were without 
any toilet or privy of any kind. It is probable, however, that the situation 
has improved in this respect, since federal agencies have, during recent 
years, built a great number of farm privies in the South. 38 

The rural South has the largest number of persons per residential house- 
* See .Chapter 15, Section 5. 



Chapter 16. Income, Consumption and Housing 377 

hold in the country. Yet the farm houses are smaller on the average than 
in any other farm region except in the Mountain states where they are just 
as small. 89 This means, of course, that there is more over-crowding in the 
farm regions of the South than in any other farm region. Such over- 
crowding particularly hits the large families of which, in the Negro group, 
the majority seems to be more or less suffering from cramped housing 
conditions. 40 

Concerning housing conditions in Southern villages there are compara- 
tively few studies; yet we know that the race differentials are enormous. 
Just to take an example: more than three-fourths of the Negro village 
families in the sample for the Consumer Purchases Study were without any 
indoor water supply; the proportion of such families in the white group was 
15 per cent. Two-thirds of the large Negro village families — as against 28 
per cent of the white families — were living in homes with more than 1.5 
persons per room. 41 

Southern cities, just like Southern rural areas, have, in general, much 
worse housing conditions than other sections of the country. 42 Negroes 
are much worse off than are whites both in Northern and in Southern cities. 
It even happens that nonrelief Negro families may suffer from certain 
specific deficiencies to a greater extent than do white relief families. Accord- 
ing to the National Health Survey, this was true, for instance, in respect 
to the frequency of cases where there is no private toilet for each dwelling 
unit so that two or more residential households have to share one toilet. 
In one group of Northern cities (Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and St. 
Louis) 27 per cent of the Negro relief households and 21 per cent of the 
Negro nonrelief families were living under such conditions. The corre- 
sponding figures for white relief families and for white nonrelief families 
with an income of less than $1,000 were 13 and 11 per cent, respectively. 
There were similar race differentials in other groups of Northern and 
Southern cities. The proportion of families with private inside flush toilets, 
likewise, was higher among white relief families than among Negro non- 
relief households. 43 The sample for urban nonrelief families in the Con- 
sumer Purchases Study indicates similar conditions for different income 
classes. 44 

These findings are certainly significant. Urban Negro housing is poorer 
than even the low income status of the Negroes would enable them to buy. 
This may be due to the fact that, at least in Southern cities and villages, 
Negroes, even at a given income level, spend less money on housing than do 
whites. It seems, however, that there is another and even more fundamental 
cause: the artificial limitation in the choice of housing for Negroes brought 
about by residential segregation." 

*A discussion of residential segregation is given in Chapter 29, Section 3. See, also, the 
section on housing policies (Chapter 15, Section 6). 



378 An American Dilemma 

The racial differential in housing accommodations for all income groups 
combined is enormous. Let us take just a few examples, picked at random, 
from recent Real Property Inventories. In Detroit 34 per cent of the 
Negro-occupied dwelling units were considered to be either unfit for use 
or in need of major repairs; the same proportion for white-occupied 
dwelling units was 6 per cent. The corresponding figures for Harrisburg, 
Pennsylvania, were 73 and 14 per cent, respectively. For Norfolk, Virginia, 
they were 25 and 5 per cent; for Savannah, Georgia, 55 and 11 per cent. 
We do not have to add to this list; the differential is quite considerable in 
almost every place where there is any appreciable Negro population.*' It 
even goes so far that the general slum problem in many cities is largely 
a Negro problem. Wherever there are Negroes in the cities, it will be 
impossible to eliminate poor housing unless Negro areas are given a signif- 
icant share of the attention.* 

Data from the National Health Survey (Table 6) indicate that there is 
a great race differential also in regard to crowding in urban areas. The 
situation is particularly serious in the South where the dwelling units are 
smaller- on the average, than elsewhere, at the same time as families tend 



TABLE 6 

Percentage of Uxban Families Showing Various Degrees of 
bv Region* and Race: 1935-1936 


Crowding, 


East Central 


South 


Degree of Crowding Nonwhite White Nonwhite White 


Nonwhite White 


Percentage of Families in dwelling 
units with more than 
i.j person per room 8.0 3.7 12.9 j.o 
2.0 or more persons per room 4.7 1.7 9.0 3.3 


11.2 8.3 
16.0 J.8 



Source: U.S. Public Health Service, The National Health Survey, 1035-1036. Bulletin No. J, Sickness and 
Medical Core Series (1939), p. 10. 

• The Eastern sample includes cities in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey: the 
Central sample includes Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and Missouri; the Southern sample includes 
Virginia, Georgia. Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. 

to be large. Sixteen per cent of the Negro and 6 per cent of the white house- 
holds in the urban South were living in dwelling units where there were 
two or more persons per room. These results are confirmed by the Real 
Property Inventories, many of which have been made in more recent years. 
They show, furthermore, to what extent crowding is correlated with family 
size: in many cities the majority of the large Negro families is over- 
crowded. The fact that large families and children are the main sufferers 

* This fact has been considered in the federal slum clearance and low cost housing program 
under the auspices of the United 'States Housing Authority. See Chapter 15, Section 6. 



Chapter 1 6. Income, Consumption and Housing 379 

means that the proportion of the total population that lives under cramped 
conditions is even higher than is the percentage of crowded dwelling units— 
a circumstance which is often overlooked.* 

We have found that Negro families in Southern cities and villages use 
a somewhat smaller part of their total expenditure for housing than do 
white families in the same income class. This appears also when rent-paying 
families are studied separately. The situation seems to be different in New 
York, however, where Negro families in most income groups pay higher 
rentals than do whites.* 7 When all income groups are combined, urban 
Negroes are usually found to use a greater proportion of their total ex- 
penditures for housing than is usual in the white population. The reason, of 
course, is the fact that poor families generally have to use a larger part of 
their income for housing than do the more well-to-do families. The housing 
item in the budget seems to be particularly cumbersome in New York, 
where, according to the Consumer Purchases Study, nonrelief Negro 
families used as much as 27 per cent of their total expenditure for this pur- 
pose, whereas the corresponding figure for white families was 22 per cent. 48 

There is a general complaint among Negroes that they have to pay higher 
rents than do whites for equal housing accommodations. It is difficult to get 
any unequivocal statistical evidence on this problem, and it seems that this 
is one of the main aspects of Negro housing on which additional research 
work is needed.* Nevertheless, we feel inclined to believe that rents are 
higher, on the average, in Negro- than in white-occupied dwelling units 
even when size and quality are equal. Most housing experts and real estate 
people who have had experience with Negro housing have made statements 
to this effect. Not only does there seem to be consensus on the matter among 
those who have studied the Negro housing problem, but there is also a good 
logical reason for it: housing segregation." Particularly when the Negro 
population is increasing in a city, it is hard to see how this factor can fail to 
make Negro rents increase to an even greater extent than would have been 
the case if the Negroes had been free to seek accommodations wherever in 
the city they could afford to pay the rent. The fact that they are not 
wanted where they have not already been accepted must put them in an 
extremely disadvantaged position in any question of renting or of buying 
a house. 

* Some -white real estate dealers attribute the higher rent for Negroes to their carelessness 
and destructiveness. From our point of view, the important thing is that they observe the 
fact of higher rents. 



CHAPTER 17 

THE MECHANICS OF ECONOMIC DISCRIMINATION AS 
A PRACTICAL PROBLEM 

1. The Practical Problem 

The picture of the economic situation of the Negro people is dark.* The 
prospects for the future — as far as we have analyzed the trends until now — 
are discouraging. The main practical problem must be how to open up new 
possibilities for Negroes to earn a living by their labor. 

Southern agriculture offers no such new opportunities. It is, on the con- 
trary, likely that Southern rural Negroes will continue to be pushed off the 
land and thus increase the number of job-seekers in nonagricultural pur- 
suits. In Northern agriculture the main trend will also be a contraction 
in the demand for labor. The segregated Negro economy will never provide 
any great number of jobs. It is on the ordinary nonfarm labor market that 
Negroes have to look for new opportunities. In the nonagricultural pur- 
suits, Negro job limitations, as we have found, are of four different types: 

(1) Negroes are kept out of certain industries, North as well as South. 

(2) In industries where Negroes are working, they are often confined 
to certain establishments, whereas other establishments are kept entirely 
white. 

(3) In practically all industries where Negroes are accepted, they &?t 
confined to unskilled occupations and to such semi-skilled and skilled occupa- 
tions as are unattractive to white workers. The main exceptions to this rule 
are in the building industry where the Negro had acquired a position during 
slavery but has been losing ground since then. 1 

(4) Finally, there is a geographical segregation. Negroes in the Nortto 
are concentrated in a few large cities. In the Western centers there is stil$ 
only a small number of Negro workers. Negroes are even scarcer in tl-fe 
small Northern and Western cities. 

'Studies on Negro labor deal almost exclusively with such industries and occupations 
where Negroes have an appreciable share of the jobs. The reader, for this reason, gets an\» 
exaggerated impression of the numerical significance of jobs open to Negroes. Therefore, 1 
although all such studies present a. rather dark picture of actual conditions, the picture Is 1 
seldom as dark as the facts. 



Chapter 17. A Practical Problem 381 

Race prejudice on the part of the whites is the usual explanation given 
for these various types of job limitations. But to relate discrimination to 
prejudice means little more than to substitute one word for another." 
Leaving this problem aside for the moment, we may observe that race 
prejudice and discrimination, in the economic sphere, operate principally 
in three different ways: 

(1) Many white workers, even if they think that Negroes generally 
should have a fair share in the job opportunities in this country, tend to 
be opposed to Negro competition in the particular localities, industries, 
occupations, and establishments where they themselves work. 

(2) Some customers object to being served by Negroes unless the Negro 
has an apparently menial position. 

(3) Many employers believe that Negroes are inferior as workers, ex- 
cept for dirty, heavy, hot or otherwise unattractive work. Perhaps even 
more important is the fact that they pay much attention to the attitudes of 
both customers and white workers. 

All these conditions, in many different ways, are self-perpetuating. Let 
us, in this context, just point to one element in this circular process. 11 Sup- 
pose that an individual employer would entirely ignore the race of those 
applying for work at his shop and would consider just the individual capac- 
ities of the job-seekers, white or black. The fact that most other employers 
exclude Negroes means that the individual employer would have a dispro- 
portionate number of Negroes applying for his jobs. The rumor about his 
unusual behavior would draw Negro workers from other localities, and 
he might soon find a majority of Negroes on his labor force. The conse- 
quence might be that his establishment would be shunned by white labor, 
and it is not impossible that the result would be an almost all-Negro shop. 
The best he can do if he wants to favor the Negro, without having to face 
such consequences, is to fix the percentage of Negro workers; but that 
means giving up the principle of selecting Negro and white workers on an 
individual basis. 

White workers, of course, are up against the same problem, and they 
have even more reason to be concerned about it than have the employers. 
Every individual municipality, and even every state, is in a similar situation. 
Let us imagine that a certain state, by means of strongly enforced legisla- 
tion, would succeed in abolishing most racial discrimination in the economic 
sphere. If similar strong measures were not taken simultaneously by other 
states as well, the result would be a tremendous increase in in-migration of 
Negroes to that state. Thus, the very fact that there is economic discrim- 
ination constitutes an added motive for every individual white group to 
maintain such discriminatory practices. Discrimination breeds discrimination. 

* See Chapter 3, text footnote in Section i, and Section 5. 

b For certain other elements in this vicious circle, see Section 6 of this chapter. 



382 An American Dilemma 

Another major general condition behind the Negro's economic plight, 
which should be mentioned in this context, is the fact that most white 
people are ignorant about the total impact of what they have done to the 
Negro in the economic field. This, of course, is not a "primary cause,'' 
either. It only explains how white people have been able to do what they 
have done without having more of a bad conscience about it. Yet the 
practical significance of it is tremendous. We frankly do not believe that 
the Negro's economic status would have been nearly as hopeless as it now 
appears to be if white people more generally realized how all specific 
economic discriminations add up, and how effectively they bar the way for 
the Negro when he attempts to better himself. 

In addition, of course, there are any number of secondary factors bol- 
stering discrimination: inadequate vocational and other educational facilities 
for Negroes particularly in the South; the lack of appeal to the ambition 
of the Negro worker, who often feels that his fate depends less on his 
individual efforts than on what white people believe about Negroes in 
general; the political impotency of the Southern Negro; high sickness 
rates among Negroes; and so on. In the circular process of cumulative 
causation many of these handicaps are themselves partly caused by the 
job limitations which keep the Negro's economic status low. 

No interests are served by attempting to brighten this sinister economic 
situation by undue optimism. The adequate response is instead to turn the 
problem around and ask the practical question: How would it be -possible 
by a planned economic policy to increase Negro opportunities for employ- 
ment? The possibilities seem to be greatest, of course, on the Northern 
nonfarm labor market which — whether we study it by geographical regions, 
industries, or occupations — contains the largest areas where Negroes have 
yet to gain a position. Still the possibilities in the South, too, must be kept 
in mind. The South's relative "saturation" with Negro labor is largely 
artificial. It depends, in the main, on the fact that Negroes are confined to 
such industries and occupations as are expanding only slightly or are 
regressing. Production of textiles, the largest manufacturing industry in 
the South, excludes Negroes entirely, except for certain types of secondary 
service work. Moreover, the South, up to the present war boom, showed 
a more rapid increase in industrial employment than did the rest of the 
country, but the Negro has been unable to get his proportionate share in 
this expansion. Thus, there are reasons both for defensive and for offensive 
action in the South as well as in the North. 

In this chapter we shall attempt to analyze, in more general terms and 
from this practical viewpoint," some of the main factors which determine 
the position of the Negroes in the urban labor market. For reasons already 

'The value premises for the practical analysis in this chapter have been presented in 
Chapter 9, Section 3. 



Chapter 17. A Practical Problem 383 

expressed, we shall give our first attention to the North. Some of the state- 
ments we shall make are substantiated, or, at least, illustrated, by the data 
recorded in Chapter 13 and Appendix 6. But on many points data are 
lacking, and inferences will have to be conjectural, as they are built, to 
some extent, on impressionistic observations. 

2. The Ignorance and Lack of Concern of Northern Whites 

Even in the North the Negro is generally believed to be inferior as a 
worker. White employees often are strongly against having any Negro 
co-workers. Yet these attitudes are less general and less well entrenched in 
the North than they are in the South. Many, perhaps even most, North- 
erners tend to be rather uncertain and vacillating on such matters. There 
is nothing in their general ideologies which would support economic 
discrimination against Negroes. There is no racial etiquette, little emotion 
about the "social equality" issue, no white solidarity for the purpose of 
"keeping the Negro in his place." 11 On the contrary, the equalitarian prin- 
ciples of the American Creed dominate people's opinions in the North. 
Northern states and municipalities, as we saw in Chapter 15, usually up- 
hold nondiscrimination in public relief as well as in politics, justice, and 
all other relations between public authorities and the citizens." People in 
the North are "against" economic discrimination as a general proposition. 
If the white Northerners had to vote on the issue, a large majority would 
probably come out for full equality of opportunities on the labor market: 
they would be in favor of making employment opportunities "independent 
of race, creed or color." The actual discrimination is, however, as we have 
seen, the rule and not the exception. 

To understand this apparent contradiction, we shall have to remember, 
first, that slight causes, when they cumulate, may have big effects} and 
second, that the whole issue is enveloped in opportune ignorance and 
unconcernedness on the part of the whites. 1 Comparatively few white 
Northerners are actually engaged in discriminatory behavior which they 
recognize as such. The practical inference is that the social engineering 
required should have its basis in a deliberate and well-planned campaign 
of popular education. The education of whites is an important general 
need in the whole sphere of race relations, but the chances of success are 
much greater in the economic field than in any other. 

There have always been efforts to improve race relations by educational 
propaganda in American churches, schools, and in the press. But compared 
to the scope of the problem, these efforts have been quantitatively insig- 
nificant. The Negro is usually forgotten. Moreover, the efforts on behalf 

* See Part VII. 

"See Parts V and VI. 

' This is related to the theory of the rank order in Chapter 3, Section 4. 



384 An American Dilemma 

of the Negro have largely been ineffective because they have been of a 
general type and have evaded practical issues. Except for the well-planned 
and efficiently carried out campaign against lynching in the South,* there 
has been, prior to the present war emergency, no example in recent times 
of a large-scale endeavor to educate the American white public in the Negro 
problem and to force it to face the practical consequences of the cherished 
general principles contained in the American Creed. 

The importance of the inculcation of the general principles of democracy 
in the American people which has been going on for so many generations, 
should not be under-rated. It is true that practical and specific issues are 
often avoided in a rather opportunistic way, so as not to disturb the con- 
science of the white people. The fact that ignorance and unconcernedness 
are so opportune means, of course, that additional popular education along 
more concrete lines will meet tremendous emotional resistance. But this 
resistance is not insurmountable. People are also bent upon rationality. 
Their allegiance to the ideals of the American Creed is strong and is held 
consciously. The ideals of Christianity also command their allegiance. One 
implication of their belief in the principles of democracy and Christianity 
is that they are susceptible to the more specific and practical consequences 
of these principles. There are, as we shall find, other important trends that 
will make ignorance and unconcernedness more difficult to uphold, and that 
will press for public education in this field. Through unionization and social 
legislation the labor market is increasingly coming under the control of a 
formal regulation that will demand equality of opportunity. 

There is an observation which we shall find substantiated in every aspect 
of the Negro problem, that the ordinary white American is the more 
prejudiced, the more closely individual and personal the matter is. When 
he becomes formal and, particularly, when he acts as a citizen, he is very 
much more under the control of the equalitarian national Creed than when 
he is just an individual worker, neighbor or customer. There is often a 
similar difference between the leaders and the masses in the North. Leaders 
are confronted with the wider issues. Therefore, it is more difficult for 
them to repudiate, openly, the American ideals of equality. The private 
individual, on the other hand, seeks to pretend that his individual behavior 
is an exception which is especially motivated and which creates no long-run 
harm to Negroes. If he fails to hire Negroes in his shop, or to welcome 
them as fellow workmen, he does not mean that Negroes should not have 
any jobs, but only that they should not have jobs where his own interests 
are involved. 

Prejudice and discrimination show up devastating social effects only 
when viewed from a broader perspective. The individual, but not society, 

'See Chapter 27, Section 45 and Chapter 39, sections on the N.A.A.C.P. and The Inter- 
racial CommJMion. 



Chapter 17. A Practical Problem 385 

can raise the question: "Shall I take care of my neighbor?" A citizen of one 
single community can say, as a manufacturer did recently: 

Negroes here should be in the South. They should never have come to Milwaukee, 
for by so doing they have created a social problem for the city. 2 

The white Northerner can feel that the Negroes ought to be in the South. 
The white urban worker can likewise feel that the Negroes should be in 
the country, and the white farmer that they should not compete for the 
land. An individual employer or a local trade union may bar Negroes from 
a particular shop and claim that the Negroes should be somewhere else. 
But on a national scale there is no "somewhere else" — unless it be in Africa. 
Getting employment for Negroes becomes a concern not only for them- 
selves but for the nation. The alternative is to let them become public 
charges. A definite policy becomes a necessity. 

When, thus, labor market conditions become the concern of the federal 
and state governments and of a gradually consolidated national labor union 
movement, the "pass the buck" mentality becomes undermined. Causes 
and effects will have to be studied, responsibilities will have to be distrib- 
uted and shouldered. And in this whole process, of which we are just 
seeing the beginning, a most significant thing is that the ordinary American 
follows higher ideals and is more of a responsible democrat when he votes 
as a citizen or elects workers' or employers' representatives to formal 
assemblies than when he just lives his own life as an anonymous individual. 

Also of great importance is the fact that, on the national scene, there is 
no possibility that Negroes will take over all industrial jobs. The individual 
employer or the individual group of white workers can always cite the 
excuse that they have to discriminate since everybody else does; for other- 
wise, as we have pointed out already, they would have to accept all compe- 
tent Negro workers excluded by other employers and by other groups of 
white workers. But there is no such excuse in national employment policies. 
There are 10 per cent Negroes in the population, and a little more in the 
total labor force } white workers will never be overwhelmed. By attacking 
the color bars everywhere, it is possible to minimize the change needed in 
any individual establishment if the Negro is to be completely integrated 
into the economic system. The breakdown of discrimination in one part of 
the labor market facilitates a similar change in all other parts of it. The 
vicious circle can be reversed. 

The trend toward public control of the labor market is the great hope 
for the Negro at the present time. For the Negro, it is of paramount 
importance to make the most of it. Public authority is compelled to side 
with him, in one way or another. The objective of an educational campaign 
is to minimize prejudice — or, at least, to bring the conflict between preju- 
dice and ideals out into the open and to force the white citizen to take his 



386 An American Dilemma 

choice. The practical objective, in the economic sphere, is to break down the 
barriers against employment of Negroes, to open up new areas for the 
Negro worker: industrial, occupational and geographical. 

3. Migration Policy 

White Northerners do not always have the Negroes with them as do 
the Southerners. Negroes are almost absent, not only from the large rural 
areas in the North, but also from most of the smaller cities. Many of the 
small cities in the North and West have an expanding economy. Together 
they constitute the most important of all community groups to which 
Negroes yet have to gain entrance." Their potential importance, in this 
respect, is the greater, since other barriers to Negro employment will give 
way only gradually, even in the best case. Because of such barriers the large 
cities in the North may soon become — or have become already — artificially 
"saturated" with Negro labor. 

But the labor market in these small cities is at present practically 
closed to the Negro. This does not mean that race prejudice is particularly 
strong in these communities. But people there have few experiences with 
Negroes, and Negroes, therefore, appear strange to them. b And enough of 
the ordinary American derogatory stereotypes about the Negroes have 
spread to them to make the Negroes slightly suspect, both as workers and 
as citizens. Ordinary conservatism and community solidarity — which are 
more developed in the smaller cities — prevent employers from attempting 
to import Negro laborers. The local workers usually keep up a protectionist 
attitude and are against new competition. All feel vaguely that Negroes 
would be likely to cause problems — in the jobs, in the community and in 
other ways. It is always easy to check an influx of Negroes to a small all-white 
town. There is little of the anonymity that a large city provides. But since 
usually no employer ever takes the initiative in introducing Negro labor 
into such a community, and since Negroes themselves practically never try 
to get in, the white people are not iorced to face the issue. They can pre- 
serve a clear conscience on the matter and support legislators who follow 
the American Creed in the state capital and legislate against economic 
discrimination. 

It should not be forgotten, however, that there are many such cities, 
particularly in New England, which have a few Negroes. Usually the 

* It is true that intra-regional migration — both white and Negro — is directed, mainly, 
to large cities; most migrations to small cities probably come from the surrounding country, 
or from other small cities in the vicinity. Such are the characteristics of the unplanned migra- 
tion which we have experienced in the past. The discussion in the text concerns a migra- 
tion which is 'planned, for the purpose of securing additional job opportunities for Negroes. 
The degree of "saturation" with Negro labor, under such conditions, is a more important 
consideration than the maintenance of traditional patterns. 

* See Chapter 2. 



Chapter 17. A Practical Problem 387 

Negroes seem to get along fairly well and are not much discriminated 
against, at least as far as employment on the working class level is con- 
cerned. It is true that these scattered Negro populations have usually been 
settled there for a long time. Their presence has become part of what is 
traditional and they have enjoyed for generations the excellent educational 
facilities which are ordinarily offered in such cities. They are "good 
Negroes" — in the Northern but not in the Southern sense — educated, 
conservative, ambitious. 

It is open to speculation why Negroes have been so reluctant to move 
to the smaller Northern cities.* In any case, part of a rational "planning to 
■find new employment opportunities for Negroes must be an investigation 
of the possibilities for some portion of the Negro labor reserve to be settled 
in the smaller Northern cities where there are now few or no Negroes. 
Certain general principles for such a policy — which preferably should be 
the responsibility of a public employment service qualified for and inter- 
ested in positive job-finding 11 — seem rather obvious. 

For one thing, the attempt should be made at such times and in localities 
where there is a labor shortage, so that employers would be interested and 
white workers would be less hurt by the new competition. It should under 
no circumstances be staged as an "invasion." It should be recognized that 
Southern Negro migrants are usually less well suited for such a transplanta- 
tion to small Northern cities than are Northern Negroes.* Only individ- 
ually picked, well-educated, and, preferably, vocationally trained, young 
Northern Negroes could ordinarily hope to get a permanent foothold in 
such smaller communities where there is little of the protective anonymity 
of the big city. The attempt should be prepared and supported by an 
educational campaign, and local leaders in church, school, business, and 
labor should be won over to the idea. The most should be made of the 
American Creed and of the common national responsibility for the eco- 
nomic catastrophe threatening the Negro people. 

The task is a most difficult one. Even if fairly successful, such a policy 
of planned and organized migration to the smaller Northern cities can 
only have the indirect importance of easing the unemployment situation 
in the big cities by drawing away part of its existing Negro labor reserve. 
It will not directly touch the main problem of getting the Negro out of 
the stagnating rural South. 

The small Northern cities, however, cannot accommodate more than a 
moderate proportion of unemployed and marginally employed Negroes — 
at least in a short time. Meanwhile, Southern Negroes will continue to go 
to the larger Northern cities and increase their supply of Negro labor of 

* Some observations on this problem were made in Chapter 8. 

See Chapter i8, Section z. 
' See Chapter z8, Section 9. 



388 An Americas Dilemma 

a comparatively low educational level trained into attitudes and customs 
which are not favorable for easy adjustment to Northern city Jife. Even 
this migration could be steered by rational planning. There may perhaps 
be some Northern and Western centers which do not have many Negroes 
but which would be tolerant of a migration of Southern Negroes. Planned 
migration could be adjusted to employment trends in various localities. 
Positive measures should be planned for directing this new labor into 
suitable employment. A program of adult education for the crude Southern 
Negro laborers coming North should be instituted to familiarize them with 
the general culture and ways of life of the North and to give them the 
rudiments of vocational training.* 

These are practical tasks for a federal employment service working in 
close collaboration with other private and public institutions for education 
and social welfare. They are of paramount importance, but until now have 
been almost entirely neglected. Even under such auspices the Negroes will 
have to watch the activity carefully through their organizations. The 
problem is not, let it be stated clearly, whether or not Negroes should 
migrate. Southern Negroes will continue to migrate under any circum- 
stances, and they are compelled to move out of the South in considerable 
numbers. But without direction they will migrate to localities which are 
not best suited to receive them. The problem is rather whether Negro 
migration should continue to be determined by an irrational tradition, 
which brings the Negroes haphazardly to a restricted number of places 
where the Negro population quickly outgrows the existing employment 
opportunities j or whether it should be expertly planned to cause a mini- 
mum of friction and human wastage and a maximum of labor utilization 
and human efficiency. 

4. The Regular Industrial Labor Market in the North 

The situation in the large Northern cities where there are many Negroes 
is not altogether different from that in the small Northern cities where 
there are practically no Negroes. Even in those cities in the North where 
there is a substantial Negro population, Negroes do not work and have 
never worked in most industrial plants. Taking on a Negro worker sets a 
precedent and will ordinarily be avoided if possible. 

Workers are usually conservative. An attempt by an employer to intro- 
duce Negro workers into a hitherto all-white plant will usually be met by 
more or less active resistance on the part of the workers. This resistance is 
likely to become more intense if Negroes are to get a share of the skilled 
jobs. Even a change in the Negroes' position in such plants where they 
have already been accepted may cause trouble — as, for instance, if Negroes 
are promoted to higher jobs than they previously have been allowed to 

' See,Chapter 41, Section 5. 



Chapter 17. A Practical Problem 389 

have, or if an attempt is made to break up other segregation^ patterns in 
workrooms and cafeterias. Yet it is not impossible to overcome such diffi- 
culties. Much depends upon the firmness of the decision of the employers 
and upon the manner of introducing Negro workers. To spring such 
changes as a surprise on the white workers would not be advisable. But if 
Negro workers are introduced a few at a time, if they are carefully picked, 
if the leaders of the white workers are taken into confidence, and if the 
reasons for the action are explained, then the trouble can be minimized, 
and the new policy may eventually become successful — provided that the 
workers do not belong to an especially job-protectionistic and anti-Negro 
union, and that there is no general scarcity of employment. 8 

Under ordinary circumstances, however, there are few employers who 
would take so much trouble voluntarily, just for the purpose of contributing 
to the solution of the race problem. After all, the employer's main interest 
is to run a business. To continue using white labor only is always the easier 
way out. When Negroes have managed in the past to get into Northern, 
industries and plants where they had not been allowed to work before, it 
has been due, almost always, to one of two factors: extreme scarcity of 
labor or the employers' desire tr beat white unions. For the latter purpose 
employers have often used Negroes as strike-breakers, or they have taken 
them in just to keep the labor force heterogeneous and divided, thereby 
preventing unionization. In other words, they have used Negroes in the 
same way as they were accustomed to use fresh immigrants from Europe. 

We shall discuss, subsequently, to what extent the present labor shortage 
:s helping the Negro." We shaJl find that, until mid-1942, the Negro had 
gained much less than could have been expected. In respect to the other 
factor favoring Negro employment — strike-breaking and dividing the 
workers — it is obvious that its significance has been decreasing rapidly 
during recent years. Labor unions arc, more and more, coming into control 
of the labor market. The employers' practice of giving jobs to Negroes to 
keep the workers disunited is, therefore, vanishing. At the same time the 
American trade union movement is becoming more friendly toward Ne- 
groes. 1 ' Yet exclusionistic unions are still powerful ; and even in that part 
of the labor market which is dominated by unions officially friendly to 
Negroes, organized labor — at least the local organizations — often resists 
introduction of Negro workers into all-white plants. 

The fact, however, is not always publicized, for often the Negro can be 
kept out without much trouble. If an establishment is a "white shop," 
Negroes generally know this. Few of them ever try to get in — and those 
few who make the attempt can tell the rest of the Negro job-seekers about 
how futile it has been. In such cases Negroes are excluded with a minimum 

'See Chapter 19. 

b See Chapter 18, Section 3. 



390 An American Dilemma 

of effort on the part of both employers and white workers. Most white 
people never think of the fact that there is a definite policy to keep the 
Negro out. The "white shop" is part of the tradition and just seems 
"natural." The issue is not faced. The color bar, although as real as it can 
be, is almost invisible. 

For these reasons it frequently occurs that Negroes are denied entrance 
to entire industries without anybody feeling much of a bad conscience about 
it. On the contrary, it may even happen that employers and union leaders 
exclude the Negro just because they have a conscience. It is an established 
custom in the South to take Negroes in and let them work under a system 
of more or less complete segregation; confining them to special jobs and 
special departments; denying them promotion; giving them separate eating 
rooms, toilets and water fountains. But such a system of consistent segre- 
gation and discrimination is not considered to be right in the North, even 
though some parts of it may be accepted. In plants where there is a system 
of fixed rules governing dismissals, rehirings, and promotions based on 
age, competence, and experience, one would have to face the problem of 
either excluding the Negro from some of these advantages — thereby 
breaking the consistency in the system— or of letting some Negroes work 
themselves up to the position of foremen over white workers. Although 
several compromises and modifications are possible and are in actual use 
in most Northern plants, none is satisfactory to the Northern conscience. 
Even the use of the same toilets or eating places by both races may bring 
trouble, particularly if there are a few Southerners in the labor force. 
Again, the employer solves his problem by excluding the Negro alto- 
gether. 

5. The Problem of Vocational Training 

The very fact that an exclusionist policy is established will, furthermore, 
result in a lack of properly trained Negro workers. This mechanism starts 
at the bottom of the system of training Negro youths. In the North, where 
the vocational branches of the public school system are freely open without 
discrimination, the teachers and the vocational guidance agencies connected 
with the schools often advise Negro youths not to take courses in those 
fields where they will later encounter difficulties in getting apprenticeship 
and employment. This problem is of rapidly increasing significance since 
formal vocational training is more and more becoming a prerequisite for 
entering skilled occupations. 

The advisors are, like the Negro youths themselves, placed in a difficult 
dilemma. It must seem unrealistic and even dangerous to the future of 
young Negroes to encourage them to take vocational training in fields 
where they will be barred later. On the other hand, to avoid such training 
means to accept and fortify the exclusionist system, since then no Negroes 



Chapter 17. A Practical Problem 391 

will ever be equipped to challenge it. If the white persons responsible for 
vocational guidance are themselves just a little bit prejudiced, this will 
strengthen their inclination to discourage Negro youths from entering 
these vocations. At the same time, they can have good consciences and tell 
themselves and others that they are absolutely unprejudiced and are acting 
solely in the best interests of Negro youths. It is not their task to reform 
American society but to give individual guidance. I have seen this particular 
vicious circle in operation everywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line." 

6. The Self-Perpetuating Color Bar 

The vicious circle of job restrictions, poverty, and all that follows with it 
tends to fix the tradition that Negroes should be kept out of good jobs and 
held down in unskilled, dirty, hot or otherwise undesirable work. Resi- 
dential segregation and segregation at places of work hinder whites from 
having personal acquaintance with Negroes and recognizing that Negroes 
are much like themselves. In the eyes of white workers the Negroes easily 
come to appear "different," as a "low grade people," and it becomes a 
matter of social prestige not to work under conditions of equality with 
them. The fact that Negroes actually work almost only in menial tasks 
makes it more natural to look upon them in this way. The occupations they 
work in tend to become declasse. 

When once the white workers' desires for social prestige become mobi- 
lized against the Negroes in this way, when they have come to look upon 
Negroes as different from themselves and consequently do not feel a com- 
mon labor solidarity with them, "economic interests" also will back up 
discrimination. By excluding Negroes from the competition for jobs, the 
white workers can decrease the supply of labor in the market, hold up 
wages and secure employment for themselves. To give white workers a 
monopoly on all promotions is, of course, to give them a vested interest in 
job segregation. 

Negroes, on their side, have to try to utilize every opening, even if it 
means working for lower wages or under inferior working conditions. The 
abundance of Negro labor, kept idle because of exclusionist policies, must 
always be feared by white workers. If given the chance, Negroes will 
accept positions as "sweatshop" competitors — something which cannot fail 
to increase the resentment of the white wage earners. Sometimes they 
may even work as "scabs" and so white workers get extra justification for 
the feeling that Negroes represent a danger of "unfair competition." The 
Negroes react by being suspicious of the white workers and their unions. 
For this reason, they are sometimes "poor union material" even if white 

* For information on vocational training under the present war production program, see 
Chapter 19, Section 3. 



39 2 An American Dilemma 

workers choose to let them in on a basis of equality. White union members 
then resent the "ingratitude" of the Negroes. 

The racial beliefs are conveniently at hand to rationalize prejudice and 
discriminatory practices. The whole complex of stereotypes, maintained by 
limited contacts, is an clement in the vicious circle that perpetuates eco- 
nomic discrimination.* With some difficulty, white people might be taught 
that there are all kinds of Negroes as there are all kinds of whites, some 
good and some bad, and that many — not just a few — individual Negroes 
are better than many whites. But here the separation between the two 
groups works strongly against the Negroes. Anyone having to fill a position 
or a job, having to select a fellow worker at his bench, or a neighbor in the 
district where he lives, by just drawing a white or a Negro man without 
knowing anything in particular about him personally, will feel that, in all 
prudence, he has a better chance to get the more congenial and more 
capable man if he selects the white. Here the stereotyped concept of the 
average Negro as it exists in the Northern white man's mind works as an 
economic bias against the Negro. 

7. A Position of "Indifferent Equilibrium" 

There is a tremendous initial resistance to overcome when attempting to 
place even superior Negro labor in a plant where Negroes did not work 
formerly. Negro labor is often superior to the white man's expectation, 
partly because the thinking in averages and stereotypes makes him under- 
estimate the individual Negro. Moreover, the fact that Negroes have 
greater difficulties than do whites in securing any kind of employment 
renders it probable that there is a greater proportion of capable workers in 
the Negro than there is in the white unemployed labor reserve. Employers 
who do employ Negroes, therefore, often get a higher appreciation of 
them as workers than employers who do not. b The same seems to be true 
of white workers. If they actually come to work together with Negro 
workers, they come to like them better, or to dislike them less, than they 
expected to. 4 

Under these circumstances, the extent to which Negroes work in 
Northern industrial plants is determined not as a stable equilibrium, of 
the type usually thought of in economic and sociological theory, but as an 
"indifferent equilibrium," like the one when a cylinder rolls on a horizontal 
surface and can come to rest in one position as well as in another.' There 
ore tremendous elements of inertia which resist the introduction of Negro 
labor where there has previously been none. If they get in, however y they 

* See Chapters 4 and 9. 

* In addition, of course, the fact that some employers hire Negroes may indicate by itself 
that they have had a higher appreciation of them to start with. 

* For a theoretical discussion jof these types of equilibria, see Appendix 3. 



Chapter 17. A Practical Problem 393 

will have better chances of staying. It is upon this theory that the Urban 
League works when trying to sell Negro labor to employers and unions, 
although with insufficient resources and community support.* 

Our hypothesis gains plausibility when we look at the history of the 
Negro in Northern industry. The one period when — mainly due to acute 
iabor shortage — he gained entrance to new fields of employment in the 
North was during the First World War. During the 'twenties he fortified 
his position in these new fields. During the Great Depression, of course, 
he could not make any further gains. But the more remarkable thing is 
that he kept as well as he did the new positions he had won. Another 
observation which also supports our hypothesis is the great inconsistency in 
the pattern of Negro employment in the North. In most industries and 
most plants Negroes are not hired. But in some they are, mostly for no 
other particular reason than that they once got entrance because of labor 
shortage or because the employer wanted to keep out unionism. Charles 
S. Johnson summarizes a survey of the industrial status of Negroes in Los 
Angeles, California, in 1926, as follows: 

. . . 456 plants of widely varying character were reached. . . . The most frequently 
encountered policy was one based upon the belief that "Negro and white workers 
will not mix." They did "mix," however, in over ;o of the plants studied. In certain 
plants where Mexicans were regarded as white, Negroes were not allowed to "mix" 
with them; where Mexicans were classed as colored, Negroes not only worked with 
them but were given positions over them. In certain plants Mexicans and whites 
worked together; in some others white workers accepted Negroes and objected to 
Mexicans; still in others white workers accepted Mexicans and objected to Japanese. 
White women worked witli Mexican and Italian women, but refused to work with 
Negroes. Mexicans and Negroes worked under a white foreman; Italians and Mexi- 
cans under a Negro foreman. . . . Because white elevator men and attendants in a 
department store disturbed the morale of the organization by constant chattering and 
flirtations with the salesgirls, Negro men were brought into their places and morale 
was restored, in spite of the fears that the races would not "inix." r> 

Except for the presence of the Mexicans in Los Angeles, much the same 
picture of inconsistency can be reproduced from any big Northern city. 

Another element of instability — and consequently of changeability — in 
the situation is the visible interrelation between the attitudes of the em- 
ployers and those of the white workers. These attitudes seem to be inter- 
defendent in such a manner that either one of the two -parties is potentially 
able to influence the other one for the better or for the worse. Employers 
who do not like Negroes almost regularly give as one of their main reasons 
for their exclusion policy that their white labor would object." There are 
reasons to believe that they often over-estimate the difficulties of making 
white employees accept Negroes as fellow workers. As the employers them- 

' See Chapter 39, Section 10. 



394 An American Dilemma 

selves by this policy are unable to get any practical experience with Negro 
workers, they often come to believe that Negroes are inferior for all but 
the most menial tasks. So long as the white labor supply is sufficient they 
see no reason to check their opinions. 

White workers, most of the time, have to adjust themselves to the policy 
of the employers. There have been few, if any, serious incidents in the 
Ford factories in Detroit, where for many years the Negroes have had a 
comparatively good position, whereas most other automobile manufacturers 
have been reluctant to give Negroes a real break because they expect that 
the white workers would resent it. The main difference in the two situations 
seems to be that Henry Ford is known to have the definite policy of letting 
the Negroes have a fair share of the jobs. The white workers just have to 
accept this if they want to keep their jobs. Even Southern-born workers, 
although they usually tend to display much more race prejudice than 
others, have had to become accustomed to working with Negroes. Northern 
white workers are often said to start out with a feeling of strangeness and 
suspicion against Negroes. If they meet a firm policy from the employer, 
they change, usually quickly. 7 

The large margins of indifference toward the policy of hiring Negro 
workers, and the instability within these margins, are of tremendous 
importance for the practical problem we are analyzing in this chapter. In 
the discussion of the Negro problem there is, as we shall find in many of 
its various aspects, a constant temptation to over-stress the factors of resist- 
ance to change, and the literature is visibly tainted by this bias in the 
service of the "do nothing" attitude. In the economic field, the depression 
of the 'thirties has given greater plausibility to this bias. Large-scale unem- 
ployment has a tendency to check the trend toward improved race relations 
in the labor market. One of the main reasons why even in the present war 
boom Negroes so far have gained little ground 11 — and much less than 
during the First World War — is that the boom started with much white 
unemployment. In latter phases of the war boom, the instability discussed 
in this section might come to be of .greatest importance, particularly if it 
be utilized by a well-planned policy directed toward mitigating economic 
discrimination. Generally speaking, it is safe to predict that any policy to 
secure and defend a place for the Negroes in the Northern industrial labor 
market will depend for its success on the possibility of keeping the general 
unemployment level low. 

8. In the South 

These observations have all referred to the North. The situation in the 
South is not entirely different, but there are certain significant dissimilar- 
ities, some advantageous and some disadvantageous. The factor of ignorance 

'See Chapter 19. 



Chapter 17. A Practical Problem 395 

and unconcernedness is important in the South, too. Many white Southern- 
ers would undoubtedly give their backing to positive measure to preserve 
a place for the Negro if they knew more accurately about his plight and 
about the unfavorable trends. But there is in the South an entrenched and 
widespread popular theory that the Negro should be held down in his 
"place." Discrimination in justice, politics, education, and public service 
creates an atmosphere in which economic discrimination becomes natural 
or even necessary in order to prevent "social equality." 

On the other hand, there arc, in the South, many people in the white 
upper class who feel, as a matter of tradition, that the whites should "look 
out for" and "take care of" their Negroes. As there are fewer and fewer 
personal ties between upper class whites and Negroes and the isolation 
between the two groups is growing," this factor is becoming less and less 
important as a protection of Negro employment opportunities. 

The mere fact that there are many more Negroes in the South makes 
them less strange to white people. The white Southerner does not react so 
much, and for such flimsy reasons, as many Northerners do, to having 
Negroes around. The employers have more experience with Negro labor 
and are often not so prejudiced against using it. The fact that they are 
seldom prepared to treat Negro and white workers on a basis of equality 
often makes it easy for them to employ Negro workers without having 
any "trouble." The workers are more accustomed in many trades to work 
with Negroes. 

The Negroes have also had a sort of protection in the traditional "Negro 
jobs." These job monopolies, however, have been largely in stagnating 
occupations and trades. As we have seen, white workers have always been 
pressing against these job monopolies. Job exclusion in all desirable and 
most undesirable jobs has, on the whole, been steadily progressing. The 
Negro's prospects in Southern industry are not promising. The very fact 
that there are so many more Negroes working there already means that 
the possibilities for expansion of Negro employment are slighter than they 
are in the North. The high natural increase of the white population in the 
South, and the likelihood that many white farmers will be pushed out of 
Southern agriculture, means that the white pressure to exclude Negroes 
from jobs will be strong even if there should be considerable industrial 
expansion. 

Particularly in the South the concentration of Negro workers in the 
unskilled jobs is dangerous for their future employment, as mechanization 
means a constantly decreased demand for unskilled labor . b Unskilled labor 
itself is changing character. Modern technical development means that 
formerly unpleasant jobs are becoming "suitable" for white workers. The 

* See Chapter 30, Section a. 
"See Chapter 13, Section S. 



396 An American Dilemma 

entrance of women into industry not only means that Negro labor has a 
new competitor but also intensifies the issue of "social equality." All these 
trends have been going on for a long time in the South. They are bound 
to continue. Since there is so much Negro labor in the Southern labor 
market, and since the resistance against keeping Negro labor in skilled 
work and "nice" unskilled work is so strong, it is difficult to see much 
hope for the Negro in Southern industry. 



CHAPTER l8 

PRE-WAR LABOR MARKET CONTROLS AND THEIR 
CONSEQUENCES FOR THE NEGRO 



I. The Wages and Hours Law and the Dilemma 
of the Marginal Worker 

During the 'thirties the danger of being a marginal worker became 
increased by social legislation intended to improve conditions on the labor 
market. The dilemma, as viewed from the Negro angle, is this: on the one 
hand, Negroes constitute a disproportionately large number of the workers 
in the nation who work under imperfect safety rules, in unclean and un- 
healthy shops, for long hours, and for sweatshop wages; on the other hand, 
it has largely been the availability of such jobs which has given Negroes 
any employment at all. As exploitative working conditions are gradually 
being abolished, this, of course, must benefit Negro workers most, as they 
have been exploited most — but only if they are allowed to keep their 
employment. But it has mainly been their willingness to accept low labor 
standards which has been their protection. When government steps in to 
regulate labor conditions and to enforce minimum standards, it takes away 
nearly all that is left of the old labor monopoly in the "Negro jobs." 

As low wages and sub-standard labor conditions are most prevalent in 
the South, this danger is mainly restricted to Negro labor in that region. 
When the jobs are made better, the employer becomes less eager to hire 
Negroes, and white workers become more eager to take the jobs from the 
Negroes. There is, in addition, the possibility that the policy of setting 
minimum standards might cause some jobs to disappear altogether or to 
become greatly decreased. What has earlier hindered mechanization has 
often been cheap labor. If labor gets more expensive, it is more likely to 
be economized and substituted for by machines. Also inefficient industries, 
which have hitherto existed solely by exploitation of labor, may be put out 
of business when the government sets minimum standards. These effects 
will not show up all at once." 

The most important of these laws is the Fair Labor Standards Act of 

'The fact that these effects do not show up all at once is one of the reasons why it is 
impossible to give statistical evidence of the effects of social legislation upon marginal labor. 

397 



398 An American Dilemma 

1938, usually called the Wages and Hours Law. 1 It provides for a 
minimum wage, which was 25 cents an hour in 1938, was automatically 
increased to 30 cents in 1941 and will be 40 cents in 1945." Industrial 
committees can institute higher wage minima for particular industries. 
Work over 40 hours a week is overtime and is to be paid at time-and-a-half 
the usual wage rate. Children under 16 may not be employed. 

The law covers only persons employed in interstate commerce or in 
production of goods for interstate commerce. Since workers in agriculture 
and domestic service are excluded from the benefits of the law, it is certain 
that the coverage is much smaller for Negroes than for whites. On the 
other hand, wherever Negroes are covered, the law must affect their 
wages more often and more substantially than in the case of white workers. 
The proportion of workers with wages below the new minima has been 
much higher among Negroes than among whites. 

For the same reason, the law affects the South much more than the rest 
of the country, since it does not provide for any regional differentials 
regarding wage minima — not even such differentials as could be motivated 
by the differences in cost of living between the predominantly urban North 
and the largely rural South. The law will probably, in some measure, slow 
up the migration of industries to the South, which certain Southern states, 
particularly Mississippi, have encouraged by offering manufacturers special 
tax exemptions, free or low-priced factory lots, or even ready-built plants, 
as well as other advantages. The main selling point, however, has always 
been the cheap labor supply — incidentally, with particular emphasis on the 
fact that white workers are available — and the relative absence of trade 
union interference. Now, however, it seems that Southern industry will 
lose one of its main competitive advantages. This effect will increase the 
competition for jobs in the South and make the Negroes' chances for 
employment in Southern industry slimmer. 

The fact that enforcement seems, to have been slower in the South than 
elsewhere, probably also slower for Negroes than for whites, may have 
cushioned these effects. Moreover, there is a differential between North 
and South in respect to supplementary state legislation and enforcement 
by state agencies. Only three Southern states limit women's work to 48 
hours per week, and state legislation restricting child labor is less extensive 
in the South than elsewhere. 2 Still, it seems safe to conclude that Negroes 
have been affected already — positively as well as negatively. An estimate 
quoted by Dabney, to the effect that the wage regulations brought about 
already under the N.I.R.A. had thrown half a million Negroes on relief 
by 1934,* seems more definite than the complicated character of the problem 
would permit, and is in all likelihood much exaggerated. It is not possible 

* Sisnjlar minimum wages were instituted under the National Industrial Recovery Act of 
1933, which was declared unconstitutional in 1935. 



Chapter 18. Pre-War Labor Market 399 

to single out what part of Negro unemployment is due to the new wage 
minima. But there are some data which at least give us a notion of what 
happened and provide some support to the hypothesis that the change has 
been considerable. 4 

It would appear as if the danger to the Negro's employment oppor- 
tunities which is implied in the Wages and Hours Law would become 
particularly marked by 1945 when the minimum wage rate is to be in- 
creased to 40 cents an hour. This danger, however, seems to be passing 
because the current inflationary trends will probably become intensified to 
such an extent that it is doubtful whether 40 cents, by 1945, will constitute 
a higher real minimum than 30 cents now (July, 1942). In fact, it is most 
probable that it will mean less in terms of actual purchasing power. This 
would imply that the law, unless amended, soon will become insignificant 
as "a floor for wages," and also that the negative effects of it will become 
less serious. 

Competing in importance with the Wages and Hours Law is the National 
Labor Relations Act of 1935 which forbids employers to interfere with 
unions, to foster company unions, to discriminate against union members, 
and to refuse to bargain with unions representing the majority of the 
workers. It superseded similar provisions under the National Industrial 
Recovery Act of 1933. It was widely ignored by the employers until the 
Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in a series of decisions of 1937. 
This law is the main way in which the government supports trade union- 
ism. The growth of the labor union movement will be discussed in later 
sections of this chapter. In this context we observe only that, in so far as 
labor unions succeed in raising wages and labor standards, this law has the 
same effect on Negro workers as does the Wages and Hours Law. 

These various policies to stamp out exploitative labor practices are both 
in line with economic progress. They all tend to speed up mechanization. 
Therefore, they are likely to create serious unemployment among Negro 
labor because it is marginal, unless strong countermeasures are taken to 
improve employment opportunities for Negroes. Such measures should 
have been part of a rationally coordinated economic policy." 

2. Other Economic Policies 

During the period of the New Deal a system of public relief and social 
security— work relief, direct relief, categorical assistance, old age and 
survivors' benefits, unemployment compensation, workmen's compensation 
and similar programs— has been introduced or further developed for the 
support of citizens in distress. The system is far from complete and by no 
means does it guarantee that all citizens in great distress will receive public 
assistance. As shown in Chapter ij, Negroes get fewer benefits, in relation 

'Concerning federal government policies during the war boom, see Chapter 19, Section 3. 



400 An American Dilemma 

to their needs, than do whites. Nevertheless, since they are so much poorer 
than whites, their representation on the relief rolls usually exceeds their 
proportion in the population. 

These programs must also have had important effects on supply and 
demand in the labor market. They must have made it easier for old people 
and women to stay off the labor market and thus decrease a labor supply 
which was already much too heavy for the market." Thus they must have 
tended to make the competition for jobs less desperate in times of unem- 
ployment. They also lighten the labor supply because sometimes benefits 
are higher than ordinary wages. This cannot be helped, for, owing to the 
extremely wide variation in wage rates and frequent under-employment, 
the only alternative would be to keep all benefits below adequate standards. 
It is certain, anyway, that it happens much more frequently to the Negro 
than to the white clientele. 

Public relief and social security have had other purposes, and their 
effects in keeping away marginal white and Negro labor from the labor 
market have been more or less incidental, even if not unimportant. On the 
other hand, those programs must also have had a cumulative effect in 
strengthening the bargaining power of labor. This, in its turn, must tend 
to push up wages and improve other labor conditions, which again tend 
to make the employment prospects for the marginal Negro labor less 
favorable. 

Prior to the present war boom few attempts were made by public 
agencies to take positive measures in order to secure job opportunities for 
Negroes. The Public Works Administration and the United States Hous- 
ing Authority did try to reserve jobs for Negroes in their construction 
work. Otherwise, no employment policy for Negroes and other similar 
groups was even discussed much. The Employment Service, which experi- 
enced a rapid development under the New Deal, is potentially a powerful 
instrument for dealing with problems of this kind. But, almost until the 
time when this country became involved in the War, little, if any, such 
use was made of it. The usual procedure in this country, as in most other 
lands, has just been to meet the requirements of the employers. If they 
want white labor, they get it. If they want Negro labor, they get that. 
Few employment offices have made any substantial attempts to do more 
than this one-sided type of employers' agency work — that is, they had not 
actually tried to "sell" unemployed labor. 6 And it is probable that even 
less has been done for Negroes than for whites until the present war 
emergency changed the situation to a limited extent." 

Nevertheless, it seems that a long-range development in this direction 
is to be expected. The Employment Service is the natural starting point 

* See Chapter 13, Sections 9 and 10. 
'See Chapter 19. 



Chapter 18. Pre-War Labor Market 401 

in any vocational rehabilitation work. It is equally natural that it should 
go in for educational work among employers who show a tendency to 
reject certain kinds of potentially useful labor— and if need be, also among 
white workers who are against letting Negro labor get an adequate share 
of the jobs. Because of the institution of large-scale public assistance in 
this country, the government nowadays has even a fiscal interest in the 
welfare of the Negro. It seems unlikely that the alternative of letting most 
Negroes become habitual relief recipients will be permanently accepted. 

3. Labor Unions and the Negro 

The increasing power of the labor unions, and particularly their rising 
importance for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, is to the Negroes one 
of the most significant of all recent changes in the institutional framework 
of the American economy. Their past experiences with trade unions have 
been none too good in most cases. The recent development, however, 
seems to offer some hope. There is now an increased number of strong 
unions in which Negroes are included on a basis of equality or near- 
equality. The principal gains, of course, are just that Negroes have more 
protection in so far as they have been admitted into these industries. In 
addition, it is of great significance that these more liberal unions usually 
can be expected to cooperate, or at least to refrain from energetic resist- 
ance, when some other party — the employers or the government — wants 
to break certain occupational barriers against Negroes. Some of them have 
actually rendered positive assistance in making room for the Negro in 
plants and occupations where formerly they had not been allowed to work. 
Such attempts, however, have occurred, for the most part, during the 
present war boom, when the abundance of employment opportunities made 
Negro competition less objectionable to the white worker. Even so, they 
do not seem to have been significant from a quantitative viewpoint, but 
they may inaugurate an important change in union policy." 

There are grave risks, as well, in the increased union power. A greatly 
strengthened union movement holding the power over employment might, 
if dominated by monopolistic and prejudiced white workers, finally define 
the Negro's "place" as outside industrial employment. The post-war unem- 
ployment crisis will probably intensify job monopolistic tendencies on the 
part of white workers. Union leaders who want to protect the Negro's 
rights may have to face serious rebellions. Weighing the various factors, 
however, we are inclined to believe that the growth of unionism will in 
the long run favor the Negro. We have two main reasons for this belief. 
One is the observation that to exclude one group from full participation 
in the union movement— and from an equitable share in its positive results 
—is to put a weapon into the hands of the enemies of trade unionism which 

"See Chapter 19. 



402 An American Dilemma 

they will know how to use. The American union movement, it it wants to 
become strong, must be based on a stiiJ largely absent, but gradually 
developing, labor class solidarity, which must be all-inclusive. The declin- 
ing relative significance of the craft union spirit can be regarded as a first 
stage of such a development. The other reason is that the labor market 
and its organization will in all probability be subject to more government 
control, and the national administration will be forced to attempt to defend 
a place for the Negro in the labor market against exclusionistic and segre- 
gational practices by unions. 

When pondering this whole problem, it should be made clear that this 
is not the first time it has looked as if organized labor definitely were on 
the move away from discriminatory practices. Time and again, in the 
history of American trade unions, there have been attempts to build a 
labor movement on the basis of workers' equality and solidarity, but so 
far these attempts, except in a few instances, have proved futile. 8 

The fact that the American Federation of Labor as such is officially 
against racial discrimination does not mean much. The Federation has 
never done anything to check racial discrimination exercised by its member 
organizations. 7 

There is no doubt that the rise in industrial unionism has increased the 
number of unions which do not discriminate against Negroes. The old 
unions of this group, like the United Mine Workers' Union and the Inter- 
national Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, have grown stronger, and new 
ones, like the United Steel Workers' Union and the United Automobile, 
Aircraft, and Agricultural Implement Workers' Union, have been added 
to the list. When the C.I.O. organized the mass production industries, it 
followed the principle that Negroes should be organized together with 
whites, wherever Negroes were working before unionization. Some of the 
new unions, as previously stated, have recently taken positive measures 
to give Negroes opportunities to work in occupations where they have not 
been working before and to defend more equality for them in job advance- 
ment. 

It is understandable, for several reasons, that these attempts so far have 
not been significant from a quantitative viewpoint. The rank-and-file 
members, the majority of whom have only recently become organized, are 
often biased against Negro fellow workers. Many employers have been 
rather noncooperative in increasing the range of employment opportunities 
for Negroes. The Negro workers themselves often have difficulties in 
overcoming their old suspicions. And the leaders have had to put their 
main efforts into the work of building up the new unions. The time has 
been too short to bring about fundamental changes in industrial race rela- 
tions. The observer finds that the leaders of the -new unions are usually 
much more broad-minded and less prejudiced than the average run of 



Chapter 18. Pre-War Labor Market . 403 

white union workers. Many of the new unions have made a courageous 
start in workers' education and an important element of this education is 
to spread the principle of universal labor solidarity and to combat race 
prejudice. 

Still there is much uncertainty in the present situation. The Negro 
workers have made a gain from the unionization of the mass production 
industries by becoming included in more unions. They have probably also 
profited from the very split of the American labor movement into the 
CI.O. and the A.F. of L., whereby most of the progressive forces have 
been concentrated in one group, and both groups have been forced to 
compete for membership. This split cannot exist forever. Unity, when it 
comes, may be gained at the expense of the Negro. 8 This may be a pes- 
simistic view, but it is worth considering. 

The uncertainty in the situation is further enhanced by the fact that the 
Negro is really a precarious issue for the American trade unions. He can 
be used against them in a number of ways. If the unions do take the 
Negroes in and treat them as equals, employers often find it advantageous 
to appeal to the race prejudice of the general public and of the white 
workers themselves. This has happened many times, particularly in the 
South. Racial equality is one of the standing charges against the Southern 
Tenant Farmers' Union. On the other hand, if unions exclude Negroes or 
otherwise discriminate against them, it may be hard to convince the 
American public, especially in the North, of their consistent democratic 
ideology. One can gain much support from the general public by fighting 
persistently for the underdog. But a fight for all underdog groups, save 
the one most in need of being fought for, can hardly bring the same 
response. It is not that Americans, even outside the South, are so much 
concerned about the welfare of the Negro. But they are concerned about 
the integrity and honesty of those who present themselves as advocates 
of social and economic equality. As we have pointed out, the Northern 
whites are "against" economic discrimination as a general proposition, that 
is, when it does not concern themselves. And even if the general public 
would fail to react in this way on its own account, it is always open to 
enemies of unionism to publicize the racial discrimination in trade unions. 
Such a possibility, of course, is all to the good from the Negro's viewpoint. 
Still, it adds to the embarrassment of the union movement. 

4. A Weak Movement Getting Strong Powers 

All these difficulties must be seen against the background of the fact 
that American trade unionism, in spite of its age and recent progress, is 
still a comparatively weak movement. Basically, it is this weakness that 
endangers the Negro's position. At the same time, the weakness depends 
partly on the presence of the Negro worker. 



4<H • An American Dilemma 

In 1939, labor unions had only around 8,500,000 members — and this in 
spite of the fact that they had trebled their membership since 1933.* The 
total labor force of nonagricultural wage earners and salaried workers 
outside the unions must have amounted to some 36 millions. The member- 
ship figures have gone up and down with the business cycle in a manner 
which reveals an inherent lack of vigor. The main exception was the 
'twenties, when the business boom failed to bring about any increase in 
unionization but was rather accompanied by a regress. 

A common explanation of why the American labor movement did not 
develop more strength is that there has been strong resistance from the 
employers. American business has undoubtedly kept not only unusual 
political and social power, but also a militantly individualistic determina- 
tion not to share its control over labor conditions with anyone. The com- 
pany town, still to be found in some coal mine and textile areas of the 
South and in certain other regions as well, is the extreme case of employ- 
ers' paternalism in the nonagricultural economy. It is characterized by an 
integration of property rights, municipal administration, and police power 
that, in some measure, approaches the condition of medieval European 
feudalism. But even outside the company towns proper, important employ- 
ers or groups of employers have often had a power over police and court 
systems which has enabled them to check, in a rather efficient way, any 
tendencies toward unionization. And many of them have been known to 
supplement political influence by the use of private, armed police forces 
and strong-arm squads, often working even outside the premises of their 
plants. Big corporations, until a few years ago, hired labor spies by the 
hundreds. Many an attempt at unionization has been stopped by plain 
murder. 10 Engaging in extreme practices of this kind is not typical of the 
overwhelming majority of American employers, yet so many of them, 
particularly in the South, have used some sort of intimidation that there 
has been a rather effective barrier against the progress of unionism on this 
account. 11 

The resistance from the side of employers, however, is not only a cause 
of the weakness in the American trade union movement. To an extent it 
is an effect of it also. Employers in all countries have initially been hostile 
to labor unions, and everywhere the police and the courts have to an extent 
been utilized to strangle a developing union movement at the outset. But 
as the movement developed strength in the face of all difficulties, both the 
public authorities and the employers had soon to accept the new order in 
the labor market. The singularity in the American case is only that the 
relative laxity of the administration of laws in this country made the police 
and courts more obedient to the employers' interests and allowed the 
employers to take the law into their own hands much more than in com- 
parable countries. Further) the labor movement actually had less momen- 



Chapter 18. Pre- War Labor Market 405 

turn and for decades did not get strong enough to command respect from 
the public authorities and the employers. This view becomes strengthened 
when we witness how the employers' resistance is vanishing as the unions 
are becoming stronger. 

The readiness shown by many American unions to use violence and 
other extra-legal measures themselves is also a sign of weakness. In dis- 
cussing labor tactics with American union members, the observer often 
becomes shocked to find how natural it appears to them to take the law 
into their own hands when they get into a labor conflict. This characteristic 
can, of course, be partly explained as a sort of retaliation. The whole 
atmosphere around labor strife and collective bargaining in America is 
tainted by a tradition of illegality, and the employers must be blamed for 
a good part of this. But again, more fundamentally, this trait is an indica- 
tion of weakness on the part of trade unionism. Strong and well-established 
unions do not need to fear illegal methods and still less to resort to such 
methods themselves. The insistence on the part of some American unions 
on the rule of the "union shop"" according to which the worker must 
become a member in good standing of a union in order to keep his job, is 
also more understandable as an indication of organizational weakness. A 
strong union movement does not need to be provided with such pressures. 11 

All those other excellent reasons with which some American unions, 
particularly among those organized along craft lines, provide the labor- 
baiters — job monopolism and nepotism, exploitative entrance fees, "closed 
unions," petty jurisdictional fights, boss rule, even corruption and racketeer- 
ing — also are nothing more than signs of organizational weakness. They 
imply that the common worker has been hindered from coming into his 

*The "union shop," technically defined, U one in which the -worker, after he is hired 
by the employer, must join the union to retain the job. The "union shop" is fairly wide- 
spread and is the goal of most American unions. The "closed shop," technically defined, is 
one in which the worker is selected by the union, and not by the employer, from its own 
membership. The closed shop has now practically disappeared, and is the goal of only a 
few reactionary unions. The "closed union" is a union which tries to limit its membership 
so as to keep a monopoly of the jobs for its members. The closed union usually occurs in 
conjunction with the closed shop. The closed union is characteristic of a large number of 
A.F. of L. unions, but it is not the goal of many other unions. The union shop, the closed 
shop, and the closed union are all signs of the weakness of the American labor movement. 
For the early stages of organization, however, the union shop has much to commend it. 

" One important corollary of this, incidentally, is that employers no less than workers 
have an interest in getting the trade union movement securely established in America. This 
is true far outside the field of the problems discussed in the text. Neither building contrac- 
tors nor government agencies will, for instance, ever be able to stamp out the monopolistic 
wage policies and the practices hampering prefabricated building materials and other labor 
saving techniques in the building industry. But a hundred per cent strong labor movement, 
where the majority of workers are suffering economically from the monopolistic practi:e» 
of building workers, might accomplish it. 



406 An American Dilemma 

own as a. worker, as a union member and as a citizen— and maybe has not 
cared to come into his own. Again it must be emphasized that even the most 
mature trade union movements once passed through a period when, at least 
in some degree, there were irregularities of a similar nature. Every trade 
union movement has, for instance, had to go through the transition from 
craft unionism to industrial unionism, and the former type always retains 
some part of the labor market. Jurisdictional fights and job monopolism exist 
everywhere, although the degree varies. So, when putting the American 
trade unions beside those of any comparable democratic country, it is 
possible to state that the glaring shortcomings of the American unions 
are mainly a matter of degree and stage of development. This thought is 
often expressed in America and elsewhere, that American trade unionism 
is suffering from ordinary child diseases. 

But there is an important qualification to be made to this statement. The 
American trade union movement is, as we have said, one of the oldest in 
the world. The lag in its growth may be thought of as a child disease 
become chronic. Undesirable union practices have become habitual and 
established. And, looked at from another point of view, the American trade 
union movement does not appear at all youthful with the usual faults of 
youth, but, on the contrary, has shown certain signs of senility. For one 
thing, the A.F. of L. has lacked, and is still lacking, the militant reform- 
ist spirit, the feeling that it is building a new world. It has not been con- 
vinced that it was serving economic democracy or, in any case, it has never 
convinced its membership of it. It has been fighting for petty interests. 
American business has, in this sense, always had more spirit, more of a 
feeling that it was carrying the destiny of the nation. The better unions in 
the A.F. of L. and the C.I.O. have decidedly more spirit and courage, 
and, therefore, more strictly observed principles. 

The basic weakness of many labor unions in America has been their 
lack of democracy. The rank and file have been allowed too little influence; 
they have also cared too little about retaining influence. Many of the 
undesirable practices mentioned are merely symptoms of an under- 
lying lack of democracy in the labor unions. It is significant both that 
there has been so relatively little workers' education in the American 
labor movement and that there is more of it in the better unions. The 
weakness of the American labor movement is only one example of a gen- 
eral trait in America: the weakness, until now, of organized and pro- 
tracted mass movements — the political passivity of the common people in 
America. We shall discuss this American cultural trait in Chapter 33 and 
relate it to the several unique and closely interrelated factors in the social 
history of the nation: the heterogeneity of the lower classes during the 
long century of mass immigration, the open frontier up to the turn of the 
century) the rapid social m6bility until the Great Depression, the individ- 



Chapter 18. Pre-War Labor Market 407 

ualistic middle class ideology, and so on. We shall there also find that 
important economic changes during the last generation have laid the basis 
for a fundamental shift to greater participation and solidarity among the 
masses of people in America. As the trade unions increasingly come to 
serve workers of all kinds, including those in the mass production indus- 
tries, the more necessary will it be for the labor movement to embrace a 
common working class ideology rather than to remain the instrument for 
job-grabbing and group competition. 

But there are other and more specific reasons for our belief that the 
Negroes will get more consideration from the unions in the future. 
The labor union movement has recently been growing in strength 
— due largely to government support. This is, of course, itself a sign 
of weakness. A strong labor movement is usually just as much against state 
interference on the labor market as the employers are, and it can afford 
to take such an attitude because of its independent strength. The Ameri- 
can labor movement could not afford to reject government support; it had 
rather use its political influence to press for it. In the course of time it 
will become evident that government suffort is followed by government 
influence. 

By its own policy the American labor movement is actually provoking 
government control. Quite aside from all sorts of irregular practices — 
which, as long as they exist even as exceptions, are crying for public con- 
trol over the unions — the labor movement is forced to press for union 
shops. It is likely that the war emergency will help it to get union shop 
agreements in an increasing part of the labor market. But such power can 
be tolerated in a democratic country only if the doors to the unions are 
kept open and if democratic procedures within the unions are amply pro- 
tected. As the labor unions are getting stronger, the demand will become 
ever more vigorous for governmental control protecting democracy in the 
unions. The important thing, from our point of view, is that the only way 
by which the unions in the long run would be likely to protect their present 
independence would be to reform themselves quickly. Either government 
control or independent democratic control would benefit the Negroes. 

As the second alternative is less likely to become realized fast enough, 
it seems probable that not only the enemies of the labor movement but 
also its friends and, indeed, many of the organized workers themselves 
will raise the demand for government control over the unions. It is inter- 
esting in this context to refer to a recent article by Norman Thomas, who 
cannot be accused of being anti-labor or anti-union. 12 Thomas exemplifies 
the statement that "there are grave evils in the organizational setup and 
attitude of many American labor unions and their dominant bureaucracies" 
and sees the fundamental cause in their lack of democracy. He comes out 
with the following proposal: 



408 An American Dilemma 

Briefly, I propose that every anion, to be entitled to recognition as the agency 
of the workers in collective bargaining (and without that recognition most unions 
would be doomed), must conform to certain minimum standards of democracy. 
Its doois must be open to all qualified workers, regardless of race, creed, or color, 
under reasonable standards of initiation fees and dues. Next, its constitution, by-laws, 
and practices must provide for orderly elections at reasonable intervals. And finally, a 
disciplinary procedure must be set up which will protect members of the union from 
arbitrary punishment more serious than most judges and juries can impose. Possibly 
some other requirements might be laid down, for instance, with regard to votes on 
strikes, but those which I have mentioned seem to me essential. 18 

If reform does not come from within the labor movement, it is likely 
that the government will take a hand, at least with respect to discrim- 
inatory practices. At least four states — Pennsylvania, New York, Kansas, 
and Nebraska — have in recent years been experimenting with legislation 
against racial discrimination in labor unions. 1 * The number of such legisla- 
tive attempts is increasing during the present war emergency; the federal 
government, as well, has taken certain action." It is probable that such 
laws will be much more effective when they become integrated into a gov- 
ernment program to preserve democracy and orderly procedures in the 
labor unions. 

This problem should, however, be viewed from a still wider perspec- 
tive. It is almost certain that the economic problems facing the govern- 
ment after the War will be centered around unemployment. Economic 
interferences on a huge scale are being planned to meet the post-war crisis. 
During the War the unions will probably become strengthened. Under 
these circumstances it is simply incredible that the government will under- 
take tremendous financial efforts to create employment and leave to the 
strengthened trade unions the power of partly sabotaging this policy. If 
unemployment becomes concentrated upon Negro laborers and other 
unpopular groups, which is quite probable, the government, which also 
carries the financial responsibilities for relief, can hardly abstain from 
taking efforts to hinder the unions from excluding Negroes from employ- 
ment. 

The Negroes themselves will demand, more strongly than ever, their 
share in all sorts of jobs, including those in skilled, clerical and profes- 
sional occupations. And they will demand jobs where the economy is 
expanding and where there are prospects for the future. Much depends 
upon what gains they will make — or fail to make — during the present 
War. This War presents their first big chance since the First World War 
to gain any new footholds in industries and occupations where they have 
never worked before. Much will depend, also, on how the post-war liquida- 
tion crisis will be handled. These are the main problems that we have yet 
to consider. 



CHAPTER 19 

THE WAR BOOM— AND THEREAFTER 

*ll*lt»tlliaattl«t»lat*t*aHa*Ht*iiH«>ttlllitkltll*«tiiaBi»ta«t«tt«i>t*»ti(il*iBttllllkii«fsiBi»« a( ««*tii»iiii«>***tafe*litl*»«»tHMklt 

1. The Negro Wage Earner and the War Boom 

The present War is of tremendous importance to the Negro in all 
respects. He has seen his strategic position strengthened not only because 
of the desperate scarcity of labor but also because of a revitalization of the 
democratic Creed." As he finds himself discriminated against in the war 
effort, he fights with new determination. He cannot allow his grievances 
to be postponed until after the War, for he knows that the War is his 
chance. If he fails now to get into new lines of work when labor is scarce, 
it means that he has missed the best opportunity he is going to have for 
years. Demobilization and liquidation of the war industries are bound to 
result in a post-war unemployment crisis. This implies, not only that there 
will be fewer jobs for everybody, but more likely than not that white 
workers are going to become even more bent on driving the Negro out of 
industry. If the Negro does not then have a recognized position, he will 
certainly not easily gain one as long as there is general unemployment. 

We shall not give an exhaustive account of Negro employment during 
the war boom. Available information on the subject is spotty, or at least 
not well organized. Moreover, the picture is changing. On the whole, 
there is a slow improvement. There is a possibility that the situation when 
this book leaves the press may be more favorable than it was during the 
first half of 1942, which is as far as our data go. 

It can be stated definitely that, until mid- 1942, Negroes had not prof- 
ited from the war boom to the same extent as had white workers. Indeed, 
until that time the record of the Second World War was, in this respect, 
much less impressive than was that of the First World War. There has 
been no northward migration of Negroes, comparable in size and signifi- 
cance to that which occurred at the beginning of the First World War. 
Indeed, Negro participation in the migration to war production centers, 
in both the North and the South, was for a long time extremely restricted? 
There is no new industry or previously all-white industry where Negroes 
have made any gains of the same importance as those they made during 
the First World War in Northern iron and steel plants, shipyards? auto- 
mobile factories, slaughtering and meat-packing houses. 

* See Chapter 45. 

409 



410 An American Dilemma 

Since the war boom has brought about a tremendous scarcity of labor, 
and since the available labor reserve before the boom was much greater, 
in proportion, in the Negro than in the white population, one could have 
expected that unemployment rates would fall more for Negro than for 
white workers. That, however, has not happened. On the contrary, the 
proportion of Negroes among the unemployed workers was considerably 
higher in the spring of 1942 than it had been two years earlier. 3 

There are several reasons why the Negro has had much less of a chance 
during this War than he had during the last War. Let us enumerate the 
principal ones: 4 

(1) When the present war boom started, there was still widespread 
unemployment. In the initial stages of war production, therefore, there 
were large numbers of white workers available. 5 

(2) There is now in the North a much more well- organized resistance 
to accepting Negroes than was the case during the First World War. 
This, in part, is due to the fact that there had been much unemployment 
for about ten years, making white workers more watchful against letting 
jobs get away from them. Also, the Negro is no longer a new phenom- 
:non in Northern industries; Northern white workers in so far as they 
are not under the effective influence of certain C.I.O. unions have had a 
chance to set their minds more definitely against him. Southern-born 
workers in Northern industries have helped to bring about this change in 
attitude; the Ku Klux Klan has been active in several Northern places. 
This is especially true in Detroit, which has an unusually large number 
of Southern-born workers. 

(3) Since employers nowadays to a great extent have accepted trade 
unions as bargaining agents, their need of the Negro as an ally in the fight 
against unions is much smaller than it was formerly. 

(4) The need for unskilled labor, as previously mentioned, is relatively 
much smaller than it was during the First World War. This factor is 
highly significant. For, although the Negro has made several noteworthy 
"strategic gains" in skilled occupations, those gains, so far, have been 
rather unimportant from a quantitative point of view. It is not certain 
that he has improved, or even maintained, his relative position in the 
skilled labor force. 7 We know that the Negro has been grossly under' 
represented in the vocational training program for war workers that has 
been organized by the government? 

It must be considered, further, that the South, as was the case during 
the First World War, has received much less than a proportionate share 
of the war contracts. Although the South has almost one-third of the total 
population of the country, less than one-fifth of the total value of all war 
supply and facility contracts and allocations assigned within the United 
' * See Section 3 of this chapter 



Chapter 19. The War Boom — and Thereafter 411 

States during the period from June, 1940, through May, 1942, were placed 
in the South. 8 The reason, of course, is that heavy industries are less well 
represented below the Mason-Dixon line than they are in certain other 
parts of the country. The result for the Negro is that, even if he were not • 
discriminated against, he could not get his full share in the war jobs, 
except by moving North. 

In spite of all these limitations, it is obvious that the War has brought 
about a considerable increase in Negro employment, reckoned in absolute 
figures. Also, it seerrs that the situation has improved somewhat as the 
war boom has gone on. Still further improvements can be expected since 
there will be additional increases in the demand for labor at the same time 
as more men of working age will leave the labor market for the armed 
forces. Women and Negroes now constitute almost all of the available 
labor reserve. This, together with the increased pressure from the gov- 
ernment, may cause a certain change in the situation. 

The subsequent analysis of certain specific aspects of the war boom will 
substantiate further the conclusions already drawn. 

2. A Closer View 

The war boom is not a result of armament production alone. In addi- 
tion, there has been tremendous construction work in camps and war pro- 
duction centers. Then, too, there have been substantial secondary booms 
in consumption and service industries, transportation and production of 
raw materials. 

It is probable that, so far, the main Negro gains have been in those 
industries in the last category, where they were already well entrenched 
before the War. It is not only the expansion by itself which has given 
them increased employment opportunities in such lines of work; there is 
also the fact that these industries, generally, are characterized by low 
wages and other "disutility factors" which cause an outflow of white labor 
to armament plants. There is an increased demand for Negro labor in 
Southern agriculture. The Negro domestic has more of a chance when 
white girls go to factories. There is more work for Negroes in other serv- 
ice occupations (janitors, elevator operators). Many garages, automobile 
repair shops, and truck owners, in so far as they have not been forced to 
cut down their business because of gasoline and rubber shortage, have had 
to substitute Negro workers for white mechanics and drivers. The readi- 
ness to hire Negroes as porters and helpers in stores must have increased. 
There are more jobs for Negroes in production of lumber, coal, and tur- 
pentine, in tobacco manufacturing, in longshore work and in railroad 
transportation. These gains, however, are of little strategic significance. In 
none of these industries has the Negro been able to gain any substantial 
foothold in occupations higher than those in which he worked before. In 



4ia An American Dilemma 

New York City, and possibly in other places, there are some commercial 
establishments, even outside of the Negro neighborhoods, which have 
started to use some Negro clerical assistance; but such cases are quite excep- 
tional.* 

In the construction industry, as well, there have been substantial gains 
in Negro employment, particularly in unskilled occupations, in the trowel 
trades and in carpentry. The Negro skilled worker in building construc- 
tion was almost on his way out during the Great Depression but now he 
seems to have gotten a new opportunity. Yet Negroes have not shared 
equitably with the white workers in this construction boom. Particularly 
during the early stages of the war expansion, Negroes, as we have found, 
were grossly under-represented among the in-migrants to defense centers 
where much of the new construction work has been concentrated. Although 
some of the skilled crafts have relaxed their exclusionistic practices some- 
what — partly due to government pressure, and in many cases only by 
granting temporary work permits without taking the Negroes into the 
unions — there are others which still try to keep the Negroes out. 10 

Let us turn now to production of war goods. Certain employment serv- 
ice data suggest that during the early stages of the war boom the Negro 
was virtually excluded from most armament industries. In October, 1940, 
only 5.4 per cent of all Employment Service placements in 20 selected 
defense industries (airplanes, automobiles, ships, machinery, iron, steel, 
chemicals, and so on) were nonwhite, and this proportion had, by April, 
1941, declined to 2.5 per cent. 11 In September, 1941, it was ascertained 
that the great bulk of the war plants did not have any Negroes at all 
among their workers. About one-half of the anticipated further expansion 
was to occur in plants where the managements said that they would not 
hire any Negroes in the future either. This is the more astounding in view 
of the fact that such a declaration meant an open defiance of the Presi- 
dent's Order of June 25, 1941, about abolishment of discriminatory prac 
tices in all defense work. 12 

The quantitative improvement which has occurred since the autumn of 
1941 may concern only the absolute numbers of Negro workers in war 
production. At least, there is no indication that there has been an increase 
in the proportion of Negroes in armament plants; there may have been a 
decline.' 8 This must be strongly emphasized, for in the current discussion 
there has often been a tendency to enumerate Negro employment gains 
without giving due consideration to the fact that white employment, in 
many instances, has increased to an even greater extent. 

Conditions are different in different lines of war production. Moreover, 
they change from one region to another and from one plant to another 
within any given industry. There are cases when even the relative posi- 
tion of the Negro worker has been improved. Shipyards constitute the 



Chapter 19. The War Boom — and Thereafter 413 

leading Negro-employing war industry. Many of them are hiring an 
increased proportion of Negro workers and have widened the occupa- 
tional range for Negro employees. Some yards use Negroes in all occupa- 
tions except professional and clerical. Nevertheless, as late as May, 1942, 
most shipyards still used Negroes almost solely in unskilled jobs. By and 
large, private yards are more restrictive than are Navy yards and Southern 
yards are less willing to hire Negro workers at higher occupational levels 
than are Northern yards, but there were several exceptions to this rule. 
In Miami, Florida, it has been impossible to use Negroes in skilled and 
semi-skilled work, since there is a city ordinance forbidding their employ- 
ment in such occupations outside of the Negro section. 14 

There is an increase in Negro employment in the ordnance industry as 
well, although it is not proportionate to the general expansion. A few 
plants are using Negroes in all kinds of skilled occupations, but the gen- 
eral pattern is to keep the Negro down at the bottom of the occupational 
hierarchy. Again Southern establishments are more bent on keeping the 
Negroes down than are Northern plants} Army-owned factories tend to 
be more liberal than private factories. 15 

It is reported that the Negro has recently gained in the automobile 
industry— or rather in those plants which used to constitute the Ameri- 
can automobile industry — although it is not known whether the propor- 
tion of Negro workers, as well as the absolute number, has increased. 
The conversion to war production brought about certain problems. 
Employment dropped off temporarily when production of passenger cars 
for civilian consumption was restricted, during the winter of 1941-1942. 
The Negro skilled workers, most of whom used to work in foundries 
faced a rather critical situation, since little foundry work is needed in air 
craft production. Some can still be used in tank and truck plants, however. 
The rest have enjoyed much protection from the United Automobile, 
Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers' Union and from the gov- 
ernment. 16 

Owing to this protection, the Negro automobile worker has been able 
to enter skilled occupations where he previously has had little or no rep- 
resentation; it is not certain, however, that this protection in actual prac- 
tice has been as complete for Negro as it has been for white workers. 
Newly organized rank-and-file members of the union have shown some 
opposition to the introduction of Negro workers in plants and occupations 
where they had not worked earlier. During the winter of 1 941-1942 and 
until the summer of 1942 a few "spontaneous" sit-down strikes occurred 
in certain plants (Hudson, Packard, Dodge and others). In every case 
the union leadership immediately went into action, and these "wild-cat 
strikes" were called off within a day or two — sometimes even within a few 
hours. 17 



414 An American Dilemma 

The "original" aircraft plants, on the other hand, present a much less 
encouraging picture. To be sure, several of them have opened their doors 
to the Negro worker largely because of the activities of the President's 
Committee on Fair Employment Practice." Yet shortly before mid- 1942 
only about 5,000 Negroes, constituting between 1 or 2 per cent of the 
total, were employed in airplane production. 18 Since this figure includes 
those employed by automobile factories which had gone into airplane 
manufacturing, the net gain for the Negro seems to be rather insignificant. 

3. Government Policy in Regard to the Negro in War 
Production 

The failure to let the Negro participate fully in war production has 
not gone unnoticed. Obviously it has embittered the Negroes, and being 
better organized than ever before, they have known how to protest. Both 
Negro and white groups have been giving great publicity to the matter. 
There have been a large number of reports on the subject in the daily press, 
in both the South and the North, as well as articles in national magazines, 
and pamphlets. 19 Leading personalities like Wendell Willkie, Pearl Buck, 
and Eleanor Roosevelt have dealt with the problem repeatedly. This pub- 
licity, of course, never reached such proportions that the man in the street 
came to know about what the barring of Negroes from defense jobs really 
meant; but the better informed part of the public has some notion about it. 
Ever since the defense boom got under way, during the summer of 
1940, various attempts to straighten out the problem have been made by 
the government. 20 Most of these measures, as we have seen, were rather 
ineffectual. Some of them were just gestures. Under the circumstances, 
they could not possibly appease the Negro leadership. In January, 1941, 
A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Por- 
ters, started organizing his famous "March-on- Washington Movement." b 
The President, for reasons of internal and external policy, did not want 
any such protest march and talked to Randolph in June, 1941, in order 
to prevent it. Randolph, however, failed to come around until the Presi- 
dent agreed to sign an Executive Order "with teeth in it" abolishing dis- 
crimination in defense industries as well as in the federal government 
itself. An agreement to this effect was finally reached, but only a few days 
before the date of the march. Randolph, thus, got what he wanted, and 
the march was called off. 21 

The Executive Order 8802 of June 25, 1941, starts with a general 
statement to the effect that there shall be no discrimination in the employ- 
ment of workers in defense industries or in government because of "race, 
creed, color, or national origin." There is a clause to this effect in all 

*8ee Section 3 of this chapter. 
"See Chapter 39, Section 12. 



Chapter 19. The War Boom — and Thereafter 415 

defense contracts. The order contains, further, a confirmation of previous 
orders about nondiscrimination in defense training programs. Finally, a 
President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice was to be set up for 
the purpose of receiving and investigating complaints of discrimination in 
violation of the order. 22 

The Committee can scarcely institute any punishment for noncompli- 
ance. Theoretically, it could recommend the cancellation of war contracts, 
but, in view of the present emergency, such a measure would hardly ever 
be considered. Its main weapons are publicity and moral pressure, and 
those weapons have been used with some success. 23 No employer or trade 
union likes to appear as the defendant at one of the public hearings, a 
record of which is published by the Committee together with "findings" 
and "directives." It is obvious that only a small portion of all offending 
employers and unions can be reached, since the staff of the Committee, so 
far, has been small. 2,1 Yet the Committee has shown that it means busi- 
ness, and that it is not willing to accept a token employment of a few 
Negroes in custodial and other menial jobs as evidence of nondiscrimina- 
tion. 

There are numerous reports about airplane plants and other previously 
exclusionistic establishments which have opened their doors to the Negro 
worker. Some of these gains have a highly strategic value, in that Negro 
workers have been placed in occupations where they have never worked 
before. It is hard to say, however, to what extent the gains are due to the 
activities of the Committee or to the increased scarcity of labor. There is 
no evidence that the Committee, as yet, has brought about any results 
which are significant from a quantitative point of view. It is not impos- 
sible, however, that the Committee may help to change even the "statis- 
tical" picture in the future. In the first place, it was only during the winter 
1 941- 1 942 that the Committee established itself in the general consciousness 
of the employers and the unions. Prestige and publicity have their effective- 
ness over a period of time, and not all at once." Second, Negroes and women 
constitute an increasingly important part of the remaining labor reserve, 
so that any further expansion in war production must mean an increased 
utilization of Negro and female labor. It is obvious, however, that large- 
scale results, if they are attained at all, will have to come before the peak 
in war production has been reached. 

The Executive Order and the President's Committee, directly or indi- 
rectly, have had a healthy effect on some of the federal government serv- 
ices as well- as on private industry. 26 We previously touched upon the fact 

' While this book is in press, the F.E.F.C. has been moribund, largely because of political 
pressure from Southern politicians, and partly because the war boom has sharply reduced the 
number of unemployed Negroes. Whether the F.E.P.C. will ever be revived, it is impossible 
to say. It officially remains in existence although it has no activity. 



4i6 An American Dilemma 

that Navy yards and Army ordnance plants tend to be less exclusionistic 
than are most private establishments in the same lines of work. We also 
mentioned the abolishment of photographs from job applications in the 
federal civil service, and the increase in Negro clerical and secretarial 
employment in certain federal agencies." The improvement, however, is 
by no means general. Brown and Leighton make the following criticism: 

The committee had not, as late as July I, 1942, certified to the President any 
case of job discrimination in the government itself, although, according to one mem- 
ber of the staff, they had found almost as many cases of discrimination in federal 
departments as in war industries. 20 

Even if, at the end of the war boom, the Negro should find that he 
had gained only some "strategic" footholds in certain previously all- 
white occupations, the significance of this progress should not be mini- 
mized. "Strategic gains" means that there are so many more practical 
demonstrations of Negro performance in lines of work where no employer 
previously tried to give the Negro worker a chance. Further, the Execu- 
tive Order and the President's Committee represent the most definite break 
in the tradition of federal unconcernedness about racial discrimination 
on the nonfarm labor market that has so far occurred. They represent 
something of a promise for the future. Even if the government should 
temporarily relax its control of the labor market after the War, it is quite 
possible that there will be some kind of continuation of these efforts. 

The President's Committee cooperates with the special branches for 
Negroes and for other minority groups within the War Manpower Com- 
mission. Some of the other federal agencies, as well, have been cooperating 
to eliminate economic discrimination. In many instances, however, the 
cooperation has left much to be desired. Two such cases need particular 
emphasis: the vocational training program and the Employment Service. 

In spite of the President's Order there is still widespread discrimination 
against the Negro in most war production training programs, even though 
some improvement has been brought about. In December, 1940, only 
1,900, or 1.6 per cent, of the trainees were Negroes in the so-called pre- 
employment and "refresher" courses organized under the auspices of the 
United States Office of Education and the Employment Service. Taking 
the whole period July 1, 1 941, to April 30, 1942, Negroes still constituted 
only 4.4 per cent of all trainees enrolled in corresponding educational 
programs. 27 Thus, the Negro, as yet, is still far from having a 10 per 
cent representation — in spite of the fact that the need for additional train- 
ing is much greater among Negroes than it is among whites. This dis- 
crimination has been particularly pronounced in the South. In January, 
1942, for instance, there were some Southern states, like Florida and 

'See Chapter 14, Section 8. - 



Chapter 19. The War Boom — and Thereafter 417 

Arkansas, where not a single Negro was referred to any public preemploy- 
ment or refresher defense course, nor to any youth work defense project. 28 

Apart from the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice, 
there is no federal agency which has been as frank in its criticism of dis- 
criminatory practices in war production as has the United States Employ- 
ment Service. We have, above, made frequent use of this official criticism. 
At the same time, the Employment Service itself has undoubtedly been 
guilty of such practices. This is the more deplorable as it has an extremely 
strategic position. 

It has happened, for instance, as late as February, 1942, that the local 
Employment Service office in Portsmouth, Virginia, published an adver- 
tisement in which available jobs were listed by race; only unskilled and 
domestic jobs were declared to be open to Negroes, whereas all clerical, 
skilled, semi-skilled, and even some service jobs (e.g., waitresses) were 
reserved for whites. 29 The Employment Service offices in the South, of 
course, are usually segregated. This, obviously, must facilitate discrimina- 
tory practices, in that the Negro branches tend to become almost exclusively 
occupied with "Negro jobs." Under such circumstances Negro officials 
of the Employment Service may become the more unable to remove dis- 
crimination. 80 

One reason for this state of affairs is that the Employment Service did 
not become completely federalized until January 1, 1942. The consequence 
is that the bulk of the personnel has been appointed by state governments. 
In other words, there seems to be a certain difference between, on the one 
hand, the policy of the headquarters in Washington and certain Northern 
offices and, on the other hand, that of other state and local offices, especially 
those in the South. 

So far, however, the reorganized United States Employment Service 
has not made sufficiently energetic attempts to require all the local offices 
to comply with the government policies. Some of the instructions sent out 
to state and local offices are such that, to a certain extent, they actually 
protect Employment Service officials who discriminate against Negroes 
when making referrals. The main clause in the most recent (July, 1942) 
instructions has the following formulation: 

... it is the policy of the United States Employment Service (l) to make all refer- 
rals without regard to race, color, creed or national origin except when an employer's 
order includes these specifications which the employer is not willing to eliminate. 
[Italics oars.] 

And further: 

Employment Service personnel will receive and record all specifications stated by 
an employer, including specifications based on race, color, creed, or national origin. 
If the employer does not include any discriminatory specification in his order, but 



4i 8 An American Dilemma 

community custom or part hiring praetices of the employer indicate that he may 
refuse to hire individuals of a particular race, color., creed, or national origin, the 
employment office interviewer shall ascertain whether or not he has any restrictive 
specifications. . . . [Italics ours.] 31 

In addition, of course, there are certain other, more positive recommenda- 
tions. 82 They cannot mean much, however. Indeed, it is hard to see how 
field representatives specializing in race relations, who are sent out by 
the United States Employment Service, can have much to go on when dis- 
criminatory referrals arc endorsed in official instructions to this extent. 

Certain Northern states have taken special measures against racial dis- 
crimination, supplementing those of the federal government; often they 
go much further than the federal agencies. They deal not only with the 
position of Negroes and other minority groups in war industries, but also 
with the policies of the public employment service, with private employ- 
ment agencies, and with advertisements for workers in newspapers.* It is 
possible that these state policies will lead to substantial results sooner than 
will the rather uncoordinated work of federal agencies which, to a large 
extent, is hampered by pressure from Southern congressmen. 

There is one important social problem in war production which we have 
not yet touched upon: housing. The effort to provide shelter for the 
workers in war production areas had some difficulties to start with, 83 and, 
for this reason, there is an extreme shortage of housing for Negro as well 
as for white workers adding to all other community problems brought 
about by war migration. 81 Nevertheless, much work has been done, even 
though it is not yet sufficient. The total number of units provided, or to be 

"New York State can be cited as an example. Various amendments to the Civil Rights 
Law concerning economic discrimination against Negroes and other minority groups have 
been adopted. One such amendment, of February 14, 194.0, makes union discrimination a 
misdemeanor subject to fine. The so-called Mahoney Amendment of April 16, 1941, prohibits 
discrimination in defense industries. The Schwartzwald Amendment of May 6, 1942, gives 
the State Industrial Commissioner the power to enforce anti-discrimination legislation and to 
require submission, at regular intervals, of information, records, and reports pertinent to 
discriminatory practices in industries. The Washburn Amendment makes discrimination in 
war industries a misdemeanor punishable by fine. A Committee on Discrimination in Employ- 
ment has been functioning since March, 1941. It has sponsored much of the anti-discrimina- 
tion legislation, has organized publicity on economic race problems and has put pressure 
on employers and trade unions. In September, 1941, the New York State Employment Service 
adopted the rule not to handle any requests from employers containing specifications as to 
race and creed. A New York City ordinance of May 9, 1942, prohibits, with some excep- 
tions, advertisements by employment agencies which restrict offers of jobs to persons of 
particular race, color or creed, and forces the agencies to keep their records open for 
public inspection at all times. (Sources: copies of the various anti-discrimination sets 
furnished by the Committee on Discrimination in Employment ■, "History of the Committee 
on Discrimination in Employment" [mimeographed, August 14, 1941] ; the National Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Colored People, N.A.A.C.P, Annual Report for '91', 
p. 6\ New York Herald Tribune [May 10, 1942]} PM [May 7, 194.2].) 



Chapter 19. The War Boom — and Thereafter 419 

provided, according to allotment records available as of July 31, 1942, 
was over 400,000, including trailers and accommodations for single persons 
in dormitories. Some 30,000, or less than 8 per cent of this total, will be 
used by Negro workers. 85 The share for Negroes may seem high, in view 
of the limited participation of Negroes in war production.* Negro sections 
were, however, much more crowded to begin with than were the white 
neighborhoods. Also, private builders seldom pay any attention at all to 
the Negro's housing needs, which makes the Negro population much more 
dependent on public efforts. 

4. The Negro in the Armed Forces 

The armed forces, today, constitute an important source of employment 
for Negro as well as for white men. In terms of economic value they offer 
some of the best opportunities open to many young Negro men. Food and 
clothing are excellent; the pay is higher than that in many occupations 
available to Negroes. And these conditions of employment are equal for 
Negroes and whites. A great number of poor Negroes must have raised 
their level of living considerably by entering the armed forces. It may be, 
also, that service in the Army and in the Navy, in many instances, will 
have a certain educational value 30 that will make many Negroes better 
prepared for post-war employment. 

This is the bright side of the picture. But there is a dark side. There has 
been a definite reluctance to utilize Negroes in all branches of the armed 
forces. Like white soldiers, they have been concentrated largely in the 
South, where they have met hostile community attitudes. This policy, at 
the same time, has increased the resentment of white Southerners against 
Negroes. Several unpleasant incidents have occurred, particularly in or 
around Southern camps. Except for certain officers' training schools, there 
is complete segregation in the armed forces. There has not even been an 
attempt made to organize experimental unsegregated outfits, including such 
whites who would volunteer for unsegregated service. All this has helped 
to embitter the Negro. He feels that he is not wholeheartedly wanted by 
white America even when he offers to fight for it. 

When given adequate training — and often even without it — the Negro 
has proven to be a good soldier. He has fought in all the wars in which this 
country has been engaged." From every war there are numerous records 
of Negroes who have distinguished themselves for bravery and gallantry 
Negroes cherish these memories. An outsider occasionally gets the impres- 
sion that they sometimes exaggerate their significance; but this is very likely 
just a natural human reaction in view of all the contempt Negroes have 
experienced from most whites. White people, generally, know little or 

* It will be recalled, on the other hand, that the Negro's share in the building program 
for low income families was as high as one-third. See Chapter 15, Section 6. 



420 Am American Dilemma 

nothing about the Negro's performance as a soldier. Deliberate attempts 
have been made to minimize the Negro's military record. For instance, on 
August 7, 191 8, a secret document was issued from General Pershing's 
headquarters, in which French officers were urged not to treat Negroes 
with familiarity and indulgence, since this would affront Americans, and 
"not to commend too highly the black American troops in the presence of 
white Americans." 88 

After the First World War the Negro became quite an insignificant ele- 
ment in the armed forces. The peacetime strength of Negro troops in the 
regular Army had been fixed by Congress in 1866 at two infantry and two 
cavalry regiments, which means that Negroes were much less well repre- 
sented in the Army than in the general population. Their participation in 
the National Guard was about equally small. The Navy stopped using 
Negroes entirely some twenty years ago, except as messmen or in similar 
menial tasks. There were no Negroes in the Marines. In 1940 there were 
only two Negro combat officers in the regular Army and none in the 
Navy. Out of over 100,000 officers in the Army Reserve, only 500 were 
Negro. 38 

In October, 1940, the War Department announced that the Negro 
personnel should be increased in such a way that Negroes would con- 
stitute the same proportion in the Army as in the general population of 
the country; and, further, that Negroes would be represented in all 
major branches of the Army.* It seems, however, that at least during the 
early stages of the expansion, Negro units were not organized as quickly 
as were white units. There were several complaints about Negro volunteers 
being turned down with the excuse that there were no vacancies for them. 41 
The situation has changed since then, however; it is expected that Negroes 
will soon have a 10 per cent representation in the Army. The Navy, to a 
certain extent, has relaxed its policy of excluding Negroes. According to 
an announcement of April 7, 1942, it has started accepting Negroes for 
combat and certain other service, but only in the Naval Reserve — which 
means that, after the War, Negroes will again be allowed to serve only as 
messmen. Also, Negroes may become promoted to petty officers within 
segregated Negro reserve outfits, but that is as far as they will be allowed 
to go. 42 Negro women are completely excluded from the women's branch 
of the Navy (the "WAVES"). 

The promise that Negroes would be represented in all major branches of 
the Army has been fulfilled. But there is no uniform proportional repre- 
sentation. Engineering outfits, quartermaster corps, and other service 
groups have a larger part of the Negro troops than do other branches 
of the Army. It seems, however, that the difference is much smaller than 
vrau the case during the First World War. What has particularly hurt the 
feelings df the Negroes has been the unwillingness to give them propor- 



Chapter 19. The War Boom — and Thereafter 421 

tional representation among the Army Air Force pilots. At first they were 
not accepted at all. 48 In view of the relatively small proportion of Negroes 
with some college education, and the low number of Negro officers and 
reserve officers before the War, it is obvious that Negroes cannot get any- 
thing near the number of Army officers' positions which would correspond 
with their proportion in the total population. It is expected, however, that, 
at least by the end of 1943, the majority of the officers in Negro outfits, 
except for those in higher ranks, will be Negro. This means that there will 
be an improvement compared with the conditions during the First World 
War. There is also an under-rcprescntation of Negroes among Army 
doctors and nurses. Negro women are allowed into the women's branch of 
the Army (the "WACS") in numbers commensurate with their proportion 
in the population, but they are segregated. 

During his entire military history in this country, the Negro has 
experienced numerous humiliations of various kinds. He has been abused 
because of his race by many white officers, by white soldiers and by white 
civilians. There have been race riots in or around camps. The Negro soldier 
has usually been punished most severely when he was only one offender 
among many, and sometimes even when he was the victim. 44 

The present War has already seen a number of such incidents. For 
example, on August 14, 1941, a group of unarmed Negro soldiers, marching 
on a highway in Arkansas, under the command of a white officer, were 
pushed off the road by Arkansas state troopers \ the protesting white 
officer was abused as a "nigger lover" and slapped. In Alexandria, 
Louisiana, where a small, congested Negro section was the only amusement 
area for a large number of Negro soldiers, white military police went into 
this Negro area to arrest a drunken Negro soldier. Negroes resisted, and an 
hour-long battle followed during which thirty Negroes were wounded. 
After this, Negro military police were stationed in the Negro area. In the 
spring of 1941, the body of a Negro soldier was found hanging from a tree 
in a wood at Fort Benning, Georgia. A white lieutenant of a Coast Artillery 
Regiment stationed in Pennsylvania (December, 1941) overstepped his 
authority by issuing an order — soon afterwards withdrawn — in which he 
threatened with the death penalty "relations between white and colored 
males and females whether voluntary or not." 45 

To be sure, not all incidents were caused by whites. Some have just been 
drunken brawls in which the racial element was secondary. In others it may 
have been the unwillingness of Negro soldiers — particularly Northern 
soldiers stationed in the South — to comply with Southern segregational 
patterns which incited the fights. Also, we know more about incidents which 
have occurred than we do about incidents that have been prevented. In all 
probability, there are several commanders who know how to minimize 



422 As American Dilemma 

racial friction.* Definite attempts have been made to improve conditions. 
Negro military police are used more and more to patrol Negro sections. 
They do not always have the same status as white military police; in many 
vases they are allowed to carry only clubs while white military police have 
side arms as well. It may be, nevertheless, that the use of Negro military 
police has helped to prevent many clashes. As during the First World 
War, there is a special Negro assistant in the War Department who takes 
care of the interests of the Negro soldier. b 

There is no point, however, in trying to divide the responsibility equally 
between both racial groups or to characterize the incidents as exceptional. 
The white group has the power, and, hence, the responsibility. Minor inci- 
dents are certainly frequent; only the most spectacular ones get any pub- 
licity in the white press. If Negroes sometimes appear as the ones who start 
the trouble, this must be seen against the background of their increasing 
impatience with all humiliations. The constant feeling of not being really 
wanted must make them sullen and resentful. 

There is probably no country where most military leaders have dis- 
tinguished themselves for any constructive views on delicate social problems 
— not even when their own services are affected. American white officers 
cannot be expected to be much better than others; the over-representation 
of Southerners among officers with peacetime training tends to make those 
in the higher ranks particularly conservative, on the average, in respect 
to race relations. Also, they have a huge job on their hands. However 
wrong they may be in believing a change in race relations to be a matter 
of secondary or no importance, it is understandable why they believe it. 
Yet, this attitude is certainly unfortunate. To advertise bad American race 
relations by maintaining them in armed forces sent overseas is, under pres- 
ent circumstances, highly detrimental to American interests." Had the 
improvements come, not mainly as a result of outside pressure from 

"The following story from the First World War is rather illuminating: 

"At Camp Upton, New York, General F. Franklin Bell met a similar situation without 
hesitation: 

" 'Now, gentlemen,' said he, 'I am not what you would call "a Negro lover," I have seen 
service in Texas, and elsewhere in the South. Your men have started the trouble. I don't 
want any explanations. These colored men did not start it. It doesn't matter how your men 
feel about these colored men. They are United States soldiers. They must and shall be 
treated as such. If you can't take care of your men, I can take care of you ... if there is 
any more trouble from your men, you will be tried, not by a Texas jury but by General 
Bell . . .' 

"General Bell was talking to white officers of a Southern regiment that came to Camp 
Upton . . ." (Emmett J. Scott, The American Negro in the World War [1919], p. 95). 

* This assistant was William H. Hastie, who was formerly a federal judge in the Virgin 
Islands. In January, 1943, Mr. Hastie resigned in protest against certain War Department 
practices. His assistant, Mr. Truman Gibson, remained a* an advisor to the War Department. 

* Sec Chapter 45. 



Chapter 19. The War Boom— and Thereafter 423 

Negroes and others, but because of the action of military leaders who 
grasped the deeper implications of this War, they would have been 
much greater and much more significant, not only for the Negro, but for 
the nation as a whole. 

5. . . . and Afterwards? 

What will be the Negro's economic lot in post-war America? There is no 
definite answer to the question, of course, since it will depend on happen- 
ings yet to occur and policies yet to be decided upon. But we can list 
some of the main factors entering into the problem. When sketching such 
an analysis of future possibilities and probabilities, it must be kept in mind 
that now, even less than ordinarily, we have little right to predict from a 
mere extrapolation of trends. There are no trends independent of fluctua- 
tions; the fluctuations create the trend, and the trend is nothing but the 
cumulative effect of fluctuations." 

Thus, the more the Negroes gain during the present war boom, the 
more will they have advanced themselves permanently ; and even if, during 
a later development, they will have to give up some ground, they are not 
likely to be driven back as far as they would have been had their previous 
gains been smaller. Conversely, the more they lose during the next unem- 
ployment crisis, the smaller chance will they have of reaching anything near 
full employment during a subsequent period of labor shortage. Quite 
especially in regard to the Negro's economic status, we have to emphasize 
the significance of what happens during the short-term development. The 
Negro's position in the American economic system depends in a large 
measure on traditions which have actually become settled because of 
rather accidental happenings. Whether he does or does not work in a par- 
ticular occupation depends upon whether a small group among many 
employers who experienced a labor shortage happened to get the idea of 
trying him out; or whether his white fellow workers, during a period 

* It is usual, in the analysis of economic changes, to distinguish between cyclical fluctua- 
tions and long-time trends. For example, if industrial production increases by 3 per cent 
per annum, on the average, over a certain long period, but for one particular year the 
increase is 6 per cent, the difference between these two figures (or some other statistical 
expression, based on a similar principle) is supposed to measure the cyclical variation for 
this particular year; the average rate (which can be computed in different ways) is believed 
to "indicate the long-run trend." Such calculations may be useful for several practical 
purposes, but they arc always arbitrary. There is no "pure" trend and no "pure" cyclical 
change. Both types of change are closely interwoven. The trend depends largely on the 
character of the business cycles, and vice versa. This fact is often overlooked. The writer, 
for instance, has heard social scientists express the idea that the employment losses that Negroes 
have experienced during the 'thirties would not matter "in the long run," since they only 
constituted "temporary" and "cyclical" fluctuations. In reality, however, there is no guarantee 
that any of the temporary changes are reversible; if Negroes are driven out of a certain 
occupation, they may never get in there again. 



424 An American Dilemma 

when job opportunities were scarce, happened to be successful in driving him 
jut. In all probability, there would have been rather few Negroes in the 
automobile industry if it had not been for Henry Ford. It is even possible 
that the Negro would not have a foothold at all in Northern manufacturing 
industries at the present time had it not been for the labor shortage during 
the First World War. 

Assuming for the purpose of our discussion that the War ends with a real 
peace — not a state of armed truce — and that this peace seems likely to last 
for a while, this will mean a reduction in the production of arms and ships. 
There are certain factors in this situation which, to some extent, may tend 
to minimize the employment losses for the Negro. The very fact that he 
has not gotten so much of a place in armament production, but rather has 
made his most significant gains in certain consumption and service industries, 
may possibly help him then and make the immediate employment losses 
smaller for him than for the white workers. Also, the over-population in 
agriculture may for a time make itself less severely felt, since so much 
labor has been drawn to urban industries during the present emergency. 
It is probable, as well, that many of the demobilized soldiers from agricul- 
tural areas will never return to the farms. 

These temporary advantages, however, will be counteracted by other 
forces. The one armament industry which has the best chances of being 
maintained, in some measure, after the War is airplane production, where 
the Negro, so far, has not been allowed to get more than a toehold. The 
shipyards, which have treated the Negro much better, are more likely to 
decline. 4 " The War has brought about many revolutionary changes in 
production techniques. These new experiences will probably help to bring 
about a new mechanization trend as soon as production managers get the 
time to think of reorganization of production other than that necessitated 
by the exigencies of the War. Now they are doing everything possible to 
produce quickly. After the War they will again emphasize economy of pro- 
duction. A speed-up of the mechanization trend will involve new threats 
to the unskilled worker. Again, the Negro will be one of the principal 
sufferers. 

Of paramount importance will be the general level of employment. The 
Negroes' hope of becoming integrated into American industry is much 
greater if the American economy is geared to a full utilization of its 
productive forces. Should there be widespread unemployment for a pro- 
tracted period, it will tend to be concentrated on the Negro. Widespread 
idleness will tend to increase the interest of the white workers in keeping 
the Negro out. Long-time unemployment always makes for all kinds of 
socio-psychological tensions. The Negro, as usual, will be a convenient 
object for those who have been kept brooding long enough to feel the 
need for -some spectacular action. White workers in service industries who 



Chapter 19. The War Boom — and Thereafter 425 

have been employed in armament factories during the War will most 
certainly resent finding Negroes in then old jobs. In the long run, it is 
rather unfortunate that the present efforts to integrate the Negro into 
war production have been based, in part, on the motivation that these are 
unusual times when all kinds of haidships have to be accepted. It is quite 
probable that this particular kind of motivation will backfire. The same may 
be true, to an extent, about the argument that Negroes* should be given 
some attention since this country cannot afford to feed the Gei man and the 
Japanese propaganda machines. 

It is not even certain that the leaders of the C.I.O. unions who are 
friendly to the Negroes will be able to maintain discipline respecting non- 
discrimination among thtir rank and file membership. During the War the 
union leaders have alienated themselves from the mass of the members, 
to a certain extent, by siding with the Administiation's anti stake policy. 
Although their present difficulties ma) be due, in part, to the large num- 
bcr of new members, many of whom will perhaps diop out aftet the 
War, it is quite possible that they mav have to face the alternative of cither 
following the rank and filers' anti Negro attitude or being exchanged for 
new leaders. 

For the period immediately following the War, however, the risk of 
w idespi ead unemplo) ment may not be great. Those first years will probably 
be characterized by a laige demand for durable consumers' goods, like 
automobiles, 1 ef 1 lgei ators, stoves and possibly airplanes. The reconstruc- 
tion work oveiseas may constitute another significant source of demand for 
American pi oducts. Sometime, however, a really large post-war unemploy- 
ment will threaten the entire economic system. It will be largely countei- 
acted, however, by government policies. It is true that unemployment 
policies during the last depression were not entirely successful, but that 
was largely because they started too late, and because they constituted the 
first large scale attempt of this type in the United States. This time there 
will be much more rational and experienced planning behind these efforts. 
The post-war planning work carried on by governmental and other agencies 
at the present time is extensive. 17 In part it may be somewhat unco- 
ordinated, but certainly many useful things are being done." 

* It seems, however, that there is reason to warn against over-optimism regarding the 
success of the policies during the next depression One often hears the argument that post- 
war unemployment will not be dangerous at all "s>ince it will be prevented by planning" — 
just as if this were a perfectly simple thing, or even that the woid "planning" would have 
a magical effect Yet planning, of course, is never of much use just because it is. planning, 
it is of use only in so far as it is well adapted to the specific problems 

It is quite probable, for instance, that the next depression, to an even greatti extent than 
the last one, will be characterized by structural changes requiring' something more than just 
depression fighting, pump priming, temporary public works There is always the danger that 
our planning will fit the last depression more perfectly than the one ahead Moreover, it it 



426 An American Dilemma 

The Negro will have to be considered in this post-war planning work. 
As always, he will be unemployed much more often than the white worker. 
As time goes on, it will become more and more apparent that either the 
Negro will have to be cared for as a more or less permanent relief client or 
positive measures must be taken for his integration into the regular 
economy. The tradition of governmental noninterference on the labor 
market has been broken during the New Deal, and still more during the 
War. Trade unions, in so far as they have not themselves abolished 
monopolistic practices, will increasingly be forced to do so. Employment 
policies will become less individualistic — more based upon concern about 
utilization of the total national labor force. 

There will be factors, in addition to governmental pressure, which will 
tend to strengthen the forces friendly to Negroes in the labor movement, 
at least in the long run. Whenever the unions attempt to leave the Negro 
out, there may, again, be some risk that employers will tend to use the 
Negro worker against them. Probably even more important is the fact that 
some of the most potent anti-Negro forces in the American community 
are, at the same time, anti-labor. Labor will have to side with the Negro 
for political reasons. Since labor relations, more and more, are becoming 
public relations and thus will depend on political action, this will tend to 
protect the Negro's employment opportunities. 

Much more generally, the Negroes' economic fate after the War will 
depend upon the general development of attitudes toward race in America. 
There looms a "Negro aspect" over all post-war problems. There may be 
radical changes ahead — both in the Negro's actual status and in ideologies 
affecting him. America has lost the protection of the oceans, and there 
will be many more international implications to national policies. It may 
well be that the transition, foreboded by the Great Depression and con- 
tinued by the Second World War and the Peace to come, will change the 
conditions of life in America to suGh an extent that the period after the 
War will stand out as apart from the pre-war time, as does the long period 
after the Revolutionary War from the colonial era. To this broader per- 
spective we shall return in the last chapter of this book. 

always somewhat uncertain whether those in political power at the time will select the 
best plans or whether they will know how to coordinate various plans. It must be considered, 
finally, that not even the best blueprints are of much use unless there are administrative 
agencies which are competent to handle them. At present there is a certain tendency to 
wreck many of the agencies which will be needed for post-war problems. The Civilian Con- 
servation Corps and the Work Projects Administration have already been abolished. The 
Farm Security Administration has experienced violent attacks, but, so far, it has been saved. 
If this trend should go further than is warranted by the present decline in relief needs, so 
that many of the rehabilitation and welfare agencies will not even be allowed to maintain 
skeleton staffs, it would mean that a great amount of practical experience would be thrown 
away. 



Part V 
POLITICS 



CHAPTER 20 

UNDERLYING FACTORS" 



i. The Negro in American Politics and as a Political Issue 

Politics and political equality are intrinsically a part of our entire discus- 
sion of the many-faceted Negro problem. This chapter, however, is con- 
fined to politics in the narrower sense — that is, it will deal with the fran- 
chise, political parties and political rewards. We concentrate on the South, 
not only because this region contains the great majority of the Negro people, 
but because the South is the only region where Negro suffrage is a problem. 

The value premise in this chapter will be the doctrine of -political 
equality among all citizens of the United States. Political discrimination, 
and, more specifically, disfranchisement, is defined in relation to this value 
premise as the withholding of the vote from citizens merely because they 
are Negroes. This value premise, as a principle, is prominent in the Ameri- 
can Creed and has been given constitutional sanction. 

In early colonial times free Negroes apparently often enjoyed the same 
civic rights and duties as poor white people relieved from indenture 
servitude. 1 Chief Justice Taney's dictum in the Dred Scott decision of 1857, 
to the effect that the Negro had nowhere been accorded the status of 
citizenship in this country, was an overstatement as applied to the con- 
temporary situation and even more so as an historical generalization. With 
regard to voting in particular, it is well established that there has never, 
in modern American history, been a period when Negro voters have 
been totally absent from the polls. At the time of the making of the Con- 
stitution, free Negroes had the right of suffrage in all the original states, 
except South Carolina and Georgia. 3 The greater part of the Negro people 
was, however, then held in slavery. As a political power the free Negroes 
were, of course, inconsequential, both in the South and in the North. In 
the following period up to the Civil War, free Negroes grew in num- 
bers, but all Southern b and all the new Western states and territories dis- 

* If we were to adhere strictly to our general plan of presenting the aspects of the 
Negro problem according to the rank order of interests, hypothesized in Chapter 3, this part 
on politics should succeed rather than precede the part on justice. We follow the order we 
do in order to present certain basic facts in a more convenient context. 

* A partial exception was that free Negroes could vote in North Carolina before 18 15. 
(Harold F. Gosnell, Negro Politicians [1935]. P- 3» footnote.) 

4*9 



• 43° An American Dilemma 

franchisee! them, as did also some of the older Northern states. At the out- 
break of the War, Negroes had votes in only five of the New England 
States — Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Ver- 
mont. In addition, New York allowed Negroes suffrage under certain 
property limitations which did not apply to whites. 8 

As a result of the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments, Negro 
men were enfranchised in the whole Union. In the North this change 
became permanent. In the South, where most Negroes lived and still live, 
it was rapidly undone. After Reconstruction, a condition gradually fixed 
itself upon the nation which has remained fairly unchanged in the twen- 
tieth century: that the Negroes in the North enjoy, uninfringed, the right 
to vote as other American citizens, while, with quantitatively unimportant 
exceptions, the Negroes in the South are kept disfranchised against the 
intention and spirit of the amended Constitution. Suffrage for Negroes is 
one of the patterns in which the two historic regions of America are most 
dissimilar, and in this respect, the greatest factor of change during the last 
generation has actually been the migration of one and three-quarter million 
Negroes from the South to the North. As we shall find in the course of our 
analysis, the situation is highly unstable, and great changes are impending. 

While the Negro people have been kept out of politics in the sense that 
they have been kept from voting, in another sense, namely, as a political 
issue, they have been an important factor in the very region where they have 
been disfranchised, the South. A recent well-qualified student of the 
Southern political scene has gone so far as to say that "The elementary 
determinant in Southern politics is an intense Negro phobia which has 
scarcely abated since Reconstruction." 4 The issue of "white supremacy vs. 
Negro domination," as it is called in the South, has for more than a hun- 
dred years stifled freedom of thought and speech and affected all other 
civic rights and liberties of both Negroes and whites in the South. It has 
retarded its economic, social and cultural advance. On this point there is 
virtual agreement among all competent observers. 1 * 

In the North, on the contrary, the Negro has nowhere and never been 
a political issue of primary and lasting importance * — except in so far as he 

* There are secondary reasons for this, other than the main one that the North had never 
been obsessed with the Negro and the desire to keep him in a low place that characterizes 
the slavery tradition of the South. Before the great mass migration, the Northern Negro 
population was numerically small; even after the migration it still remained small in pro- 
portion to the total electorates in the cities where they live ; Negro voters have usually been 
tractable and easily managed by the political machines; their voting strength has often been 
held down by gerrymandering and by the failure to redistrict. Negroes could never by 
any stretch of the imagination be looked upon as a political danger. They have been a 
poor, segregated group showing many signs of social pathology, but — except for the classical 
issues of tariff, money and banking, corporate finance, agriculture, and prohibition — socio- 
economic problems have, until the New Deal, not played a great role in American politic*. 



Chapter 20. Underlying Factors 431 

has constituted an issue in national politics. The issue has, then, always 
been the Negro's status in the South or, earlier, the South's struggle to 
widen the area over which its concept of the Negro would prevail. 

Once, and once only, did the Negro problem become the focus of 
national attention: in the prolonged conflict with the South over slavery in 
the Civil War and during Reconstruction. After the national compromise 
of the 1870's American historians have, by and large, adjusted to the 
changed political situation and have satisfied the national demand for 
historical rationalization and justification of the treatment of the Negro. 
They have stressed that the North did not fight the Civil War to free the 
Negro slaves. This is apparently correct as far as the immediate political 
origin of the conflict is concerned.. The Emancipation Proclamation was 
later issued, but only after one hundred days' warning to the rebellious 
states to lay down their arms, and in it Lincoln declared that the measure 
was adopted "upon military necessity." But the deeper reality is, never- 
theless, that there would have been no Civil War had there been no 
Negroes in the South, and had not Negro slavery stamped its entire social 
fabric. The economic, ideological, and political rivalries between the two 
regions all mainly derived from, or were greatly determined by, the 
fact of slavery, as were also the peculiar agricultural structure and the 
social stratification of the ante-bellum South. 

As the War went on, this deeper cause, the Negro problem, simply had 
to be brought to the surface in order to uphold Northern morale — in much 
the same fashion as the notion of democracy and human liberty has had 
similar functions in the present World War and in the earlier one. The 
cause of liberating the Negroes and awarding them the status of manhood 
and citizenship became, during the trials and tribulations of the long and 
extremely perturbing War, a much-needed strengthening moral justifica- 
tion to the North. It was almost as important as the aim of preserving the 
Union. 

For a decade after the War, the aim of protecting Negro freedom 
retained its importance in Northern ideology. It gained strength by its 
capacity to furnish a rationalization for Republican party interests. After 
the national compromise of the 1 870's, the Negro problem dropped out as a 
national issue. The great majorityof Southerners have an interest in keeping 
it out as long as possible. On the surface, there seem to be no signs that the 
dominant North will break the compromise and start again trying to reform 
the South. But it is well to defer judgment on this crucial point until we 

The presence of European immigrant groups, displaying similar problems, has, in any case, 
hindered a focusing of such interests upon the Negroes. Negroes have only been one of 
several problem groups. In regard to the Negroes, the Northerners could always console 
their social conscience by reminding themselves that Negroes fared still worse in the South. 
(See Chapter 1, Section 8.) 



43* An American Dilemma 

have considered a number of dynamic factors which are bound to influence 

the future development both in the South and in the nation at large. 

2. The Wave of Democracy and the Need for Bureaucracy 

In order to understand why the vote, or the lack of it, has such a para- 
mount importance for the daily welfare of the Negro people in America, 
we have to view the problem in broad perspective. The vote would be of 
less importance to a group of citizens in this country if America had what 
it does not have, namely, the tradition of an independent and layj-abiding 
administration of local and national public affairs. By this we mean a body 
of public officials who are independent in two directions: personally, as 
they are holding office under permanent tenure, being appointed and pro- 
moted strictly according to merit, and, consequently, vested with economic 
security and high social prestige? and officially, as they are trusted with 
authority to put the laws into effect without political interference in indi- 
vidual cases. In such an order the political branches of government, legis- 
lative as well as executive, would, in the main, be restricted to two func- 
tions: (i) to supervise and control the administration as to its efficiency and 
adherence to the laws and (2) to change the laws and other general instruc- 
tions when they wished to redirect the course of administration. Such a 
governmental system is foreign to American traditions. Americans are 
conditioned by their history to look upon administration as itself a branch 
of political government: as within "politics." Not only their constitutions- 
federal and state — but their political philosophies, and what the citizen in 
various states of sophistication takes for granted, are dominated by this 
idea. 

The struggle of the American colonies against the English Crown and 
its often corrupt bureaucracy first set this pattern. The rights upheld in 
this struggle were those of the people and their elected representatives, the 
colonial legislatures, against the administration. Incidentally, the tradition 
of sending lawyer-advocates as representatives to the legislatures instead 
of average persons from the midst of the electorate — farmers, workers, 
preachers, teachers, and businessmen — began in this same period when the 
legislatures were not sovereign but merely the pleaders against the English 
Crown, the London Parliament, and the colonial bureaucracy. The lawyer- 
politicians got such a strong foothold in public affairs in America that they 
have kept it into the present time. 

Out of this struggle emerged not only the fierce American insistence upon 
the rights and liberties of the individual citizen, but also the American 
dislike and distrust of state authority. Both were carried forward into 
the new independent Republic, the latter tendency strengthened by the 
very disruption of authority during the interregnum of the Revolution, 
during which the old administration and a great portion of the ruling 



Chapter 40. Underlying Factors 433 

classes (Tories) in America were liquidated. 9 There was thus no inherited 
bureaucracy to start out with. The results were very different from those in 
comparable countries — particularly the Scandinavian countries and Great 
Britain — where the bureaucracy was already in existence when the legis- 
latures developed. In those countries, democracy arose as the legislatures 
fought to widen their electoral basis and to make the bureaucracy into an 
effective means of carrying out the popular will. In the United States, on 
the other hand, bureaucracy developed in a haphazard manner. Protected 
by the Atlantic Ocean, America was also less exposed to international 
dangers. Efficient administration of the country was, therefore, not so much 
of an immediate necessity. The history of American wars for more than 
a century after the Revolutionary War brings out this point beautifully. 
The protecting oceans were as important as the frontiers for American 
domestic development and, particularly, its system of government, a fact 
not adequately developed by historians. 11 

The attempts of the Hamiltonians to create a stable and independent 
administration in America were, as is understandable in this historical 
setting, unfortunately associated with the anti-democratic movement. This, 
in turn, served to strengthen the anti-bureaucratic tendencies of those men 
who felt themselves fighting for the liberal ideas of the American Revolu- 
tion. Thomas Jefferson's election to the Presidency in 1800 was a victory for 
the latter forces. Even if he was careful to fill the vacancies as they occurred 
with trusted partisans, he did not, however, start out with a wholesale 
removal of federal officeholders appointed by the earlier regime. For the 
next few decades there were, perhaps, rather favorable conditions for the 
growth of an independent federal administration. But when Andrew Jack- 
son inaugurated the "spoils system," he broke down this hope completely. 
At the same time he furnished a pattern for the state and local governments, 
where they were not already ahead of the national government. Underlying 
this familiar American pattern were, among others, the idea that there 
should be "rotation in office" and the idea that public service did not require 
much special training. 

Thereafter, through American history until recent decades, there has 
been a dominant force constantly pressing to increase the direct control of 
the electorate over public affairs. The movement has been self-generating, 
since in the great American tradition the cure for the inefficiency and cor- 

' The frontier was actually first given its true significance in American history by Frederick 
Jackson Turner in his epochal essay, The Significance of the Frontier in American History 
(1893), at a time when the frontier was already disappearing from the national scene. The 
ocean, on the other hand, has not yet been made the theme of a comprehensive American 
history. A technical development of communications and warfare, becoming apparent in 
the present War, has substantially decreased the protection of the oceans. It would not be 
surprising if there would soon appear, as a consequence, a review of American history in 
this new light just as revolutionizing as the one stressing the frontier as a main viewpoint. 



434 An American Dilemma 

ruption of the politically closely-controlled administrations has been seen 
to be "more democracy and not less." In this movement the indirect elec- 
tion of legislative bodies was changed to direct election, appointive public 
officers were changed to elected ones, and the terms for officials and legis- 
latures were shortened. In some states measures have been instituted 
enabling the voters, by the use of the petition and special election (the 
recall), to oust public officials at any time during their term. In some 
states this applies even to justices, sheriffs and other peace officers. The 
popular initiative and the referendum, found in many states of the Union, 
are part of the same pattern. 

This movement has always been supported by those in America who 
defended the rights of the common people and who considered themselves 
the upholders of the Jeffersonian ideal of democracy. Perhaps in no other 
respect did the American variant of early nineteenth century political 
liberalism become so different from the same movement in those European 
countries mentioned as most comparable. In those countries, liberalism also 
demanded the ultimate power for the people themselves, and it also wanted 
to restrict narrowly the sphere of government activity. But, within its proper 
realm, liberalism in Europe advocated a government in which Jaws are 
enforced, while American liberalism since Jefferson and until recent 
decades has been tinged with philosophical anarchism. By the middle of the 
nineteenth century, liberals in those other countries largely succeeded in 
freeing politics from corruption and in perfecting administration as an 
effective instrument in the hand of governments which were becoming 
democratized. American liberalism was more suspicious of state authority 
and suspicious even toward the security and prestige of officeholders. It 
was more interested in checking bureaucracy than in reforming and utilizing 
it. 

The politically dependent American administrations have, particularly 
in the states and in the local communities, continuously turned out to be 
rather inefficient organs for carrying on public affairs and have often been 
corrupt. This situation has long been recognized in America. The fact that 
the British rule in colonial times was also inefficient and corrupt has con- 
tributed toward the common American belief that politics and administra- 
tion are always this way and that they must always be so. Gradually 
"politics" and "politicians" became derogatory words in America. Bureau- 
cracy, even at best, became synonymous with "red tape." The relatively low 
social prestige of public servants, which is a natural concomitant of their 
lack of independence and their insecurity of tenure} their subservience to 
the political game; and the various practices they have to resort to as office- 
seekers, became accentuated. Public administration thus failed to attract its 
fair share of the intelligence and ambition of the youth in the nation. 

The fact that land speculators, big business, and, generally, the wealthy 



Chapter 20. Underlying Factors 435 

classes were in a position to utilize the corrupted administration for their 
interests reinforced the idea, already strong in American liberalism, that 
only a closer direct control by the electorate would secure a more honest 
and efficient administration of public affairs. Since this closer control in 
most cases did not increase, but rather decreased, the independence, security, 
and prestige of officeholders, the results were, on the whole, negative. 
When explaining the relatively low professional standards in American 
administration, there are many other factors to take into account. But an 
important place should be given to the vicious circle set in motion by the 
historically rooted American mistrust of bureaucracy and the trust in direct 
electoral control.' 

While they are mistrusted and have low standards, public officials have, 
nevertheless, been invested with much more power for the time they are 
in office than in comparable countries. Being elected and thus carrying the 
mandate of the people themselves, they are less dependent on laws and 
fixed administrative rules. For the same reason, they can even stand more 
strongly against the representative bodies. They have more discretionary 
power than the public officials in a more strictly legal system. By long 
tradition and by their uncertainty of tenure (since their continuation in 
office depends on the outcome of the next election) they are, on the other 
hand, conditioned always to try to please their constituents. The individual 
voters, on their side, are conditioned in America to look to the directly and 
indirectly elected officials, not only for an honest and firm execution of 
their duties according to the laws, the established administration pro- 
cedures, and the officials' best conscience, but, what is dangerous, for special 
favors. 

The relative lack of an independent civil service and of a firm legal 
pattern in public administration thus means a mutually greater dependence 
of public officials on the voters and of the voters upon the officials. In this 
system it has become customary to distribute jobs, protection, and public 
service in some relation to the voting strength of the various regional, 
national and religious groups in the community. A disfranchised group 
like the Southern Negro people will, therefore, be disadvantaged. The 
effect will be accentuated if, in addition to disfranchisement, the group is 
segregated. The unpaved streets in the Negro sections of Southern cities, 
the lack of facilities for sewage disposal, the lack of street lighting, the 
dilapidated school houses, the scarcity of hospital facilities, and, indeed, all 
other discrimination in education, health, housing, breadwinning, and 
justice, give evidence of this important relation in America between the 
vote and a share in the public services. Since Negroes do not participate in 

'The general problem discussed in this section will be taken up for analysis, from the 
viewpoints of centralization and decentralization, leadership, and popular participation and 
responsibility, in Chapter 33. 



436 As American Dilemma 

the election of the representative bodies either, these bodies cannot be 
expected to give them redress against the officials. No representative will 
see any immediate reason to please a disfranchised group, and Jaws and 
regulations will be drawn up without their interests being represented. If 
the system becomes corrupted, the odds are placed even more definitely 
against a poor group without political voice. 

Not until very late did forces appear on the American scene trying to 
reverse the trend. They capitalized on the general mistrust against 
"politics" in America and on the value attached to keeping things "out 
of politics," which, paradoxically enough, have been as prevalent as the 
tendency referred to of increasing the direct electoral controls. The civil 
service reformers obtained their first success when Congress in 1883 enacted 
a federal civil service law." States and municipalities have been following 
the federal government, but the reform is far from consummated. Never- 
theless, a professional and fairly independent administration is taking shape 
in America, and the explanation is primarily the increase in volume and 
scope of public activity, as public control and social reform proceed. The 
intricacies and complexities of administration have been increasing, steadily 
raising the demands on the executors of the public will for professional 
training and impartiality. The continuation of the old practices is simply 
impossible, since they threaten a complete breakdown in the management 
of public affairs. 

There have been two other trends which, while apparently opposing 
each other, actually do not because they both make the administration 
more independent and less arbitrary. On the one hand, there has been 
a tendency to write the laws in such a way that the mutual obligations of 
government and citizen are more specifically defined. For example, the 
trend of social security legislation has been from the vague promise of 
government to do something for "paupers" to the legal provision for 
definite compensation to every specified person when he becomes a certain 
age or subject to certain disabilities, such as unemployment. It is not left 
to biased officials to decide what shall be done. On the other hand, as 
public interest increasingly comes to embrace new fields of social life — for 
instance, the labor market — the type of detailed laws of the past are 
giving way to more abstract laws which give the administration greater lee- 
way in making rules to meet new situations but which also force it to lay 
down such rules rather than to let individual officials use their arbitrary 
judgments. b Both these trends are helping to build up an independent, 

'This success was partly an accident: support for a civil service system did not become 
widespread until President Garfield was assassinated by a disappointed office-seeker in 1881. 

k Some have argued that this has also made it more possible for discrimination to enter. 
The fact is, however, that it is under the old type of law — detailed and complicated — that 
discrimination can best flourish. Under the older type of law, there could be few administra- 



Chapter o,o. Underlying Factors 4.1-1 

strong and impartial administration. A fourth trend, having the same 
effect, is centralization. Public control is gradually moving from munici- 
palities and counties to the states and from the states to the federal govern- 
ment. It is hardly necessary to point out that the New Deal during the 
'thirties has speeded up all these trends. 

America is thus, finally, well on the way to building up an independent 
administration. Its rising importance is reflected in higher social prestige 
of public officials as their tenure and economic security are becoming pro- 
tected. Public service is beginning to become a professional career which 
can attract intelligent, well-trained and ambitious youths. A visitor to 
America who compares attitudes of the late 'twenties with those of the 
early 'forties notices a great change within this short space of time. It is 
possible to envisage a very different system of government within a couple 
of decades: the common people in America are coming to realize that a 
capable and uncorrupted bureaucracy, independent in its work except for 
the laws and regulations passed by the legislatures and the continuous 
control by legislators and executives, is as important for the efficient work- 
ing of a modern democracy as is the voter's final word on the general 
direction of this administration. 

Although this is the trend in government, America is still far from the 
goal. This is particularly true in local administration. It is more true in 
rural than in urban regions, and more true in the South than in the North. 
Tremendous changes are under way, but they have not yet meant much 
for the masses of Negroes, since most of them live in regions where the 
protection of an independent administration and of objectified administra- 
tive rules are much less developed than in the country at large. And as we 
shall find, Negroes are disfranchised more completely in the very localities 
inhere the vote is important because administration is lax. 

3. The North and the South 

In the North Negroes have the vote like other people, and there is 
nowhere a significant attempt to deprive them of the franchise." To the 
foreign observer the fact that practically nobody in the North thinks of 

tive rules since they would illegally modify the law. As a result, the individual official had 
to use his own personal judgment when the law did not apply to new or odd types of 
cases. This obviously allows for discrimination. When administrative rules can adjust 
abstract laws to new situations, there is much less opportunity for individual officials to 
insert their own biases, and so there is much less discrimination in the individual case. It 
is not the rules emanating from Washington that are discriminatory in the meaning important 
to the individual citizen, but rather the arbitrary practices of individual officials who apply 
the laws to concrete cases. 

* The only major exceptions — and even these are not restricted to Negroes — are the cases 
of gerrymandering and the failure to redistrict in some Northern cities. (See Chapter 23, 
Section 4.) 



438 An American Dilemma 

taking away the Negroes' vote is, in itself, a most important, and even 
startling, element in the political situation which seems difficult to explain 
satisfactorily. Negroes are discriminated against in many other respects in 
the North. Most Northerners seem also to be convinced of the mental and 
moral inferiority of Negroes, even if their racial beliefs are not so certain, 
so extreme and so intense as the Southerners'. But the Negroes' right to 
political participation as voters is actually seldom questioned. 

This problem is, indeed, wider, as it can be raised also with respect to 
many of the immigrant minority groups. They may be despised by the 
older Americans and discriminated against in various ways. The "Amer- 
icans" may — often with considerable right — accuse them of being unas- 
similated and clannish, of not identifying themselves with the community 
and the nation, and of lacking both the interest in and knowledge of 
American society prerequisite for a judicious opinion on public matters. 
It is commonly held — also with much right — that these groups, and the 
Negroes, form an important part of the basis for the corrupt machine 
politics which is the disgrace of most big cities and many states. The 
average Northerner is usually outspoken on these points. But he will 
generally not draw the conclusion that hence the franchise should be 
restricted in any measure. The North is apparently sold and settled on the 
principle of unqualified franchise. 

The problem is not even much discussed. A Northern author may 
incidentally give vent to the remark that "the vote should be a privilege 
to be earned by evidence of ability and willingness to use it with discretion" 
and even point to the Southern legislation restricting suffrage as a model 
also for the North. 7 But such a remark will be made in passing and ap- 
parently without hope of public attention. Occasionally the present author 
has also heard Northerners in various walks of life, when discussing the cul- 
tural isolation of Negroes and "foreigners" in the cities, make the observa- 
tion that "rightly, they shouldn't have the vote." But nobody seems to 
expect this opinion to be taken as a serious practical proposal. 8 

It is the observation of the author that unrestricted suffrage has become 
so unquestioned in the North that the ordinary Northerner believes that 
it has always existed and that, in particular, the free Negroes in the North 
have always, or at least even prior to the Civil War, enjoyed the privilege 
of the franchise. The truth is, as we have already pointed out, that the 
Negroes were disfranchised in almost the whole North and West at the 
time of the Civil War. During and immediately after the War, attempts 
were made in some of these states to introduce amendments to the state 
constitutions for striking out the word "white" in order to enfranchise the 
Negroes. But, although the Republicans were in absolute control every- 
where, these proposals were defeated in one state after another. 9 The 
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution later 



Chapter 20. Underlying Factors 439 

compelled even these Northern states to change their franchise rules. The 
amendments were accepted and ratified in the Northern states as part of 
the Reconstruction program and in order to fortify the Republican party 
in the South. If the North had not been so bent upon reforming the South, 
it is doubtful whether and when some of the Northern states would have 
reformed themselves. 10 

Thus the Negroes' right to vote in the North is not supported by an 
uninterrupted historical tradition. But when once the great step was taken, 
it seems almost immediately to have been solidified into the traditionally 
rooted order of things. The present-day unreserved allegiance to the 
principle of political nondiscrimination in the North, which has so success- 
fully withstood the increased racial tension due to the huge influx of 
Southern Negroes in recent decades, is fundamentally, we believe, a direct 
outflow of the American Creed as it has gradually strengthened its hold 
upon the American mind. This national ethos undoubtedly has a greater 
force in the North than in the South, as may be observed in other spheres 
of social life as well. But in most of these other respects, even the North- 
erner has a split personality. His attitudes toward suffrage and equality 
in justice 8 seem, in fact, to be the main exceptions where he acts absolutely 
according to the national Creed. 

In explaining these exceptions, we have first to take into account the 
fact that voting is a rather abstract human relationship between a citizen 
and the officials representing society. The Northerner tends to adhere to 
the American Creed in abstract, impersonal things and slips away from it 
when it involves personal relations. A substantial part of all discrimination 
is closely connected with snobbishness and petty considerations of status 
in daily human contacts. When the Northerner gets formal, when he acts 
in an assembly or reacts as a citizen on grounds of principles, and, particu- 
larly, when the question concerns the relations between the state and the 
individual, he will be more likely to follow the American Creed closely. 

Another relevant fact in the explanation is that the Negroes in the 
North — as well as unpopular immigrant groups — are clustered mostly in 
the big cities where life is anonymous and where people are conditioned 
not to be concerned much about one another. These cities have often been 
dominated by political machines. The machines find the Negroes and the 
immigrant groups tractable. The politicians themselves have, therefore, no 
reason to try to eliminate Negro franchise; their difficulty is, rather, the 
intelligent and independent individual voter. From a conservative point 
of view, machine politics has favorable effects, at least in so far as it keeps 
those lower status groups in line and protects them from radicalism. The 
exploitation of these voters by the machines will, therefore, not be strongly 
criticized by conservatives. Liberals, for reasons of principle, are not 

• See Part VI. 



44<> An American Dilemma 

inclined to favor any restrictions on suffrage. So there is apparently nobody 
in the North engaged in the political game who has any particular reasons 
to object to the Negroes' enjoying their franchise in peace. 

Whether or not these explanations are adequate, it seems to be a fact 
that Negroes can feel sure that, unless this country undergoes a veritable 
revolution, their right to vote will remain unquestioned in the North, 
independent of any increase due to continued migration from the South. 
Without any doubt, this is one of the strategic 'protections of the Negro 
people in American society. The Negro vote in the North is already of 
some importance. It could become of much greater importance were it 
more wisely used. As the educational level of the Negro people is being 
raised and as the northward migration is continuing, it might become 
powerful enough within the next couple of decades to demand some real 
reward not only in local Northern politics but also in national politics. 
The Northern vote might become the instrument by which the Negroes 
can increasingly use the machinery of federal legislation and administration 
to tear down the walls of discrimination. 

The white people's attitude in regard to Negro suffrage in the South, 
and, specifically, in the eleven states which seceded from the Union and 
formed the Confederacy, is a much more complicated matter. Even a 
summary interpretation requires sketching the main elements of the 
historical heritage of the region. Negro disfranchisement is evidently part 
and parcel of a much more general tendency toward political conservatism 
which stamps the entire life of the region. The Negro is, as we shall find, 
a main cause of this general conservatism. Southern conservatism is a 
unique phenomenon in Western civilization in being married to an estab- 
lished pattern of illegality.' 1 In the South, it is the weak liberal reformers 
who have had, and have now, to stand up for the majesty of the law. 
Correspondingly, a person may be ranked as liberal in this region merely 
by insisting that the law shall be adhered to in practice. 

This is a most extraordinary situation. Everywhere else in the world 
it is the strategy and — from one point of view — the "function" of conserv- 
atism in the democratic state to stand for "law and order," while the 
liberals and, still more, the radicals want to change this order. When the 
latter succeed in bringing about changes, it is the conservatives' "function" 
to see to it that due procedure and all legal formalities are observed. 
Thereby they usually succeed in slowing down the tempo of the induced 
changes. To function as the guardians of the law, and all it stands for in 
the way of individual security in an established order, becomes thus a 
natural strategy for the conservatives who want to check change and 
preserve the status quo. 

In the South we have, however, the unmatched political spectacle that 

* This pattern of illegality will be studied in some detail in Part. VI. 



Chapter 20. Underlying Factors 441 

the liberals are the party of law and order, while the conservatives are the 
habitual transgressors. The party which works for change has the established 
law on its side, or rather, wants to enforce it, but has not the -political 
power; the party which stands for the status quo has the power but not the 
law. 

To try to understand how this extraordinary situation has come about 
must be our next task. As a background we shall have to remember the 
weak development of political legality generally in America, so visible in 
its relative lack of an independent administration. Even in the North the 
conservative forces have occasionally faltered in performing their "func- 
tion" in democracy, to stand for the law. But the difference between the 
two regions is immense. In the South a veritable reversal of the usual order 
of democracy has established itself. 

4. The Southern Defense Ideology 

Part of the explanation is that Southern conservatism is "reactionary" 
in the literal sense of the word. It has preserved an ideological allegiance 
not only to status quo, but to status quo ante. The region is still carrying 
the heritage of slavery. 

In the last part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth 
century, the moral righteousness and the socio-economic advantages of 
slavery came to be doubted very much in the Old Upper South, 11 and 
even in the Deep South dissenting opinions were heard. But from about 
the 1830's — under the double influence of the rising profitableness of the 
slavery and plantation economy and the onslaught from the Northern 
Abolitionist movement — the apologetic ideology became stabilized and 
elaborated into a complicated theory of state which every Southerner had 
to stand for as a matter of regional pride and patriotism. 12 

This ingenious theory was based on the dogma of Negro racial inferior- 
ity* and also on unique interpretations of the Bible and on general principles 
for a rational social order. In fact, it is seldom duly recognized that the 
pro-slavery thought in the South in the decades before the Civil War was 
the most uncompromising conservative political philosophy which ever 
developed in Western civilization after the Enlightenment. 13 From a 
logical point of view, it is the only brand of modern conservatism consistent 
and courageous enough openly to make human inequality basic to political 
philosophy, to accept the static state as ideal and to denounce progress. 
Conservative thinking elsewhere after the Enlightenment was seldom in 
a position to develop a closed system of principles like liberalism or the 
various schools of socialism, anarchism and syndicalism. Lack of rigid 
principles, acceptance of logical compromises, and the view that the growth 
of society is an arational, organic process was often even pronounced as a 

' See Chapter 4. 



44 2 An American Dilemma 

characteristic of conservative thinking. 1 * But the pro-slavery philosophy 
of the Old South, incorporating all ideas dear to conservatism in all 
countries and in all ages, went the full length and laid down a logical 
static system just as tight as the competing philosophies to the left. 

According to this political philosophy, slavery was not, as earlier 
Southern writers had been disposed to admit, an inevitable evil. It was 
instead a positive good, and a good to all parties concerned, including the 
Negro slaves. Indeed, slavery was only part of a greater social order which 
established an ideal division of labor and of responsibility in society be- 
tween the sexes, the age groups, the social classes and the two races. This 
division should not be left to be worked out by haphazard and ruinous 
competition. In the South it was intentionally and wisely organized by the 
state in accordance with the needs, the abilities, and the worth of the 
individuals in the various groups concerned. 

The principle of rational cooperation was, therefore, realized} some 
authors even talked about "socialism" in a purified and dignified meaning 
of the term. 15 "By making the labor itself capital, the conflict of interest, 
so evident in other labor systems, lost its foundation." 10 Radicalism, or 
rather the reason for radical opposition, was extinguished in this perfect 
social order. A system of social estates, with the plantation owners as a 
paternalistic nobility at the top and the toiling Negro slaves at the bottom, 
was envisaged. "Equality begets universal envy, meanness and unchari- 
tableness — slavery elevates and purifies the sentiments of master and 
slave." 17 The static nature of this system was accentuated and even exalted 
by the persistent assertion that the South had actually realized the most 
happy political, social, and economic conditions ever seen on earth and 
which were, particularly, much superior to the deplorable conditions in 
the North. "We are better husbands, better fathers, better friends, and 
better neighbors than our Northern brethren." 18 The expounders of the 
pro-slavery doctrine had to go back to Athenian democracy to find a true 
parallel to the happy South and, indeed, the parallel they used was a highly 
idealized Athens. 

In this static social system all whites, independent of their rank in 
society, were significantly superior to the slaves. Politically they were all 
equals, since they were free citizens. Free competition and personal free- 
dom were assured them. The Southern statesmen and writers hammered 
on this thesis, that slavery, and slavery alone, produced the most perfect 
equality and the most substantial liberty for the free citizens in society. 
By relegating — in theory — all menial and domestic labor to the slaves, all 
the whites became gentlemen. "One of the reconciling features of the ex- 
istence [of Negro slavery]," argued Jefferson Davis just before the out- 
break of the great conflict, "is the fact that it raises white men to the 
same general level, that it dignifies and exalts every white man by the 



Chapter 20. Underlying Factors 443 

presence of a lower race." 19 The very basis of white men's equality was 
the drudgery of the black slaves. In the words of Governor J. H. Ham- 
mond of South Carolina: 

In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the 
drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little 
skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have or you 
would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. 
It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you 
might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the 
other, except on thit> mud-sill. Fortunately for the South, she found a race adapted 
to the purpose of her hand. . . . We use them for our purpose and call them slaves. 20 

The slaves were politically the wards of the whites and had no rights 
against white society. Upon the basis of their labor, civilization could 
flourish. A high civilization presumed a leisure class and its exploitation of 
slaves. In the final reckoning, however, even the humble slaves were 
getting their share of the fruits of that civilization. They were fed, clothed, 
housed, guarded, and secured in all their needs by their paternalistic 
owners who, in this wise social order, could have no other interests than 
to care to the utmost for their welfare. Above this interest solidarity 
between slaves and slave owners was the solidarity among white men only: 

We have among us but one great class, and all who belong to it have a necessary 
sympathy with one another; wc have but one great interest and all who possess it are 
equally ready to maintain and protect it. 21 

As political ideologies go, this doctrine should not be denied high 
qualities of structural logic and consistency. It is, of course, an upper class 
philosophy. It is a rationalization of the interests of the one-fifth of the 
Southern white population who owned slaves. In its higher spheres the 
philosophy was hardly understandable to those without a high degree of 
education. But its basic ideas could be grasped by all. As the conflict with 
the North drew nearer, it became a regional creed which was pressed upon 
everybody by all available social controls. It served the South during the 
Civil War in the same manner as the concept and theory of "democracy" 
or "the democratic way of life" served all America during the two World 
Wars. "The parties in this conflict," says the Presbyterian Dr. J. H. 
Thornwell, who ejected his predecessor, Dr. Cooper, from the presidency 
of the College of South Carolina for his "infidel" views, "are not merely 
abolitionists and slaveholders — they are atheists, socialists, communists, red . 
republicans, jacobins on the one side, and the friends of order and regulated 
freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battleground- 
Christianity and atheism the combatants— and the progress of humanity 
the stake." 22 

Long before the Civil War started, the dissenters from the Southern 



444 An American Dilemma 

defense ideology had to keep their opinions to themselves or they risked 
their social status, their economic advance, their freedom, and, in extreme 
cases, their bodily security and life, if they did not take refuge in the 
North. Hinton Rowan Helper's book, The Impending Crisis of the South 
(i857), 2S showed how the South lagged behind the North economically, 
how the growth of industries was hampered, how the yields were lower in 
all comparable crops, and how, particularly, the slavery-plantation system 
was an inefficient and disastrous organization of agricultural production. 
The author violently accused "the Lords of the Lash" for perpetuating the 
white majority- in unparalleled illiteracy, poverty and dependence. This 
book became a best seller in the North and exerted a tremendous influence 
on Northern thinking. It was blacklisted in the South, and the author could 
not come back to his homeland. 

That the book docs not express the opinions of the lower white strata 
in the Southern social pyramid, Helper readily admits and regrets. In 
their poverty, ignorance, and dependence, they knew generally little about 
the world outside the Southern region which was gradually becoming 
culturally isolated. And they were offered one great and glittering solace : 
"white supremacy." They were not at the bottom, they were protected 
from the status of Negroes by a clear dividing line, and they were told 
that they could compete freely up to the very top. Few Southerners, even 
among the nonslaveholding classes, were inclined to dissent from this 
dogma. Agreeing on the point of "white supremacy," the rest of the 
elaborated pro-slavery theory offered the most convenient and most 
efficient rationalization. When they heard that the North wanted to free 
the Negro slaves, and when they sensed the danger of being thrown into 
actual competition with the black masses, the great majority of whites even 
outside the slaveholders felt their solidarity with the latter. 

The defeat in the War which followed did not break the general direc- 
tion of Southern political thinking or the allegiance to it among Southern 
whites. The harsh measures taken by the victorious North to reform the 
South quickly favored a consolidation of reactionary forces. This consolida- 
tion became particularly effective in disfranchising the Negroes when the 
North no longer wished to bear the costs and the inconveniences of up- 
holding its military regime indefinitely. Slavery as an institution was, of 
course, out, as was also the possibility of pretending that the South was 
God's richest and best social creation. Large sectors of the elaborate 
philosophy of the ante-bellum South therefore had to be consigned to 
oblivion. But the doctrine of white supremacy became, under these condi- 
tions, the more paramount. On this point practically all whites agreed: 
the impoverished and embittered aristocrats; the parvenus , struggling for 
status; and the masses of poor white people, afraid of competition from 
the hated and despised- black freedmen. 



Chapter 20. Underlying Factors 445 

The former Negro slaves, therefore, started their new life as free 
citizens with a solid mistrust against them, which was crystallized into an 
elaborate political philosophy, powerful even in its partial disorganization. 
The very idea of awarding Negroes suffrage was, to the average South- 
erner, preposterous. The white South wanted the Negroes to fail as freed- 
men and saw in their failure a confirmation of their own wisdom and the 
Northerners' folly. 

5. The Reconstruction Amendments 

But the North was in power and Negro suffrage received constitutional 
sanction. Thus Southern conservatism started out with the law against it. 
After having lost out as rebels against the Union, the Southern conserva- 
tives had now to be rebels in their own land. And as they did not have the 
power to overthrow the fundamental laws of the Union, they had through 
generations, and have today, to persist as transgressors of law and order. 

The white Southerners' attitudes toward the Reconstruction Amend- 
ments deserve some comments. It seems probable, from the literature, on 
the Negro problem after the Civil War, that the abolition of slavery was 
soon widely accepted as irrevocable. Even if, up to this day, the average 
Southerner is inclined to paint the institution in somewhat brighter colors 
than is a Northerner, the opinion early established itself that slavery was 
incompatible with social and economic progress and, indeed, had been the 
curse of the Old South. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, 
which granted the Negroes civil rights and suffrage, were not so readily 
accepted by Southern opinion. They were looked upon as the supreme 
foolishness of the North, and, worse still, as an expression of ill-will of 
the Yankees toward the defeated South. The Negro franchise became the 
symbol of the humiliation of the South. 

Later, during the movement to legalize disfranchisement in the decades 
around the turn of the century, proposals to have the federal Amendments 
abolished popped up here and there. 24 Such proposals, however, were never 
part of serious discussion. The obvious impossibility of getting the North- 
ern states to agree was reason enough for that. Corporate business had 
developed a vested interest in the Fourteenth Amendment. Its proviso 
guaranteeing all "persons" due process of law turned out to be much more 
useful in defending corporate business against public interferences and 
control than in securing political and other civic rights for the Negro. 25 
Apart from this particular interest, Northern sentiment could hardly be 
expected to tolerate such a retreat in principle, even if it was prepared to 
wink at flagrant circumvention in Southern practice. But it is probable that 
soon after their passage the two Amendments, and the principle of civic 
equality they expressed, had acquired a certain amount of idealistic attach- 
ment even in the South. 26 



446 An American Dilemma 

In the South of today the writer has observed that many white persons 
above the least educated strata are inclined to agree in principle that even 
the Negro has a sort of "right" to vote. With the majority of Southerners, 
this idea is, of course, only one element in an inconsistent system of 
thoughts wherein also the very opposite principle is contained and is, 
indeed, given greater emphasis. This conflict might be important as a 
symptom of change toward national ideals sanctioned by the American 
Creed. It shows itself in the fact that the principle as such is seldom denied, 
except by persons with exceptionally anti-legal leanings. 27 

The statutory requirements of property and poll tax payment, literacy, 
understanding of the Constitution, good character, and so forth 28 — which 
at the time of their enactment were openly declared to aim only at circum- 
vention of the constitutional Amendments 2 " — are more and more being 
thought of as within the Constitution. Probably a majority of Southerners, 
and not only liberal Southerners, are prepared to state that in time to come, 
when Negroes become educated, the South will have to give them the 
vote. Attempting to reconcile their electoral practices with constitutional 
requirements, the Southerners have become accustomed to insist that they 
are not discriminating against "race, color or previous condition of servi- 
tude" but only against ignorance and irresponsibility. Repeating these 
statements throughout the years, reading them, and hearing them has the 
effect of conditioning the Southerners to believe them. It is a difficult task 
for even the most sophisticated person to keep on saying something for a 
purpose without eventually coming to believe in it — with at least half his 
soul. 

But keeping the Negroes disfranchised in the face of the clear-cut 
constitutional Amendments allows Southern conservatism nothing more 
than a pretense of respect for the law. On this most crucial point it is 
doomed to insincerity. 

6. Memories of Reconstruction 

A review of the various devices by which the Negroes are disfranchised 
in the South today cannot avoid exposing a rather odious panorama of 
legal trickery, unfair administration, intimidation and forthright violence." 
In explanation of this the Southerner will regularly bring forward the 
horrors of the Reconstruction governments and "black domination." These 
memories are in a sense cherished. They serve a vital defensive function 
to the white South. Even the liberal Southerner — and quite particularly 
when he ventures to criticize these very practices, which he often does with 
courage and vision — has to express his abhorrence of the Reconstruction 
atrocities. They are, in fact, symbols of regional allegiance. 

The North needs them, also, though to a lesser degree, in order to 

' See Chapter *a. 



Chapter 20. Underlying Factors 447 

rationalize the national compromise of the 1870's and the condoning, since 
then, of the South's open break with the spirit of the Constitution. Playing 
up the venality, extravagance, and incompetence of the Reconstruction 
governments and touching lightly the pride and prejudices of the revolt- 
ing South is, in addition, a means of reconciling the two regions. It has 
thus a "patriotic function" in healing the wounds of the Civil War. For 
all these reasons, it is to be expected that the horrors have been consider- 
ably exaggerated. The writing of the history of this epoch has, until 
recently, responded in a considerable degree to this popular demand of 
the American whites for rationalization and national comfort. 30 

The dominant history of the period is incompatible with a number of 
facts that force themselves to our attention. The "carpetbaggers" were not 
simply Northerners who came down to prey on the devastated South. The 
great majority of them were either agents sent out by the federal govern- 
ment, to try to help the South to its feet under the principles of the 
Constitution and its Amendments, or they were New England Abolitionists, 
often spinsters, who saw their mission in the education of the Negroes." 
The federal government did not send its agents to the South until 1867, 
after the South had demonstrated for over two years — by such devices as 
the Black Codes — that it was determined to retain slavery in fact if not in 
name. It is true that these carpetbaggers did some stupid things, that their 
plans were unformulated and inconsistent and that the federal government 
failed to give them adequate backing. The "scalawags" were mainly poor 
and ignorant native Southerners who saw a chance — in the South's defeat 
— to effect something of a revolution against the relatively few wealthy 
aristocrats. But many of them had honestly and consistently wanted the 
abolition of slavery, and not a few of them were the Southern inheritors of 
the great Jeffersonian and, especially, Jacksonian traditions. Some of them 
had been prominent Whigs before the Civil War. 31 Some of them had 
consistently favored the Union cause throughout the Civil War when it 
was extremely unpopular to do so. The masses of Negroes were, of course, 
uneducated, and a number of them were resentful of their former masters. 
But they never engaged in organized violence against the whites. They 
were led by the educated carpetbaggers and by the free Southern and 
Northern Negroes who had quite often attained a high level of education. 
Actually, there were only 22 Negro members of Congress 1 " from 18 70 to 
1901} 10 of these had gone to college. The Northern Republicans also 
came in for their share of vilification. For example, few names in Amer- 

* Some of the carpetbaggers were businessmen, but these were not always interested in 
politics. 

b Twenty of these -were in the House of' Representatives * the other two were in the 
Senate (at different times). (Samuel Denny Smith, The Negro in Congress tSjo-iooi 
[1940], pp. 4-7.) 



448 An American Dilemma 

ican history have come down with such an evil reputation as that of Thad- 
deus Stevens, the leader of the Republican party in the House of Repre- 
sentatives until his early death in 1868. There are glimmerings of evidence 
that Stevens had an enlightened plan of social reform far in advance of 
his time, and that he was not at all violent in inciting Negroes to put their 
former masters under heel. These few facts, and a consideration of the 
conditions under which the history of the Reconstruction period has been 
written, suggest that more efforts ought to be made by American historians 
to write a complete and dispassionate history of that period, a history 
which would have to rely on primary rather than on secondary sources. 88 

The school book histories, as well as the more scholarly histories, 
perpetuate the myths about the Reconstruction period. They still give, for 
the most part, undue emphasis to the sordid details of the Reconstruction 
governments but avoid mentioning their accomplishments. They exaggerate 
the extent of "black domination" and deprecate the Negro politicians even 
more than they deserve, while they give subtle excuses for the cruelty and 
fraud employed in the restoration of white supremacy. They usually make 
all the errors found in the scholarly histories and omit all the complicating 
qualifications that make the scholarly histories have a semblance of objec- 
tivity. Particularly is this true of the history textbooks prepared for 
Southern schools. 33 The present generation of Southerners, on the whole, 
is given a more objective picture of the Civil War and Reconstruction 
than the previous generation received. But their knowledge is still dis- 
torted, and their attitudes toward the Negro and the North are corre- 
spondingly unfriendly. 

It is apparent that, quite independent of what he thinks happened 
during Reconstruction, the average white Southerner resents the thought 
of Negroes voting on a par with white men. 34 Yet the Constitution is very 
clear in specifying that no one is to be kept from voting for reasons of 
"race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Thus the Southerner is 
forced to circumvent the Constitution if he is to keep the Negroes from 
voting. But the Constitution and its principles have a grip on the South- 
erner's own soul. He therefore needs to believe that when the Negro 
voted, life was unbearable. The myth of the horrors of Reconstruction 
thus permits the Southerner to reconcile the two conflicting desires within 
himself. They are, in our terminology, false beliefs with a purpose. 

7. The Tradition of Illegality 

While, as we said, the Northerner generally is likely to be less inclined 
to discriminate against the Negro, the more formal and impersonal a 
relation is and, specifically, when the relation is between public authority 
and the individual Negro citizen," the white Southerner is inclined to react 

' See Section 3 of this chapter. . 



Chapter 20. Underlying Factors 449 

in nearly the opposite way. Already in the ante-bellum elections, political 
campaigning and voting had acquired a ceremonial significance as marking 
off a distinct sphere of power and responsibility for the free citizen. From 
Reconstruction on, voting remained to the white Southerner more than a 
mere action: it was, and still is, a symbol of superiority. Partly because it 
is a public activity and does not lend itself to privacy or segregation, it 
becomes so hard for the white Southerner to admit the Negro to full 
participation in it." This is one side of the general difference between the 
two regions so often noticed: that the white Northerners may dislike and 
ignore the Negro but are prepared to give him his formal rights, while in 
the South even individual whites who like and care for Negroes cannot 
afford to give them their rights because this would imply equality. 

In order to understand fully Southern conservative illegality, we have 
also to remember that the actual trickery, cheating and intimidation neces- 
sary for the smooth operation of disfranchisement need be indulged in by 
only a small number of persons. Most people can almost avoid it. Their 
collaboration is necessary only to the extent of preserving a public senti- 
ment upholding and supporting the system. In most cases, a resolute 
registrar can himself take care of the matter. And even he does not need 
to act openly when it has once become generally known among the Negroes 
in a community that they had better keep away from all politics. 

The illegal practices have also the sanction of tradition behind them. 
The present situation is conceived of as the outcome of the successful 
revolutionary movement against the Reconstruction governments. The 
chronicle of the Restoration — symbolized by the Ku Klux Klan and a great 
number of "protective" leagues and secret terror organizations such as the 
Pale Faces of Tennessee; the Constitutional Guards and the White Broth- 
erhood of North Carolina; the Knights of the White Camellia in Louisiana 
and Arkansas; the Council of Safety in South Carolina; the Men of Justice 
in Alabama; the Society of the White Rose, the Seventy-Six Association, 
and the Robinson Family in Mississippi; the Knights of the Rising Sun 
and the Sons of Washington in Texas — offers a most amazing, sometimes 
ludicrous, but more often pathetic and tragic, reading. 

Guy B. Johnson characterizes Reconstruction as, in a sense, "a prolonged 
race riot": 

The Ku Klux Klan and a dozen similar organizations which sprang up over the 
South were as inevitable as a chemical reaction. Their purpose was punitive and 
regulatory, the restoration of absolute white supremacy. They flogged, intimidated, 
maimed, hanged, murdered, not only for actual attacks and crimes against whites, but 
far all sorts of trivial and imagined offenses. Every Negro was assumed to be "bad" 

* We do not mean, of course, that the Southerner's purpose in disfranchising the Negro 
is not to prevent him from having power. We are merely pointing out that the "no 
social equality" theory applies to politics. (See Chapter 28, Section 6.) 



4JO An American Dilemma 

unless he proved by hit actions that he was "good.". . . Every Negro militia drill, 
every meeting or convention for the political or social advancement of the Negro 
took on the aspect of a "conspiracy" or an "insurrection." The number of Negroes 
killed during Reconstruction will never be known. Five thousand would probably be 
a conservative estimate. 88 

After the overthrow of the Reconstruction government in all Southern 
states, which was consummated by 1877, a tendency to abstain from 
violence and threats of violence as a means of keeping the Negroes away 
from the polls gradually developed. With the state governments safely in 
their hands, the dominant white Southerners found it easier to buy, steal, 
or fail to count the Negro vote or to block the Negroes' voting by intricate 
election laws and manipulation of the election machinery. 

Polling places were set up at points remote from colored communities. Ferries 
between the black districts and voting booths went "out of repair" on election day. 
Grim-visaged white men carrying arms sauntered through the streets or stood near 
the polling booths. In districts where the blacks greatly outnumbered the whites, 
election officials permitted members of the superior race to "stuff the ballot box," 
and manipulated the count without fear of censure. Fantastic gerrymanders were 
devised to nullify Negro strength. The payment of poll taxes, striking at the Negro's 
poverty and carelessness in preserving receipts, was made a requirement for voting. 
Some states confused the ignorant by enacting multiple ballot box laws which 
required the voter to place correctly his votes for various candidates in eight or more 
separate boxes. The bolder members of the colored race met threats of violence, and, 
in a diminishing number of instances, physical punishment. When the black man 
succeeded in passing through this maze of restrictions and cast his vote there was no 
assurance that it would be counted. Highly centralized election codes vested arbitrary 
powers in the election boards, and these powers were used to complete the elimina- 
tion of the Negro vote. 86 

The pattern of illegality was thus firmly entrenched in Southern politics 
and public morals. "A strong man struggling upward under the conscious- 
ness of submergence and suffocation strikes right and left with little thought 
of either principle or policy," 87 explains an upright Southerner. So, un- 
doubtedly, did the white South feel when justifying the means to the end. 
But the means became a permanent pattern in the region. 

This fatal tradition of illegality has even deeper historical roots. The 
vigilante conservatives of the 'seventies did not create the patterns anew 
but simply took over and perfected the methods utilized by the Recon- 
struction governments themselves in their efforts to remain in power. These 
governments had often gerrymandered districts in order to gain the full 
weight of the Negro vote. They had created highly centralized election 
machinery, which later became so handy to the conservatives, and they 
had utilized unscrupulously this machinery and the Negro militia for 
controlling elections. Often these elections were tainted with fraud, intimi- 



Chapter 20. Underlying Factors 451 

dation and violence. The post-Reconstruction governments merely went 
to much greater extremes in illegal practices than already existed. 

But even the Reconstruction governments were not entirely original. 
Already before the Civil War the white South had gradually been condi- 
tioned for at least thirty years to sustain increasing suppression of freedom 
of speech and all other civil liberties in the service of upholding its 
solidarity. 88 

The methods used and the rationalizations defending them must also be 
understood against the background of the region's peculiar rural structure. 
About the South today, Rupert B. Vance points out that: 

... it can safely be said that no flavor is stronger than that imparted by the frontier. 
No traits of the frontier can safely be neglected by the social historian as an anti- 
quarian's item. . . . The South still possesses the largest number of practically self- 
sufficing farms to be found in any comparable area in the nation. Its rural life is 
characterized by isolated farmsteads in the open country. If southern conditions of 
living have often appeared crude to the critics, it is for the reason that they have 
retained not only the usages but often the conditions of the frontier. More than any 
other section except the sparsely settled western range it has remained a pioneer belt, 
and the common man living in the open country faces much the same situation with 
the cultural heritage left by the frontier. While they were formative the folkways 
of the South got the stamp of the frontier. From the frontier, part of the area passed 
to the plantation, but the plantation area retained many of the frontier traits. Institu- 
tions and customs are still tinged with the shades of the forest, whether as survivals or 
as adjustments to ruralism. 30 

If this is true today, it was still more so in the ante-bellum South. W. F. 
Cash, following up this line of thought, comments: 

... in this world of ineffective social control, the tradition of vigilante action, 
which normally lives and dies with the frontier, not only survived but grew so 
steadily that already long before the Civil War and long before hatred for the 
black man had begun to play any direct part in the pattern (of more than three 
hundred persons said to have been hanged or burned by mobs between 1840 and 
i860, less than ten per cent were Negroes) the South had become peculiarly the 
home of lynching. 40 

Thus the opportunistic disrespect for law, order and public morals has 
a complicated causation and a deep-rooted history in the South. The tradi- 
tion is today still part of the way of life and as such is often patriotically 
cherished as distinctively Southern. It is certainly one of the most sinister 
historical heritages of the region. It spells danger for a democratic society 
and involves serious maladjustments. 



CHAPTER 21 

SOUTHERN CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM 



I. The "Solid South" 

Except for the Reconstruction period and for the period after Restora- 
tion culminating in the Populist movement (1890's), the South has 
consistently disfranchised the Negroes and has had to cling to the Demo- 
cratic party to do so. This suppression of normal bi-partisan politics has 
given the region the appellation "Solid South." The South had a two-party 
system before 1830, and it was lost in the consolidation of forces against 
the North just before and during the Civil War. As we noted in the 
previous chapter, it was lost again at the close of Reconstruction. 1 But 
already by the end of the 'seventies and increasingly up to the first half of 
the 'nineties, the Populist movement divided the agrarian middle and 
lower class from the Democratic party, which was Jed by the plantation 
owners, industrialists, merchants and bankers. The rise to political impor- 
tance of the agrarian radicals resulted in the fulfillment of the prediction 
that all precautions taken to keep the Negroes disfranchised would crumble 
if a split occurred in the ranks of the whites. Both factions appealed to the 
Negro voters. The regular Democrats, who were most familiar with the 
administrative machinery and who included most of the owners of planta- 
tions where Negroes were employed in large numbers, are said to have 
been most successful. But the agrarians were just as eager to get help 
where they could find it. In 1896 in North Carolina they joined the 
Republicans, and as a consequence more Negroes were appointed to offices 
in that state than ever before. 2 For more than half a decade, the Demo- 
cratic party was virtually disrupted in most states of the South. 

But the reaction soon got under way. A new movement to disfranchise 
the Negroes by more effective legal means — starting with the Mississippi 
Constitutional Convention of 1890 and continuing with the adoption of 
new constitutions in seven other states between 1895 and 1910 — drew its 
main arguments from the danger of a break in white solidarity, demon- 
strated by the agrarian revolt. When Populism declined, and it did so 
rapidly after 1896, and the unity between the Populists and the Democrats 
became restored, the main dish at the love feasts was the disfranchisement 
of the Negro. 8 



Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 453 

After this crisis, the Democratic one-party rule has persisted practically 
unbroken until now, with the minor exception of the 1928 presidential 
campaign. In spite of a formidable armor of constitutional and statutory 
provisions for disfranchising the Negro and an extra-legal social pressure 
to complement the statutes, the main regions of the white South still do 
not dare to have any political division, lest the white factions be tempted 
to seek Negro support." The irony of the situation is that the disfranchise- 
ment of the Negro had been argued as the only means of preventing 
corruption at the polls and of allowing the whites to divide along natural 
political lines. The second goal is obviously not reached, as the one-party 
system is still retained; since it is the only guarantee against Negro 
franchise, the elimination of the one-party system would be the basis for 
freedom of the whites to split. And to prevent corruption under a one-party 
system in a region with the unfortunate traditions of the South — when it 
is so difficult everywhere in America even when an opposition party is 
present — is practically impossible. In this vicious circle Southern politics 
is caught. 

The one-party system in the South ; its supporting election machine with 
its restrictions, intricacies, and manipulations; its vast allowances for arbi- 
trary administration; and the low political participation of even the white 
people favor a de facto oligarchic regime, broken here and there, now and 
then, by demagogues from Tom Watson to Huey Long, who appeal to 
the lower classes among whites. The oligarchy consists of the big land- 
owners, the industrialists, the bankers and the merchants. 4 Northern 
corporate business with big investments in the region has been sharing in 
the political control by this oligarchy. 

There is an amazing avoidance of issues in Southern politics. "The 
South votes for men — Democratic men — but rarely ever for issues, unless 
the issue is denned in black and white." 3 We have to remember that in a 
measure this is a characteristic of all American politics. 6 But in the South, 
it is driven to its extreme. The chief direct reason for this is, of course, 
the one-party system which normally keeps politics within a single political 
machine and restricts the scope of political struggle to personalities and 
offices. The great Southern orator of the post-Restoration period, Henry 
W. Grady, gave the best rationalization of this situation as it is even today 
argued by the majority of the ruling class of the region. The reason is 
the Negro. 

The whites understand that the slightest division on their part will revive those 
desperate days [of Reconstruction]. ... So that the whites have agreed everywhere 
to sink their differences on moral and economic issues, and present solid and 

' There is a rump Republican party in the South, and in a few isolated areas it is actually 
dominant. For a discussion of this, see Chapter zz, Section i. 
'See Chapter jj. 



454 An American Dilemma 

unbroken ranks to this alien and dangerous element. This once done, the rest it easy. 
Banded intelligence and responsibility will win everywhere and all the time. Against 
it numbers cannot prevail. 8 

It is not the Negro himself who is feared but "the baseness of white 
politicians" who might be tempted to use the Negro vote for "nefarious 
purposes": 

It may be asked, then: "Why do the Southern whites fear the political domination 
of the blacks?" They do not fear that directly. But the blacks are ignorant, and there- 
fore easily deluded; strong of race instinct, and therefore clannish; without informa- 
tion, and therefore without strong political convictions; passionate, and therefore 
easily excited; poor, irresponsible, and with no idea of the integrity of the suffrage, 
and therefore easily bought. The fear is that this vast swarm of ignorant, purchasable 
and credulous voters will be compacted and controlled by desperate and unscrupulous 
white men, and made to hold the balance of power wherever the whites are divided. 
This fear has kept, and will keep, the whites "solid." It would keep the intelligence 
and responsibility of any community, North or South, solid. 7 

But there is a higher principle invoked to explain why "the whites shall 
have clear and unmistakable control of public affairs" and why a solid 
front must be preserved: 

They own the property. They have the intelligence. Theirs is the responsibility. 
For these reasons they are entitled to control. Beyond these reasons is a racial one. 
They are the superior race, and will not and can not submit to the domination of 
an inferior race. 8 

Against these arguments the Southern liberals hammer away. They 
point out that the one-party system fosters mediocrity, demagoguery, 
political apathy and irrationality. They point out that fear of the Negro 
shadows every political discussion and prevents the whites from doing 
anything to improve themselves. The conservative whites counter that 
the Southern system does allow for political division — in the primaries, 
though not in the general elections. This, however, is a myth which South- 
erners have carefully fostered: in 1940 only 36 of the 78 Democratic 
primaries — less than half — were contested in the eight poll tax states. 9 
Thus, even in the primaries there is little opportunity for political division. 

But undoubtedly there are sometimes real divisions even in the South 
on interests and issues: poor people against rich, the hill country against 
the plantation lands, the coast against the inland. But the fact that the 
issues have to be fought out under cover of personalities and within a 
one-party machine must, particularly in a region of inadequate political 
education, confuse those issues. It has, indeed, been the tradition and the 
spirit of the "Solid South" to have such confusion, as the party machine is 
always sensing, and capitalizing upon, the danger of a serious political 
division. The newspapers usually respect this tradition. They publish the 



Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 455 

generalities contained in the various candidates' platforms and speeches 
but usually abstain from giving information on the real issues which might 
sometimes be involved. 

Even admitting, therefore, that the one-party system allows for a 
certain number of issues and divisions, it must be maintained that, in a 
considerable degree, the one-party rule of the South obliterates healthy 
democratic politics, both in national and in local affairs. There is a consider- 
able amount of truth in W. E. Du Bois' bitter characterization: 

The white primary system in the South is simply a system which compels the 
white man to disenfranchise himself in order to take the vote away from the Negro. 
. . . The mass of people in the South today have no knowledge as to how they are 
governed or by whom. Elections have nothing to do with broad policies and social 
development, but are matters of selection of friends to lucrative offices and punish- 
ment of personal enemies. Local administration is a purposely disguised system of 
intrigue which not even an expert could unravel. 10 

2. Southern Conservatism 

Democratically organized people's movements, giving voice to the 
needs of the simple citizen and a power basis for his full participation in 
the control of society, do not thrive in this political atmosphere. To an 
extent the lack of organized mass participation in government is a general 
American characteristic." The South shows even less popular political 
interest than the rest of the country. Except for the Ku Klux Klan, which 
lacked positive political goals, the Prohibition movement, which was based 
more on emotion than on reason, and the Populist movement, which, in the 
South as all over the country, was loose in organization and confused in 
aims and which achieved little, the South has never experienced organized 
mass movements of a political character. 

There have been few spontaneous movements to improve the well-being 
of the masses of people, such as trade unions or adult education. Even the 
farmers' cooperative movement has been lagging in the South, 11 and what 
has come in has been due mainly to the efforts of the federal government. 
The Southern masses do not generally organize either for advancing their 
ideals or for protecting their group interests. The immediate reason most 
often given by Southern liberals is the resistance from the political oli- 
garchy which wants to keep the masses inarticulate. This has also been the 
initial situation in most other regions and countries, but in these others 
eventually the organized and self-disciplined mass movements have come 
to form the very basis for a revitalized democracy. The deeper reasons are 
again the low level of political culture in the South, which has become 
solidified partly in the region's steadfast struggle to keep the Negro from 
participation. 

'See Chapter 3} . 



456 An American Dilemma 

All modern reform movements which have penetrated the rest of the 
country and gradually changed American society— woman suffrage and 
economic equality, collective bargaining, labor legislation, progressive 
education, child welfare, civil service reform, police and court reform, 
prison reform — have, until recently, hardly touched the greater part of the 
South except in so far as the federal government has imposed them from 
the outside. In particular, there has been no active participation of the 
masses. Recently they have become the interest of the upper class liberals 
around the universities and other cultural centers. Southern liberalism — 
which will be discussed in further detail below — is beautiful and dignified. 
It preserves much of the philosophical grace of the mythical old aristo- 
cratic South. But until the New Deal came, it had no source of power. 
Even yet it does not have contact with, or support by, the masses. Social 
reform is now coming rapidly to the South, but it is coming mainly from 
Washington. For a hundred years this region, which played such an 
important and distinguished role in the American Revolution and in the 
early history of the Republic, has not contributed to the nation anything 
approaching its fair share of fresh political thinking and forward-looking 
political initiative in national issues. It has, on the whole, served as a 
reactionary drag against the forces of change and progress. 

This political conservatism is directly tied up with the Negro problem 
in several ways. The devices inaugurated to disfranchise Negroes, the one- 
party system, the low political participation on the part of the white 
masses, and other peculiarities of Southern politics, all tend to give a 
disproportionate power to classes, groups and individuals who feel their 
interests tied up with conservatism in social issues. But there is also a more 
direct connection between Southern conservatism and the Negro problem. 
For constitutional and other reasons, social reform measures will have to 
include Negroes, and this is resented. The conservative opponents of 
reform proposals can usually discredit them by pointing out that they will 
improve the status of the Negroes, and that they prepare for "social equal- 
ity." This argument has been raised in the South against labor unions, 
child labor legislation and practically every other proposal for reform. 

It has been argued to the white workers that the Wages and Hours Law 
was an attempt to legislate equality between the races by raising the wage 
level of Negro workers to that of the whites. The South has never been 
seriously interested in instituting tenancy legislation to protect the tenants' 
rights and at the same time to improve agriculture, and the argument has 
again been that the Negro sharecropper should not be helped against the 
white man.* I have met this same argument everywhere in the South when 
discussing economic and social reforms: "We don't want our Negroes 

* See Chapter i o, Section 4. 



Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 457 

to . . ." The poor white Southerners are apparently still prepared to pay 
the price of their own distress in order to keep the Negro still lower. 

Liberals commonly describe this argument as a "red herring," intention- 
ally used by the reactionaries to distract and deceive the ignorant public 
and to discredit reforms. But this argument is not merely deceptive. It 
most certainly has a kernel of truth in it. Of necessity, social reforms 
involve changes which are general, and social cooperation, to be effective, 
cannot remain confined exclusively to whites. All social reforms involve 
an element of economic and social equalization which, by the very logic 
of things, cannot wholly set the Negroes apart. In addition to technical 
factors and the constitutional barriers against making social legislation 
openly discriminatory, there is also the sense of rationality and fairness in 
the minds of the white Southerners themselves. "Social equality," in a 
sense, will be promoted in a society remade by social reforms; the caste 
order was more easily upheld in a conservative laissez-faire society. In 
spite of much discrimination, this has been the experience of the South 
during the New Deal. There is, therefore — and this should not be con- 
cealed — a measure of logic in the political correlation between the anti- 
Negro attitude and the traditional conservatism of the South generally. 
As the South is now gradually accepting social reform, it will also have 
to give up a considerable part of discrimination against the Negroes both 
in principle and in practice. 

If social reforms have been lacking in the South, certain other changes 
have been going strong. The Prohibition movement, for example, has had 
widespread political support. William Archer, when he toured the South 
in the first decade of the twentieth century, could report that "the most 
remarkable phenomenon in the recent history of the South is the 'wave 
of prohibition' which has passed, and is passing, over the country. There 
are 20,000,000 people in the fourteen Southern States, 17,000,000 of 
whom are under prohibitory law in some form." 12 Even today, nearly a 
decade after the abolition of the Eighteenth Amendment, two Southern 
states — Mississippi and Oklahoma (and one Northern state — Kansas) — 
have laws prohibiting the sale of hard liquor. Even those states which do 
not have prohibition laws have strong prohibitionist sentiments. For 
example: in 1938 the Virginia legislature ordered the burning of a study 
of the physiological effects of liquor after they had paid to have this study 
made, simply because it observed that liquor in small quantities was not 
harmful. 18 These demonstrations against liquor are apparently not meant 
to affect white people; in most Southern states they are directed solely 
against the Negro." Archer remarked that: "The presence of the negro 
in the South is a tower of strength to the prohibitionist." 14 

* In Mississippi, which is an absolutely dry state, the author saw more hard drinking 



458 An American Dilemma 

The South is also strongly religious. Not only is the nonchurch member 
comparatively rare, but the denominations tend to be more fundamentalist 
and evangelical than in the North. Although it would have to be checked 
by carefully collected quantitative data, my impression is that the sermons 
stress the Other World more often than this one and rdy for a text more 
often on the Old Testament than on the New Testament. It would seem 
that the Southern white man, especially in the lower classes, goes to 
church more to get an emotional thrill than to get an intellectual frame- 
work into which to put his daily problems. These things are true in the 
North, too, but to a much smaller extent. In spite of his other-worldliness 
in church, the Southern preacher is often interested in power. Until recently 
he was often quite important in local politics: during the 1920's clergymen 
may almost be said to have dominated the South. They were a potent force 
behind the resusatetion ol the Ku Klux Klzn. They backed the "Blue 
Laws." They dominated many universities. The Dayton trial, which was 
fought over the question of teaching evolution in Tennessee, was only the 
most spectacular manifestation of the general power of the fundamentalist 
clergy. 18 

3. Is the South Fascist? 

On account of the one-party system and the precarious state of civil 
liberties, the South is sometimes referred to as fascist. This is, however, 
wrong and just as wrong of the present as of the earlier South. The South 
entirely lacks the centralized organization of a fascist state. Southern 
politics is, on the contrary, decentralized and often even chaotic. The 
Democratic party is the very opposite of a "state party" in a modern fascist 
sense. It has no conscious political ideology, no tight regional or state 
organization and no centralized and efficient bureaucracy. The "regimenta- 
tion" which keeps the South politically solid is not an organization for 
anything — least of all for a general .policy — it is a regimentation against 
the Negro. The South is static and defensive, not dynamic and aggressive. 
Fundamentally the white Southerner is — like the Negro, who is molded 
in the same civilization — even more of an individualist and more of a 
romantic than the Northerner. This is attested to by recent Southern 
analysts of "the mind of the South." The point has been particularly well 
established and explained by W. J. Cash in his recent book of this title. 18 
These characteristics are a survival of the frontier civilization of the South. 
A ruling element of this tradition is "an intense distrust of, and, indeed, 
downright aversion to, any actual exercise of authority beyond the barest 
minimum essential to the existence of the social organism." 17 The South- 
erner wants and expects a personal touch, a measure of arbitrariness, and, 

than he has ever before witnessed. Will Rogers is said to have remarked that "Mississippi 
will hold faithful and steadfast to prohibition as long as the voters can stagger to the polls." 



Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 459 

indeed, of adventure in all his relations with public authorities. He wants 
them to be informal, considerate and personalized. 

The South has not yet reached the objectivity and legality of the mature 
democracy. But still less does it resemble the tight, totalitarian regimenta- 
tion of the fascist state. It might, perhaps, be said to contain elements of 
both. But, more fundamentally, the South is a stubbornly lagging Amer- 
ican frontier society with a strong paternalistic tinge inherited from the old 
plantation and slavery system. Paternalism is cherished particularly as the 
ideal relation between whites and Negroes. The Southerner is proud of 
his benevolence toward Negro dependents but would resent vigorously 
their demanding this aid as a right. It must never be forgotten that the 
caste system has a petty positive angle and not only a gross negative one. 
Paternalism — as a social pattern which is personal, informal, determined 
by whimsy and the impulses of the moment, touched by humor and 
sentimentality, flattering the ego, but, nevertheless, not too expensive — 
fits ideally into the individualistic and romantic temper of the region. 

Registrars and other county officials in the South show surprising indif- 
ference to, and sometimes brazen ignorance of, the laws and formal 
procedures. They are systematically careless, and they are proud of it. 
Even political discrimination against the Negro is haphazard and accidental 
in this romantic and individualistic region. Most of the time the Negro is 
not allowed to register or to vote, and he might risk anything up to his 
life in attempting to do it. But sometimes he is allowed: because he is a 
"good nigger," because "he has the right," because his voting "proves" 
that there is no discrimination, or for no particular reason at all, or just 
for the fun of doing the opposite of what is expected. 

In most districts, most of the time, the Negro has also to be careful 
about what he indulges in as far as organizational activity and concerted 
political propaganda is concerned. In many communities leading white 
citizens make no secret of the fact that they are carefully following — with 
the assistance of Negro stool-pigeons — all signs of "subversive propaganda" 
and unrest among the Negroes in the community, and that they interfere 
to stop even innocent beginnings of Negro group activity. But more often, 
and again for no visible reason, the Negroes arc let alone to organize and 
plead their causes as they please. The National Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Colored People is often spoken of by conservative white 
Southerners as a serious danger, organized from the North to stir up 
Negroes in the South against the whites and to disrupt the social order 
there. One is told that anybody from that organization sneaking into the 
community will have to run fast in order not to be lynched. Incidents are 
related to show that this is not an empty threat. But the N.A.A.C.P. has 
local branches in over 100 cities in the South j and Garner, it is said, 
wanted to have the 1940 N.A.A.C.P. convention in Houston, Texas, and 



460 An American Dilemma 

had promised to have the Democratic state committee abolish the white 
primary rule in return for boosting the Garner candidacy for President 
among Northern Negroes. 

Related to the South's individualism and frontier heritage is its strong 
democratic temper. Even the old harshly conservative slavery philosophy 
of the ante-bellum South stressed the fundamental equality of all white 
men.* "White supremacy" and, to a lesser degree, the defensive ideology 
of the alleged superiority of the pure Southern white stock to the mixed 
Northerners, tended to promote a feeling of fellowship and fundamental 
equality among Southern white men. In spite of economic class differences, 
accentuated by the slavery and plantation system, there was also much real 
democracy in the outer forms of social relations. The planters usually 
preferred to keep their aristocratic pretensions to themselves and to encour- 
age the high-brow writers in their philosophizing about equality. The 
literature did not reach the masses anyway. The origin of most of the 
planter class from the same stock of people as the poor whites was a tic, 
particularly in the Deep South. 18 Democracy in daily human relations had, 
thus, much the same origin in the South as in other parts of America. The 
Civil War and the social convulsions during the succeeding decades cer- 
tainly did not strengthen the feeling o'f rigid class differences. Even if in 
reality the South until this day remains much of a political oligarchy — 
where, however, the individual oligarchs are often changing — this oligarchy 
always has to appeal to the common white man as an equal and as the 
ultimate arbiter of political affairs. 

Religion also tends to create a feeling of equality among human beings 
in the South — not even excluding the Negroes. An even stronger influence 
has been created by the American Creed. Southerners have been denounc- 
ing the North and its leveling theories on every convenient occasion for a 
hundred years, but they cannot help Ijeing gradually drawn into its orbit. 
In the middle of the 'eighties, Walter Hines Page and George Washington 
Cable — Page as editor of a weekly magazine, the State Chronicle (1883), 
in North Carolina and Cable with the publication of his book, The Silent 
South (1885) — started Southern self-criticism, and since then the South 
has had a growing school of nonscalawag liberals, all working in line with 
the national democratic ideals. They have been violently denounced. Some 
have abandoned work in the South and moved to the North. Even today 
they are denounced by perhaps the majority of Southerners. But most of 
the people who denounce them, nevertheless, take a regional pride in them. 
Their status in the South is definitely higher than is that of intellectual 
liberals in the North. And what is more, the Southern liberals have 

* See Chapter zo, Section 4. 



Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 461 

actually influenced considerably the thinking of the South far outside the 
circle of their direct followers." 

Despite all professions to the contrary, the acceptance in principle even 
by the conservative white Southerners of the American Creed explains why 
so many exceptions are made to the rule of excluding Negroes from voting. 
It opens many possibilities for a persistent strategy on the part of the 
Negro people to increase their political participation. It makes it possible 
that the barrier against them might, in the future, fall altogether. In 
fields other than politics, it is equally important to remember that the 
white conservative Southerner harbors the American Creed. Otherwise it 
would, for example, be difficult or impossible to explain why the Negroes 
in the South are getting so much, and are gradually getting even more, 
education. It would be just as impossible to explain why, in the local 
application of New Deal measures, Southern discrimination against the 
Negroes stops where it does. It would generally be inexplicable why the 
South, with all its traditions of inequality and illegality, is so definitely 
on the way toward social democracy and law observance, and why it is not 
headed the other way. The conservative Southerner is not so certain as he 

"When discussing Southern politics with reactionary intellectuals and semi-intellectuals 
in the South — among them a higli officer of the Ku Klux Klan — the present author had 
the following type of conversation: after my informant had expounded his social and politi- 
cal theory — a somewhat modified version oi the aristocratic, patriarchal, solidarity philoso- 
phy discussed above — I tempted him with the following response: I accepted his ideal of 
political society, but I criticized the methods used to achieve it. We are living in a modern 
civilization, with vastly impioved methods for political domination. In this era the old- 
fashioned methods of the South — election treachery, intimidation, occasional mob-justice — 
arc outmoded; they arc inefficient and socially wasteful. If modern techniques — which 1 
descrilied without going into detail — were to be applied to the Southern situation, a much 
greater security for the upper strata could be realized with much less cost anil effort. It 
would indeed be beneficial even to poor rural whites and to the Negroes who could rapidly 
be brought to paint their shacks, screen their windows, keep up gardens, wash their babies- 
and take better care of their land and their crops. Industry could perhaps afford to pay 
somewhat higher wages if it were insured against outside interference with its workers/ 
and if the workers were brought to feel a fundamental identity of interest with Capital. 

Having thus been shown the ideal fascist state, the Southern reactionary's immediate and 
emphatic response would invariably be a version of the following: "No, sir! This is a 
country of liberty and equality of opportunity. Everyone in this American nation, high and 
low, white and black, rich and poor, values his freedom higher than anything else. Not 
for any promises of order and material well-being are we Americans willing to give up the 
fundamental tenets of our democracy." 

In these or similar terms I have, time and again, been rewarded for projecting construc- 
tively the basic principles sometimes so freely pronounced by conservative white Southerners. 
The secret, I have been gradually convinced, is that the Southerner, too, and even the 
reactionary Southerner, harbors the whole American Creed in his bosom. It certainly does 
not dominate his political behavior: he is inconsistent and ambivalent. But it would be 
equally wrong to try to analyze the situation in the South without taking his allegiance to 
the American Creed into account. 



462 Ah American Dilemma 

sometimes sounds. He is a split personality. Part of his heart belongs to 
the American Creed. And if one argues that this is mere hypocrisy, he is 
entirely missing the point. The Southern conservative white man's faith 
in American democracy, which he is certainly not living up to, and the 
Constitution, which he is circumventing, are living forces of decisive 
dynamic significance. 

4. The Changing South 

The South is changing rapidly. During the 'thirties the changes went 
into high speed. Those changes cover the whole field of social relations 
and are being analyzed in other chapters of this inquiry. At this point 
only a few summary hints are needed to stress their paramount importance 
for Southern politics. 

It is easy to give the false impression that the South is static. The preced- 
ing pages of this chapter — taken by themselves — might also have fallen 
into this error. There are two main causes of this illusion. One is the 
extremely low starting points, in all respects — general education, political 
culture, economic standards — of the South at the end of the Civil War. 
The outside observer, today, who does not himself share in the breath- 
taking drama of the Southern people, will easily observe that the South 
is far behind the rest of the nation but might overlook the great changes 
that have occurred since the Civil War. To guard against this we have 
tried to be explicit about the humble beginnings. 

The second cause is a curious tendency of most Southerners, a tendency 
related to their conservatism, to stress in conversation and literature that 
customs are strong and that there is much resistance to change. Reality is 
actually dynamic in the South, but people's ideas about reality are usually 
astonishingly static. The average Southerner does not seem to believe in 
the changes which are going on right before his own eyes. The pessimistic 
and conservative idea about the "mores" and the "folkways" — which sup- 
posedly cannot be changed by the "stateways" — is not only a particularly 
cherished notion among Southern social scientists, but is something of a 
regional religion for a large proportion of the literate people. The South 
is intensely conscious of its history, and there is a high level of historical 
knowledge among the educated classes. But history is not used, as in the 
North, to show how society is continuously changing, but rather, on the 
contrary, to justify the status quo and to emphasize society's inertia. 

It is true that the presence of this bent of mind itself hampers social 
change. But the material and spiritual changes under way are so momentous 
that they cut through these barriers. Southerners are apt to say that "the 
poll tax will not be abolished in the South, for the courthouse gangs will 
not allow it," or that "Negroes will never vote in the South, for white 
w«nle will not stand for it," or that "there are never going to be any 



Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 463 

labor unions down here, for public opinion is against it." The truth is, of 
course, that the poll tax is abolished in three states (North Carolina, Louis- 
iana, and Florida) already, and that it is likely to be abolished in the others 
as time passes." The trend is clear and uni-directional: when the poll tax 
is once abolished in a state it is unlikely that it will be reintroduced there, 
while in the other states the discussion will continue about its abolition. 
The courthouse gangs and the local politicians might be against the reform, 
but there is a general upheaval of social and economic conditions in the 
South which is changing their basis of power. Likewise, Negroes are voting 
in some places in the South, and white people are tolerating it. In the new 
annual A.A.A. elections for the crop restriction program they are even 
voting right in the cotton counties of the Black Belt in perhaps even greater 
proportion than whites." 

Industrialization and urbanization are proceeding at a greater speed in 
the South than in other parts of the country. Agriculture in the South is 
facing a more thoroughgoing adjustment to world market conditions than 
elsewhere, and this structural change means more to the South because 
its economy is based on agriculture to a greater extent. Because of the 
coming economic changes and because of the high birth rate, migration 
may be expected to become more important than it now is, and migration 
always has far-reaching social effects. Unionization has proceeded in spite 
of all impediments. The national labor movement in America cannot 
indefinitely be expected to overlook the fact that the present conservative 
power constellation in the South is antagonistic to its interests. Indeed, it 
is something of a riddle that organized labor throughout the country has, 
for such a long time, acquiesced in the Southern situation. 

The economic depression and the following prolonged stagnation during 
the 'thirties meant distress everywhere and particularly in the poor, back- 
ward, harassed South. The liberal New Deal which followed in the wake 
of the economic pressure was sponsored by the same national party which 
locally has meant the "Solid South," cultural traditionalism and political 
reaction. But apart from the fact of party allegiance, the South was actually 
too poor to scorn systematically the gifts of national charity, even if the 
price to be paid was the acceptance of social legislation and organized social 
reform. Not overlooking the considerable discrimination against Negroes 
in the local administration of New Deal measures in the South,' we must 
see that the New Deal has made a lasting break in Southern racial practices. 
It has been said that the South was once bought by the Northern capitalists, 
who did not care much for the Negroes and allowed the Southerners 
almost complete freedom in the pursuit of any kind of racial discrimination. 

* While this book is in press, Tennessee has also abolished its poll tax. 
"See Chapter 12, Section 5, and Chapter 22, Section 3. 

* See Chapters 1a and 15. 



464 An American Dilemma 

Now Washington is the main "buyer" of the South. And Washington 
usually seeks to extend its assistance regardless of race. 

Washington is not consistent in its racial policy, it is true. The New 
Deal, whatever its leadership and its aspirations, is bridled by shrewd poli- 
ticians who must be just as reluctant to break openly with Southern conserv- 
atism as with the corrupt city machines in the North. But at the same time 
these politicians have to look out for the labor vote and for the Negro 
vote in the North, which again strengthens the forces working for nondis- 
crimination in the New Deal. There is, in the game, plenty of room for 
skillful log-rolling; the Southern conservatives in Congress and at home 
will often succeed in blocking rules and policies drawn up by the New 
Dealers to protect the Negroes' right to their equal share. The fight goes 
on under cover. But sometimes it flares into the open, as when Southern 
reactionary congressmen utilize their strategic committee positions to defeat 
or restrict some proposal of the New Deal. This blocking of social reform 
by Southern congressmen and the more general condition — which existed 
long before the New Deal — for Southern congressmen to exert a dispropor- 
tionate influence on legislation because of their longer tenure and the 
consequent importance of their committee assignments and prestige, is one 
of the main reasons why the Negro froblem is a national one and not 
merely a sectional one. Northern politicians are becoming aware of this fact 
before the Northern public. 

If, in the main, the New Deal has to deal tactfully with Southern con- 
gressmen, the latter cannot afford to break off entirely from the New 
Deal either. The Democratic party is their means of reaching out into 
national politics. And, besides, they have to watch their home front, where 
the New Deal is getting popular with the masses. The race issue, in these 
New Deal measures, is never an isolated element which can be cut off; it 
is always involved in the bigger issue of whether poor people shall be 
helped or not. The fundamental fact is that the South is poor and in clear 
need of social assistance and economic reform. To this must be added a 
personal factor of considerable weight. Roosevelt is not just another 
Democratic President. He has succeeded in becoming truly popular among 
the common people in the South, and he has taught them to demand more 
out of life in terms of security and freedom from want. He has acquired 
such prestige that the epithet "nigger lover" simply cannot be applied to 
him. Even the most conservative Southerner will scarcely dare to come out 
against him personally in the same way as do Republican conservatives in 
the North. 

In this way Southern political conservatism as a whole, and even on the 
race point, has to retreat and compromise. Meanwhile, the entire South 
is experiencing the benefits of the various federal policies. A general trend 
of centralization of governmental functions — from local governments to 



Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 465 

state governments, and from state governments to federal governments — 
is helping to give the South a new kind of administration. Even more 
in the South than in the rest of the country the New Deal takes on the 
form of a popular movement. Partly under the stimulation of the New 
Deal, the people of the South are coming to organize themselves for a wide 
variety of purposes: in county planning and other agricultural groups, in 
4-H clubs, in credit associations and cooperatives, in religious reform 
groups, discussion forums, fact-finding committees, parent-teacher associa- 
tions, interracial commissions, professional organizations and civic better- 
ment leagues. Some of these organizations are much older than the New 
Deal, but the whole trend has certainly gained momentum during recent 
years. The relation to the political New Deal of these variegated civic 
activities is apparent. The people behind it are the same as those working for 
the New Deal. Often those organizations are initiated and financed by the 
N.Y.A., the W.P.A., and the F.S.A. or some of the other government 
agencies. 

Small numbers of Southerners, even in the lower classes, are thus gradu- 
ally becoming accustomed to meeting together for orderly discussion of 
their problems. We have already observed the lack, in the South even more 
than in the North, of self-generating peoples' movements. The activity 
which we are now considering is certainly not a spontaneous outflow from 
the intelligent demands of problem-conscious masses. It is spoon-fed from 
above. But we must be careful not to under-estimate its potentialities. The 
building up of a social democracy does not, perhaps, follow exactly the 
same pattern everywhere. It may be that as small groups from the masses 
are in this way reached by modern political thought, they will, in their 
turn, act as catalysts bringing political intelligence and organizational 
solidarity to the vast dormant masses of white and black people in the 
South. 

The New Deal — particularly in the South — docs not rate highly when 
judged by norms of administrative efficiency. There has been lack of 
careful planning, coordination, and persistency, and there has also been 
waste of personnel and money. But the New Deal has spirit — particularly 
in the South. And it has done what many of the more efficient national wel- 
fare policies in other countries have rather neglected: it has strongly 
emphasized the education of the people. Such agencies as, for instance, the 
Farm Security Administration, have perhaps their most outstanding 
accomplishment in the education of the masses for a fuller and more 
efficient life. By actually changing the people, and not only assisting them 
economically, the New Deal becomes the more potent as a dynamic factor 
undermining the status quo in the South. 

The docility of the people on the plantations and in the textile mills — 
so different from the common stereotype of the independent, upright 



466 As American Dilemma 

American— is, of course, the very thing to be educated away. But in the 
initial effort at change, this docility gives the public agencies the oppor- 
tunity to use an element of patriarchal compulsion in the right .direction, 
which speeds up the educational process. The poorest farmer in the Scan- 
dinavian countries or in England — or in the Middle West, for that matter 
— would not take benevolent orders so meekly as Negro and white share- 
croppers do in the South. But if use is made of dependence and paternalism, 
the aim is independence and self-reliance. It has to be remembered that 
these people have lived in still greater dependence before, and that their 
close supervision by federal agencies is to be regarded as a weaning process. 

If we note further that the long-run trend in the South toward a higher 
level of general education and cultural participation of both Negroes and 
whites is steadily proceeding, we have accounted for the main dynamic 
factors in the Southern political situation. They all accumulate to bring 
Southern conservatism into a process of gradual disintegration. In this 
period of accelerated change, the Second World War has come to America. 
Some of the specific New Deal policies are being discontinued. Undoubtedly 
this War will have some of the usual effects of all wars in the direction 
of cultural and political reaction. 19 It is reported that the Ku Klux Klan 
is preparing for a new and glorious comeback after this War is over. But, 
more fundamentally, the War will probably work toward a still greater 
speeding up of most of the changes under way. And the War is fpught for 
democracy, for the "American way of life" — which is certainly not Southern 
traditionalism. 

In these changes, the various areas of the South are proceeding at 
different levels. The Deep South lags somewhat behind the Upper South, 
the Southwest, and the Border states, just as these are not as advanced as 
the Northern and Western regions of the country. These regional dif- 
ferences give us a sort of observational check in our analysis of the changes 
in time j they are especially useful, in foreseeing the future of the Deep 
South. 

No Yankee will be tactless enough to mention it, in so many words, and 
no Southerner can afford to admit it, but the main thing happening to the 
South is that it is gradually becoming Americanized. 

5. Southern Liberalism 

Southern liberalism is not liberalism as it is found elsewhere in America 
or in the world. It is a unique species. It is molded by the forces of the 
region where it carries out its fight. As an intellectual and ideological 
phenomenon it is, as we shall find, highly interesting. But in spite of its 
local, not to say provincial, character, it has always had its chief strategic 
function as a liaison agent with the North. It gets its power from outside 
the South. For decades Southern liberals have been acting as the trusted 



Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 467 

advisors and executors of the Northern philanthropists who wanted to do 
something for the region. During the 'thirties they received a much more 
potent trusteeship; namely, to bring the New Deal into effect in the South. 
The power and prestige of this function, and, even more, the entire series 
of recent changes in the Southern social scene, have given them a high 
political importance in the South. 

As social change gains momentum in the South, the future of Southern 
liberalism might become great. But it must be recognized that, outside the 
sphere dominated by Washington, its actual influence today on Southern 
politics is still minor. It has as yet little organized support among the broad 
masses of workers, farmers and lower middle class. It is mostly a fraternity 
of individuals with independent minds, usually living in, and adjusting 
to, an uncongenial social surrounding. Many of them are tolerated and even 
respected because of their high standing in their professions, their family 
background or their general culture. They are the intellectuals of the region 
and are responsible for a large part of the entire high-grade literary, jour- 
nalistic and scientific output of the region. They are so relatively few that 
the student of the South and its problems can hardly avoid coming to know 
first-hand and personally a representative sample of the group. They are, 
indeed, the cultural facade of the South. 

Here and there they have influenced state and local affairs to a limited 
extent. During the 'thirties the backing from Washington increased this 
type of local political influence. But nowhere in the South are they in power. 
The one exception to prove the rule is former Mayor Maury Maverick 
of San Antonio, Texas. A few have, however, reached out into national 
politics. Only two senators in the Upper and Lower South — Claude. Pepper 
of Florida and Lister Hill of Alabama (successor to Justice Hugo Black) 
— and two or three Southern representatives (notably, Robert Ramspeck 
of Georgia) could be considered as liberals. It seems to be easier for a 
Southern liberal to win a seat in Congress than to be really influential at 
home. One of the most prominent of them, Justice Hugo Black, has 
entered the Supreme Court after serving as senator. Quite a number of 
Southern liberals have held important positions in the central New Deal 
administration and thus, through Washington, moved things quite a bit 
in their own South. They have been the distinguished "scalawags" of the 
'thirties. A representative and prominent man in this group is W. W. 
Alexander, the former chief of the Farm Security Administration. 

But for the rest, Southern liberalism has its main stronghold in a few 
universities and among newspaper editors, both found most often in the 
Upper South. President Frank P. Graham of the University of North 
Carolina is a national figure— which means much in the South — and is 
thus strong enough even to maintain a thoroughly liberal and, in some 
respects, unorthodox faculty. North Carolina is, in addition, a fairly liberal 



468 An American Dilemma 

state, as Southern states go, and proud of the national reputation of its 
University. But even in the Deep Southern state of Georgia, the college has 
a slight liberal influence. When recently Governor Eugene Talmadge, one 
of the most vicious demagogues of the South, tried to dismiss ten educators 
in the state's highest institutions, he met the condemnation of the regional 
educational association, the vociferous protest of the students and even the 
mild protests of the remaining teachers. Even though the issue was a 
racial one, the opposition was quite vigorous — much more vigorous than 
Talmadge had bargained for and much more vigorous than he would have 
received a generation ago. Mainly as a consequence of his attacks on 
academic freedom, Talmadge was defeated at the following election. 

Some of the liberal editors in the Upper South, such as Jonathan Daniels, 
Virginius Dabney, and Mark Ethridge, also enjoy a certain amount of 
protection in their liberal views through the fact that they have achieved 
positions of national eminence. But many others do not. And all of them 
have to sell their papers in the local market to make a living. 

In this situation it is evident that the result must be a rigorous selection 
of the liberal professors and editors in the South. For men of humble 
origin and modest gifts and vision it is actually too dangerous to be liberal 
in the region. It is an obvious fact — usually never denied in the South even 
by conservatives — that the liberal professors and editors reach professional 
standards far superior to the average in the region. This gives to liberalism 
in the South a flavor of intellectual superiority, which is likely to attract 
the most ambitious youths. And because it makes such high demands upon 
a person in the way of talent and courage, mediocre youth avoid it. As 
some Southern liberals under the New Deal have been awarded important 
functions in national administration and politics, this adds more appeal 
but, again, only to the select. To a degree this is the situation everywhere 
in the world. It is always safest to be a conformer, but there are "glittering 
prizes for the one who has a brave, heart and a cutting blade," as the late 
British statesman Lord Birkenhead once told an English student assembly.* 
In the South the selective process seems to work with much more sharp- 
ness than elsewhere in America. 

To the group of outstanding liberals in the South belong also such writers 
of fiction as Erskine Caldwell, Paul Green, William Faulkner, Ellen Glas- 
gow, Julia Peterkin, Du Bose Heyward, and Thomas S. Stribling. Their 
direct influence in the South is probably much smaller than could be 
assumed, as in all likelihood the majority of their readers are Northerners. 
Book reading is restricted in the South. The North has always been, and still 
is, the main public for Southern authors. 

There are also labor union officials among the Southern liberals. The 
growing group of social workers and people employed locally in the vari- 
ous federal agencies contain also a significant portion of liberals. In addition, 



Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 469 

there are solitary idealists living all over the huge region — teachers, some 
doctors, a few lawyers, occasionally a queer businessman or planter, a num- 
ber of ministers, and many educated married women of the upper and 
middle class who enjoy the culture of leisure. Many women's organiza- 
tions, for instance, the American Association of University Women or the 
League of Women Voters, are locally strong forces for liberalism. There 
are other liberal organizations; for example, the interracial commissions* 
or the Fact Finding Committee of Georgia — a Southern state where such 
a group and such work would be least expected, judging by the office- 
holders and the policies pursued. 

But Southern liberalism has generally not reached even this preliminary 
stage of organization. The nearest approach to an organized political front 
was the Southern Conference on Human Welfare, which met in 1938 in 
Birmingham, Alabama, in 1940 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and in 1942 
in Nashville, Tennessee. The author, who was present at the first occasion, 
had a feeling that the real importance of this meeting was that here for the 
first time in the history of the region, since the era of the American Revolu- 
tion, the lonely Southern liberals met in great numbers — actually more 
than twelve hundred — coming from all states and joined by their col- 
leagues in Washington; and that they, in this new and unique adventure, 
experienced a foretaste of the freedom and power which large-scale politi- 
cal organization and concerted action give. 

At these conferences Southern Negroes were present and played an 
important role. It is a fact of more potential than actual political impor- 
tance that practically all Southern Negro intellectuals and probably a 
majority of the Negro professionals and business people are, at heart, 
liberals. It is natural both that their interests are concentrated upon the 
Negro problem and that their attitudes toward other issues, where they are 
practically without a voice, are less well considered and articulated. b 

When attempting to map the political opinions of white Southern 
liberalism, it must first be recalled that the region is exceptional in Western 
nonfascist civilization since the Enlightenment in that it lacks nearly every 
trace of radical thought' In the South all progressive thinking going 
further than mild liberalism has been practically nonexistent for a century. 

'See Chapter 39, Section 11. 

* See Part IX. 

* This is unique. Even in a most conservative country like Germany during the nineteenth 
century, all grades of opinions, from extreme conservatism to extreme radicalism, were 
represented in the public discussion. The German radicals of that period — various types of 
intellectual socialists, syndicalists, communists, and anarchists — sometimes met difficulties 
in getting their stuff into print; sometimes they had to live in exile for a while, as did 
Karl Marx. But they kept their allegiance and usually they came back and continued their 
participation in the public debate of their home country. 



470 An American Dilemma 

The full spectrum of opinion is thus never quite completely represented in 
public discussion in the South. 

This is undoubtedly a handicap from the viewpoint of general political 
culture conceived of as a balanced ensemble of voices, where the richness of 
the harmony is attained out of the dispute between disparate tones and 
timbres. The Southern harmony of opinions is based on a narrow range. The 
explanation of this extraordinary situation is again ultimately the Negro, 
the slavery institution, the conflict with the North and the strain since then 
to keep the South solid. The margin of tolerance for political opposition is 
still narrow. Too, since the region is only a part of the larger America, 
the few radicals have been able to move freely to the North j and they have 
stayed there because, not having the difficulties of immigrants, they can 
easily fit into the new surroundings and find rich outlets for their interests 
and ideals. 

The second main consideration when judging Southern liberalism is that 
the liberals are so definitely a political minority. Liberalism — as well as 
conservatism — takes on a quite different character depending upon whether 
it is in opposition or in power. Southern liberalism has not only been in 
opposition but has also been far from realizing even an expectation to be 
in political power within the short-range view. This accounts for the rather 
academic nature of liberal thinking in the South. Until recently Southern 
liberals planned their programs without thinking in terms of the actual 
power constellation and without taking account of the detailed demands of 
practical social engineering. The situation, however, is rapidly changing. 
The Southern liberals working for the New Deal have power and are 
thinking realistically in terms of power and practical plans. In the local 
issues, not touched by the New Deal, however, liberalism is still largely 
academic. 

For the same reason — lack of expectation to be in power — the Southern 
liberal, in an extraordinary way, has become inclined to stress the need for 
patience and to exalt the cautious approach, the slow change, the organic 
nature of social growth. Southern liberalism is, in these respects, still often 
expressed in terms which remind one much more of Edmund Burke, the 
great conservative thinker of a hundred and fifty years ago, than of modern 
liberalism in the North or in other democratic countries. In their activities 
Southern liberals have developed the tactics of evading principles} of being 
very indirect in attacking problems} of cajoling, coaxing and luring the 
public into giving in on minor issues. 

The general public of the South is often spoken of by Southern liberals 
as hopelessly backward, but at the same time it is flattered in the most 
extravagant terms of regional mythology. It is made a main point that the 
Southern public must not be enraged into resistance. It becomes the fine 
art of politics to get the public to tolerate or accept changes which it does 



Chapter si. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 471 

not quite understand, as they are never raised as issues and not talked about 
straightforwardly. Petty changes are hailed as great victories. Southern 
liberals are thus conditioned to being opportunistic. They often lack a clear 
understanding of the common observation from all spheres of politics in 
all counties and all times: that political actions, which for the moment 
amount to little more than mere demonstrations and which may actually 
cause a reaction in the individual case, in the long view may have been 
tremendously important as powerful stimuli to progressive thinking. 

It is apparent that this political approach — which is well understandable 
in the social context of the present South and against the background of the 
last hundred years' history of the region — is now much less prevalent than 
earlier. The New Deal has made liberals accustomed to rather rapid 
reforms and, what is more important, reforms which have often challenged 
local prejudices considerably. But as a general attitude, the indirect and 
cautious Southern approach is still adhered to, especially among liberals 
of an older generation. In sectors other than those in which they happen to 
be interested at the moment, many Southern liberals lean over backward 
to be conservative and so to avoid suspicion. The individual Southern liberal 
of an older school who is working to defend collective bargaining in his 
locality, for example, may surprise the interviewer by starting out, without 
any provocation, to explain why he thinks that birth control is wrong. A 
stress on church and religion is generally such a front all over the South, 
by which is meant that these values have a function to the Southern liberal 
even besides their original one. 

The Southern liberal, having to be critical of the South, has to emphasize 
strongly his local and regional 'patriotism? 1 He has also, if he wants to 
keep respectability and the possibility of accomplishing something, to tread 
most cautiously around the Negro problem. Southern liberals time and 
again explain that they have to respect established rules of racial etiquette 
in order to be able to do some real good for the South and, incidentally, 
for the Negro people. It is, for instance, explained by many that it is most 
important to keep the Negro out of sight in the fight for the abolition of 
the poll tax, in order not to stir up the anti-Negro complex. The Southern 
liberal, because he is suspected, has to be more afraid of the deadly blow 
of being called a "nigger lover" than the conservative, who can more 
easily shake it off as an absurdity. 

Nevertheless — and in spite of the real need for conservatism in some 
issues, which should not be questioned — the modern Southern liberal will 
most often actually be liberal not only in the sector where he is active but 
in other sectors as well. Again we must remember that the recruitment to 
liberalism in the South is strongly selective in regard to courage. Southern 
liberals are all fully aware of the function of the Negro issue in the con- 
servatism of the region and how every reform proposal becomes so much 



472 An American Dilemma 

more difficult to carry out politically if the Negro angle of it cannot be 
concealed. But in spite of these formidable drawbacks, Southern liberals 
have originated and carried out the interracial movement, about which 
more will be said in a later chapter. Generally the liberals will be found 
to stand for the most advanced policies in the Negro problem which are 
possible to advance in the Southern community where they are active. 
Southern liberals have been standing up for equal justice to the Negroes 
and have fought the lynching practice. They have often declared them- 
selves against the disfranchisement of the Negroes. They have been active 
in helping the Negroes get a fairer share of education, housing, employ- 
ment and relief. They do not, however, go so far as to demand "social" 
equality for Negroes, and they declare against "intermarriage." They 
usually direct their main activity on broader problems of cconomi -, social, 
and educational reforms of the South as a whole, and maintain that, as a 
result of such a general improvement of the region, the conditions will be 
eased even for the Negro people. 

As the South has the greatest problems of any section of the country, it 
has been natural for Southern liberals to concentrate their political specula- 
tion and action on their own region. Relatively speaking, national and inter- 
national issues have not loomed so large in the South as in the North. In 
this sense, the typical Southern liberal has been provincial. On the other 
hand, he has been more likely than his compeer in the North to think con- 
cretely and constructively in terms of the entire Southern region rather 
than in terms of a state. This is a heritage from the great national split. 
Against provincialism, however, works the clear understanding among 
Southern liberals that they derive much of their power from outside their 
area, and that the future of their cause in the South is vitally interwoven 
with political developments in the North and in the whole world. This 
latter tendency has, of course, been strengthened during the New Deal 
when federal legislation has been the strongest liberalizing force in the 
South. The editorial pages in liberal newspapers will thus be found to 
discuss, with increasing courage and insight, national and world issues and 
events. It should be understood that this is also a practical way of propa- 
gating liberalism in the South. In the Southern milieu, it is easier to get 
away with advanced thinking about Germany, India, or New York and 
even about national legislation if it does not concern concrete Southern 
problems. The outspoken liberalism in broader issues which can be observed 
in liberal Southern newspapers is thus often a compensation and an escape 
for forced conservatism at home. 22 It is also apparent that the "heavier" 
literature in books and magazine articles, which is written for a less popular 
and less dangerous public, is more concentrated on Southern problems. 

The central concern of the Southern liberal is always the South. The 
Southern liberals, more than similar groups in other parts of the country, 



Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 473 

feel themselves as belonging together in a fighting unity. They probably 
know each other better than liberals elsewhere and have a closer union with 
one another. Their cause is the improvement of the South. The acute aware- 
ness of the pressing problems of the region is likely to make the Southern 
liberals more definitely practical in their interests even if this has not until 
recently carried them to think constructively along power lines and in 
terms of social engineering. Social science in the South has similarly never, 
as in the North, lost the tradition of reasoning in terms of means and ends; 
the few leading scientists have not become "purely scientific" to the same 
extent as in the North. 11 The significance for human happiness of the prob- 
lems under study is always a present thought in the South, and states- 
manship enters more naturally into the writings of its distinguished social 
scientists. 

As suggested previously, Southern liberalism has aristocratic traditions. 
As a movement it is as yet almost entirely within the upper classes. Its 
main weakness lies in its lack of mass suffort. If it wants to see its ideals 
progressively realized, it simply must get its message out from the con- 
ference rooms and college lecture halls to the people on the farms and 
in the shops. Under the pressure of the accumulating structural changes, 
the "Solid South" might sometime, and perhaps soon, be broken and a two- 
party system develop. Southern liberalism will then face a political task 
for which it must be prepared. The leaders for a truly progressive political 
movement in the South are there; the staff work for the battle is largely 
done. If Southern liberalism can recruit an army to lead, it will itself, as 
an ideological force, become one of the major factors of change in the 
South and in the nation. 

* See Appendix 2, Section 2. 



CHAPTER 22 

POLITICAL PRACTICES TODAY 



i. The Southern Political Scene 

The future might belong to liberalism, but the South of today is mainly 
ruled by its conservatives. Though the South, as part of the United States, 
has, in the main, the same political forms as the North, the activity which 
goes on within these forms is strikingly different. The difference not only 
makes internal politics in the South distinctive, but it influences the activi- 
ties of the federal government. Although there are local and occasional 
variations which will be considered presently, the South exhibits the follow- 
ing major political divergences from the rest of the nation:* 

I. For all practical purposes, the South b has only one political party. 
In the 1940 election, for example, 76 per cent of all votes were cast for the 
Democratic candidate for President. In the extreme cases of Mississippi 
and South Carolina, 98 per cent of the votes went to the Democratic 
candidate. 1 This causes the primary to be far more important than the 
general election. In fact, the general election — most important in the 
North and West — is usually a formal ritual to satisfy the demand of the 
federal Constitution. While there is often a real contest in the primaries, 
on the whole the struggle is one between personalities rather than issues. 
Although the Democratic party holds unchallenged power over most of 
the South, this party is not a highly organized political unity. Politics is 
decentralized. 2 

* The data on Southern politics presented in' this chapter are for the most part taken from 
Ralph Bundle's seven-volume study, "The Political Status of the Negro," unpublished manu- 
script prepared for this study (1940). Bunche's investigations, carried out -with the help 
of several field-workers, are particularly rich in material on the South. A significant pro- 
portion of the counties in all Southern states was actually visited, and local correspondents 
from a few areas were used. The present author also made three trips throughout the South 
and gave special attention to the political scene. 

" In this chapter we are including in the South only the Upper and Lower South 
(Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, 
Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia). The Border states (Delaware, Kentucky, 
Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia) have two-party systems (Oklahoma does also, but 
we shall consider it as in the South because it disfranchises Negroes) . The people living in 
the District of Columbia have no vote. 

474 



Chapter 22. Political Practices Today '4.75 

2. A much smaller proportion of the population participates in the elec 
tions in the South than in the North. In 1940, only 28 per cent of the 
adult population voted in 12 Southern states, as compared to 53 per cent 
in the North and West. In the extreme case of South Carolina, only 10 
per cent voted. 8 Most of this voting is carried on with a corruption and dis- 
respect for law that is found in only a few areas of the North and West. 4 

3. For all practical purposes, Negroes are disfranchised in the South. 
Out of a total Negro adult population of 3,651,256 in the 8 Deep Southern 
states (excluding Oklahoma) of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, 
Florida, Texas, South Carolina, and Arkansas, Bunche estimates that only 
80,000 to 90,000 Negroes voted in the general election of 1940." Practically 
none voted in the primary. 

These three major political facts about the South are really part of one 
single problem, and — as we shall find — this problem is the Negro problem. 11 
Because a Republican administration was at the helm in Washington during 
the Civil War and Reconstruction, the white South affiliated itself with the 
Democratic party. It has remained Democratic and has kept the Democratic 
party in the South a white man's party to prevent Negroes from having any 
voice in government. A white Republican is generally considered a "nigger 
lover" but at the same time he is allowed to vote in the Democratic "white 
primary" in many sections of the South. Every attempt to build up a two- 
party system is still regarded as a threat of "black domination." As a result, 
the political issues in the South cannot be fought at the general elections 
(and not often in the primaries either). No political organization can be 
built around an issue (except for prohibition). The candidates at a Demo- 
cratic primary may represent, as we have pointed out," different interests 
and different points of view, but once the primary has selected the Demo- 
cratic candidate, usually all opposition to him must cease until he is up for 
renomination several years later (the "gentleman's agreement"). The 
necessity of the one-party system as a means of excluding Negroes from 
suffrage and the danger of "black domination" are kept to the fore of 
people's attention. In most regions of the South an appeal to white solidar- 

* Except for Louisiana, no record is kept of the color of registered voters. This estimate 
was made by Ralph Bunche on the basis of extensive interviewing: with registrars and Negro 
and white political leaders throughout the South. Of the 80,000 or 90,000 Negro votes 
credited to the 8 states, 50,000 are attributed to Texas alone. See Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 4., 
pp. 771 and 897. For more complete figures, see Section 3 of this chapter. Paul Lewiuson 
(JRact t Class and Party [1932], pp. 2i8-azo) has some estimates of Negro voting for 
scattered places in the South around 1930. Lcwinson's estimates agree fairly well with 
Bundle's more recent and more complete estimates. 

" It is not meant that all these backward conditions are directly traceable to the Negro 
problem: many aie caused by other consequences of the Civil War and by the South's 
economic structure. But all these things are part of an interconnected whole, of which the 
Negro problem is certainly a basic element. 

'See Chapter sto, Section 1. 



476 An American Dilemma 

ity is a great campaign asset for a candidate; in some regions in the Deep 
South "nigger baiting" still gets votes. All over the South it is dangerous 
for a candidate to be accused of friendliness to the Negro. As we have 
observed earlier, political campaigning and election have in the South 
ceremonial and symbolic significance, and oratorical ability is a first neces- 
sity for a Southern politician. 

In keeping Negroes from the polls by such devices as the poll tax, white 
men have been disfranchised. In preventing a two-party system from 
arising — which might let in the Negro vote — white men have been kept 
politically apathetic. White Southerners stay away ffom the polls for the 
most part. 6 Another large proportion comes to the polls solely because 
they are given a dollar or two apiece for their vote by the local political 
machine. As participation in elections is kept low, relatively little money 
can often control elections in the South. And investigations show that 
corruption and illegal practices at the polls are the rule — not the excep- 
tion. The election machinery is in most parts of the region far behind 
that in the North and in the other democratic countries of the world. For 
example, the secret, printed, uniform ballot (the so-called "Australian 
ballot") is not used over large areas of the South, and election officials and 
hangers-on at the polls know how everyone votes. 7 

At the same time there is a myth in the South that politics is clean, that 
it became clean when the new state constitutions — inaugurated between 
1890 and 1910 — completed the process of disfranchising the Negro. Many 
a story is passed around describing the terrible times before 1890 when 
Negroes were fed liquor and herded to the polls, first by the Republi- 
cans and later by the Democrats and Populists when they split and appealed 
to the Negro vote. 

As a prerequisite for understanding the Negro's role in Southern 
politics, it is necessary to consider two further aspects of the political scene: 
the influence of the South in national politics and the position there of the 
Republican party. 

The difference between politics -m the South and in the rest of the 
nation is so great that it visibly affects the personality of Southern mem- 
bers of Congress: they act and think differently in Washington from what 
they do in their home states. So do Northerners, of course j but the shift 
undergone by the Southerners is much more drastic. The typical Southern 
members of Congress are, however, basically so far away from national 
norms that, in spite of all accommodations, they remain a distinctive force 
in Washington. This fact becomes all the more important as, for a variety 
of reasons, they have a disproportionate influence in national politics. 

Seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned according to 
population, and the nine million Negroes in the South give the South a 



Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 477 

good share of its seats, although so few Negroes are permitted to vote.' 
The large amount of nonvoting among Southern whites similarly makes 
each vote count more. The small electorate, the one-party system, well- 
organized local machines, as well as other factors already referred to, 
create a near permanency of tenure for the average Southern member 
of Congress which is seldom paralleled in the North. With seniority as a 
basis for holding important committee posts in Congress, and with acquaint- 
ance as an almost necessary means for participating effectively in congres- 
sional activities, the Southerner's permanency of tenure gives him a decided 
advantage in Washington. This is especially true when — as now — the 
Democratic party is in power: it controls the most important positions in 
Congress, and it relies heavily on its disproportionate representation from 
the South. 

There are two important limitations, though, to the South's influence 
on the Democratic party and thereby on the nation. First, it can practically 
never hope to control the Presidency, since the Democratic candidate for 
President is almost sure of the South but must be especially attractive to 
the North. b Second, the Democratic party is solicitous of the Northern 
Negro and has been successfully weaning his vote away from the Republi- 
can party. 

To the national Republican party, the South has for a long time been 
a place from which practically no support could be expected, and Southern 
Republicans were for the most part persons whose votes for nomination had 
to be bought up at the national conventions. 8 To the Southern Republicans, 
the national Republican party has been a source of federal patronage. To 
Negro Republicans it has also been a traditional but failing hope. A major 
exception to total weakness of the Republican party in the South, of course, 
was the 1928 presidential election when Texas, Florida, North Carolina, 
and Virginia bolted the Democratic candidate, Smith, because he was a 
Catholic and anti-Prohibitionist. Several Republican areas may be found in 

* In one sense, the South was helped politically by the abolition of slavery and the 
ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Befoic then, the presence of a Negro gave the 
South only three-fifths of a vote in terms of representation in Congress. After then, the 
presence of a Negro — who, in most cases, was still not allowed to vote — gave the South a 
full vote. 

b The abolition of the two-thirds rule for nominating candidates for President and Vice- 
President by the 1936 Democratic Convention removed even the South's veto power on the 
choice of candidate. 

The South's inability to capture the Presidency, coupled with the former weakness of the 
national Democratic party, has given rise to the myth that the South has little influence in 
national politics. As the national Democratic party has taken on new importance in recent 
years, the error in this myth is being seen. 

c See Section 4. of this chapter. 



478 An American Dilemma 

the Border states of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and West 
Virginia, and also in Tennessee and Oklahoma. The Deep South, too, has 
its few Republicans: cities always harbor nonconformists, and even a rural 
area—such as Winston County, Alabama—may be overwhelmingly Repub- 
lican. In recent years, the small proportion of migrants from the North has 
occasionally brought its Republican affiliation along and a few native 
businessmen have considered that their sentiments were with the national 
Republican party. But these are all exceptions: in most places and at most 
times in the South, white persons consider it a disgrace to vote Republican. 
White Republicans have traditionally been labeled "scalawags" and "nigger 
lovers"— epithets which express the most extreme form of disfavor and 
which reveal the heart of the political situation in the South. 

When the federal government withdrew the army of occupation in the 
i870's, and the Klan was left free to terrorize Negro and white Republi- 
cans at the polls, the Republican party in the South was broken. With a few 
Negro and poor white votes — and sometimes in coalition with the Popu- 
lists—the Republican party retained some representation throughout the 
South until the new state constitutions of 1890-1910 disfranchised Negroes 
even more completely. By 1920, in recognition of its lack of significance in 
the South, the Republican party practically abandoned primaries and often 
did not even put up candidates in the general election. In 1940, the last 
remaining strength of Southern Republicans was removed: at future 
national conventions congressional districts with fewer than 1,000 Republi- 
can votes in the previous election will be denied delegates. It is estimated 
that this will affect 75 congressional districts in the South. 

At the same time that the Republican party was declining in the South, 
the whites within it were splitting off from the Negroes to form what has 
been commonly called "the lily-white movement." The term seems to date 
back to 1888 when the Negro Republican leader, N. W. Cuney, applied 
it to white Republicans who tried to drive Negroes out of the state con- 
vention of Texas by fomenting riots. 10 The movement was given impetus 
by Presidents Taft and Hoover. 11 TKe aim of the lily-white leaders and of 
these Republican Presidents was to build up a Republican party in the 
South by dissociating the party from Negroes, and from the epithets 
"nigger lover" and "scalawag." They sought to do this by purging the 
party of Negro influence and a Negro share in the spoils of victory and by 
attracting the new South's businessmen. 

In one sense, the movement has been successful in all but a few Border 
states: There is now but one "regular" Negro national Republican com- 
mitteeman — Perry Howard of Mississippi, who resides in Washington, D.C. 
In recent elections it is probable that a majority of the few Negroes who 
voted in Southern states voted Democratic, although there is no proof of 



Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 479 

this.* Because there has been no Republican President since Hoover, it can- 
not be determined whether a national Republican victory would give South- 
ern Negroes a share of the spoils. It should be observed that the lily-white 
movement is not completely anti-Negro: lily-white leaders want Negro 
votes but do not want to recognize Negro influence or claims. In some 
states, as in Louisiana, Negro Republican registrants are needed in order to 
continue the party's legal recognition and keep its place on the ballot. The 
rule adopted at the 1940 Convention requiring a congressional district to 
have 1,000 votes to secure representation may also lead to a courting of 
Negro Republican votes in the South. 

In another sense, the lily-white movement has been a failure: it has led 
to no mass defection of whites from the Democratic party. b The movement 
is up against the potent myth that, if the whites split, the Negroes will 
hold the "balance of power" and dominate Southern politics. With the 
declining proportion of Negroes in the South, and with the recent split 
in the Negro vote, this myth has even less foundation than formerly. It 
was a matter of honor for Southern Negroes to be Republican before 
1930. 12 Many Negroes in the South feel that the old rump Republican party 
never did any good for the Negroes but merely gave jobs to a few of their 
political leaders. They felt hurt by the Republican party's defection when it 
went lily-white. It cannot, of course, be proven, but it seems likely that 
there has been a landslide away from the Republican party in the South as 
well as in the North. 13 Still, many Negroes are shrewd enough to cal- 
culate that if the lily-white movement should be successful, there could 
develop a two-party system in the South, which would give the Negro a 
chance to become a voter again. 

2. Southern Techniques for Disfranchising the Negroes 

In discussing techniques for restricting the franchise, the usual pro- 
cedure has been to list the relevant laws and to describe their administra- 
tion. While there is nothing incorrect about this procedure, it tends to give 
a disjointed picture of the situation. Actually, each voting qualification has 
been made or is enforced according to the basic principles underlying peo- 
ple's conceptions as to who should be allowed to vote. Three principles 
seem to govern the extension of the franchise to Negroes in the South. 
In the first place, there is the Constitution of the United States which 
stipulates: 

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged 

by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition 

of servitude. 

* It is not only the lily-white movement, of course, which has brought the Negro to the 
Democratic party. More important were the New Deal reforms and local conditions. (See 
Section 4 of this chapter.) 

* Except in the unusual 1928 election. 



480 An American Dilemma 

In perfect opposition to this is the Southern caste principle that no Negro 
should be allowed to vote. The history of legal voting qualifications in the 
South since Restoration is the history of the attempt to find some formula 
which will reconcile these two opposing principles. A third principle may 
be discerned: this holds that Negroes may be allowed to vote according to 
the discretion or need of those whites who exercise influence over the 
conduct of the election. This third principle is the cause of the variation 
in Negro voting in different parts of the South. Some Negroes may be 
permitted to vote because they are "good" (a reward for obedience to the 
caste rules), because an influential white group needs their votes, because 
so few Negroes vote that it is not worth the effort to hamper them beyond 
a certain point (lack of "clear and present danger" to the caste principle), 
or because a few Negro votes are handy to refute the accusation of uncon- 
stitutionality." 

State laws setting the qualifications for voting have usually been the 
result of an attempt to get the caste principle around the Constitution. 
Clearly, the Constitution prohibited any law which explicitly restricted the 
vote to whites, since this would involve a reference to "race or color." The 
next best thing was to determine some attribute which was had by whites, 
but not by Negroes — other than race or color. Perhaps the safest and most 
ingenious of these discoveries was that of ancestry: the so-called "grand- 
father clauses" restricted registration for voting 14 to those persons who had 
voted prior to 1861 and to their descendants, or to persons who had served 
in the federal or Confederate armies or state militias and to their descend- 
ants. The United States Supreme Court, however, found these clauses un- 
constitutional under the Fifteenth Amendment. 1 '' 

Certainly the most efficient device in use today to keep Negroes from vot- 
ing where the vote would count most in the South is the "white primary." 
The Democratic party prohibited Negroes from participating in its pri- 
mary 1 ' by means of state-wide rule (in 1940) in nine Southern states: 
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Louisiana, Arkan- 
sas, Virginia and Texas. Only in central Texas and some counties of Vir- 
ginia was the rule relaxed to any significant degree. In North Carolina and 
Tennessee, the determination of who may vote in the primary is left to the 
Democratic party committees of the separate counties: Negroes are per- 
mitted in the primaries in several counties in these states. Kentucky no 
longer has even county organizations restricting the primaries. 1 " 

* There are also a few small all-Negro communities in the South — such as Mound Bayou, 
Mississippi — where Negroes vote unhampered in the local elections. But their votes are not 
always accepted in county, state and federal elections. 

b This inability to participate in the primary also involved an exclusion from other party 
activities, such as conventions, caucuses of voters, mass meetings, party offices and candi- 
dacies. 



CHAPTER 22. POLITICAL PRACTICES lODAY 48 1 

The legal fight with reference to the white primary did not begin in the 
Federal courts until 1927. At that time the law passed by the State Legis- 
lature of Texas in 1923 was declared unconstitutional. 17 The Supreme 
Court held that a state government could not legally declare a white 
primary. Another decision in 1932 18 simply declared that a state govern- 
ment could not vest the right to restrict the suffrage in the party's State 
Executive Committee, and so nothing significant was really decided: the 
restriction was simply declared by the party's State Convention instead of 
by the Executive Committee. A 1935 decision by the Supreme Court 19 was 
far more significant — it apparently upheld the white primary by declaring 
that the primary is an affair of the party alone, and, as a voluntary institu- 
tion, a political party could restrict its adherents as it pleased. This deci- 
sion may be limited to the Texas situation where an attempt has been made 
to divorce the Party from the State. In other states — such as Virginia, 
Florida, and Louisiana — the expenses of the primary are paid by the state, 
and the state has formally declared the public character of the primary. 
In these states, the white primary would seem to be clearly unconstitu- 
tional. 

The legal issue today hinges around the question as to whether the 
primary is a public affair: advocates of a white primary claim that the 
party is a voluntary association and as such it can restrict its participants. 
Those opposed to the party restrictions against Negroes in the primary 
claim that the general election is profoundly changed by the existence of 
the primary, which is the most important election in the South, and that, 
therefore, voting in the primaries should be subject to the Constitution. One 
fact which disturbs the legal case of those who would restrict the Negro 
from voting in the primaries is that in many areas white Republicans are 
permitted to vote in the Democratic primaries, but Negro Democrats are 
not." In a recent decision by the Supreme Court — in a case concerning 
fraudulent practices and not Negro participation — the position was taken 
that "the primary in Louisiana is an integral part of the procedure for the 
popular choice of Congressmen" and that, therefore, no person qualified 
to vote in the general election can be disqualified in the primary. 20 The 
legality of the white primary is, therefore, still not settled, 21 and it is 
under vigorous attack. 

Probably the most notorious — although certainly not the most efficient — 
device to keep the Negro from voting in the South is the foil tax. The 
poll tax is one of the oldest forms of direct taxation, but it was usually 
compulsory and, therefore, had little effect in restricting the vote. In 
modern times the compulsory poll tax is being generally abandoned as it 
is a regressive tax. 22 Eight Southern states have a voluntary poll tax and 

*In the last two decades, few areas in the South have had Republican primaries — partly 
because the law does not provide for a primary where there are few eligible voter* and 
partly because Southern Republicans are not interested in having a primary. 



4*2 Air American Dilemma 

have it for the express purpose of restricting the vote.* They have different 
kinds of poll taxes, bat in general the requirement is the voluntary pay- 
ment of a small sum (one to three dollars) before registration for voting 
iff permitted; it is thus not actually a "tax" in the strict meaning of the 
term but a "fee" or "dues" paid for voting. 28 

In many states the poll tax is cumulative, and the payment of more than 
one year's poll tax is required for the right to vote (in some states back to 
the time the individual became 21 years of age). Again it may be noted 
that the states of the Deep South are more restrictive than the states of 
the Upper South or the Border states. 81 North Carolina, Louisiana and 
Florida have repealed their poll tax requirements. The latter two states 
form the only exception to the rule that the more "Southern" the state, 
the more restrictive its poll tax requirement. While the poll tax is low, 
except where and when it is applied cumulatively, it means quite a bit to 
those Negroes and whites who work for a dollar or two a day. It means 
more for Negroes because they are poorer. But its greatest restrictiveness 
against Negroes probably results from discrimination in its application: 
election officials practically always demand to see the poll tax receipts of 
Negroes and seldom those of whites. Too, it is common in many areas for 
politicians to pay the poll tax of whites in return for an understanding that 
those receiving the benefit will vote in accordance with the wishes of the 
benefactor. But in only a handful of Southern cities is the Negro vote so 
bought. 88 

Because the poll tax operates to disfranchise the poorer whites as well 
as Negroes and to bolster political machines, there is a growing movement 
in the South to abolish it. 2a Some liberals even claim that the primary 
purpose of the tax was to disfranchise poor whites, since Negroes can be 
kept from the polls in so many other ways. The case of Louisiana is pointed 
out: the poll tax was repealed there in 1934, and still only some 2,000 
Negroes registered in 1936." The chief popular argument for the poll tax 
is still, however, that it keeps Negroes from the polls. This argument is 
buttressed by the case of Miami, where Negroes went to the polls in large 
numbers in 1939 following the repeal of the poll tax in 1937. Some pro- 
ponents of the poll tax admit that one of its aims is to disfranchise poor 
whites, but this — they hold — keeps the primary "manageable" so that the 
Democratic party does not split and thus open the way for Negroes to vote 
and get the balance of power. b This last argument points to a perhaps 

* While this book it in press, Tennessee has abolished its poll tax. There are now only 7 
states with the poll tax. 

* There have been a few arguments for the poll tax which have no special reference to 
Negroes. Some of the aristocratic proponents of the tax frankly believe that only those who 
pay taxe*«hould have the vote. It was also argued that the poll tax is a source of revenue, 
but it Is jnually realized that the income from this tax is very small, and that it is not 
necessary to prohibit voting in order to collect taxes. 



Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 483 

fundamental significance of the poll tax: if poor whites are encouraged to 
vote by the removal of the poll tax, they will not be any friendlier to 
Negroes, but they may stir up issues and put through legislation that will 
have the ultimate effect of helping all poor people, including Negroes. 

There is no way of measuring to what extent nonvoting in the South 
is caused by the poll tax. But there is hardly any doubt that it does have 
such an effect as even a small sum means much to poor people. Many, of 
course, abstain from paying the poll tax and from voting because of 
political apathy, which is widespread in the South. But there is a circular 
causal relationship here of a cumulative and potentially dynamic character. 
When poor people abstain from voting because of the poll tax or political 
apathy, this tends to keep issues which interest poor people out of politics. 
Thereby political apathy and nonpayment of poll tax is enhanced. But if 
the masses were encouraged to vote by the abolition of the poll tax and 
other changes, the vicious circle could be set working the other way. The 
poll tax would then be viewed as one strategic factor in an interrelated 
causal system, tied up to political apathy and the one-party system. 

The poll tax disfranchises and is subject to political manipulation not 
only because it costs the voter a dollar or two, but because it must be paid 
by a certain date (which is often long before anyone knows who the candi- 
dates will be), a because officials often mis-date the receipts to violate the 
date provision and pay the tax themselves and because employers force 
their employees to pay the tax. 28 The significance of the poll tax in keeping 
even whites from voting is suggested by the fact that the states without 
the tax have a larger proportion of their adult citizens voting than com- 
parable states with the tax. 

In 1940, Oklahoma, for example, had 60 per cent of its adult citizenry 
voting compared to 18 per cent in Arkansas; North Carolina had 43 per 
cent compared to 22 per cent in Virginia; and Louisiana, which has been 
without the poll tax only since 1934, had 27 per cent compared to 14 per 
cent in Mississippi. 29 

Similar to the poll tax, in that they restrict Negroes because they are 
poor, are p-operty, educational, and "character" requirements for voting. 
These, too, are seldom applied to whites but almost always to Negroes, 
and the requirements are more rigid in the states of the Deep South than 
in the Border states. Also, like the poll tax, these requirements for voting 
have been reduced somewhat in recent years, especially in the Upper 
South. Property requirements for voting are found in Alabama, Georgia, 
and South Carolina and are applicable only if the prospective voter cannot 
meet the educational requirements. As such they would seem to serve as a 

'"Payment of the tax must be made from six to ten months in advance of the election 
in Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia." (Virginius Dabney, Below thi Potomte 
[»9*»] p. 1*0.) 



484. An American Dilemma 

loophole to white persons who could not read and write. They require the 
ownership of 40 acres of land or other property worth $300 to $500. 

Educational requirements for voting are found in Mississippi, Alabama, 
Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. In 
most states they consist of demonstration of ability to read and write a 
section of the federal or state constitution to the "satisfaction" of the 
registrar; in Virginia they consist of writing an application for registration. 
Relatively seldom is a white man "insulted" by being given the test 5 yet 
many cases have been recorded 80 where a Negro "failed" the test when 
he mispronounced a single word. Even professors at Tuskegee and other 
Negro universities have been disfranchised by failing to pass these tests. 
In a few Deep Southern states, not only must a section of the Constitution 
be read and written, but it must also be interpreted to the "satisfaction" 
of the registrar. Needless to say, the educational attainments of election 
registrars are seldom such that they can be fair judges of the meaning of 
the state and federal constitutions. This "interpretation" requirement is 
now found only in Mississippi and Louisiana. 

The legal "character" requirement for voting registration also has 
declined in recent years so that it is now found only in Louisiana and 
Georgia. Actually it is applied illegally to Negroes in many other places 
in the South: Negroes must be vouched for by whites or they must be 
known to the registrars in their communities as "good niggers." In some 
cases, a leading "good nigger" may serve as character witness for other 
Negroes. In Georgia the character requirement is used not only to dis- 
franchise Negroes but also to permit the registration of whites who cannot 
meet the property or educational requirements, since it is an alternative 
to these other requirements. 81 

In addition to these better known legal requirements for voting, there 
are several others which are, or have been, employed in one or more 
Southern states to disfranchise Negroes. A tricky registration blank must 
be filled out: whites will be given assistance, and their errors adjusted or 
overlooked; Negroes will not be allowed even the most trivial incomplete- 
ness or error, and are given no assistance. Certain of the previously dis- 
cussed requirements (poll tax payment, education, or property) are waived 
for the war veterans, or for the aged in certain states: in practice whites 
are informed of such privileges but Negroes who qualify are not expected 
to ask for them. Some Southern states withhold the vote from anyone 
convicted of a crime: this is overlooked for most of the whites but applied 
as rigorously as can be to the Negro. 32 

More important than the legal requirements in disfranchising Negroes 
in the South are extra-legal -practices. Laws passed by state or local govern- 
ments must not conflict with the constitutional provision that there be no 
discrimination because of race, color or creed. Activities carried on outside 



Chapter a 2. Political Practices Today 485 

the law are seldom subjected to this constitutional test. Laws can disfran- 
chise Negroes only by making a criterion for voting some characteristic 
which is found more frequently in the Negro population than in the white 
and by creating opportunities for local administrative discretion. Extra- 
legal activities can disfranchise Negroes to any degree desired." 

Violence, terror, and intimidation have been, and still are, effectively 
used to disfranchise Negroes in the South. Physical coercion is not so often 
practiced against the Negro, but the mere fact that it can be used with 
impunity and that it is devastating in its consequences creates a psychic 
coercion that exists nearly everywhere in the South. A Negro can seldom 
claim the protection of the police and the courts if a white man knocks 
him down, or if a mob burns his house or inflicts bodily injuries on him or 
on members of his family. If he defends himself against a minor violence, 
he may expect a major violence. If he once "gets in wrong" he may expect 
the loss of his job or other economic injury, and constant insult and loss 
of whatever legal rights he may have had. 38 In such circumstances it is 
no wonder that the great majority of Negroes in the South make no 
attempt to vote and — if they make attempts which arc rebuffed — seldom 
demand their full rights under the federal Constitution. 

Usually a Negro never goes so far as to attempt to cast his vote. In the 
majority of Southern localities Negroes are prevented from registering, 
or only a few Negroes are allowed to register. This means that the rebuffs 
occur in the administration of the legal requirements for registration. 34 

Educational "tests" to disfranchise Negroes are widely used in a bluntly 
illegal way. One intelligent Negro woman in North Carolina was denied 
registration when she mispronounced the words "contingency" and "con- 
stitutionality" in reading the state constitution. 35 Other rebuffs come as a 
still more unmistakable extension of the law. A Negro school teacher in 
the same state was denied registration after the following incident: 

... the registrar asked me to read a section of the Constitution, which I did, and 
then asked me to define terms which I knew was not part of the North Carolina 
law. I said to him, "That is not a part of the law, to define terms." He said, "You 
must satisfy me, and don't argue with me." 86 

Many cases are reported where Negroes do not get even this far: "What 
do you want here, nigger?" has been enough to send them away from the 
registration or polling place. 37 Other favorite devices are to evade the pros- 
pective Negro registrant or voter by ignoring him, by telling him that 
registration cards have "run out," or that all members of the registration 
board are not present, that he should go somewhere else, or that he will 
be notified when he can register, by "losing" his registration card or by 
"forgetting" to put his name on the list of voters. 88 

* For a general discussion of extra-legal devices to coerce Negroes, see Part VI. 



486 An American Dilemma 

The illegal activities of persons not connected with the administration 
of the election also take many forms. The hangers-on at the polling places 
insult and stare at Negroes, especially Negro women. Negroes have 
received threats, such as, "If you vote, you will never return home alive,'' 
and "You have always been looked on as a good character. But from now 
on you shall be looked on as a dangerous character.-" 30 White newspapers 
have openly warned Negroes not to vote and intimated violence if they 
did vote. In the 1939 election in Miami, the Ku Klux Klan rode the 
streets in full regalia and passed out handbills threatening Negroes if they 
voted. In the same year, riots and other forms of violence occurred because 
of Negroes voting in Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina. 40 Keep- 
ing in mind this review of the techniques for keeping Negroes from voting 
in the South, we may turn to the question of how many Negroes do vote 
in spite of this pressure. 

3. The Negro Vote in the South 

As has been observed, the general pattern in the South since the "new" 
constitutions of 1890-19 10 has been to deny the vote to Negroes. Still a 
small proportion of Negroes do vote, and the local variations in the 
number of their votes are significant. 41 Since no statistics are compiled 
which separate the Negro votes from the white votes, there is no exact 
record of these variations. Further, it is practically impossible to compile 
exact statistics on registration of Negroes, as many election officials do not 
make accurate designations of voters according to color in the registration 
books. Knowledge of local variations must come, therefore, from a mass 
of newspaper articles, interviews, registration reports and local studies." 

As we have noticed, the most important voting in the South is in the 
Democratic primaries, and these are restricted to whites. Here and there 
a community will let one or two "good" Negroes vote in the primary. In 
some of the cities, especially where political machines can control the 
Negro vote — such as in San Antonio and Memphis — Negroes vote in the 
primaries in restricted numbers. <With these negligible exceptions, no 
Negroes are permitted to vote, under a state-wide party rule," in Alabama, 
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina. 
Texas and Virginia also have state-wide rules prohibiting Negroes from 
voting in the primary, but, nevertheless, Negroes are permitted to vote 
in a few counties. North Carolina and Tennessee leave the primary rule 
to county party organizations, and several of these do not prohibit 

* Such a collection was made by Ralph J. Bunche and his assistants for this study {of. clt., 
Vol. 4, Chapter 75 Vol. 5, Chapters 9, 10 and 115 Vol. 8, Appendix 2.) A few of Bunche's 
most general findings will be summarized here. 

b See Section 2 of this chapter for a description of the type of rules restricting Negro 
voting in primaries. 



Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 487 

Negroes. Kentucky and the other Border states do not have a white 
primary at all, but even in such cases it should not be forgotten that Negro 
voting may be restricted by means other than a formal rule. From the 
above description of Negro voting in the primary, the greater liberality 
of the states nearest the North is patent. 

While the Democratic primary is the most important election in the 
South, there are other elections. First, there is the general election, 
conducted under the Constitution and laws of the United States and 
administered by the state governments. With the assumed success of the 
Democratic candidate in most areas, this is not important, except perhaps 
to keep the Southerner aware that he is politically a member of the United 
States as well as of the Democratic party. Very rarely, and usually as a 
matter of "accident," the general election takes on political significance. 
The defeated Democratic candidate in the primaries may feel that he was 
defeated only because of corruption, or that he could win the general 
election with the aid of Republicans and Negroes. He may then break his 
"gentleman's agreement" and run in the general election as an independent 
candidate. 42 The general election then takes on the partisan character of a 
general election in the North. Occasionally, too, death or resignation may 
create a political vacancy which is fought over in the general election, 
without a primary. 

Besides the primary and the general election, there are two types of 
so-called "nonpartisan" elections. Both of these are, in large measure, 
restricted to cities. They are nonpartisan only in the sense that no party 
label can be put on the ballot, but there may be heated division over the 
candidates or issues in the election. One type of nonpartisan election occurs 
in those cities which operate under a city manager or commission form of 
government. According to Lewinson, 43 there were 115 cities south of the 
Border states operating under a city manager charter in 1930 in addition 
to 32 cities of over 30,000 population (1927) operating under the com- 
mission plan. Several of these cities retained the primary, but most of them 
hold only a nonpartisan general election to choose the commissioners. 4 ' 1 
The second type of nonpartisan election is that involving initiative and 
referendum. Referenda concerning bond issues, tax rates, amendments, 
city extensions, and so on, are not at all uncommon in Southern cities. For 
some of these, a certain proportion of 1 egistered persons must vote or the 
referendum does not pass. In such cases, whites who favor the issue may 
seek to get out the Negro vote. 

In general and nonpartisan elections, Negroes vote to a significantly 
gi eater extent than in primary elections, since there is no uniform rule 
barring them. All the other devices outside of the formal no-Negro rule 
may be applied to keep them from voting, however, and in the 1 1 states 
south of the Border states there are. probably less than 250,000 Negroes 



488 Am American Dilemma 

who have voted in the last five or six years.* 6 There are the usual variations 
within the South: there are more Negroes voting in cities than in rural 
areas. This is not only because there is slightly greater liberality toward 
Negroes in the cities, but also because the nonpartisan election is a phenom- 
enon almost restricted to cities. There are also more votes permitted to 
Negroes as we approach the Northern states. The recent increases in 
Negro voting are registered mainly in the Border states, in the Upper 
South and in Oklahoma." 

There is one other type of election that is important to the Negro in 
the South. The Agricultural Adjustment Act requires that cotton owner- 
operators, tenants, and sharecroppers vote to indicate whether they want 
the application of the crop restriction program. Negroes have participated 
in unrestricted numbers in these annual elections (since 1938) and have 
voted in perhaps even greater proportion than whites. They vote at the 
same polling places as whites and at the same time. There is little physical 
opposition from the whites because the majority favor crop control, and 
they know that Negroes will vote in favor of it} they are told that if 
Negroes are prevented from voting, the election will be illegal. They 
also know that any irregularity would be observed by federal administra- 

" Bundle's specific estimates arc as follows; Mississippi probably has fewest Negroes 
voting — only a few hundred "good" Negro aristocrats and school teachers. Louisiana had 
2,007 "colored persons" registered in 1936, and these were practically all in or around 
Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Only about half these Negroes actually voted. Next in order 
came Alabama and South Carolina with about 1,500 Negro votes apiece; South Carolina 
had so few Negroes voting although there was a spontaneous (that is, not solicited by a 
white machine) movement to get out the Negro vote in Greenville in 1939. There were 
7,000 or S,ooo Negroes voting in recent years in Arkansas, and as many as 10,000 apiece 
in Georgia (mainly in Atlanta) and Florida (including Miami, where there was an up- 
surge of Negroes in 1939 against the Klan). Virginia has recently permitted more Negroes 
to vote so that now there may be as many as 20,000 Negro votes in that state. Texas, North 
Carolina, Tennessee, and Oklahoma have a Negro vote of about 50,000 apiece. San Antonio 
is an important center of Negro voting in Texas: Bellinger (formerly the father and now 
the son) marshals the Negro vote there for the machine. City machines in Raleigh and 
Durham are mainly responsible for the Negro votes in North Carolina. In ' Memphis, 
Tennessee, too, a large number of Negroes are brought out to vote for "Boss" Crump and 
other members of his machine. Other Negro votes are solicited in Nashville and Chatta- 
nooga, partly to challenge the influence of Crump in Tennessee state politics. East Tennessee 
has some traditionally Republican counties in which a sparse Negro population votes. 
Kentucky (with 80,000 to 100,000 Negro votes) and Missouri (with about 100,000 to 
130,000 Negro votes) have a smaller Negro population than most of the states mentioned 
thus farj their large Negro vote results from an almost unhampered Negro vote in the 
cities. Some of the Negro voting in the South comes from towns which are populated and 
governed almost completely by Negroes. There arc probably less than a hundred towns and 
villages of this sort, and they are small. While Negro voting is unrestricted for local office 
in these towns, county and state officials usually see to it that they have no voice in countv. 
state or federal elections. 



Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 489 

tors and vigorously prosecuted in federal courts. 48 Although the unre- 
stricted voting by Negroes in the A.A.A. referenda does not give them 
any political power, it, nevertheless, may be of great significance. It accus- 
toms whites to the presence of Negroes at polling places and perhaps 
makes them think beyond the myth of black domination and consider the 
real issues involved in Negro voting. It provides the South with an 
example of elections based on significant issues and with less corruption 
than usual. It also gives the Negro a chance to vote and perhaps to 
discover the nature of the political process. 

Southerners will often explain that Negroes can vote in the South but 
that they just do not care to. 47 This is, of course, a rationalization justifying 
white policy. It is hard to conceive that any Southern politician, well 
acquainted with the facts, believes it. A few considerations, most of which 
have already been made, may clarify the situation. A Negro in the South 
expecting to vote knows that he is up to something extraordinary. In 
order to register and to appear at the polls, he will have to leave the 
protective anonymity of being just another Negro. He will become a 
specific Negro who is "out of his place," trying to attack the caste barriers. 48 
He knows further that the primary — which is the main election in the 
South — is closed to Negroes by forma! and express rule in the major part 
of the South. There is a whole barrage of formal devices to keep him 
from voting in other elections — ranging all the way from the poll tax, 
which in some states is cumulative from the time the prospective voter is 
21 years of age, and a receipt for which must be produced at every 
election, to the explanation of a statement in the state constitution to the 
"satisfaction" of the registrar. There is another barrage of informal 
devices to keep Negroes from voting — ranging all the way from the 
insults and threats presented to the prospective Negro voter as he enters 
the polling place to the violence administered to his person and property 
by the Klan. If he should succeed in voting it is likely to be in an election 
which has been decided long before and, formerly, for a lily-white Repub- 
lican candidate who openly snubs him. 

Another most potent force in keeping the Negro from the polls is his 
own fear of what might happen to him, his job, his family, or his property, 
in the present or in the future, if he should vote. The Southern Negro 
often docs not know how far he can go, and in such a situation he may 
take the path of discretion. Some Negroes invoke the law to gain the 
vote; others stop when it is simply denied them and thereby lose their 
vote. It is no test of the franchise that some Negroes are permitted to vote 
in a given community, for what is permitted to a few would never be 
permitted to the many. The much greater participation of Negroes in the 
elections in the Northern and Border states and in some cities in the South 



490 An American Dilemma 

shows that the Negro votes to the extent that the repressions are relaxed. 
In one sense it is true that the Negro is politically apathetic. Like many 
a white man, he is uneducated and ignorant cf the significance of the vote. 
Because, on the average, the Southern Negro is somewhat less urban, less 
educated, and poorer than the average Southern white man, and because 
these traits are universally a cause of low average voting participation, the 
Negro should be expected to vote less than the white man in the South 
if there were no special barriers to Negro voting. 49 Even this is not certain, 
however, if the experience of the A.A.A. referenda be taken as a test, for 
— if anything — Negroes participate more than whites in these, though 
perhaps because they are more herded to the polls by the plantation owners. 
Since Reconstruction days the vote is to many Negroes — as to the whites — 
a symbol of civic equality. 

But it should not be denied that a large proportion of poor Southern 
Negroes feci that "politics is white folks' business." This attitude is even 
spread by some "accommodating" Southern Negro leaders. Some of the 
political apathy is peculiar to the Negroes because the means of disfran- 
chising them have been extraordinary: a tradition of nonvoting is built up 
that is difficult to break down even in the free elections in the North. Too, 
there is a psychopathological form of apathy found in some Negroes: 
they have been so frightened by some experiences when attempting to 
vote that they swear never to try again. 

Another charge levied against the political activity of the Negro is that 
he is frequently the mere pawn of the political machine. This is true, 
especially in the South, but it must be seen in the light of other facts. In 
the first place, it is often a political machine that makes it possible for 
Negroes to vote at all. If no organized white group backed the Negroes, 
they would not be allowed to vote in most cases. Too, the machine gives 
them something for their vote: not only do they often get dollars as 
individual voters, but they get paved streets and schools as a group. The 
Negro is accorded better treatment by the city administration, police, and 
courts in those cities where the machine "votes" him than where he is not 
permitted to vote at all. In the third place, Southern Negroes can vote 
only in cities, for all practical purposes, and cities are the places where 
political machines are most potent. Whites of similar economic status and 
education are perhaps machine-dominated to the same extent in Southern 
cities, although there are no statistics to prove this. 50 Finally, it should be 
remembered that there are places — even Southern cities — where Negroes 
have voted in significant numbers without machine backing and control: 
Negroes defied the Klan in 1939 to vote in Miami, and an all-Negro 
political movement developed in the same year in Greenville, South 
Carolina. 



Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 491 

4. The Negro in Northern Politics 

The Negro coming from the South to the North was as politically 
innocent and ignorant as the immigrant from a country like Italy where 
democratic politics was not well developed and was very different from 
politics in the Northern United States. It was quite natural, therefore, for 
Negro politics in the North to take forms similar to Italo-American 
politics. Ignorance and poverty caused a disproportionate amount of non- 
voting among Negroes, although not nearly as much as among Italian 
immigrants who had to become citizens before they could exercise the 
franchise. Nonvoting was perhaps accentuated among some Negroes by a 
timidity caused by violence in the South. Other Negroes, perhaps, felt a 
stronger urge to vote in the North because they had been disfranchised in 
the South. Like other immigrants, since young adults migrate to a greater 
extent than any other age group, Negroes formed a larger proportion of 
the adult population than of the total population. Therefore they had a 
potential voting strength greater than their total numbers would indicate. 51 
Like other immigrants, they continually got into minor legal difficulties 
and sought the friendly services of petty politicians. Like other immi- 
grants, they often traded their votes for these material favors, although 
they were perhaps not as wise or successful as some of the other immigrants 
in getting a quid -pro quo. Like other ignorant immigrants, they tended to 
follow the narrow political leadership of those of their own group who 
sought political plums for themselves. Still they were not unified, partly 
because of the rivalry between the recent migrants from the South and 
those longer established in the North. Du Bois gives an apt summary of 
the voting behavior of Negroes in one Northern city, Philadelphia, in 
1896, and this characterization remained largely valid right up to 1930. 

The experiment of Negro suffrage in Philadelphia has developed three classes of 
Negro voters: a large majority of voters who vote blindly at the dictates of the party 
and, while not open to direct bribery, accept the indirect emoluments of office or 
influence in return for party loyalty; a considerable group, centering in the slum 
districts, which casts a corrupt purchasable vote for the highest bidder; lastly, a very 
small group of independent voters who seek to use their vote to better present 
conditions of municipal life. 82 

There were some peculiarities about the political behavior of Negroes 
in the North that differentiated it from that of the foreign-born whites as 
well as from that of the native whites. In the first place, it was strongly 
attached to the Republican party; gratitude to the symbol of Lincoln, the 
example of early leaders like Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Wash- 
ington, and the continuous spectacle of what the name "Democratic party" 
meant in the South, all tied the bulk of Northern Negro voters to the 



492 An American Dilemma 

Republican party Jong after it became apparent that a more flexible Negro 
vote would bring more advantages.* In the last decade, however, the 
Negro vote has shifted radically under the pull of the New Deal and the 
push of the lily-white movement. Another trait of the Negro vote was 
that it was, on the whole, passionately aware of the relation of a candidate 
or issue to the Negro problem. Unlike other native Americans, Negroes, 
when they thought politically, thought first in terms of their ethnic group 
and only secondly in terms of the nation as a whole. Foreign-born citizens 
have this trait also, but it tends to disappear in the second and third 
generations. With Negroes it is tending to increase as Negroes become 
more organized and politically conscious. No Negro leader can expect 
to remain popular if he supports a white man who is reputed to be anti- 
Negro. A "friend of the Negro people" need not always have the backing 
of the local Negro leaders to get the Negro vote. 

Although individual Negroes are not restricted from voting in the 
North, there may be one condition which limits the influence of the 
Negro's vote once it is cast. We refer to the practice of gerrymandering — 
that is, of so setting the boundaries of election districts that the vote of a 
minority group is cut up and overwhelmed by the vote of the majority 
group. 83 Although a comprehensive study of the gerrymandering of the 
Negro vote in Northern cities is yet to be made, there is evidence that it 
exists in at least some cities. 04 

Besides gerrymandering, there is another way in which the Negro vote 
is kept from having its proper weight in the election of candidates. This 
is by neglecting to redistrict as population grows or declines at different 
rates in different districts. The practice is especially important with respect 
to voting for national congressmen and state legislators, and it has some 
significance for the election of city aldermen. Negroes will flow into a 
district and still have only the same representation as a declining rural 
area with perhaps one-tenth the population. This is, of course, a problem 
far more general than a Negro one: it is the problem of cities to get their 
fair share of representation in relation to rural areas, and the problem of 
densely populated city districts to get their fair share in relation to rotten 
boroughs. While there is probably no special anti-Negro prejudice in the 
practice, Negroes are hurt far more by it than most other groups since they 

* Negroes have not been more attached to the Republican party, however, than the Irish, 
for example, have been to the Democratic party. The Northern Negro vote was not com- 
pletely inflexible. In New York, it frequently went Democratic. In Chicago, the friendliness 
of the Democratic candidate for mayor in 1885 — Carter Harrison I — secured him about 50 
per cent of the Negro vote, and his son, who ran for mayor in 1899, received about 6$ per 
cent of the Negro vote. (See Claudius O. Johnson, Carter Henry Harrison I [1928], p. 196, 
cited in Elmer W. Henderson, "A Study of the Basic Factors Involved in the Change in 
Party Alignment of Negroes in Chicago, 1932-1938," unpublished M.A. thesis, University 
of Chicago [1939]) pp. 6-y.) 



Chapter 22. Political Practices Tooay 493 

have been moving to Northern cities at a more rapid rate than have others. 
While the practice is clearly unconstitutional, and the state legislatures are 
guilty as they are the only ones empowered to make the adjustments, the 
courts have been loath to interfere. The Constitution, however, gives the 
United States Congress power to override the state legislatures. 56 The 
neglect to redistrict also creates a form of "natural" gerrymandering that 
hurts the Negroes. When migrants come to a city they usually do not 
happen to distribute themselves according to the boundaries of certain 
voting districts. As a result their vote becomes split even though they 
form a single community. In New York, for example, the Harlem Negro 
vote is split mainly into two congressional districts and Negroes cannot 
elect a congressman by themselves in either one. If there were redisricting, 
and if there were no deliberate attempt to perpetuate this gerrymander, 
Harlem should probably be in one voting district, since it is a natural 
community area. 

No comprehensive study has yet been made on the extent of nonvoting 
among Negroes in the North. The general impression is that Negroes — 
like whites with the same average educational and economic status — are 
somewhat apathetic. The statistical evidence, however, does not present a 
consistent picture and suggests that Negro apathy is partly a function of 
local conditions. 56 Litchfield found that Negroes voted one-third less than 
whites, both native and foreign-born, in Detroit. 07 In Chicago, however, 
77 per cent of the adults of a Negro ward registered as compared to 68 per 
cent for the entire city (i930). B8 Negro apathy in Detroit seems to be due 
to the city-wide type of election, the nonpartisan character of the election 
with a concomitant weak party organization and the lack of organization 
and leadership among Negroes. 09 Negro activity in Chicago seems to be 
related to the partisan and close character of the election, the solicitation 
of the Negro vote by white politicians, the support of Negro racketeers 
and the strength of the Negro organizations. 

The fact that Negroes vote to a greater extent than whites in Chicago is 
startling. All existing studies — made for a few cities in the United States 
and for many democratic countries in Europe — show a striking relationship 
between nonvoting and poverty. 80 The correlation may even be stronger 
for whites in the United States, since there is no labor party to bring out 
the labor vote, and the political machines bring out only a relatively small 
selected vote. Since the bulk of the Negroes are very poor, we should 
expect them to be much more politically apathetic than the whites. The 
fact that they vote almost as much, or more, in most Northern cities than 
whites do, indicates that they are relatively more conscious of the vote. 
The data do not support — so far as voting is concerned — the common 
stereotype that Negroes are politically apathetic. 

Before 1933, Negroes voted the Republican ticket in overwhelming 



494 An American Dilemma 

proportion. While there were Negro Democratic organizations in every 
city, they made little headway except in New York. 61 In Chicago only 23 
per cent of the Negro vote went to the Democratic party in the presidential 
election of 1932, despite Hoover's lily-white tendencies, and perhaps an 
even smaller proportion went against Republican Mayor Thompson in 
1 93 1. 62 Similarly, only 19.5 per cent of Detroit's Negro vote was Demo- 
cratic in 1930. 88 This attachment to the Republican party both hurt and 
helped the Negroes politically. It helped them because the Republicans 
were in power in most of the Northern cities before 1930, and Negroes 
gave the Republican party a disproportionate number of their votes. In 
Chicago, for example, Negroes constituted only 6.9 per cent of the total 
population in 1930, and 8.7 per cent of the population of voting age, but 
1 1.0 per cent of the Republican voters. 6 * The strong attachment to the 
Republican party hurt them because the party felt sure of the Negro vote 
and hardly made an attempt to solicit it or favor it. When, after 1933, 
the Negro vote became more fluid, it was more actively solicited by both 
parties and was rewarded to a greater extent by the Democratic party, 
which was in office in most Northern cities. 05 

Many Negroes were dissatisfied with the Republican party by 1932. 
Like other poor people, they were disgusted with the Hoover adminis- 
tration's methods of meeting the depression. They had also become aware 
of the snubs given them as Negroes by both national and local Republican 
party organizations. Of course, some Negroes felt a sentimental attach- 
ment to the party of Lincoln that could stand almost any amount of 
snubbing. Some upper class Negroes, too, were quite satisfied with the 
conservative performance of the Hoover administration or felt that the 
"best people" voted Republican. In 1932, Roosevelt was relatively un- 
known outside of New York, and there was some anxiety about the role 
that Southern Democrats might play in his administration. The whispering 
campaign, that Roosevelt was in ill health and that his running mate — the 
Southerner, Garner — would soon take over the Presidency if they were 
elected, was perhaps influential in keeping the Negro vote Republican 
in 1932. 

But when the New Deal relieved the economic plight of the Negroes 
during the depression, and — in the North — treated them almost without 
discrimination," and appointed Negro advisors for many phases of the 
government's activities, Negroes began to shift to the Democratic party 
in large numbers. The movement was accelerated when the load Demo- 
cratic machines proved more grateful for the Negro's vote than had their 
Republican predecessors. 68 The estimated proportion of Negroes voting 
for Roosevelt in Chicago was 23 per cent in 1932, 49 per cent in 1936, and 

*Sm Chapter 15. 



Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 495 

52 per cent in 1940." In Detroit the estimated proportion voting for 
Roosevelt "was 36.7 per cent in 1932, 63.S per cent in 1936, and 69.3 per 
cent in 1940.* 8 

Table 1 shows the same startling trends toward the Democratic party 
for these and other cities, using a slightly less adequate technical procedure. 

It is not certain whether the Northern Negro vote will remain Demo- 
cratic, but it is certain that it has become more flexible and will respond 
more readily to the policies of the two parties toward the Negro. 09 This 
will probably bring more political advantages to Negroes, since their vote 
will take on more strategic significance in the close elections often occurring 
in the North. It is also a sign that politically Negroes are becoming more 
like other Americans. 

There has been a widespread belief that Northern Negroes became 
radical in large numbers during the depression. All the available data 
reveal that this is a fallacy. In Detroit about 3.2 per cent of the Negroes 
voted for a party other than Democratic or Republican in 1930. This was 
larger than the third-party vote of native whites, but not of foreign-born 
groups in that city. In 1932, the Negro percentage for third parties fell 
to 1.5 — equal to that of native whites and lower than that of foreign-borr. 
groups. It remained low during the depression and by 1940 was only 0.5 
per cent. 70 In Chicago, Gosnell estimated that only 500 Negroes joined the 
Communist party during the depression, although many more participated 
in parades and other activities. 71 In Cleveland, Davis estimated that the 
height of the depression saw only 200 Negroes in the Communist party. 72 

Before 1933, when Negroes were attached to the Republican party, 
there was little, if any, difference between the lower class and middle class 
Negroes in party affiliation. It is true that Tammany Hall succeeded in 
attracting more lower class than middle class Negroes in New York, but 
New York Negroes had already gone quite a way toward the Democratic 
party before 1930. Since 1933, Negroes have split just as whites have, 
though probably not so much: Negroes with lower incomes have gone 
over to the Democratic party in somewhat greater proportion than 
Negroes with middle incomes. In Detroit, for example, the 1940 election 
found about 72 per cent of the lower economic group of Negroes for 
Roosevelt as compared to about 63 per cent of the middle economic group, 
whereas in 1930 the corresponding percentages were 19 and 22, respec- 
tively. 73 Whether this differential between Negroes of different classes 
will continue or not is problematical. The Negro middle and upper classes 
are different from white middle and upper classes in that they are more 
directly dependent on the lower class and in that they are more interested 
in social reform. 

On the whole, Negroes have come to be rather like whites in their 
■political behavior in the North. They vote in about the same proportion 



49$ 



An American Dilemma 



a 

aa 




Chapter 12. Political Practices Today 497 

as whites; they are no longer tied to the Republican party; they eschew 
third parties; they have manifested a class differential in their adherence 
to the Democratic party. On the other hand, most Negro voters are more 
keenly aware of a candidate's attitude toward their group than are most 
other Americans — perhaps only because they are one of the few ethnic 
groups against whom politicians ever discriminate. Even though Negroes 
are seeking only their rights as citizens and a proportionate share of the 
political spoils, they find they have to be choosy about parties and candi- 
dates to get these. 

5. What the Negro Gets Out of Politics 

With the great northward migration, Negroes came to vote in large 
numbers. In spite of the virtual disfranchisement of Negroes in the South, 
there arc about as many Negroes voting today in the United States as 
there are whites voting in the seven Southern states of Mississippi, Loui- 
siana, Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, and Florida — that is, 
in the entire Deep South except Texas and Oklahoma. 74 Yet Southern 
whites get incomparably more benefits from politics than do Negroes. 
Negroes are grossly discriminated against in what they get from politics 
just as they are in their exercise of the right to vote. A striking measure of 
this fact is that the seven Deep Southern states have 52 members of the 
House of Representatives and 14 members of the Senate, whereas the 
Negroes, with the same number of actual votes, have only 1 member of 
the House of Representatives and no senators. There are many other 
ways in which Negroes are deprived of the benefits of politics. Unques- 
tionably the most important thing that Negroes get out of politics where 
they vote is legal justice — justice in the courts; police protection and 
protection against the persecution of the police; ability to get administra- 
tive jobs through civil service; and a fair share in such public facilities as 
schools, hospitals, public housing, playgrounds, libraries, sewers and street 
lights. It is hard to demonstrate that a given number of Negro votes will 
procure a given amount of legal justice for Negroes, because it can be 
claimed, and correctly so, that these communities which allow Negroes to 
vote to a given extent will also usually be willing to give them other legal 
rights to a comparable extent. Yet case after case can be cited to show 
where white politicians have given community services, justice in the courts, 
and "civil service" jobs to Negroes just because they have received a 
certain number of votes from them. These cases may be cited to indicate 
the nature of the power of the vote and not to measure this power. The 
Negroes' votes in some parts of the country buy them their rights as 
citizens to a large extent, while their lack of votes in others cause them to 
be discriminated against all around.* 

' In Chapter 20, Section a, we have pointed out specific reasons why the vote is of such 
paramount importance to the individual citizen in America. 



498 An American Dilemma 

Political spoils, favors and "protection" also are given to Negroes for 
their votes. Any Negro who can control a given number of Negro votes 
may aspire to an appointive political position for himself or for persons 
designated by himself. Petty favors to the mass of Negro voters are the 
stock-in-trade of the local politicians: they can save their supporters from 
fines and short jail sentences; they can "fix" personal property taxes and 
traffic violations; they can help poor Negroes to get relief or to get on 
W.P.A. without the usual red tape. Many a Negro church has been able 
to avoid closing its doors or to buy a new altar when its minister has made 
his pulpit available to political candidates, Negro or white. Nearly every 
Negro newspaper is supported, to some degree, by funds supplied by 
political parties or candidates. Negro criminals, racketeers, vice "kings," 
and gamblers get protection from the law and from each other to the 
extent that they can influence or buy votes. In getting all these illegal and 
extra-legal returns for their votes, Negroes are quite like whites, except 
that they probably do not get so much on the average. As Gosnell and 
Bunche point out, Negroes seldom get the really big graft. 7 '"' While this 
may be looked on as another form of discrimination, it also allows us to 
infer that Negroes have not so much to lose if city politics are cleaned up. 
City reform movements not only tend to be fairer in granting Negroes 
their civic rights, but in reducing corruption they take away less from the 
few Negroes than from the few whites who benefit by corruption." 

Just as they are practically voteless in the South, Negroes there have a 
minimum of what we have called "legal justice," as we shall describe in 
the following part. Where they have a few votes, as in the cities and in 
the Upper South, they have a roughly corresponding measure of legal 
justice. While this is the general rule, there are minor exceptions: Lewin- 
son tells the story of the president of a Southern State Normal School for 
Negroes who was rewarded with new buildings for "minding his business" 
when it came to politics. 70 But this is — to repeat — an exception. It is not— 
as the average white Southerner often is heard saying — that Negroes are 
given a fair share of their legal rights if they do not disturb the smooth 
course of white men's politics. 

Even where Negroes have only a few votes in the South they have at 
least some opportunity to bargain for police and court protection. The lack 
of a vote is especially dangerous in many Southern communities where 
even the police are elected or dependent for their tenure on elected office- 
holding friends. 77 Even Southerners* come to recognize this. After three 
Negroes were killed in one month by policemen in one Alabama city, a 

* In some cases, this is not true. The corrupt political machine of Mayor Thompson in 
Chicago was very friendly to Negroes, and one of the aims of the reformers was to clean 
out the "Negro influence." Negro racketeers, like other racketeers, also stand to lose if a 
reform movement is successful. 



Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 499 

white newspaper blamed the police and traced the condition to the fact 
that Negroes had no vote. 78 In Memphis, where Negro votes are an 
important support of the Crump machine, there are relatively few Negroes 
killed by the police.™ In many other ways, too, it is demonstrated that this 
city, which is cited as the outstanding example of the danger of herding 
Negroes to the polls, is much fairer to Negroes in granting them elemen- 
tary civic rights. Similarly it is alleged that Negroes of New Orleans were 
solidly behind Huey Long because he did not discriminate against Negroes 
in giving free school books, and because he put Negro nurses in the hos- 
pitals, Negro servants in the state capitol and refrained from referring to 
"niggers" in his campaign speeches. 80 In San Antonio, too, Negroes have 
received almost a fair share of public facilities and minor political jobs from 
the Democratic machine. On the other hand, there is a good deal of truth 
in the assertion that the main return for the Negro vote in the machine- 
dominated cities is protection for the Negro underworld and minor 
administrative jobs for the petty Negro politicians who marshal the Negro 
vote. 81 

In the rural South, a Negro tenant or cropper who seeks to leave his 
cotton farm will often be apprehended and brought back by the elected 
sheriffs. Sheriffs seldom, if ever, do this to white croppers and tenants, for 
the latter may vote just as does the white farm owner, whereas the Negro 
tenant or cropper cannot vote. In Southern cities, Negro workers arc 
allowed to attend union mass meetings where they can vote. 82 Despite 
repeated decisions by the federal courts that Negroes must be placed on 
jury lists, practically no Negroes serve on juries in the South except where 
they vote in significant numbers." The connection has been directly estab- 
lished in Alabama, for example, where after the Scottsboro decision, 
Negroes were placed on jury lists only if they had voted — even though 
no Negroes were ever selected from these lists. 

The few hundred Negro votes which were cast in 1939 in Greenville, 
South Carolina, in the face of Ku Klux Klan violence, has already netted 
Negroes there two fully equipped playgrounds. 88 Similarly, the first large 
Negro vote in Miami in 1939 — also in the face of Klan violence — has 
changed the attitude of white politicians greatly; streets in Negro sections 
have been improved, a low cost housing project has been built and another 
is under way, and the leader of the Negro movement was a delegate to 
the Republican National Convention ki 1940. 84 In Louisville, Negro votes, 
shifted to the victorious Democrats in 1933, were rewarded by a Negro 
fire company in their part of the city and by a score of minor administrative 
and clerical jobs in the city government. 86 

"See Chapter 26. Negroes are found on juries in the South practically only in large cities 
ip the Border states and in Oklahoma and Texas. 



500 An American Dilemma 

In referenda and other nonpartisan elections, Negro votes have often 
been able to achieve advantages for Negroes in Southern cities. In 1921, 
Negroes defeated a bond issue for schools in Atlanta until it was agreed 
that they would receive a share of the funds for new schools; the Booker 
T. Washington High School and four elementary schools were the out- 
come. In 1926, a similar deal was made, but the promises made to the 
Negro leaders were not kept in full. 80 In 1939, Negroes in Dallas received 
a high school and a grade school for supporting a bond issue. 87 Negro 
participation in the nonpartisan municipal elections in Austin, Texas, is 
always rewarded: at present there are four Negro policemen, several 
garbage collectors, a few janitors in the city buildings, and a well-equipped 
recreation center for Negroes. 88 

Wherever Negroes vote in the South, white politicians who gain from 
their votes "repay" them with a few minor administrative or menial jobs, 
a few streets paved or lighted, and occasionally a school building or 
community center. If Negro votes are necessary to the success of a refer- 
endum and if Negroes are organized enough to make a deal with white 
leaders, they can get a share of the advantages provided by the success of 
the referendum. Southern Negro voters are never expected to consider 
issues broader than the interests of their own group, and they seldom do. 
On the whole, Southern Negroes have been content to vote against discrim- 
inatory measures rather than for progressive measures. 89 The vote of the 
average Negro has to be directed toward getting those elementary civic 
rights which are the unqu stioned prerogative of every white citizen. The 
aims of the Negro political hack can usually be directed no higher than 
to get the merest left-overs of the political spoils.* The rare Negro who 
has broader political interests has to concentrate on getting out the Negro 
vote rather than directing a vote that already exists. Partly as a result of 
this situation, the Negro voter in the South, not unlike the poor white 
voter, tends to be easily "bought" and not very intelligent on issues. With 
few exceptions, 6 the only occasions when there is no effort to buy up the 
Negro vote on the part of white politicians are those when there are so 
few Negro voters that they can have no influence on the outcome of an 
election. 

In the North, where Negroes are not restricted from voting, they get 
full police protection and justice in the courts to about the same extent as 
whites of comparable economic and educational status. They get community 
services, such as schools, libraries, street paving, and sanitation facilities, 
in rough proportion to the size of their vote, which is in rough proportion 
* There arc exceptions to this : the Bellingers — father and son — have gotten a great deal 
for themselves by marshaling the Negro vote of San Antonio. 

b Such as occurred in the spontaneous Negro political movements in Miami and Green- 
ville in .1939. 



Chapter 22. Political Practices Today 501 

to their numbers in the population. Gosnell's summary for Chicago applies, 
with slight variation, throughout the North. 

Under the existing political system, the Negroes secured about as many concrete 
benefits from the government as most other minority groups. However, because 
their needs were greater, these benefits were not sufficient. Inadequate as they were, 
these services came nearer to meeting the needs than in areas where the Negroes 
have not developed some political power. 90 

Like whites, Negro racketeers and criminals received protection from 
politicians to the extent that they could influence votes. Ordinary Negroes 
received petty favors from politicians almost to the same extent as whites. 

Negroes have been elected to office in the North, but not nearly in 
proportion to their numbers. Even in the Border states of Kentucky, West 
Virginia, and Missouri, there have been a few Negroes in the state legis- 
latures. Negroes find it hard to attain an elective office: because most 
whites do not like to be represented by Negroes, because Negroes some- 
times do not constitute a large enough proportion in a city to control even 
small sections like wards, because they have been gerrymandered by 
Democratic politicians for being Republican, and because they have some- 
times not shown political interest or acumen. Except for a few judgeships 
and memberships on such public bodies as Tax Boards and Boards of 
Education, no Negro has attained a city-wide elective position. There is 
only one Negro national congressman" and about a dozen Negro state 
legislators. 1 " Most of the large cities in the North containing a significant 
proportion of Negroes have one or two Negro aldermen or councilmen 
each. These are all the Negroes who have been elected to public office in the 
North.* 

There are more Negroes appointed to public office than elected, relative 
to the total number of offices available, but even these are nowhere near 
the proportion of the Negro vote. The main reason cited for not appointing 
Negroes is that some white citizens have strong objections to dealing with 
them. It is also noteworthy that when a white politician appoints a Negro 
to some general office, political motives are always inferred, where as white 

* William Dawson of Chicago (Democrat). From 1928 to 1934 this scat was held by the 
Republican De Priest, who became heir to it when Madden, "the white friend of the Negro 
people," died. 

'According to Charles S. Johnson, in 1942 there were Negroes in the state legislatures of 
Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Kansa.s, Indiana and Kentucky. 
("The Negro," American Journal of Sociology [May, 1941], p. 863.) The November, 
1942, election brought Negroes into the legislature of Ohio also. 

* In Chicago, for example, Negroes held the following elective positions in 1939: 1 United 
States Congressman, 1 State Senator, 4 State Representatives, 1 County Commissioner, a City 
Aldermen. Negroes in Chicago were more favored than Negroes in any other city. (Hender- 
son, of. ci(., p. 79.) 



502 An American Dilemma 

men may be appointed without this inference. Both whites and Negroes 
usually look upon the Negro appointees as representatives only of the 
Negro population. Negro appointments are usually to minor offices. Since 
much is made of appointments even to clerical and janitorial positions, 
while major appointments are regarded as news throughout the country, 
a white politician is usually well repaid for appointing a Negro to any 
position he may control. It is astonishingly easy to build up a reputation 
among Negroes as a "white friend of the Negro people." 01 Mayor La 
Guardia has appointed Negroes to the Special Sessions Court, Domestic 
Relations Courts, and Civil Service Commission in New York, and has seen 
to it that Negroes are allowed to compete freely for positions in the city 
civil service and relief administration. In Chicago Negroes have been 
appointed to the posts of Assistant State's Attorney; Assistant Attorney 
General; Assistant City Prosecutor; Deputy Coroner; Assistant Traction 
Attorney; Assistant Corporation Counsel; Civil Service Commissioner; 
member of the Housing Authority, of the Library Board and of the 
Recreation Board." 2 Mayor Kelly of Chicago has also followed the policy 
of his Republican predecessor — Thompson — in allowing Negroes a signif- 
icant number of "civil service" positions — especially in the city school 
system, the Public Library, the Health Department and the Water 
Bureau. 88 Other Northern cities have similarly given Negroes minor 
positions in the local government, although perhaps in a lesser degree than 
in New York and Chicago where the Negro vote is unusually well organ- 
ized and flexible. 

Because voting Negroes are concentrated in a half dozen Northern 
cities, they can exert little influence on the federal government. 84 This is 
more than balanced, however, by the federal government's greater con- 
formity to the principles of the American Creed. The federal courts, 
especially the United States Supreme Court, have been traditional guard- 
ians of the Negro's rights. Congress and the Presidents — even, to a certain 
extent, the Southern Democrat Wilson and the lily-white Hoover — have 
usually sought to be fair to Negroes. Negro claims have usually received 
a sympathetic hearing in Washington: Judge Parker was not confirmed as 
a Justice of the Supreme Court mainly because of his anti-Negro attitude; 
the anti-lynching bill has more than once been on the verge of passage — 
hindered only by a filibuster by Southern senators. 

As we had occasion to mention earlier, the only elected Negro repre- 
sentative in Washington is a congressman from Chicago. Few Negroes 
hold top rank appointive positions, and these few are usually in positions 
that have "traditionally" been held by Negroes since Reconstruction days 
(such as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia). These tradi- 
tional appointments are not so stable as is sometimes thought. There was 
a steady decline in their number from the Taft administration to the 



Chapter 22. Political Practices Today $03 

Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. Once in a while, a new "traditional" 
Negro position is created: when William Hastie, the Roosevelt-appointed 
Federal Judge in the Virgin Islands, resigned, another Negro was ap- 
pointed in his place. There are only about a dozen of these traditional 
top-rank Negro positions in the federal government. 

More important since the beginning of the Roosevelt administration are 
the positions created in various governmental bureaus to advise or direct 
the application of federal policies to Negroes. The Negroes selected to fill 
these positions usually have a superior educational background and only 
one or two have participated in party politics. The powers of these persons 
have depended mainly on the liberality of their chiefs, although their own 
activity has been important. When their function has been to direct the 
application of their respective bureau's policy toward Negroes — as is the 
case in the National Youth Administration and the United States Housing 
Authority — they have been able to exert a good deal of influence and have 
sometimes succeeded in getting a "fair share" of the government's benefits 
for Negroes. Where they merely advise their chiefs or are regarded as 
"trouble shooters" to soothe Negro protests of discrimination — as in the 
Civilian Conservation Corps — their influence is limited. Some of the New 
Deal agencies have not had Negro advisors — such as the Federal Housing 
Administration — and several of these agencies have notoriously discrim- 
inated against Negroes. 

Between 1933 and 1940 there were 103 Negroes appointed by President 
Roosevelt to positions in the federal government, including 23 who had 
resigned by 1940 and 3 who had lost their positions because their functions 
were abolished. Under the leadership of Mary McLeod Bethunc — Direc- 
tor of the Division of Negro Affairs of the N.Y.A. and nationally known 
educator and leader of Negro women — the most important of these have 
organized an informal group, the Federal Council, popularly known as 
"the Black Cabinet." The purpose of this group is to discuss common 
problems and to encourage coordinated activity, although it never takes 
public action as a group. 95 The great weaknesses of the holders of these 
positions are that many of them are in agencies which arc not considered to 
be permanent, and that they are completely subordinated to the white 
heads of the respective bureaus. Although many Negroes have condemned 
the appointments to these positions as representing an effort to keep 
Negroes satisfied, there are important achievements to their credit, and 
they are the first significant step, in recent years, toward the participation 
of Negroes in federal government activity. 

In addition to the full-time Negro advisors and section chiefs, there are 
several official part-time advisors who do not live in Washington but only 
visit there occasionally and upon request. For example, in March, 194a, 
F. D. Patterson, President of Tuskegee Institute, and Claude A. Barnett, 



504 An American Dilemma 

Director of the Associated Negro Press, were named special assistants to 
the Secretary of Agriculture to "insure the integration and full participa- 
tion of Negro farmers in the food-for-freedom campaign." Also there are 
unofficial Negro advisors — such as Booker T. Washington when he was 
alive and A. Philip Randolph (President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping 
Car Porters) today — but their activities are an aspect of Negro leadership 
more than of federal policy and will be discussed in another context." 

According to the Chief of the Statistical Division of the Civil Service 
Commission, there were about 82,000 Negroes holding federal Civil 
Service jobs on June 30, 1938, representing about 9.8 per cent of the total 
federal employment. 08 About 88 per cent of these were stationed outside 
Washington and were practically all either postal clerks, mail carriers, 
unskilled laborers or janitors. Most of the 1 2 per cent stationed in Wash- 
ington had similar low positions. They were strikingly negligible in the 
lower salaried white collar jobs which furnish the bulk of employment for 
white government employees. There was a small proportion of Negroes 
in the higher paid technical, professional and administrative positions. b 

During Reconstruction, Negroes succeeded in getting a large share of 
the lower federal government jobs in the South (mainly in the postal 
service). After the Southern conservatives regained power, and as the 
North gradually entered the compromise by which it became blind to 
actual conditions in the South, Negroes gradually lost these jobs. The fact 
that the Republican party was in power most of the time after the Civil 
War, and the fact that Negroes soon came under civil service, prevented 
them from being thrown out of these jobs completely. By the time of the 
Hoover administration, Negroes held practically none of the middle or 
higher federal positions in the South and only a relatively small proportion 
of the lower ones. The New Deal has reversed the trend slightly, not by 
opening positions to Negroes in the South, but by being less discriminatory 
in the lower jobs in Washington. 

• See Part IX. 

k For a discussion of discrimination against Negroes in the federal Civil Service, see 
Chapter 14, Section 8. 



CHAPTER 23 

TRENDS AND POSSIBILITIES 



1. The Negro's Political Bargaining Power 

To make political forecasts is hazardous. But forecasts are the aim of 
factual analysis. Indeed, its sole purpose, aside from scientific curiosity, is 
to furnish the basis for a practical discussion of future trends and possibil- 
ities. In the Negro problem there arc certain dominating factors making 
a forecast considerably simpler than for the American nation at large. 

If we focus our attention only on Negro voting in those parts of the 
country where Negroes have, or will have, the unhampered right to the 
ballot, it can, with reasonable security, be foretold that there is not going 
to be a "Negro -party" in American politics. It is true that there are strong 
ties of common interests in the Negro group. But Negroes know from 
bitter experience that there is nothing which can so frustrate their hope of 
having a voice in public affairs as the arousing of a fear of "Negro domi- 
nation." Negroes in America are, further, bent on cultural assimilation to 
the fullest degree allowed by the white majority and are careful to abstain 
from every move in the political sphere which might be interpreted as 
group cxclusiveness. In addition, Negroes are in a minority in all but a 
few parts of the country. Where they are a majority, suffrage is a rela- 
tively distant hope and will in all probability materialize only gradually. 
The essential stimulus for party formation — namely, the hope of eventu- 
ally coming into power — is everywhere entirely lacking. Finally, the 
peculiar American political system strongly disfavors small parties even, 
when this hope is present. 

The Negro voter will, therefore, have to try to exert his influence 
through one of the two dominant political parties. Since the Negroes broke 
their traditional allegiance to the Republican party, the Negro vote is 
fluid. It is likely to remain fluid. Neither the Republican party nor the 
Democratic party will be certain of the Negro vote for any length of time 
without real exertions. Negro voters will increasingly judge political 
parties from the viewpoint of their friendliness to the Negro group. 

The Democratic and Republican parties will increasingly compete for 
the Negro vote. The question arises whether, in this haggling and bargain- 
ing, the Negroes will be able to extract the maximum advantage by acting 

3"S 



506 . An American Dilemma 

as a political unit, nationally and locally. One prerequisite for such a tactic 
is present to a greater degree than in any other large American group of 
voters. Negroes, as a consequence of the bonds of caste in which they are 
enclosed, feel a larger degree of interest solidarity in relation to society. It 
is true that the Negro community is stratified into social classes and that, 
in general, Negroes are much at variance in political issues, interests and 
ideals. But the lower classes arc, because of the caste situation, a great 
majority, and the upper classes have strong interests in the economic wel- 
fare of the lower classes who constitute the basis of their economic sus- 
tenance. As regards Negro issues, therefore, the internal differences have 
little significance, and those issues are likely to remain primary. There are 
certain concrete demands — all centering around the insistence that Negroes 
should be treated like other citizens — about which there is almost universal 
agreement among Negroes. 

In the sphere of national politics, however, the attempt to take up real 
collective bargaining with the two political parties on behalf of the Negro 
voters has not been effective. 1 Since the Negro vote became fluid in the 
I930's and both parties now recognize this fact, it would be rather natural 
for a national Negro political leadership to form itself and start negotia- 
tions with the two parties in advance of each national election. This has 
not happened. The "bidding for the Negro vote" has been left almost 
entirely to the care of the two parties themselves and has principally 
become directed to the individual Negro voter, through party-appointed 
Negro leaders, as no bargaining agency for the Negroes has interceded. 
In local politics collective bargaining has, as we have shown, not been 
entirely lacking. But taking a broad view, the main observation is again that 
the situation has not been utilized to any extent approaching the political 
possibilities. Negro communities everywhere display in the most glaring 
manner clear-cut problems of housing, employment, education, health, and 
so on, calling not only for expert planning but for formulation of Negro 
political programs. It is, indeed, a matter to be explained why Negro pres- 
sure in these communities, at least in the North, is so diffuse and inarticu- 
late, and, relatively speaking, so politically ineffective. 

Part of the explanation is, undoubtedly, the poverty and the inherited 
psychology of dependence and apathy among the Negro masses, their 
low educational and cultural level, and the lack of political tradition and 
experience both in the masses and in the upper strata of the Negro com- 
munity. All this is bound to change in time. But there are, in addition, 
certain intrinsic difficulties inherent in the strategy of not being able to 
form an independent party with hope of gaining political power but, never- 
theless, of wanting to act as a political unit in order to raise the price paid 
for the Negro votes by the existing parties. The very facts that a Negro is 
prevented by his caste status from regarding himself as an ordinary Ameri- 



Chapter 23. Trends and Possibilities 507 

can citizen and as a wholehearted supporter of a party, and that — when 
acting as a representative for his group — he is out to get favors for them, 
are conducive to a psychology where broad political ideas are put in the 
background and petty haggling becomes natural. The tendency to cynicism, 
which the author has observed everywhere in American Negro communi- 
ties, becomes strengthened by the American party system, which does not 
correlate closely with broad divisions of rear interests and social ideals. 
If, in addition, the party machines are corrupt, which they arc in most 
places where Negroes live in any numbers, the presence of such moral 
strength on the part of the Negro leadership as would be prerequisite for 
efficient bargaining would be a wonder. 

But even apart from all this, the Negro leader is in a dilemma. If he 
pleads allegiance to a political party, he will lose in bargaining power. If, 
on the other hand, he keeps outside the parties, he loses some of the 
influence he could exert by being in the inner circle of one of them." Out 
of the dilemma there is only one possible and rational escape: a division of 
labor and responsibility among Negro Icadrrs, so that the Negro politicians 
proper and the party workers identify themselves with political parties and 
work with them and for them, while other Negro representatives, invested 
with superior prestige among their people, remain independent of close 
party ties and do the important collective bargaining. 1'hc former group 
represents the Negro people's necessary allegiance to the American party 
system, the latter group their separate interests as an independent unit. 
For optimal functioning such a system of minority politics requires a 
high degree of political sophistication among both leaders and followers 
and much good-will and cohesion. It is not surprising that it has not 
materialized in any high degree in this subdued and politically inexperi- 
enced group. But it might become more of a reality in the future. The 
great community of interest in a caste set apart in society, but fighting for 
fuller assimilation, offers a firm basis for such an organization of the Negro 
people's political bargaining power. 

The political strength of such a dual system of political organization will 
depend primarily upon the cohesion of the local Negro political blocs in the 
several communities forming its basis. There are, however, a great number 
of specific impediments to a further development of the local organization 
of Negro political power. One is the internal rivalry among leaders in a 
deeply frustrated group. b Power becomes so dear when there is so little of 
it. Cynicism becomes so widespread among ambitious individuals whose way 
upward is blocked. There is also the tendency among many Negroes 
who aspire to prominence, or who have arrived but want to make them- 
selves secure, to take orders from the influential whites and to "sell out" 

'The problem of Negro leadership will be discussed in Part IX. 
'See Chapter 36, Section 2, and Chapter 37, Section 8. 



508 An American Dilemma 

their own group. Such persons seem everywhere to be available for utiliza- 
tion in splitting the unity of the Negroes. A third relevant fact is that an 
even greater group of potential Negro leaders, even if they are not "white 
men's niggers," nevertheless are so dependent that they cannot afford the 
integrity required to make them effective bargainers for the Negro group. 
At bottom is the ease with which the Negro masses can be duped — because 
they are distressed, poorly educated, politically inexperienced, tractable, 
and have old traditions of dependence and carelessness. 

All this is, however, relative. Even though the Negro voters are weakly 
organized today, the two parties have to compete for them. The N.A.A.C.P. 
and all other national and local Negro organizations and the Negro press 
are constantly doing a service by creating publicity — favorable or unfavor- 
able — in the Negro community for the political parties and the individual 
officeholders. To some extent the latter become compelled to adjust 
according to the reactions of Negro voters. 

2. The Negro's Party Allegiance 

Our assumption has until now been that the Negro vote will remain fluid 
but will keep conservatively to the two big parties. One thing seems certain: 
namely, that the Negroes will not go fascist. All their interests are against 
right-wing radicalism. 2 More problematic, of course, are Negro attitudes 
toward Communism. To many white people in America, apparently, it 
seems natural that they should turn Communist. This is, however, largely 
only a testimony of their own bad social conscience and of their ignorance 
of the Negro community. It is true that a majority of the Negro people 
are in economic distress. It is also true that they are increasingly becoming 
conscious of being severely maltreated in America and that they sense 
social exclusion, which must decrease their feeling of full solidarity with 
the dominant groups in society. All this should make them open to revolu- 
tionary propaganda. It is further true that the Communists have seen 
their chance and have been devoting much zealous work to cultivating 
the Negroes. They have run a Negro as candidate for Vice-President of the 
United States. They are the only American group which has in practice 
offered Negroes full "social equality," and this is highly valued not only 
among Negro intellectuals but much deeper down in the Negro community, 
particularly in the North. 

Still the Communists have not succeeded in getting any appreciable 
following among Negroes in America " and it does not seem likely that they 
will. No intensive study has been made on this problem. The following 
observations are presented as impressionistic, even if they are believed 
to contain the main facts. To begin with, it is a mistake to assume a -priori 
that poor, uneducated, and socially disadvantaged groups are particularly 

* See Chapter 22, Section 4. 



Chapter 23. Trends and Possibilities 509 

susceptible to radical propaganda. It is different in a revolutionary situation 
when those groups might not only come to follow but actually constitute 
the vanguard of an onslaught on society. But in peaceful, orderly develop- 
ment they are apt to be conservative. Even for liberal reform movements 
the poorest people have been the most difficult to organize. The trade union 
movement, for instance, all over the world has had its first and most 
faithful adherents in the higher strata of the working class. It has had to 
push downward with difficulty and usually has not succeeded in organizing 
the lower brackets before they were raised economically and culturally. 8 
The strong impact of church and religion in the Negro community should 
not be forgotten. 4 This is, however, only one trait of Negro conservatism. 
Negroes who care so much for society as to have any general political 
opinions at all are intent upon "respectability" in a middle class sense. 
Communism is definitely not respectable in America generally or among 
Negroes specifically. The unpopularity of Communism in America — 
often reaching the pitch of actual persecution of the Communist party and 
its adherents — must, furthermore, be uninviting to a group like the Ameri- 
can Negroes who know so well that they are unpopular already. As one 
Negro explained, "It is bad enough being black without being black and 
red." James Weldon Johnson makes this point: 

In the situation as it now exists, it would be positively foolhardy for us, as a 
group, to take up the cause of Communistic revolution and thereby bring upon 
ourselves all of the antagonisms that arc directed against it in addition to those we 
already have to bear. It seems to me that the wholesale allegiance of the Negro to 
Communistic revolution would be second in futility only to his individual resort to 
physical force. 

and again: 

. . . there is no apparent possibility that a sufficient number of Negro Americans can 
be won over to give the party the desired strength; and if the entire mass were won 
over, the increased proscriptions against Negroes would outweigh any advantages 
that might be gained. Every Negro's dark face would be his party badge, and would 
leave him an open and often solitary prey to the pack whenever the hunt might be 
on. And the sign of the times is that the hunt is not yet to be abandoned." 

The strong "horse sense" of this argument does not need logical demon- 
stration. It is a foregone conclusion to even the most politically ill-equipped 
American Negro. Deep in the Negro mind is also a suspicion against the 
social evangelism of his white Communist friends. "Even after a revolu- 
tion the country will be full of crackers" is a reflection I have often met 
when discussing Communism in the Negro community. 

If the United States goes Communistic, where will the Communists come 
from? They certainly will not be imported from Russia. They will be made from 
the Americans here on hand. We might well pause and consider what variations 
Communism in the United States might undergo. 7 



5IO An American Dilemma 

But' there is, I have become convinced, a still deeper reason why 
Negroes are so immune against Communism. Negroes are discriminated 
against in practically all spheres of life, but in their fight for equal oppor- 
tunity they have on their side the law of the land and the religion of the 
nation. And they know it, all the way down to the poorest stratum. They 
know that this is their strategic hold. No social Utopia can compete with the 
promises of the American Constitution and with the American Creed which 
it embodies. Democracy and lawful government mean so much more to a 
Negro, just because he enjoys so comparatively little of it in this country. 
Merely by giving him the solemn promise of equality and liberty, American 
society has tied the Negroes' faith to itself. 

It should be observed, however, that several of the factors mentioned are 
transitory to a degree. The prospect of stimulating Negro support would 
also be different if a revolutionary movement once became really important 
in America and in a position to exert a serious threat of assuming political 
power. In such a situation a maltreated caste like the Negro people might 
suddenly become uncertain in its political allegiance. The Negroes' experi- 
ences during the present War until the time when this is being written 
(April, 1942) have undoubtedly had the general effect of loosening their 
sentimental ties to American society. 8 But such a drift away from national 
allegiance is the price eventually to be paid by a democratic society which, 
in the fulfillment of the promises of democracy, makes an exception of one 
group. It should also be observed that Communism, outside of party mem- 
bership, has actually had a considerable influence upon the mode of think- 
ing of the small group of Negro intellectuals who are, of course, easiest 
to move. There has been a growth of general radicalism in this group, and 
the present investigator has been surprised to find how it has spread also 
to Negro professionals and, occasionally, even to the Negro press. 

If we thus conclude that- — for the near future at least — Communism or 
any similar movement will not be able to muster any numerical support 
from the Negro voters, we must, on the other hand, be aware that Negroes 
as a group will from now on be in strong favor of a political party which 
stands for social reform and civic equality. In this respect, the New Deal 
promises to have permanent effects. 8 It has made this political alignment 
apparent to the whole Negro people. "When once the sentimental allegiance 
to the Republican party was broken and a modern liberal movement in 
American politics was inaugurated, this attitude became natural for a 
group which includes so many who are perennially interested in public 
assistance in one form or another. Negroes, in both the higher and the 
lower strata, seem to understand pretty well that a liberal attitude in ques- 
tions of economic relief and social reform is generally connected with a 
more eoualitarian attitude in racial matters. 
'See Chapters 19 and 45. 



Chapter 23. Trends and Possibilities 511 

With the vanishing of the frontier, the bar against new immigration, 
the proceeding Americanization, the growth of labor organizations, and 
other factors of structural change, the American party system has for a con- 
siderable time been headed for a rather fundamental change. During the 
Roosevelt administration, cleavage seemed to develop within both parties 
which made for a closer correspondence of party alignment to real interests 
and ideals. The present War might, of course, inaugurate unforeseen new 
trends. But extrapolating the trends during the 'thirties, and assuming no 
successful new third party movement, the present author has been inclined 
to envisage such a reorganization of the two-party system that one of the 
two parties carrying on the tradition of the New Deal becomes a liberal 
reform party, while the other remains a conservative party.* 

If we assume that such a new system will materialize, it seems fairly cer- 
tain that the great majority of Negroes are going to adhere to the liberal 
party, provided it be consistently liberal with respect to the Negro problem 
and manifests its liberalism not only in words but also in deeds. By becom- 
ing less fluid politically, the Negro voters would undoubtedly lose some of 
their bargaining power. But as the cause for their greater party loyalty 
would be that the party of their choice actually was more liberal, this would 
not be a real loss. Also, Negro fluidity would not be completely lost, since 
there will probably never be a return to that type of sentimentality which 
characterized the Negro's adherence to the Republican party from the Civil 
War until the New Deal, and since the Conservative party will not ignore 
the Negro's vote completely, and the Liberal party will realize that it can 
lose the Negro vote. If this realignment of the American party system 
should emerge, many Negro politicans would be released from the dilemma 
of double loyalty to the party and to the Negro group. This would remove 
to a certain extent one of the fundamental causes of political cynicism and 
corruption among Negro politicians. 

Generally speaking, a development of the type here envisaged would, 
in the present writer's opinion, enhance efficiency and honesty in American 
politics. The causes of incompetency and corruption are many and varied. 9 
But I believe that they have much more to do, than is generally understood, 
with the system of political parties entirely disconnected from the broad 

* The impediments in the way of such a development are not overlooked, (i) The Demo- 
cratic party is not likely to develop into a consistently liberal party without endangering 
its monopoly over the South. We should not deceive ourselves that the South has suddenly 
become progressive because the Southerners are Democrats, and the Democratic party is 
progressive under the leadership of Roosevelt. There is no doubt that the fact that the 
Democratic party is so largely Southern has served as a kind of brake on its progressivism 
in national politics. The rapid run of change in the South (see Chapter 21, Section 4.) 
might bring a split of the party in the South. (1) Just as there are conservative Democrat*, 
there are progressive Republicans. But even conservative Republicans are not willing to 
allow their party to play the role of a conservative party. 



512 An American Dilemma 

divisions of interests and ideals in American society. American politics has 
been comparatively empty of real issues. Often the issue, particularly in 
local elections, has been simply the demand for efficiency and honesty — 
the very things which have been generally lacking to such a degree that 
the ordinary American has come to believe that inefficiency and dishonesty 
are inexorably connected with politics as such. Honest and efficient politics 
requires political opinions and, indeed, splits in opinion. It also requires an 
independent, though democratically controlled, bureaucracy, and a firm 
tradition of legality. In these latter respects, too, the American government 
is on the move toward acquiring a structure less conducive to incompetence 
and graft." 

The Negroes as a subordinated group will be among the chief benefi- 
ciaries of these changes if they occur. The changes will not come overnight. 
They are contingent upon the building up of traditions, and that will take 
time. And there is always the danger that intervening happenings will 
break the process of orderly growth. Kven assuming no such unforeseen 
causes of deviation, the task before America in reforming its system of. 
government is incomparably grave: it has to cleanse its politics, not — as 
other nations have done — in an era of noninterference characterized by 
rigidly restricted state activity, but in an historic stage when state inter- 
vention is mounting, when state services are multiplying and when billions 
of dollars are passing through public budgets. 

3. Negro Suffragk in the South as an Issue 

The concern of the Southern Negroes is not how they shall use their 
votes but how to get their constitutional right to vote respected at all. 
Negro political power in the North is, as we shall see, not inconsequential 
for this problem in the South. But there are many other forces of change 
involved in the matter. 

That suffrage should be a major interest for Southern Negroes is demon- 
strated in several chapters of this book. There is, indeed, no single one of 
the several categories of Southern Negroes' deprivations and sufferings 
which is unconnected with their disfranchisement. In America, with its 
tradition of loose and politically dependent administration, there is more 
than elsewhere a considerable substance of realism in W. E. B. Du Bois' 
blunt statement: 

I hold this truth to be self-evident, that a disfranchised working class in modern 
industrial civilization is worse than helpless. It is a menace, not simply to itself, but 
to every other group in the community ... it will be ignorant; it will be the play- 
thing- of mobs; and it will be insulted by caste restrictions. 10 

1 

* See Chapter 20, Section 2. 



Chapter 23. Trends and Possibilities 513 

And Du Bois is also right when, without falling into the fallacy of believing 
that the voting right would by itself work wonders, he insists on the vote 
as a key point in all efforts to raise Negro standards. There is, indeed, a 
strange atmosphere of unreality around much of the discussion of the 
practical aspects of the Negro problem in America: it is commonly and more 
or less explicitly assumed that it is possible to raise materially and per- 
manently the condition of living in various respects for the Southern Negro 
people through Southern white good-will and Northern philanthropy 
while ". . . Negroes were to have no voice in the selection of local officials, 
no control of their own taxation, no vote on expenditure. . . , OT1 The 
Negroes' interests in politics are primarily concerned with the handling of 
local matters. Negroes need, in order to protect themselves, a voice in 
deciding who will be the judges of the courts, the public attorneys, the 
sheriffs and the chiefs of police, the members of the school board and other 
agencies deciding upon their share of public services. As national politics 
is increasingly important for all questions of social and economic welfare, 
they are also interested in who represents their districts in Congress. 

On the point of suffrage, as in so many other respects, there has, itt 
■principle, never really been any great difference of opinion among Negro 
leaders. It is true that Booker T. Washington found it advisable as a more 
practical tactic to proceed carefully and to stress that there were many 
things more important for the Negro's welfare than the vote." But he 
never gave up the demand for the Negro's right to the vote, nor his expec- 
tation that ultimately the South would reach a stage where Negroes were 
allowed to vote. 12 The Negro leaders have pointed to the moral danger to 
all society of the resort to extra-legal measures for keeping the Negroes out 
of politics. 18 The Negro leaders are also at one in not demanding an 
absolutely unqualified right to suffrage. They only insist that the restrictions 
of suffrage should be applied impartially to whites and Negroes alike. 14 
White liberals in the South are increasingly taking the same position. 15 
But the great majority of conservative Southern white people try to appear 
unconcerned. 

While, with a few local and regional exceptions, the Southern Negroes 
remain disfranchised, we have noted the beginnings of a tendency to 
increased political participation. In many Southern cities, the present writer 
has observed how small organizations and civic groups among the Negroes 
are starting and are attempting to get more Negroes on the registration 
lists. But first, this is not an entirely new phenomenon and, second, the 
immediate success is in most cases insignificant. Most Southern Negroes 
seem to keep their minds turned away from the whole matter. As we have 
shown, they have, indeed, good reasons for lack of political interest. But 

* See Chapter 34.. 



514 An American Dilemma 

this does not prove that they would not vote if they were allowed to, and 
if the vote was given due importance. 8 

4. An Unstable Situation 

Superficially viewed, the situation looks static and stable. This is, I 
believe, an illusion. Great changes are working underneath the visible sur- 
face, and a dynamic situation full of possibilities is maturing. Let us begin 
with some oi the smaller changes: the declining value of the dollar has, 
since the inauguration of the disfranchising constitutions and election 
laws, actually diminished considerably the effectiveness both of the poll 
tax requirement and of the property clauses. A substantial inflation will 
probably be the result of the present War. The political pressure from the 
poorer classes will prevent attempts to raise the money figures in propor- 
tion to the rise in price level. The trend actually is in the other direction, 
to decrease the size of the poll tax and property requirements. A factor 
similar in its effect to inflation is the trend toward direct taxation and away 
from indirect taxation. It is possible that when the poll tax becomes only 
one direct tax among many, it will not appear to be so large. The present 
War is accentuating this trend. 

More important is that the improved education of Negroes is rendering 
ineffective the literacy and understanding clauses. Every year there is a 
smaller proportion of the potential Negro electorate — as of the white one — 
which would be disfranchised by these clauses if they were impartially 
applied. They are not, as we have seen, applied honestly. This means that 
at least the legal foundations for Negro disfranchisement is gradually 
withering away. Keeping the Negroes away from the polls will thus 
increasingly have to be accomplished by intimidation, subterfuge or vio- 
lence. In a sense, the entire work around igoo to legalize political dis- 
crimination is being rapidly undone by various social trends. 

For two reasons this work cannot well be made over to meet the changes: 
first, because the possible means for legal disfranchisement within the loop- 
holes of the federal Constitution have been pretty well exhausted, and, 
second, because the general political atmosphere of the nation and the 
attitude of the Supreme Court are not so acquiescent as half a century 
ago when, in the great reaction after Reconstruction, they condoned the 
national compromise. Respect for law is being enhanced in the South. It 
is true that meanwhile a social pattern has been established that politics 
is white men's business, and that Negroes should not stick their noses into 
it. This is the main explanation of the calm before the storm. But as far 
as laws and individual rights mean anything at all in the South — and, as 
we shall -see in the next part, there are reasons to believe that they will 

* See Chapter 22, Sections 3 and 4. 



Chapter 23. Trends and Possibilities 515 

mean increasingly much — this situation is highly unstable and is becom- 
ing more so every year. 

It comes to this, that the poll tax probably will be abolished in one state 
after another (the present author would guess within the next decade). 
The reform elements in the South will become stronger as industrialization 
is proceeding and as labor is becoming unionized. It is quite possible that 
abolition of the poll tax might not immediately change the suffrage situa- 
tion much for the Negroes. The white primary and the extra-legal measures 
to keep Negroes from the polls might for a time make this reform rather 
inconsequential as far as the Negroes are concerned.* The experiences from 
the three Southern States which have taken the step make this appear 
probable. But by abolishing the foil tax the legal foundation for Negro 
disfranchisement will be made still weaker; the South will thus, if it seeks 
to continue to preserve the status qtto, have to rely still more exclusively 
on extra-legal measures. This, and the broadened basis of the white elec- 
torate — under the influence of the whole system of social changes which 
we have reviewed earlier 1 * — is bound to rearrange the structure of politics 
in the South so much that even the white primary might crash. The conser- 
vative opponents of any reform in the poll tax, who claim that this will 
open the road to Negro enfranchisement, are probably right. But the forces 
that back this reform are getting to be so strong that in all probability 
they cannot be stopped. 

5. The Stake of the North 

This is perhaps the point at which to take up for consideration the stake 
of the North in the Southern suffrage problem. It is apparent, and rather 
surprising, that the liberal forces in the North have not until recently given 
this problem more attention. 

There is actually a provision in the Fourteenth Amendment requiring a 
reduction in representation in Congress as a punishment for disfranchise- 
ment. 10 But this provision has never been applied. The conservatives had, 
of course, no interest in doing it, and it could not be attractive to liberals 
either, as it would imply a formal sanction of disfranchisement. Further, 
the Southern conservatives' strategic position became the stronger when 
it gradually became clear that they were assisted ,by the Supreme Court 
decisions which gave a twisted construction to the Reconstruction Amend- 
ments and read into them a meaning never intended by their authors. Suits 
brought by Negroes were dismissed often on formalistic and technical 

' It will also be some time after the legal abolition of the poll tax before the traditions 
connected with it disappear. Real issues which will stimulate the poorer whites to vote 
will not appear publicly overnight. 
See Chapter 21, Section 4. 



$16 An American Dilemma 

grounds. 17 One Southerner — who was not arguing for enfranchising the 
Negroes but for their deportation— wrote early in the century: 

In the matter of the franchise, the South first desperately intimidated the negro; 
then systematically cheated him without semblance of law: then cheated him legally; 
and now defrauds him of his political rights in a duly constitutional fashion with 
the consent, if not the aid of the United States Supreme Court. 18 

It is generally held that the Supreme Court acted in agreement with and 
actually expressed what was then the general sentiment even in the North. 
The North had gotten tired of the Negro problem and, anyhow, saw no 
immediate alternative other than to let the white Southerners have their 
own way with their Negroes. But it must not be forgotten that the deci- 
sions of the Court had themselves a substantial share in the responsibility 
for the solidification of the Northern apathy. This was also before the 
great Negro migration: the Negro vote in the North was still small 
and safely belonged to the Republican party without any particular political 
compensation. 

The Supreme Court is, however, seemingly changing its attitude and is 
again looking more to the spirit of the Reconstruction Amendments and 
not only to their possible loopholes. Since at the same time the legal founda- 
tion for Negro discrimination in the South is dissolving, it will be easier 
to win cases for disfranchised Negroes if they begin again to demand their 
constitutional right in the state courts. It would be no great surprise if the 
Supreme Court reversed its earlier stand and, by declaring the primary to 
be an election, rendered the white primary unconstitutional. 

Meanwhile, the forces for social reform in Congress are feeling the 
opposition from Southern conservative members more and more cumber- 
some. They are increasingly irritated when they remember that, owing to 
the peculiar electoral system and the restricted political participation in the 
Southern states, congressmen from the South are not truly representative 
of the region. "In the 1940 election about 10% of the voting population of 
the United States . . . was able to elect . . . one-fourth of the members of 
Congress," 18 writes a Southern liberal, and this truth is dawning upon many 
Northerners too. The stage is being set for attempts to free at least the 
national elections from poll tax requirements." Both the labor vote and 

* The current effort to abolish the poll tax by federal legislation is again bringing' up the 
much-debated question of the constitutionality of federal laws to regulate federal elections. 
The opponents of such laws quote the first part of Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution: 
"The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall 
be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof . . ." The advocates of federal action 
call attention to the continuation of this Section of the Constitution: "but the Congress may 
at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing 
Senators.'' In view of the latter statement, it seems to be a myth, carefully fostered by 
reactionaries, that Congress cannot take a hand in controlling the election of its members. 
In maintaining this myth, these reactionaries have referred to irrelevant sections of the 



Chapter 23. Trends and Possibilities 517 

the Negro vote in the North will in all probability exert a considerable 
pressure in this same direction. The labor vote might be primarily interested 
in freeing the poor whites from the poll tax in the South and, generally, 
in defeating the conservative hold over Southern politics. But Negro dis- 
franchisement is so thoroughly interwoven with these two other goals that 
a separation is not possible technically. It is not desirable from a tactical 
standpoint, either, that labor tolerate discrimination against the Negro, 
at least as far as legislation and national policy are concerned. This is so 
because labor must seek support in the industrial South from the Negro, 
where the Negro constitutes an important element in the industrial popula- 
tion, and it is true also because labor, from the standpoint of national 
strategy, cannot afford to fall in with the status quo. 

Northerners far to the right of labor also have cause to feel increasingly 
uneasy about Southern disfranchisement of Negroes as well as about 
judicial and economic discrimination. There is a disturbing racial angle to 
the Second World War, and to the planning for a world order after the 
War, for which the United States is bound to assume a great responsibility. 
The issue of democracy is fatefully involved in the War and the coming 
peace. The Northern press reflects abundantly this growing anxiety around 
the Negro problem. A recent editorial concludes: 

This is a national, not a sectional problem. ... It has to be solved if the white- 
skinned majority is- to avoid the sinister hypocrisy of fighting abroad for what it is 
not willing to accept at home. 20 

Southern conservatives dislike nothing more than the threat of federal 
interference in their "states' rights." The anti-lynching legislation was 
fought on this ground. Several conservative Southerners have explained to 
mc that they did not have so much against the measure fer se, but that 
they dreaded it as a first step in the regulation of civic rights in the South 
by federal legislation. Even many liberal white Southerners want to con- 
fine the Negro problem, and particularly the Negro suffrage, to a local 
issue.- 1 But the South's strategic position is weakening every day. Southern , 
conservatism is, on this point, defending an indefensible position. There are 
reasons to anticipate both that the Negro and the labor bloc will exert 
increasing political power, and that liberalism generally will become 
stronger both in the South and in the North. The Supreme Court is likely 
to continue in its new trend. The only means of escaping federal inter- 
Constitution, such as the Fifteenth Amendment (which says that "the right of citizens of 
the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any 
State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" but says nothing about 
poll tax, or similar economic or geographical barriers). 



5i 8 An American Dilemma 

ference might be for the South to start to carry out the reforms on its 
own initiative.* 

6. Practical Conclusions 

In the South itself, the whole unique political system, particularly the 
poll tax, is becoming increasingly shaky. And this is realized by Southerners 
with any insight into politics, even if they do not admit it publicly. More 
specifically, the disfranchisement of Negroes is losing its entire legal founda- 
tion and now depends mainly on illegal measures. From a conservative 
point of view, this is the more dangerous as respect for law is undoubtedly 
gaining ground in the South. Not only the legal, but also the political, 
security of the white primary will crumble, and this is well known to con- 
servative whites. They always stress in discussion that its only basis, and, 
therefore, the only basis of the one-party system and the "Solid South/' is 
the strict adherence to the "gentleman's agreement" between the defeated 
and the victorious candidates in the primary. If there are going to be more 
serious splits on real political issues in the South — and all the changes 
mentioned earlier tend to build up liberal counterforces in the South — it 
is not only possible but, as I have often heard Southerners stress, probable 
that such agreements will not be upheld. As during the period of Populism 
in the 1890's, the Negroes are then going to be allowed to register and 
vote. And more Negroes will then have lawful rights to suffrage. 

Our conclusion is, thus, that the Southern franchise situation, which on 
the surface looks so quiet, is highly unstable and that, indeed, the Southern 
conservative -position on Negro franchise is politically untenable for any 
length of time. If this analysis is accepted, and if the value premise is 
agreed upon, that changes should, if possible ; not- be made by sudden 
upheavals but in gradual steps, we reach the further practical conclusion 
that it is an urgent interest and, actually, a truly conservative one, for the 
South to start enfranchising its Negro citizens as soon as possible. This is 
seen by a small group of Southern, liberals. 82 

It is true, as Woofter reminds us in discussing this point, that the situa- 
tion is complicated. In many areas of the South where the Negro popula- 
tion is most densely concentrated, "this group is less intelligent, less familiar 
with American institutions, farther down in the economic scale, and most 
likely to constitute the corrupt mass-voting element." 28 So are also large 
sectors of the poor white masses in the South. As we have seen, Southern 
conservative politics is not without guilt in this situation. But for this very 
reason — the foreseeable changes being what they are — the more urgent is 

* Contrary to a general opinion that the South is conditioned to react only negatively to 
Northern criticism and pressure, I am convinced that, on the balance, the effect is almost 
always positive. In all fields— education, civic rights, and suffrage — I have everywhere met 
dua argument in Southern discussion, that a step is necessary in order to forestall this or 
that move from the North. 



Chapter 23. Trends and Possibilities 519 

it from a conservative point of view to begin allowing the higher strata of 
the Negro population to participate in the political process as soon as pos- 
sible, and to push the movement down to the lowest groups gradually. 
The more urgent is it also to speed up the civic education of these masses 
who are bound to have votes in the future. It would, in this late stage of the 
development, be wise also to go the full way and gradually open the white 
primary to Negroes. This, actually, would be a means of decreasing the 
temptation for defeated primary candidates to break the "gentleman's 
agreement" and, consequently, to preserve the one-party system for a 
longer time than otherwise would be possible." 

In their own history of the past century, the Southern conservatives can 
see abundantly the negative proofs, and from the history of democratic 
politics all over the world the positive proofs, for this thesis, that political 
conservatives, who have been successful for any length of time, have always 
foreseen impending changes and have put through the needed reforms 
themselves in time. By following this tactic they have been able to guard 
fundamental conservative interests even in the framing of the reforms. 
They have thereby also succeeded in slowing them up; changes have not 
overwhelmed them as avalanches. They have kept the control and pre- 
served a basis for the retention of their political power. Southern conserva- 
tism should further learn from history that, over a period of time, the 
conservative forces in a society cannot afford to abstain from the tremendous 
strategic advantage of forming the party of "law and order." This is such 
an immense interest for conservatism that if — for constitutional and other 
reasons — the law does not come to the conservatives even when they are in 
power, the conservatives had better come to the law. 

But the great majority of Southern conservative white people do not see 
the handwriting on the wall. They do not study the impending changes; 
they live again in the pathetic illusion that the matter is settled. They do 
not care to have any constructive policies to meet the trends. They think 
no adjustments are called for. The chances that the future development will 
be planned and led intelligently — and that, consequently, it will take the 
form of cautious, foresighted reforms instead of unexpected, tumultuous, 

* I am here, looking on the problem from a conservative point of view and assuming 
that to preserve the one-party system would be desirable. The liberals want, on the con- 
trary, to get away from the white primary and from the one-party system altogether, but 
they do not anticipate radical changes in the future. They further want to do away with 
political discrimination and, therefore, come to the same conclusion: 

"For the white South, what is needed above all is fairness, a determination to enforce 
suffrage tests equitably on white and black alike, and resolve to break away from the one- 
party system and to regain preeminence in the national forums of political action by building 
a political system around the live national issues and forgetting the more or less dead issue 
of Negro domination." (T. J. Woofter, Jr., The Basis of Racial Adjustment [1915], p. 
i«7.) 



520 Am American Dilemma 

haphazard breaks, with mounting discords and anxieties in its wake — arc 
indeed small. But we want to keep this last question open. Man is a free 
agent, and there are no inevitabilities. All will depend upon the thinking 
done and the action taken in the region during the next decade or so. 
History can be made. It is not necessary to receive it as mere destiny. 



Part VI 
JUSTICE 



CHAPTER 24 

INEQUALITY OF JUSTICE 



1. Democracy and Justice 

The American tradition of electing, rather than appointing, minor public 
officials" has its most serious features in regard to the judiciary branch of 
the government. Judges, prosecuting attorneys, minor court officials, 
sheriffs, the chiefs of police, and, in smaller communities, sometimes the 
entire police force, 1 are either elected for limited terms or are dependent 
for their offices upon political representatives of this uncertain tenure. In 
some places they can even be "recalled" during their terms of office, though 
this is comparatively rare. 

The immediate dependence of court and police officials upon popular 
election — that is, upon local public opinion and political machines — instead 
of upon appointment strictly according to merit, and the uncertainty of 
tenure implied in this system naturally decreases the attractiveness of these 
important positions to many of the best persons who would otherwise be 
available. Professional standards are thus kept lower than those which could 
be attained under another system. The courts do not get the cream of the 
legal profession. The social prestige of judges in local courts is not as 
supreme as could be wished. Corruption and undue political influences are 
not absent even from the courtrooms. These facts themselves have the. 
circular effect of keeping the best men from judicial positions. 

But, apart from such general effects, the fact that the administration of 
justice is dependent upon the local voters is likely to imply discrimination 
against an unpopular minority group, particularly when this group is dis- 
franchised as Negroes are in the South. The elected judge knows that 
sooner or later he must come back to the polls, and that a decision running 
counter to local opinion may cost him his position. He may be conscious of 
it or not, but this control of his future career must tend to increase his 
difficulties in keeping aloof from local prejudices and emotions. Of course, 
the judge's attitudes are also formed by conditions prevalent in his local 
community, but he has a degree of acquaintance with the law, and with 
public and legal opinion outside his community. This would tend to 

* This tradition was referred to in Chapter 20, Section 2, as a main reason why the vote, 
or the lack of the vote, it of such paramount importance for the Negro people. 

5*3 



524 An American Dilemma 

emancipate him from local opinion were it not for his direct dependence 
on it.* 

The dependence of the judge on local prejudices strikes at the very root 
of orderly government- It results in the danger of breaking down the 
law in its primary function of protecting the minority against the majority, 
the individual against society, indeed, of democracy itself against the danger 
of its nullifying, in practice, the settled principles of law and impartiality 
of justice. This danger is higher in the problem regions where there is 
acute race friction and in rural areas where the population is small and 
provincial, and where personal contacts are direct. Under the same influences 
as the judges are the public prosecutors, the sheriffs, the chiefs of police 
and their subordinates. The American jury system, while it has many 
merits, is likely to strengthen this dependence of justice upon local popular 
opinion. If, as in the South, Negroes are kept out of jury service, the 
democratic safeguard of the jury system is easily turned into a means of 
minority subjugation. 

The popular election of the officers of law and the jury system are 
expressions of the extreme democracy in the American handling of justice. 
It might, in spite of the dangers suggested, work excellently in a reasonably 
homogeneous, highly educated and public spirited community. It might 
also work fairly well anywhere for cases involving only parties belonging to 
a homogeneous majority group which controls the court. It causes, how- 
ever, the gravest peril of injustice in all cases where the rights of persons 
belonging to a disfranchised group are involved, particularly if this group 
is discriminated against all around and by tradition held as a lower caste 
upon whose rights it has become customary to infringe. The extreme 
democracy in the American system of justice turns out, thus, to be the 
greatest menace to legal democracy when it is based on restricted ■political 
participation and an ingrained tradition of caste suppression. Such condi- 
tions occur in the South with respect to Negroes. 

If there is a deficiency of legal protection for Negroes, white people will 
be tempted to deal unfairly with them in everyday affairs. They will be 
tempted to use irregular methods to safeguard what they feel to be their 
interests against Negroes. They will be inclined to use intimidation and even 
violence against Negroes if they can count on going unpunished. When such 
patterns become established, the law itself and its processes are brought 
into contempt, and a general feeling of uncertainty, arbitrariness and 
inequality will spread. Not only Negroes but other persons of weak social 
status will be the object of discrimination. "When an exception to the rule 

* A shift from election to appointment of court and police officials would also be expected 
to increase efficiency, reduce corruption and raise the level of the persons appointed. This 
would tend to occur if appointments were made under the civil service system and generally 
even if the higher appointments were made directly by the governor of the state. 



Chapter 24. Inequality op Justice 525 

of justice is allowed the structure of the legal machinery is damaged, and 
may and does permit exceptions in cases which do not involve Negroes," 
observes Charles Johnson. 2 In the South there have been frequent occa- 
sions when the legal rights of poor white persons have been disregarded, 
and even when general lawlessness prevailed. When the frequency of law- 
breaking thus increases, it becomes necessary to apply stronger penalties 
than is necessary in an equitable system of justice. In all spheres of public 
life it will, of course, be found that legislation is relatively ineffective, and 
so the sociologists will be inclined to formulate a general societal law of 
"the futility of trying to suppress folkways by stateways." Lawlessness has 
then received the badge of scientific normalcy. 

The Negroes, on their side, are hurt in their trust that the law is impar- 
tial, that the court and the police are their protection, and, indeed, that they 
belong to an orderly society which has set up this machinery for common 
security and welfare. They will not feci confidence in, and loyalty toward, 
a legal order which is entirely out of their control and which they sense to 
be inequitable and merely part of the system of caste suppression. Solidarity 
then develops easily in the Negro group, a solidarity against the law and 
the police. The arrested Negro often acquires the prestige of a victim, a 
martyr, or a hero, even when he is simply a criminal. It becomes part of 
race pride in the protective Negro community not to give up a fellow 
Negro who is hunted by the police. Negroes who collaborate with the police 
become looked upon as stool pigeons. 

No one visiting Negro communities in the South can avoid observing the 
prevalence of these views. The situation is dynamic for several reasons. 
One is the growing urbanization and the increasing segregation of the Negro 
people. The old-time paternalistic and personal relationship between 
individuals of the two groups is on the decrease. Another factor is the 
improvement of Negro education which is continually making Negroes 
more aware of their anomalous status in the American legal order. A third 
factor, the importance of which is increasing in pace with the literacy of 
the Negro people, is the persistent hammering of the Negro press which, 
to a large extent, is devoted to giving publicity to the injustices and injuries 
suffered by Negroes. A fourth factor is unemployment, especially of young 
Negroes, with resulting insecurity and dissatisfaction. 

Because of these changes, as Du Bois tells us, ". . . the Negro is coming 
more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, 
but as sources of humiliation and oppression." 3 He expresses a common 
attitude among Southern Negroes when he continues: "The laws are made 
by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people 
with courtesy or consideration: . . . the accused law-breaker is tried, not by 
his Deers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent 



526 An American Dilemma 

Negroes than let one guilty one escape." To the present observer the 
situation looks far from peaceful and quiet, as white people in the South 
have tried to convince him. It has rather the appearance of a fateful race 
between, on the one hand, the above-mentioned tendencies which increase 
Negro mistrust, unrest, and asociality, and, on the other, the equally 
apparent tendency for the white group increasingly to be prepared to give 
the Negro personal security and equality before the law. 

The literature is replete with statements that point to the Negro's rest- 
lessness and the need of giving him legal justice. 4 The representatives of 
the tradition of lawlessness do not write books even if they still, in many 
places, dominate practice." We shall have to try to understand them in their 
historical setting from their actual behavior. 

Having accepted the American Creed as our value premise in this study, 
we must also accept a corollary of this Creed for the purposes of this part, 
namely, that Negroes are entitled, to justice equally with all other people. 
This principle has constitutional sanction and is held supreme in the 
legislation of all states in the Union. In this part we do not discuss inequali- 
ties in law or the results of the inequitable administration of the laws: all 
these material inequalities in legal status of the American Negro are dealt 
with in other parts of our inquiry- The subject of the discussion here is 
only the actual handling of justice, the manner in which inequalities in 
the enforcement of the laws against whites and Negroes are entering into 
the judicial procedures, and also such lacks in personal security of Negroes 
concomitant with those inequalities. 

2. Relative Equality in the North 

There are deficiencies in the working of the machinery of the law in the 
North too. American justice is everywhere expensive and depends too much 
upon the skill of the attorney. The poor man has difficulty in securing his 
rights. Judges and police officers are not free from prejudices against people 
of lower economic and cultural levels. Experienced white and Negro 
lawyers have told the author that in criminal cases where only Negroes are 
involved there is sometimes a disposition on the part of the prosecutors, 
judges and juries to treat offenses with relative lightness. In matters 
involving offenses by Negroes against whites, Negroes will often find the 
presumptions of the courts against them, and there is a tendency to sentence 
them to A higher penalty than if they had committed the same offense 
against Negroes. Instances have been related to me in which Negro witnesses 
have been made the butt of jests and horseplay. I have, however, received 

* One reason for this is that these persons are usually aware that their practice is incon- 
sistent with their best ideals. Another reason is that such a disproportionately large part of 
the intellectuals of the region are liberals. (See Chapter at, Section 5.) 



Chapter 24. Inequality of Justice 527 

the general impression that such differential treatment of witnesses is 
rather the exception than the rule, and that it will practically never happen 
to a Negro plaintiff or defendant who is assisted by good counsel." 

A more serious matter is the treatment of Negroes by the police. In most 
Northern communities Negroes are more likely than whites to be arrested 
under any suspicious circumstances. They are more likely to be accorded dis- 
courteous or brutal treatment at the hands of the police than are whites. 
The rate of killing of Negroes by the police is high in many Northern 
cities, particularly in Detroit." Negroes have a seriously high criminality 
record, b and the average white policeman is inclined to increase it even more 
in his imagination. The Negroes are, however, not the only sufferers, even 
if they, as usual, reap more than their fair share. Complaints about indis- 
criminate arrests and police brutality are raised also by other economically 
disadvantaged and culturally submerged groups in the Northern cities. 
The attitudes of the police will sometimes be found among the most 
important items considered in local Negro politics in the North. Usually 
there is much less complaint about not getting a fair trial before the courts. 

Another form of discrimination in the North against Negroes is in the 
market for houses and apartments} whites try to keep Negroes out of white 
neighborhoods by restrictive covenants. The legality of these covenants is 
open to dispute, but in so far as the local courts uphold them, the dis- 
crimination is in the legal principle, not in the individual cases brought to 
court." In some Northern cities — as, for instance, Detroit — I have heard 
complaints that the police will sometimes try to restrict Negroes to the 
Negro districts, particularly at night. There have been bombings against 
Negroes who tried to invade white territory and even race riots, particularly 
in the wake of the sudden migration of great masses of rural Negroes 
from the South during and immediately after the First World War. 9 
The police have not always been strictly impartial during such incidents. 7 
But the courts have usually not shielded the white transgressors afterwards 
in the way which has become a pattern in the South. 

Vigilantism occasionally occurs in the North. The Western frontier 
formerly saw much of it, but manifestations of it are rare now. During the 
1920's the Ku Klux Klan operated in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and 
other Northern states almost as much as it did in the South. Immigrant 
sections of a few Northern cities occasionally witness such activities (e.g., 
the "Black Hand" society in Italian areas and the Tong wars in Chinese 
sections). Occasionally vigilantism of the Southern type will still occur in 
the North: 

" See Chapter 27, Section 5. 
b See Chapter 4.4, Section 2. 
* See Chapter 19, Section 4. 



;28 An American Dilemma 

On the night of August n, 1939, seven Negro migratory workers including one 
woman were routed out of their sleep in an isolated one-room shack on a farm near 
Cranbury, New Jersey, by a mob of white men with handkerchief masks and guns. 
All seven were stripped naked, their hands tied and they were told to start across a 
field. The fire single men escaped into the bushes, shots fired after them going over 
their heads. Jake and Frances Preston, the married couple, were threatened with 
mutilation and rape, were beaten with a rubber hose, had white enamel poured over 
them and were told to "head South." 

Many believed prominent local citizens had instigated the attack. Local workers 
were aroused; migrants threatened to leave. Local farmers feared the loss of their 
laborers. The Workers Defense League offered a $lOO reward for information 
leading to the arrest and conviction of the assailants. After two weeks the state 
police made ten arrests, one a minor. At first freed on $250 bail the nine self- 
confessed adult assailants were later given suspended sentences of three to five years. 
But intimidation of Negroes persisted. So civil suits were then instituted and on 
May 1 o, 1 940, the Federal District Court of Newark awarded the Prcstons damages 
of $2,000 each, and the other five $1,000 each. 8 

In many Northern cities Negroes relate that they find it difficult to get 
the courts to punish violations of the civil rights lawsj for example, 
when Negroes are not permitted in certain restaurants and hotels. In such 
cases it is often difficult to obtain proofs which substantiate the charges, but 
this does not explain satisfactorily why those laws have as yet so largely 
remained paper decrees. In the over-all balance, however, infringements 
of Negro rights that are supposed to be prevented by the civil rights laws 
are of comparatively little importance. 

There are, in many Northern places, Negro judges, Negro court officers 
and Negro policemen. Commonly there are Negroes on the jury lists. The 
large majority of all Negro lawyers find it to their advantage to practice in 
the North. 9 They generally plead cases before the courts and are not, like 
most of their Southern colleagues, restricted to trying to settle things 
outside of court. They occasionally have white people among their clientele. 
Negro lawyers in the North do not generally complain of being treated 
differently in court from their white colleagues or of meeting prejudice 
from the' juries. 10 

Since, on the whole, Negroes do not meet much more discrimination 
from officers of the law than do white persons of the same economic and cul- 
tural level, there is in the North no special problem of getting justice for 
Negroes, outside the general one of improving the working of the machin- 
ery of the law for the equal protection of the rights of poor and uneducated 
people. The further reservation should be added that Negroes in Border 
cities — for instance, in Washington and St. Louis — meet relatively more 
prejudice both from the police and from the courts, 11 and the same thing 
holds for a city like Detroit which has a large population of white immi- 



Chapter 24.. Inequality of Justice 529 

grants from the South." In a comparable way, the Upper South is consid- 
erably more like the North in this respect than is the Lower South. 

Part of the explanation of why the Negro gets more legal justice in the 
North is the fact that Negroes can vote in the North and, consequently, 
have a share in the ultimate control of the legal system. Nevertheless, the 
importance of political participation as a cause of equality before the law 
should not be exaggerated. The lack of discrimination in both respects has 
a common cause in a general inclination of white people in the North to 
regard Negroes as full citizens in their formal relations with public 
authority, even if not in economic competition or social intercourse. This 
is one point where the ordinary Northerner is unfailingly faithful to the 
American Creed. He wants justice to be impartial, regardless of race, 
creed or color. 

The North is further removed from the memories of slavery, and its 
equal itarian philosophy became more rigorously formulated in the pro- 
longed conflict with the South during and after the Civil War. Also, 
Northern Negroes are concentrated in big cities, where human relations 
arc formalized and where Negroes arc a small minority of the total popu- 
lation. The legal machinery in those cities might sometimes be tainted by 
the corruption of the city administration, but its size alone tends to objectify 
its operations and prevent its being influenced by the narrowest type of 
local prejudice. Other reasons would seem to be that Northern Negroes 
are better educated and have a higher economic status on the average, that 
Northern Negroes can be and are more inclined to stand up for their 
rights, and that most organizations fighting for the Negro have their 
headquarters in the North. Whatever the reasons, it seems to be a fact that 
there is a sharp division between North and South in the granting of legal 
justice to Negroes. In the North, for the most part, Negroes enjoy equit- 
able justice. 

3. The Southern Heritage 

Because the main problems of justice for the Negro are found in the 
South, this part of the book will deal almost exclusively with the South. 
The diference in feeling of personal security between Negroes in the two 
regions is most striking to an observer. The Southern Negro seems to 
suspect a possible danger to himself or to other Negroes whenever a white 
stranger approaches him. When you ask him where somebody lives, he will 
be slow and careful in giving information. When you knock at his door, 
particularly after dark, you will often see fear in his eyes until he comes to 
know your innocent intentions. It is not true, as is often maintained in the 

'Detroit also seems to have a larger number of Southern-born policemen than most othei 
Northern cities. In the recent clashes there between the police and the Negroes, many of 
the police were whites from Kentucky and Tennessee. 



530 An American Dilemma 

South, that this is his reaction only to strangers. I have often witnessed 
this undercurrent of fear and uncertainty in various undefined situations 
even when one or more of the white persons participating were personally 
known to the Negroes or were recognized by their dialect as having a 
Southern origin. The Northern Negro, in general, appears different in 
this respect. His self-assurance in behavior often seems preposterous or 
obstreperous to the Southern white man who has become accustomed to 
the submissive and guarded manners of the Southern Negro. 

The reason for this, as we shall see, is that in the South the Negro's 
person and property are practically subject to the whim of any white person 
who wishes to take advantage of him or to punish him for any real or 
fancied wrongdoing or "insult." A white man can steal from or maltreat 
a Negro in almost any way without fear of reprisal, because the Negro 
cannot claim the protection of the police or courts, and personal vengeance 
on the part of the offended Negro usually results in organized retaliation 
in the form of bodily injury (including lynching), home burning or ban- 
ishment. Practically the only check on white maltreatment of Negroes is 
a rather vague and unformulated feeling on the part of Southern public 
opinion that a white man should not be "mean" to a Negro except when 
he "deserves" it. But unless the white man acquires a reputation for being 
mean and unjust, his occasional violation of a Negro's legal rights is felt 
to be justified or — at most — "his own business." 

The large element of chance and arbitrariness should be emphasized in 
a discussion of lawlessness in the South. Physical violence and threats 
against personal security do not, of course, occur to every Negro every day. 
Some Southern Negroes can probably go through life with only half a 
dozen "incidents." But violence may occur at any time, and it is the fear of 
it as much as violence itself which creates the injustice and the insecurity. 
The chance nature of the violence is illustrated by the fact that a noncon- 
forming Northern Negro known to the author spent five years in the South 
without any trouble, while another'Northern Negro, who went South with 
a determination to comply with all rules so as to avoid difficulty, met 
violence within a week. 

When trying to understand the Southern situation as to law enforcement 
and the Negro's personal security, it is necessary to examine the historical 
heritage of the region. Under slavery the Negro was owned, bought, and 
sold as property; he was worked, housed, fed, and prevented from doing 
what he wished if it was contrary to the interests of his master. In general, 
the Negro slave had no "rights" which his owner was bound to respect.* 
Even if in legal theory the slave was given the status of a person under 

' The North had a small amount of slavery in the early days of the nation, but it was 
restricted and was abolished by the first years of the nineteenth century. Its tradition was 
completely annihilated by the anti-slavery sentiment before and during the Civil War. 



Chapter 24. Inequality of Justice 531 

the law as well as the status of property, it was the latter viewpoint which, 
in practice, became the determining one. In the very relationship between 
master and slave it was inherent that — without recourse to courts — force 
and bodily punishment and, under certain circumstances, even the killing 
of the slave was allowed. ". . . all slaveholders are under the shield of a 
perpetual license to murder," exclaimed Hinton R. Helper in his unsparing 
onslaught on the plantation class and the slavery institution. 12 Thomas 
Jefferson saw clearly the moral danger of the slavery institution: 

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the 
most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and 
degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. . . . 
The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by 
such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, 
permitting one half the citizens to trample on the rights of the other, transforming 
those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of one part, and the 
amor fatriae of the other. . . . [Can] the liberties of a nation be thought secure 
when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people 
that these liberties are the gift of God? That they arc not to be violated but with 
His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that 
His justice cannot sleep forever." 18 

Most states, however, inaugurated statutes to protect the slave from 
unnecessary sufferings. 14 The master was obliged to provide food, clothing, 
and shelter, and to treat his slaves humanly. To the extent that these regu- 
lations were not sanctioned by the master's own economic interests and his 
feelings for his human property or by community sentiment, they seem 
not to have been enforced. The slave could generally not testify against 
a white man, and the white community was too much in collusion to per- 
mit the vindication of the slave's rights against his master. Considering the 
intensive criticisms of slavery laws and of the treatment of slaves which 
emanated from Abolitionist circles in the North — there are several learned 
treatises in the 'forties and 'fifties supporting the popular propaganda 15 — 
it is perhaps surprising that the Southern states did not build up a defense 
for their peculiar institution by legislating modernized slave codes, legal- 
izing the humanized views which were expressed in the apologetic litera- 
ture on slavery and, without doubt, even acted upon most of the time by 
the majority of slave owners. 18 

Most of the laws relating to the slavery institution were, instead, aimed 
at regulating in detail the behavior of the slaves, forbidding them to 
possess or carry weapons, to resist white persons, to assemble in the absence 
of whites, to leave the plantation without permission. Even those regula- 
tions seem not to have been enforced with too much rigidity as it was 
commonly left to the slave master, in whose interest they were enacted, to 
supervise his own slaves as he wished. Since all whites enjoyed a %x£praK< ie 



53& An American Dilemma 

status, and since the assumption was upheld that they all shared the respon- 
sibility of keeping the Negroes in a lower status, they were given much 
the same unrestricted powers against the Negroes as the master, except in 
so far as these powers clashed with his property interests. A slave was not 
allowed to defend himself against any white man and if the slave were 
killed, it was considered as a property damage rather than murder and 
could be absolved by paying a fine. 17 

In this legal system,which was an outgrowth of slavery as an institution, 
the emergence of the free Negroes introduced an obvious anomaly which 
became more striking as slavery came more and more to be founded upon 
racial beliefs." Under the constant fear of slave insurrection, 18 not only 
were restricting regulations of slave behavior continually elaborated, but 
the liberties and rights of free Negroes were severely limited. 10 This 
development is of particular importance for the legal status of the freed- 
men after Emancipation, as the nearest analogy was the ante-bellum status 
of free Negroes. Another tradition important for the future development 
was the function of the police. The police system in the South to a great 
extent served the explicit purpose of supervising Negro slaves and free 
Negroes and of hindering the former from escape. They were given the 
widest license to seize, whip and punish Negroes and generally to act as 
the agents of the masters. The police in the South were, by tradition, 
watchdogs of all Negroes, slave or free, criminal or innocent. 

The psychic pressure upon white society of the slavery system and of 
the various devices necessary to uphold it against rebellious Negroes, 
envious poor whites, Northern Abolitionists, and world opinion, must have 
been intense. The South remained an unstable frontier civilization, 1 " where 
the law was distant and wavering and human life was cheap. "Lynch law 
is essentially a fruit of frontier conditions with population sparse, officials 
few, amateurish, and easy-going, and legal machinery consequently inade- 
quate," remarks Schrieke, and continues: "That it prevailed in the ante- 
bellum South to a degree comparable at all to that in the mining camps 
was doubtless due to the thinness of settlement and the occasional hysteria 
over rapes and rumors of revolts by Negroes." 20 But, in addition, the 
slavery system itself — and more particularly the right it gave and the 
custom it nurtured to punish bodily other adult human beings — must have 
conditioned people to violent and arbitrary behavior patterns. Probably 
more whites than Negroes were killed in the South during the three 
decades following Andrew Jackson's first administration, which generally 
is recognized as marking a beginning of increased tension and spreading 
violence in the South. 21 The Negro slaves had a protection, which the 
white men did not have, in their value as property. 22 

* See Chapter 4. 

* See Chapter *o. 



Chapter 24. Inequality of Justice 533 

With these traditions and with all the tension and instability in its social 
fabric, 28 the South entered the long period of the Civil War and the 
convulsions which followed. The Negroes — having lost the protection for 
life and personal security which their property value had provided them, 
and also, in many cases, the personal relationship to their old masters, and 
being untrained for the new freedom — became the subjects of much 
greater violence. The whites — impoverished, bitter, fearful, thoroughly 
indoctrinated by their own defense ideology, and even more untrained to 
deal with their new fellow citizens in terms of legal equality — felt little 
check in practicing this violence. The Reconstruction Amendments, how- 
ever, gave civil rights to Negroes for the first time. Even after the resto- 
ration of white supremacy was accomplished, all state legislation in the 
South had to be written upon the fictitious assumption that Negroes enjoyed 
full and equal protection under the law. The administration of justice had 
to proceed upon the same imaginary principle. In reality, legislation, 
courts, and police were, on the contrary, used to keep the Negroes "in 
their place." This intention had to be kept sub rosa, so as not to come into 
conflict with the Constitution. Serious and honest men had to pretend. On 
the other hand, the belief in legal inequality could never again be whole- 
hearted. The upstanding Southern white men were compelled by their 
allegiance to their nation and its Constitution to observe a degree of both 
the form and the content of equality in justice. 

So this unique phenomenon, unmatched in history, came into being: 
a strongly conservative democratic society where conservatism was har- 
nessed to the practice of illegality and where the progressives, instead of 
the conservatives, had to become cautious defenders of the principle of 
legality. The South remained provincial and continued its fight against 
the Creed of the nation and the spirit of the age. The feeling, grew, how- 
ever, that — in this particular respect — it was fighting common sense and 
its own better conscience. When slavery once was abolished, and its rein- 
stitution written off as undesirable or impractical, and when white men no 
longer had an economic interest in the persons of specific Negroes, the 
rational motives for keeping up a reserve of devices, outside the legal ones 
for keeping Negroes tractable, largely vanished. 24 These other devices 
served the positive purpose before the War of keeping the slave working 
for his master j now they mainly served the empty vanity of the weak 
white man and the desire for domination of the strong white man. The 
present writer has met few Southern white people — above the lowest level 
of education and culture — who have not declared themselves prepared in 
frincifle to abstain from illegality in the sphere of personal security and 
private property. 

There is no question that the movement to normalize the legal order 
of the South is gaining momentum. The dynamic play of social forces 



534 An American Dilemma 

behind this development has already been discussed.' In the legal sphere 
the influence of the federal courts and, in particular, the Supreme Court, 
is probably stronger than in the political sphere. The North has never 
compromised with the South on the principle of equality before the law 
to the same degree as it has on the principle of universal suffrage. And 
the group of people in the South who are prepared to take a stand for the 
former principle is — according to the present writer's definite impressions 
— considerably larger than the group standing for the latter principle. It 
may, therefore, be expected that there will be an even more rapid develop- 
ment in the field of justice in the near future than at the present time. 
The lingering inequality in justice in the South is -probably due more to 
low and lagging -professional standards — certainly among the police, and 
in many regions even among the lawyers who are -willing to enter into 
court service — than it is to opinion in favor of legal inequality. Negroes in 
all classes perceive clearly and intensely that the best protection they can 
hope for is to receive the rights and privileges guaranteed them by law. 

While lack of legal justice can be considered in itself as crucial to the 
peace and sanity of the South, this problem is interrelated with many 
others. When the Negro is discriminated against by the police, in court, 
and in private dealings with whites, this is made more possible by his 
poverty, his lack of political influence and his social abasement. An im- 
provement in any of these fields will reflect itself in a greater security 
before the law. On the other hand, inequality in justice is undoubtedly 
responsible for no small part of the Negro's difficulties in rising econom- 
ically and socially . b 

*See Chapter 21, Section 4. 

v The following survey of the fact* relative to the administration of legal justice to the 
Negro in the South is based largely on a series of unpublished studies made for our inquiry 
by Arthur Raper, summarized in "Race and Class Pressures" (1940). These studies were 
made in localities all over the South, but emphasize conditions prevailing in the Lower 
South. For this reason, we shall sometimes fail to report in detail modifications of the 
general patterns that occur in many communities of the Upper and Border South. These 
modifications should not be underestimated as they are significant not only as frequent 
exceptions, but also as indications of change. In general, it might be said that the farther 
northward one goes in the South, the more similarities he finds to the stronger legal tradi- 
tions of the North. This does not mean that the gradation is smooth as one travels north- 
ward from the Gulf of Mexico; the break at the Mason-Dixon line is so sharp that one 
cannot doubt that the Upper South is more like the Lower South than it is like the North. 
Too, many urban areas of the Lower South have as strong a legal structure as the average 
community in the Upper South. 



CHAPTER 25 

THE POLICE AND OTHER PUBLIC CONTACTS 



1. Local Petty Officials 

Practically all public officials in the South are whites. The principle is 
upheld that Negroes should not be given positions of public authority 
even on a low level. This situation is, of course, closely related to their 
disfranchisement. Even in the South, however, Negroes are sometimes 
appointed to minor offices in the localities where they are permitted to 
vote." 

The Negro's most important public contact is with the policeman. He is 
the personification of white authority in the Negro community. 

There he is "the law" with badge and revolver; his word is final j he is the state's 
witness in court, and as defined by the police system and the white community, his 
word must be accepted. 1 

In the policeman's relation to the Negro population in the South, there 
are several singularities to be observed, all of which have to be explained 
in the historical setting presented above. One is that he stands not only for 
civic order as defined in formal laws and regulations, but also for "white 
supremacy" and the whole set of social customs associated with this con- 
cept." In the traditions of the region a break of the caste rules against one 
white person is conceived of as an aggression against white society and, 
indeed, as a potential threat to every other white individual. It is demanded 
that even minor transgressions of caste etiquette should be punished, 
and the policeman is delegated to carry out this function. Because of this 
sanction from the police, the caste order of the South, and even the local 
variations of social custom, become extensions of the law. 

To enable the policeman to carry out this function, the courts are sup- 
posed to back him even when he proceeds far outside normal police activ- 
ity. His word must be taken against Negroes without regard for formal 
legal rules of evidence, even when there are additional circumstantial facts 
supporting the contention of the Negro party. That this is so is freely 
admitted in conversation with both judges and police officers in the South. 



"See Chapter 21, Section 5. 
* See Part VII. 



S3S 



536 An American Dilemma 

The reason is given in terms of social necessity. If the policeman were not 
given this extra-legal backing by the courts, his prestige and his ability 
to function as the upholder of the caste order would deteriorate. A con- 
stant pressure from the Negro people is recognized and is met in this way. 
Negroes are arrested and sentenced for all sorts of actual or alleged breaks 
of the caste rules, sometimes even for incidents where it is clear that their 
only offense was to resist a white person's unlawful aggression. 2 As this 
practice is against the formal rules of due process, and as, further, the 
social customs sanctioned in this way are themselves often directly con- 
trary to the law, there is a strange atmosphere of consistent illegality 
around the activity of the officers of the peace and the whole judicial 
system in the South. A further result is that the police often assume the 
duty not only of arresting, but also of sentencing and punishing the culprit, 
and that the judges are grateful for being in this way spared from cases 
embarrassing to them as professional lawyers. 

Other singularities in the activity of the Southern police system are, on 
the one hand, the availability of the police for sanctioning private white 
interests against Negroes and, on the other, the indulgence of private 
white persons in taking the law into their own hands. The boundary line 
between public functionaries and private citizens is thus blurred. The 
relation between master and slave was a relation of public and not only 
private law.* In the rural districts the plantation owners have tenaciously 
held to the old pattern of executing actual police power themselves over 
their Negro labor. 4 As in slavery a sort of delegated police power over 
Negroes is assumed to belong to other white persons than the employer. 
All white people in the neighborhood remain in a sort of taken-for-grantcd 
conspiracy to keep all Negroes "in their place," and they pretend a "right" 
to apply personal sanctions of intimidation and violence. The traveler in 
the rural districts of the Black Belt even today is startled to find how 
natural and regular it appears to many whites — and to Negroes — that 
personal threats and bodily punishments enter into employer-employee 
relations, 6 and, indeed, into most relations between whites and Negroes, 
even relatively casual ones. 

As during slavery, the local police and the courts are expected to assist 
in upholding this caste pressure. On the one hand, the scope of police and 
court activity is limited in so far as the sentencing and punishing of 
Negroes for breaks against law and order in the plantation districts are 
taken care of by employers or white vigilantes. On the other hand, the 
peace officers tend to act as the agents of the planters and other white 
employers, .prepared to appear on call and take charge of the case. To an 
extent these customs were transferred even to the cities. There the less 
personal and less stable relations between individuals in the two groups 



Chapter 25. The Police and Other Public Contacts 537 

make the Negroes freer- in their movement as long as they avoid white 
contacts, but, for the same reason, those contacts often become harsher. 

The philosophies and traditions of the police have been borrowed, and 
a similar status and function have been assumed, by a large number of 
other functionaries, for instance, the operators and conductors on public 
carriers: 

When the Negro boards a street car, bus, or train he meets white operators, and 
legally they are quasi-officials; in dealing with Negroes and poorer whites they are 
real officials. For in addition to being legally empowered to carry out their duties, 
they readily exercise greater authority over the lower status folk. 8 

The Jim Crow regulations vary from city to city, or from state to state; 
they are complicated and technically impractical,* and a constant source of 
tension and friction. The operators and conductors — like the police officers 
— feel themselves obliged to sanction and enforce rules of racial etiquette 
and custom. They also are the watchdogs against "social equality." 

Under these conditions it is no wonder that these functionaries often 
feel themselves — and white authority — challenged. As weak men (their 
economic and social status is low) with strong powers, they can seldom 
afford to take back a charge or an order. The nearest patrolman will be 
at hand to back up any white man having trouble with a Negro by arresting 
the Negro for "disturbing the peace." The courts will usually feel obliged 
to back up these functionaries even when it is apparent that they have 
transgressed their legitimate powers. Practically all Southern Negroes 
interviewed by the present writer on this question have complained about 
the arbitrary and high-handed manner in which the Jim Crow regulations 
in transportation are often handled. Incidents of illegal treatment are fre- 
quently reported in the Negro press. Such studies as have been made have 
largely confirmed these complaints. 7 

To the same category belong a great number of other functionaries. 

The meter readers for electric and gas subscribers, too, approximate quasi-officials 
when dealing with Negroes. They walk into Negro homes, and often make them- 
selves obnoxious by refusing to remove their hats and show other civilities. 8 

The tax collectors and a number of petty officials at what the Negroes 
commonly refer to as "the white folks' courthouse" also belong to this 
group. The mass of Negroes in the South seem to be thoroughly convinced 
that, in the ordinary case, white solidarity would prevent them from 
getting justice even if they took their grievances to the higher-ups — if they 
cannot get some white person to intervene for them. 

Practices vary a great deal, however, from community to community. 
Generally speaking, the Negroes seem to be treated more justly and 

' See Chapter 28, Section 4. 



538 An American Dilemma 

courteously in the Upper South than in the Deep South. The observer 
feels that this whole problem of Negroes' public contacts with all the 
minor functionaries in private and municipal service would deserve inten- 
sive study. These contacts are of paramount practical importance: they 
represent the major part of all official relations of Negroes with the organ- 
ized society in which they live, and they determine largely their attitudes 
to this society. A change to easier, friendlier, and more impartial public 
contacts would improve race relations immensely. As will be pointed out 
later in this chapter, there is a growing group of public contacts of a new 
type which meets these demands much better than the old type here 
reviewed." 

2. The Southern Policeman 

The central relation in this system — and the prototype and sanction of 
all other public contacts — is that between Negroes and the local police. 
In purely rural districts the police consist of the sheriff and his deputies. 
Usually they are petty politicians with no police training at all except the 
experiences they get in their work. In the rural South the caste rules are 
so fixed, the contacts between whites and Negroes so continual, the caste 
control so pervasive, and so much of the daily suppression of the individ- 
uals of the lower caste is, as we pointed out, taken care of by employers 
and landowners themselves, that the peace officers' police duties are inter- 
mittent and restricted to occasional incidents. They then appear as the 
executors of the public will in the locality and are backed by the courts. 
In the Southern cities where the two racial groups are more separated, the 
duty of policing the population becomes a continuous and specialized task. 
The police then also become more directly important for interracial rela- 
tions. 

It is of great interest to study the qualifications and personality type of 
the Southern policeman who has been awarded this crucial position in the 
caste society. A special investigation was undertaken for this study by Dr. 
Arthur Raper, who made an inquiry as of 1940 into the personnel of the 
police force in 112 towns and cities, in 14 Southern states. The level ol 
general education among policemen is low. b In many small cities "almost 
anyone on the outside of the penitentiary who weighs enough and is not 

* See Section 5 of this chapter. 

*"Of the 1 12 Southern cities, towns and villages from which specific information about 
the police was secured for this study, 30 had no educational requirements for recruits to 
the force, while 20 specified grammar school. The remaining 61 required only high school 
or its equivalent. Even so, the 'equivalent' sufficed in a vast number of cases." (Arthur 
Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study [1940], 
p. 14.) Even in the largest cities a college graduate on the police force is a great rarity. 



Chapter 25. The Police and Other Public Contacts 539 

blind or crippled can be considered as a police candidate." 10 Even the for- 
mal police training is usually very deficient.* 

Slightly over half the police systems studied are now using some form 
of civil service, 11 many of them for less than five years. But civil service 
requirements, as employed in Southern cities, reduce only slightly the 
influence of politics on the police system, for elected officials still run the 
civil service and select among the many who meet the formal require- 
ments." This means a low degree of personal and professional independ- 
ence. "The fact that many police systems in the South are subject to 
politics puts a premium on the vote-getting qualities of the policeman." 12 
Salaries of policemen rank somewhere between those of unskilled and 
skilled workers." Less than half the police systems studied have worked 
out some sort of retirement fund." Ambitious skilled workers like railroad 
workers, mechanics, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and electricians some- 
times take police jobs when unemployed but try to get back to their old 
trades as soon as regular employment is assured. 18 The vast majority of 
policemen, however, do not belong to this category, and they hang on to the 
police force." In the typical Southern police force the turnover is small and 
the average age high. Even when the police force is replaced for political 
reasons this does not generally mean a rejuvenation, "for older men can 
commonly deliver more votes." 14 

Although the policeman in the South is not considered a professional 

' "Formal training for his duties is provided in only 33 of the 112 communities} in about 
half of the others, he works as a sort of apprentice under some older officer for a period 
oi three to six months, and commonly at slightly reduced pay. In one-fourth of the com- 
munities no training is provided. One day he is a barber, textile worker, truck driver, 
mechanic, or private night-watchman) the next day, with uniform, badge and gun, he is a 
full-fledged police officer. In the meantime he may have promised to read a little booklet 
of four to sixteen pages, which contains rules of the police department." {Ibid., pp. 17-18.) 

" Sixty-five of 1 z 2. {Ibid., p. 14.) In few cases do the Southern city police civil service 
systems approximate in rigor the systems employed by Northern cities. 

c "The salary of patrolmen was $100 or below a month in 31 communities, $101 to 
$125 in 47, $126 tu $150 in 24, and $150 or over in 10. Though these salaries are not 
large, they represent a real increase for most of the people who joined the police force." 
{Ibid., pp. 14-1 5-) 

d "In 1 3 instances, police are retired at more than half pay, while in 29 others it is 
one-half or less. Only 2 of the 21 villages studied (with fewer than 5 policemen each) had 
any retirement plan; 6 of the 32 systems with from 5 to 14 police each had some form of 
retirement pay, while retirement plans were found in 37 of the 59 communities with ij 
or more policemen." {Ibid., p. 16.) 

*"In the last five years, among the 112, police systems studied, 41 had no police to 
resign for a better job, and 42 more had less than one-fifth resign for that reason. They stay 
because they are receiving more income than before — half again as much, often even twice 
as much. The policeman's salary runs for twelve months a year, too, and for more than a 
few of them, as will be seen later, there are opportunities for making money on the side." 
{Ibid., pp. 15-16.) 



SAO An American Dilemma 

man and is looked down on generally by the middle class whites, an 
appointment to the police force means an advance in income and economic 
security to poor white unskilled workers. 

Aside from the matters of monthly income and regularity of employment, it is 
quite clear that many policemen . . . arc hungry for the opportunity to exercise 
authority. An ex-house-to-house salesman, clerk, truck driver, or textile worker not 
infrequently likes to have a gun handy, and enjoys the authority which his badge 
provides. 16 

The typical Southern policeman is thus a low-paid and dependent man, 
with usually little general education or special police schooling. His social 
prestige is low. But he is the local representative of the law; he has 
authority and may at any time resort to the use of his gun. It is not 
difficult to understand that this economically and socially insecure man, 
given this tremendous and dangerous authority, continually feels himself 
on the defensive. "He usually expects to be challenged when about routine 
duties. . . . This defensive attitude makes the policeman's job tedious and 
nerve-racking, and leaves the public with the feeling that policemen are 
crude and hard-boiled." 18 He is a frustrated man, and, with the oppor- 
tunity given him, it is to be expected that he becomes aggressive. There 
are practically no curbs to the policeman's aggressiveness when he is deal- 
ing with Negroes whom he conceives of as dangerous or as "getting out of 
their place." He is accustomed also to deal roughly with "outside agita- 
tors," "Communists," "subversive influences," and in his mind there is a 
suspicion that there is a relation between these two groups of enemies of 
society. 

3. The Policeman in the Negro Neighborhood 

This weak man with his strong weapons — backed by all the authority 
of white society — is now sent to be the white law in the Negro neighbor- 
hood. There he is away from home. 

He is an outsider, and there is such a thing as a "bad nigger." Fiction, of course, 
has dramatized the character, but there are facts which demand recognition. With 
the cop an outsider, the "bad nigger" an insider, a ready use of firearms is inevitable. 
The philosophies of the "outside" policeman and of the "bad nigger" contribute to 
the high homicide rate of Southern cities, for the records show that the police are 
most likely to get killed in the same cities where brutality, including killings, is 
most prevalent. 17 

As far as the cultural and social adjustment of the Negroes is concerned, 
the Southern police system is undoing much of what Northern philan- 
thropy and Southern state governments are trying to accomplish through 
education and by other means. The average Southern policeman is a pro- 
moted poor white with a legal sanction to use a weapon. His social heritage 



Chapter 25. The Police and Other Public Contacts 541 

has taught him to despise the Negroes, and he has had little education 
which could have changed him. His professional experiences with crim- 
inals, prostitutes, and loiterers in Negro joints and with such "good 
niggers" as can be used as informers, spotters, and stool pigeons — often 
petty criminals and racketeers who as an exchange for police immunity 
help locate Negroes desired by the police department 18 — are strongly 
selective and only magnify his prejudices. The result is that probably no 
group of whites in America have a lower opinion of the Negro people and 
are more fixed in their views than Southern policemen. To most of them 
no Negro woman knows what virtue is — "we just don't talk about prostitu- 
tion among the Negroes," said one of the chiefs of police in a big Southern 
city to the present author — and practically every Negro man is a potential 
criminal. They usually hold, in extreme form, all other derogatory beliefs 
about Negroes; and they are convinced that the traits are "racial." This 
holds true of the higher ranks in the police departments as well as of the 
lower ranks. On the other hand, I have also found that some of the 
younger policemen, particularly if they have had any education, do tend 
to have slightly more modern views. But they have a hard time maintain- 
ing these views against the force of opinion among the older, more experi- 
enced men with whom they work. 19 

In many, but not all, Southern communities Negroes complain indig- 
nantly about police brutality. It is part of the policeman's philosophy that 
Negro criminals or suspects, or any Negro who shows signs of insubor- 
dination, should be punished bodily, and that this is a device for preventing 
crime and for keeping the "Negro in his place" generally. 20 It is apparent, 
however, that the beating of arrested Negroes" — frequently in the wagon 
on the way to jail or later when they are already safely locked up — often 
serves as vengeance for the fears and perils the policemen are subjected to 
while pursuing their duties in the Negro community. When once the 
beating habit has developed in a police department, it is, according to all 
experience, difficult to stop. It appeals to primitive sadistic impulses ordi- 
narily held down by education and other social controls. In this setting the 
application of the "third degree" to get "confessions" from Negro suspects 
easily becomes a routine device." Police brutality is greatest in the regions 
where murders are most numerous and death sentences are most frequent, 21 
which speaks against its having crime-preventing effects. The observer who 
visits several communities and can make comparisons becomes convinced 
that, on the contrary, police brutality has thoroughly demoralizing effects 
on the Negroes. 

'Policemen will also beat Negroes without arresting them. This occurs in cases of minor 
insubordination and when policemen are helping plantation owners keep their Negro 
tenants under control. 

"Concerning the "third degree," see Raper, of. cit,, pp. 172-175. 



542 An American Dilemma 

The most publicized type of police brutality is the extreme case of 
Negroes being killed by policemen. This phenomenon is important in 
itself, but it constitutes only a minor portion of all police brutality, and 
the information available on Negro killings by the police does not even 
give a reliable index of the wider phenomenon. 29 More than half of all 
Negroes killed by whites, in both the North and the South, were killed 
by police.* But white policemen are also a great portion of all whites 
killed by Negroes. b Even if this information on reciprocal killings between 
Negroes and white policemen does not give adequate indication of the 
extent of police brutality, it tells something about the policeman's role in 
interracial relations. 2 * 

The majority of police killings of Negroes must be deemed unnecessary 
when measured by a decent standard of policemanship. 24 The victim is 
often totally innocent. But the white policeman in the Negro community 
is in danger, as the high casualty figures show, and he feels himself in 
danger. "In the mind of the quick-trigger policeman is the fear of the 
'bad nigger.' . . . Sensing the danger of scared policemen, Negroes in turn 
frequently depend upon the first shot." 25 The situation is not this bad in 
every community of the South} many localities of the Upper South and 
some in the Lower South have advanced to higher standards. 

The main reasons why Negroes want to have Negro officers appointed 
to police departments — besides the ordinary group interest of having more 
public jobs for themselves — are to have a more understanding, less brutal 
police supervision in the Negro community, and to have an effective super- 
vision of Negro offenders against other Negroes. The second reason is not 
unimportant. Everywhere in Southern Negro communities I have met the 
complaint from law-abiding Negroes that they are left practically without 
police protection. 

In 1930 there were 1,297 Negro policemen and 521 detectives, marshals, 

'"Of the 479 Negroes killed in the South by whites [between 1920 and 1932], 260 
or 54.3 per cent of the total were killed by peace officerss of 47 outside of the South, 32 
or 68.1 per cent by officers." (Unpublished data compiled by H. C. Brearley in ibid., p. 40.) 

Of 2oz Southern cities and towns studied by Raper for the period 1 935-1 940 "115 have 
bad no one killed by the police . . . while 196 Negroes were killed in 61 cities and 67 
whites in 40 cities." Northern cities with high figures for police killings are: ". , . Baltimore 
13 Negroes and 4 whites, Kansas City 10 Negroes and 18 whites, Cleveland 12 Negroes 
and 16 whites, Boston 8 whites, and above all Detroit with 28 Negroes and 25 whites. In 
Washington, D. C, no less than 50 Negroes and 10 whites were killed by police from 1926 
to 1938." (Raper, of. cit., pp. 37-38.) 

""Of the 473 whites killed in the South by Negroes [between 1920 and 193s], 173 or 
36.6 per cent were peace officers; of 63 outside the South, 18 or 28.6 per cent were officer*." 
(Ifapflblbhed data compiled by H. C. Brearley in ibid., pp. 40-41.) 

". . . in 32 of the 202 Southern cities and towns from which information was secured 51 
policemen had been killed since 19355 in the other 170 communities no policeman had been 
lolled." (Raper, op. cit v p. 38.). 



Chapter 25. The Police and Other Public Contacts 543 

sheriffs, constables, probation and truant officers in public service in the 
United States. Only 7 per cent were in the South outside the Border states. 
When the Border states and the District of Columbia are included in the 
South, the percentage rises to i8. 2fl Apparently there was little increase, if 
any, between 1930 and 1940 in the South." The reluctance to appoint 
Negro policemen in the South is reflected also in the restrictions put upon 
the authority of the few there are. b It is reported that the use of Negro 
police seems to be a factor making for a lowering of the crime rate in the 
Negro community. "They can arrest offenders with less show of force, 
partly because they know their way around in the community, and pardy 
because they are personally respected." 27 

* "The geographic distribution of Negro policemen is in inverse relation to the percentage 
of Negroes in the total population. Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia and 
Alabama— the only states with more than one-third Negro population — have not one Negro 
policeman in them, though they have nearly two-fifths of the total Negro population 
of the nation. Other states without regular Negro officers are Arkansas and Virginia, both 
with more than one-fourth of their population Negroes. Only two states with more than one- 
fourth Negro population have Negro policemen — North Carolina with one at Princeville, a 
Negro suburb of Tarboro, and Florida with three at Daytona Beach and one each at 
Fort Myers and Sarasota. In these states there is one Negro policeman to every 200,000 
Negroes. 

"In Maryland, Delaware, Tennessee and Texas, where Negroes make up from 10 per cent 
to zo per cent of the population there are 39 Negro officers, or one to every 4.1,000 Negroes; 
while in the five states with from 5 per cent to 10 per cent of the population Negro, there 
are 165, or one to every 5,700 Negroes. In the remaining 32 states where the Negro 
accounts for less than 5 per cent of the total population, there are 756 policemen, or one 
to every 41,000 Negroes. 

"The figures above do not include the District of Columbia, which seems to contradict 
the general pattern. It has 34. Negro policemen, one to every 3,800 Negroes. But the 
District, with 27 per cent Negroes in 1930, is very deep South in some respects, particularly 
in its record of police killings of Negroes. 

"Excepting the District of Columbia, the South with slightly over three-fourths of the 
nation's Negro population has less than one-eighth of the nation's Negro policemen, while 
the North with one-fifth of the Negro population has four-fifths of the policemen, and the 
West with one per cent of the population has over 5 per cent of the Negro policemen." 
{Ibid., pp. 24-*5.) 

The figures are as of 1940. One subsidiary reason why the South is hesitant about appoint- 
ing Negroes as police officers is that, as a rule, they receive the same pay as the white 
officers. (Ibid., p. 27.) 

* "The province of authority of the Negro policeman varies with his location on the 
map. In most of the Northern and Western communities Negro policemen function as officers 
in any part of town, even though their special duties may often be more or less limited 
to the Negro section. Farther down the map, the Negro officers are restricted to Negro 
communities, while in most of the lower border cities with Negro policemen, their authority 
applies only to Negroes in the Negro section. When offending whites need to be arrested 
white officers are called in. It was with some, feeling of victory that the Negroes in Louis- 
ville, a decade ago, won the right for Negro officers to go home in their uniforms aa did 
the white police officers.'* (Ibid., p. 26.) 



544 An American Dilemma 

4. Trends and Outlook 

There are, however, some encouraging signs of change in the police 
systems of the South. The civil service system seems to be on the increase 
even in the South. This will tend to lower the age level and raise the 
educational level of persons appointed to the police force. It will also 
increase the independence of the police officers. Another factor is the grow- 
ing influence of the federal police system. 

The F.B.I, is giving real stimulus to better-trained police personnel; many of the 
larger communities which have not yet set up training schools report that members 
of their staff are now taking the F.B.I, training course and upon their return will 
develop a local training school. This approach will in the course of a few years 
include all the cities of any size. 28 

The increase and improvement of the state police systems likewise tends 
to raise the standards of Southern policemanship and to set patterns for 
local police systems. The general influences of education, urbanization, and 
industrialization also are tending to modernize the administration of local 
governments in the South. Finally, the new functions of the policemen — 
answering questions for tourists, helping school children cross the streets, 
and so on — may serve as a humanizing force tending to counteract the 
stultifying effects of catching and beating criminals." 

The present writer has, from his contact with the Southern police system, 
become convinced that it represents a crucial and strategic factor in race 
relations. Could standards be raised — of education, specialized police train- 
ing, independence of local politics, salary, and social prestige — some of the 
most morbid tensions in the South would be lessened. Legislators now 
take it for granted that teachers and social workers ought to have a college 
degree} a college education should be even more urgently required for 
fulfilling the duties of a -police officer.™ The policeman needs, besides 
a general education, a special training to make him a professional. This 
training should not be directed only on the technicalities of crime detection. 
Even more important is an understanding of the wider aims of crime 

l Ibid., p. 19. 

". . . assistance in crossing streets is provided for Negro school children in scarcely 10 
per cent of the communities in such representative Southern states as Arkansas, Mississippi, 
Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas, as reported by 88 Negro high school principals in these 
states. We noted above the friendly relations that develop between the school child and 
the policeman. When the typical chief of police was fared squarely with the question why it 
would not be a good thing to provide this avenue of understanding for Negro school 
children, who coine from the highest crime sections in the city, the only answer was that he 
had not thought about it. Some rather haltingly suggested it could not be worked out because 
the Negro child would not be accepted in the same cordial fashion as the white child. One 
wonders, however, whether this is true. If it is, it further emphasizes the need for Negro 
policemen.". (Hid.,, p. 22.) 



Chapter 25. The Police and Other Public Contacts 545 

prevention. Ideally the foliceman should be something of an educator and 
a social worker at the same time that he is the arm of the law. Even in the 
police systems in the North, where standards of professional policemanship 
are highest, too little interest has been given to social and educational view- 
points. One result of this is that the policeman in America is not commonly 
liked and trusted as he rightly ought to be. 30 

Racial and social conditions make the policeman's task much more 
difficult in the South. The South, 'particularly, needs a stress on the preven- 
tive aims and the peace-making functions of the police. Few strategic moves 
to improve the Southern interracial situation would be more potent than 
the opening of a pioneering modern police college in the South on a high 
level, which would give a thorough social and pedagogical training as well 
as a technical police training. The South is changing, and it is the author's 
opinion that the graduates from such a school would not need to fear 
unemployment. The use of equally well-trained Negro policemen, partic- 
ularly for patrolling the Negro communities, would be an especially whole- 
some reform. Public opinion in many Southern cities would tolerate such 
a reform: as in many other fields, local politicians and the public institu- 
tions lag behind the possibilities. 

5. Another Type of Public Contact 

Besides the police and other functionaries who regard their chief function 
with respect to Negroes to be restraint and suppression, there are public 
officials in the South, as elsewhere, who regard their function to be service. 
Longest established among these are the postal officials, who are unique 
because they are under federal control and have to meet civil service 
standards. Southern Negroes know that they can rely upon having their 
letters duly delivered. 31 And they feel they can expect much more equal 
treatment and courteous service from Uncle Sam's agencies than from local 
authorities. 

Other people who are building up a tradition of equal and just treatment 
of Negroes in public contacts are those concerned with social adjustment 
and social reform. They have become especially numerous and important 
under the New Deal. These officials have a relatively high level of general 
education and professional training and, what is even more important, have 
other goals than the perfunctory ones of preserving the social status quo. 
They are bent upon preventing individual and social inefficiencies and 
wrongs and upon improving conditions. Usually they are under some 
federal control. Even if, as we have seen," they do discriminate against 
Negroes, they discriminate much less than has been the custom in the 
South. 

'See Chapter 15. 



546 An American Dilemma 

To this practically new group of officials belong the relief administra- 
tor," the county farm agent, the Farm Security supervisor, the home 
demonstration agent, and the doctors and nurses of local health programs. 
Some of these have Negro assistants to handle Negro cases, but many — 
including even the Farm Security Administration, which is one of the 
fairest of the New Deal agencies — restrict their personnel to whites. In 
the F.S.A. this is ". . . a concession which the agency felt obliged to make to 
ensure its being allowed to serve the pro rata number of Negro families."* 8 
The New Deal has not succeeded in stamping out discrimination against 
Negroes in its agencies in the South, but it has brought discrimination 
within some limits, and it has given the Negroes a new type of contact with 
public authority: educated and trained white men and women whose 
primary interest is not simply to keep them in their place, but to advise 
them and help them to a better life. This will, in time, stand out as a social 
and spiritual revolution. 



CHAPTER 26 

COURTS, SENTENCES AND PRISONS 



1. The Southern Courts 

William Archer, the sympathetic English traveler, who in 1908 criss- 
crossed the Southern states in order to inform himself on the Negro 
problem, summed up the part of his study which dealt with courts and 
justice in the following words: 

This is one of the few points on which there is little conflict of evidence — the 
negro, in the main, does not get justice in the courts of the South. The tone of the 
courts is exemplified in the pious peroration of the lawyer who exclaimed: "God 
forbid that a jury should ever convict a white man for killing a nigger who knocked 
his teeth down his throat!" Exceptions there are, no doubt; there are districts in 
which the negroes themselves report that they are equitably treated. But the rule is 
that in criminal cases a negro's guilt is lightly assumed, and he is much more heavily 
punished than a white man would be for the same offence; while in civil cases justice 
may be done between black and black, but seldom between white and black. 1 

and he quotes with endorsement an intelligent and conservative Negro 
informant: 

"A negro's case gets no fair hearing; and he is far more severely punished than a 
white man for the same offence. . . . There is only one court in which we think we 
get justice, and that is the Federal Court." 3 

Since Archer wrote, a generation has passed: things have changed some- 
what but not fundamentally. Writing in 1932, Virginius Dabney could, 
v/ithout risking contradiction, refer to "the frequent failure of Southern 
blacks to obtain even elementary justice when they fall into the toils of 
the law." 8 

Apart from the basic institutional weakness already referred to," that 
the courts are too directly controlled by a local public opinion where the 
Negroes are without a voice, there are some structural characteristics in 
the judicial procedure which operate against all poor and uneducated 
groups. The great number of courts, with higher or lower rank and with 
complicated jurisdictional boundaries between them, are likely to bewilder 

'See Chapter 24, Section 1. 

547 



548 An American Dilemma 

the unsophisticated citizen who attempts to get his rights protected.* 
Technicalities and legal fictions are allowed to play a great role, to the 
sacrifice of material justice. This is true of American justice in other paxes 
of the country also," but the very fact that the South after Reconstruction 
had to build up large parts of its legal system of discrimination against 
Negroes in evasion of the Constitution has particularly stamped Southern 
justice with this trait. 

Under these circumstances a clever attorney can work wonders, partic- 
ularly in those rural districts where the judge feels that the attorney 
knows more about law than he does himself." The strength of the counsel 
a man can provide depends in general upon his wealth, and Negroes, as 
a poor group, suffer together with lower class whites. "The root of the 
evil is" — writes a prominent Southern white lawyer after having expressed 
his opinion that even the Negro can receive substantial justice in a Southern 
court if he is properly represented by competent counsel — "that so often 
his rights suffer because he cannot get into court in civil matters on account 
of financial want, and most frequently in criminal cases he is without funds 
to secure proper defense." 6 It is true that, in criminal cases, the court will 
appoint a lawyer for anybody who cannot afford to provide himself with 
proper legal aid. The court-appointed lawyer, however, in many cases, 
performs only perfunctory duties. Often the ct>urt will appoint some 
young lawyer without much experience. "Generally speaking, it is probably 
true that these charity lawyers are not as efficient as privately employed 
attorneys, but in many instances such is not the case." 7 

The American bond and bail system works automatically against the 
poor classes. The poor man, generally, cannot raise bail or bond himself 
to secure his release from jail pending trial. As the privilege of bail is 
discretionary, it is most often refused or made prohibitively high to 
accused Negroes, particularly when the alleged crime is against whites. 
Then there is what Raper calls "the dynamics of the fee system." Under 
this system — still in use in more than half the South — all the minor court 
officials, and in some instances the prosecuting attorneys, get their pay out 
of fines. This system ". . . puts a premium upon making those arrests and 
getting those convictions which will yield fees and costs without jeopard- 
izing the political popularity of the fee-getting officials." 8 Equally bad 
conditions may prevail where there is no fee system: the judge may decide 
the punishment on the basis of a consideration as to the state's profit. 
Mississippi, for example, had a net profit of half a million dollars in 1939 
from its penitentiaries, 9 and judges were inclined to send criminals to the 
penitentiary rather than fine them. Where the penitentiary system operates 

'See Chapter 1, Section xo. 



Chapter 26. Courts, Sentences and Prisons 549 

at a loss, the inclination is to fine Negroes and poor whites to reduce the 
burden of cost of the legal system.* 

Not only are all the court officials white, but the jury too is usually 
composed of whites only, except for cases in the federal courts and in some 
of the large cities. Yet to prohibit Negroes from jury lists is clearly uncon- 
stitutional. It has long been established that no statutes which barred 
Negroes from jury service were constitutional, 10 and higher court decisions 
have declared invalid convictions made by juries selected from lists which 
restricted Negroes. An impetus to using Negroes on juries came in 1935 
when, in the widely publicized Scottsboro decision, the Supreme Court 
ruled that the trial was unconstitutional because Negroes had been sys- 
tematically excluded from jury service. Courts want to have their decisions 
stand, and so a movement is under way to have Negroes on the jury list 
and call them in occasionally for service. Techniques are, however, being 
developed by which it is possible to fulfill legal requirements without 
using Negro jurors. In the Lower South the matter is usually disregarded. 
Dr. Raper reports, after a survey of the situation as of 1940, as follows: 

Inquiries about the use of Negro jurors have been made in the past year [1940] 
in numerous courts in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, 
Florida, North and South Carolina. While Negroes are generally used on the federal 
grand juries and petit juries throughout most of these states, and in superior court 
grand and petit juries in the larger cities, the vast majority of the rural courts in 
the Deep South have made no pretense of putting Negroes on jury lists, much less 

' "Sometimes the incomes from fines take care of the cost of the police court and the 
police department. In DeKalb County, Georgia, for example, the local paper editorially 
boasted that in 1939 the county police department with 15 men on patrol duty, made 1,991 
arrests during the year; only 10 of these were dismissed and only 20 were found not- 
guilty. The total cost of operating the police department, including the police court, was 
approximately $4.0,000. The total fines collected amounted to $37,732.62, leaving a cost to 
the county of only $2,300. But this department collected stolen goods and property valued 
at $20,555.45. 

". . . in this county, as is generally the case, the cost of the courts is borne by fines from 
the poorest people in the community. Negroes and poorer whites will be fined $10 to $40 for 
possessing a half pint of illegal liquor, while people with status have their liquor as they 
please, and everybody knows it. Disorderly conduct, loitering, vagrancy — all help pay for 
the court. Looked at purely from the point of view of maintaining race and class demarca- 
tions, the court is as effective as portrayed by the local paper. 

"The recorder's courts in nearby Atlanta reported the collection of $236,285 in the first 
S months of 1939. At this rate the collections for the year would exceed $350,000. The cost 
of these courts for a year is slightly less than $z 1,000. The 1939 budget for the police depart, 
ment was $1,018,239.91. The fines for the year totalled about one-third of the cost of the 
police court and police department. 

"A similar ratio obtained in Selma, Alabama, where the police budget was $35,000, 
fines $12,800. In Jackson, Mississippi, $61,000 and $40,0005 Macon, Georgia, $141,715,34 
and $47,851.85." (Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," unpublished manuscript pre- 
pared for this study [1940], pp. 1 60-1 6a.) 



550 An American Dilemma 

calling or using them in trials. . . . North Carolina and Virginia have taken the 
decisions more seriously. Even in these states, however, numerous courts have merely 
ignored the matter. 

It is the genera] assumption that the use of Negro jurors need not be considered 
except in those court sessions in which Negro defendants are being tried on serious 
charges. Even, a capital offense against a Negro does not raise the all-white jury 
issue unless local officials have reason to believe the case might be appealed on this 
ground. 11 

To this should be added that Negro lawyers are scarce in the South.* 
In some places, Negro lawyers are not allowed to appear in courts, and 
even where they are allowed, they tend to stay away. Most of them seem 
to be engaged in settling matters outside of court or working in real estate 
or insurance offices or giving legal advice. Their white business is mainly 
restricted to debt collection among Negroes. In law suits they may work 
with white lawyers but do not appear much before the courts themselves. 
Negro clients know that a Negro lawyer is not much use in a Southern 
courtroom. 12 Lower class Negroes sometimes believe that Negro lawyers 
are not permitted in courtrooms even where they are permitted. There 
are other handicaps for Negro lawyers: their clients are usually poor; they 
cannot afford extensive equipment; 18 they have not had the experience of 
handling important cases; they cannot specialize. 

2. Discrimination in Court 

In a court system of this structure, operating within a deeply prejudiced 
region, discrimination is to be expected. The danger is especially strong in 
lower courts where the pressure of local public opinion is most strongly 
felt, and where the judges often are men of limited education and provin- 
cial background. 

In civil cases the average Negro will not only be up against the inability 
of meeting the costs involved in a successful litigation — this he shares with 
the poor white man in the South and elsewhere — but, when his adversary 
is a white man, he also encounters white solidarity. Greater reliance is 
ordinarily given a white man's testimony than a Negro's. This follows an 
old tradition in the South, from slavery times, when a Negro's testimony 
against a white man was disregarded ; and the white judge may justify his 
partisanship by what he feels to be his experience that Negroes are often 
actually unreliable. It also fits into a pattern of thinking that it is dangerous 
for the social order to allow Negroes to vindicate their rights against white 
people. The writer has, however, frequently been told by Negroes and 
whites in the South that it is becoming more and more common that 
judges, with the consent of white society, stand up for giving the Negroes 
what Is due" them as long as it concerns merely their property rights. 

'See Chacter z+, Section 7. 



Chapter 26. Courts, Sentences and Prisons 551 

In criminal cases the discrimination does not always run against a Negro 
defendant. It is part of the Southern tradition to assume that Negroes are 
disorderly and lack elementary morals, and to show great indulgence 
toward Negro violence and disorderliness "when they are among them- 
selves." They should, however, not act it out in the presence of whites, 
"not right out on the street." As long as only Negroes are concerned and 
no whites are disturbed, great leniency will be shown in most cases. This 
is particularly true in minor cases which are often treated in a humorous 
or disdainful manner. The sentences for even major crimes are ordinarily 
reduced when the victim is another Negro. 14 Attorneys are heard to plead 
in the juries: "Their code of ethics is a different one from ours." To the 
patriarchal traditions belong also the undue importance given white 
"character witnesses" in favor of Negro offenders. The South is full of 
stories of how Negroes have been acquitted or given a ridiculously mild 
sentence upon recommendation of their white employers with whom they 
have a good standing. 16 

The leniency in punishment of Negro crime against Negroes has repeat- 
edly been pointed out to the present writer by white Southerners as evi- 
dence of the friendliness of Southern courts toward Negroes. The same 
thing can be found in the writings of Southerners. 10 Yet the Southern 
Negro community is not at all happy about this double standard of justice 
in favor of Negro offenders. Law-abiding Negroes point out that there are 
criminal and treacherous Negroes who secure immunity from punishment 
because they are fawning and submissive toward whites. Such persons are 
a danger to the Negro community. Leniency toward Negro defendants in 
cases involving crimes against other Negroes is thus actually a form of 
discrimination. 

For offenses which involve any actual or potential danger to whites, 
however, Negroes are punished more severely than whites. 17 Particularly 
the lower courts which work on a fee system are inclined to fine Negro 
defendants heavily without giving them much chance to explain their case. 
The inclination of the Southern court to make legal punishment a paying 
business* operates against Negroes who can be fined or sent to the peni- 
tentiary almost arbitrarily. Negroes alone are subject to a special form of 
legal injustice which is, however, now becoming rather rare: when white 
employers are short of workers, they inform the sheriff, who will suddenly 
begin to enforce vague laws such as that against vagrancy. Formerly the 
employers could rent prisoners from the state j now they make a deal 
with the Negro defendant to pay his fine if he will work a certain number 
of days — fewer than the number he would have to spend in jail. 18 

But quite apart from such pecuniary motives, the courts, particularly the 

'See Section i of this chapter. 



S5* Am American Dilemma 

lower courts, too often seem to take for granted the guilt of the accused 
Negro.* The present author, during his visits to lower courts in the South, 
has been amazed to see how carelessly the Negro defendants — and some- 
times also defendants belonging to the lower strata of whites — are sen- 
tenced upon scanty evidence even when they emphatically deny the 
charges. There is an astonishing atmosphere of informality and lack of 
dignity in the courtroom, and speed seems to be the main goal. Neither 
the judge nor the other court officers seem to see anything irregular in the 
drama performed; the observer is welcomed and usually asked to sit 
beside the judge to be better able to watch the interesting scene. 

Most of the Negroes seem to realize that their word in this machine-like court- 
room is as nothing when weighed against the white officer's. The judge sometimes 
smiles understanding!/ as the arresting officer tells what the defendant did. And most 
Negroes simply take it. Now and then, however, one glances around until a sympa- 
thetic eye is caught and with a wordless stare says eloquently, "Oh, what's the use." 19 

It should be emphasized, however, that there are great differences 
between different courts, due partly to differences in the personality of 
the judge. A humane judge, whose mental horizon is not bound by the 
limits of his local community, will maintain a dignified court and admin- 
ister impartial justice. As between rural and urban areas, it is difficult to 
say which is more prejudiced: urban courts have a greater familiarity with, 
and respect for, law; but rural courts retain some of the old aristocratic 
patriarchal traditions. According to Raper, in the rural courts, some Negro 
witnesses may also be used as character witnesses and there is, on the whole, 
less browbeating, derogatory joking, and open carelessness in the hearing 
of Negro witnesses, plaintiffs and defendants. 20 The higher state courts and 
the federal courts observe much more of judicial decorum and are, for 
this reason, less likely to discriminate against Negroes. The judges in these 
courts are usually also of a higher grade and are relatively independent of 
local opinion.. 

The jury, for the most part, is more guilty of obvious partiality than 
the judge and the public prosecutor. When the offender is a white man and 
the victim a Negro, a grand jury will often refuse to indict. Even the 
federal courts find difficulty in getting indictments in peonage suits, 21 and 
state courts receive indictments for physical violence against Negroes in 
an infinitesimally small proportion of the cases. It is notorious that prac- 

' A white lawyer from a city in the Black Belt writes: 

"On the criminal side of the court I think that a great many Negroes are convicted on 
testimony which would have resulted in the acquittal of a white defendant. A white 
defendant is presumed to be innocent until the contrary is proven) I am afraid that a 
NegS> is presumed to be guilty until the contrary is proven. A jury which would find a 
white defendant guilty of a lesser, grade of the offense involved will frequently find the 
Negro guilty of the highest grade." (Letter of July 2, 1940.) 



Chapter 26. Courts, Sentences and Prisons 553 

ticaily never have white lynching mobs been brought to court in the South, 
even when the killers are known to all in the community and are mentioned 
by name in the local press. When the offender is a Negro, indictment is 
easily obtained and no such difficulty at the start will meet the prosecution 
of the case. The petit jury is even less impartial than the grand jury, since 
its range of powers is greater. 

Public tension and community pressure increase with the seriousness of 
the alleged crime. A Southern student of law writes: 

One has only to visit a Southern community at a time when some Negro is on 
trial for the rape or murder of a white person to obtain a vivid picture of the hate 
and passion and desire for vengeance which is often aroused in the hearts of the 
Southern whites. 

Nowhere is the spirit of mob violence so strong as it is in the courtroom or just 
outside while a person who is accused of some particularly heinous crime is being 
tried. The air is charged with an undercurrent of tension and there is a feeling of 
suspense, as if some exciting incident may occur at any moment. Under circum- 
stances of this kind it is rather difficult for the jury or even the judge to escape 
being influenced by the feeling which permeates the throng, 22 

There is thus even less possibility for a fair trial when the Negro's crime 
is serious. In the case of a threatened lynching, the court makes no pretense 
at justice; the Negro must be condemned, and usually condemned to 
death, before the crowd gets him. On the other hand, it is quite common 
for a white criminal to be set free if his crime was against a Negro. 
Southern whites have told the present author of singular occasions when 
a Negro got justice against a white man, even in a serious case, as some- 
thing remarkable and noteworthy. This testifies that it still is an excep- 
tion.* 3 Kelly Miller reflected upon the situation as follows: 

Of the thousands of cases of murder of blacks by whites since emancipation there 
has been scarcely a legal execution, and comparatively few prison sentences. The 
offender usually escapes with the stereotyped verdict, "Justifiable homicide," or at 
best with a nominal fine. If the relations were reversed, whatever the provocative 
circumstances, the Negro would almost certainly be sentenced to death or to life 
imprisonment, if indeed the mob allowed the case to reach a judicial hearing. To 
say that these flagrant discrepancies have not their influence upon the black man's 
attitude toward the law, would be to deny that he is controlled by ordinary human 
motives. The best example that the South can set for the Negro would be punish- 
ment of white men for their crimes according to the requirement of the law. Mean 
white men will continue to mistreat Negroes just so long as they can do so with 
impunity by hiding themselves behind the cloak of racial arrogance. 21 

3. Sentences and Prisons 

The South has the highest crime rates in the country." Both Negroes 
and whites in the South have a higher crime rate than the average for the 

' See Chapter 44. Section 2. 



554 An American Dilemma 

nation. Within the South, however, the number of convictions of Negroes 
is not much greater, on the average, than their proportion in the popula- 
tion: in 1939, Negroes constituted 44.0 per cent of the male prisoners 
convicted of felonies and received by state and federal prisons and reform- 
atories in the three Southern census divisions. 26 In 1940, the proportion 
of Negroes in the total population of these areas was 23.8 per cent. 20 The 
main reasons why Negroes do not constitute an unusually large proportion 
of the criminals sent to prisons would seem to be that most of their crimes 
are trivial or are committed against other Negroes and so are considered 
to warrant only a fine or short local jail sentence. When Negroes commit 
crimes against whites, however, there is good reason to believe that the 
sentences are unusually heavy. The South makes the widest application of 
the death penalty," and Negro criminals come in for much more than their 
share of the executions." Although no conclusive evidence can be adduced, 
it would seem that Negro criminals serve longer terms for crimes against 
whites and are pardoned and paroled much less frequently than white 
criminals in comparable circumstances. 27 

America is world famous for the high aims and accomplishments of 
many of its progressive penal institutions in the North and West and, 
particularly, for the courageous scientific and practical discussion about 
treatment of crime and asociality. But America is famous also for the 
convict camps in the South. The generally very low level of Southern 
penal institutions is well known. 28 With the exception of the federal 
penitentiaries and one or two of the newer state penitentiaries, the Southern 
prison or prison camp is a place where prisoners are physically tortured for 
insubordination of any kind, where the guards are of the lowest stratum 
of society and receive extremely low pay, where the surroundings are 
dirty and the food abominable, where there is a tradition of callousness 

'"North Carolina has a death penalty for burglary; Alabama and Virginia for robbery; 
of six states for arson, only two, Illinois and Delaware, are outside the South, the others 
being Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. The death sentence for rape, 
too, is restricted almost wholly to the South and Southwest. The most common offense 
to be punished by death is murder. Eight states do not use capital punishment for any 
offense, and the homicide rates in these states are among the lowest in the nation; high 
homicide rates characterize the states that rely upon the death sentence. The states with no 
capital punishment are: Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South 
Dakota, Utah, and Wisconsin." (Raper, of. cit., pp. 164-165.) 

'"In to Southern states, for varying periods, 975 Negroes and 464 whites were sentenced 
to death. The Negro constitutes less than 30 per cent of the population in these states, but 
has more than twice as many death sentences imposed. Actual executions make the racial 
differential still greater, for 60.9 per cent of the Negro death sentences were carried out as 
compared with 48.7 of the white. The figures for life termers, by race, who actually die in 
prison are not available, but would most probably show the same race bias. For the Negro 
is given a more stern sentence and for the same reason is the less likely to have his 
sentence reduced." (Ibid., p. 166.) 



Chapter a6. Courts, Sentences and Prisons 555 

and brutality, where there is not the slightest attempt to reform but only 
to punish and get work out of the prisoners. Some of the Northern prisons 
are not good either, and there has been a long, hard struggle to improve 
very bad prisons in the North, but with the few exceptions noted, Southern 
prisons do not approximate Northern penal standards. There is no doubt 
that the average Southern prison is likely to make hardened criminals of 
all who fall into its clutches. 28 This inexpensive penal system in the South 
— from the point of view of budgetary income and outgo — is tremendously 
expensive from the point of view of real social costs. 

Conditions are generally so bad in Southern prisons that it would be 
difficult to say whether Negro prisoners received poorer treatment than 
white prisoners. The penal institutions in the South are usually segregated 
for whites and Negroes. There is some opportunity, therefore, for state 
officials to purchase less food and equipment for Negroes than for whites 
and to discriminate in other ways. The wardens and guards are, in all cases, 
Southern poor whites. Probably the most harmful form of discrimination 
arises out of the fact that several states do not provide separate reforma- 
tories for Negro juvenile offenders as they do for white juvenile offenders, 
and the Negro youth must live with the hardened older criminal. 

4. Trends and Outlook 

This whole judicial system of courts, sentences and prisons in the South 
is overripe for fundamental reforms. It represents a tremendous cultural 
lag in progressive twentieth century America. Reform in this field — espe- 
cially in the courts — would be strategic in the efforts to improve the Negro 
people and their living conditions and, consequently, to improve race 
relations. 

There are signs of change. The Supreme Court is increasingly active in 
censoring the state courts when they transgress the principles of legal 
procedure: it is pressing the courts to include Negroes on the jury lists, to 
curb appeals to race prejudice on the part of public prosecutors and private 
attorneys, to reject evidence obtained by third degree methods, and so on. 
The attorneys of the federal government and the federal courts in the 
states have become more diligent in pursuing such offenses against civil 
liberties of Negroes as fall under their jurisdiction, thereby setting a pat- 
tern for the state courts also. Under these two sets of influences, the higher 
courts of the Southern states are tending increasingly to condemn the more 
blatant forms of deviation from fair trial in the lower courts. 

A new generation of lawyers with a better general education and profes- 
sional training is coming forward. I have been told that it is becoming easier 
for Negroes to get even the best local white lawyers to take on their defense 
in serious cases where there will be much publicity, and white lawyers 
have testified that their risk of meeting threats and ostracism from white 



$§6 An American Dilemma 

society for so doing is decidedly diminishing. A first class counsel has great 
influence upon the morals of lower courts. The difficulty of the matter 
now is that most Negroes cannot afford good lawyers, even when they are 
available for a price. Probably the most effective means of bringing the 
Southern courts more rapidly to acquire a fixed pattern of carefulness and 
equity would be the setting up of legal aid agencies everywhere in the 
South which, manned by high class professional lawyers, would be in- 
structed not to work for any new legislation, but to assist poor whites and 
Negroes to enforce their rights under existing laws in civil and criminal 
cases? They should, to be effective, be kept entirely outside local politics 
and should be instructed to work not only upon application of clients but 
also to take the initiative, particularly in following the procedures at police 
courts and in prisons. Even one such agency, placed in a strategic city in 
the Black Belt — as, for instance, Atlanta, Georgia — would, without ever 
leaving purely professional routine work, and merely by the examples 
being set, change considerably the whole judicial atmosphere of the region. 

The growth of the educated class of Negroes in the South 31 and the rising 
educational level of whites; the decreasing provincialism of the region, 
consequent to this and to industrialization, urbanization and migration; 
the increasing importance of Southern liberalism and generally the reflec- 
tion of the humane spirit of the New Deal, the activity of such organiza- 
tions as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 
and the Interracial Commission arc all factors working in the same 
direction. The continuous influence of public opinion and the press of the 
North is also a major factor in reform. I have been told repeatedly, some- 
times even by liberals in the South, that Northern criticism does more 
harm than good and is likely to drive Southern public opinion into sullen 
reaction. This might occasionally be the short-range effect, but I have also 
seen how, behind this defensive attitude in resenting Northern criticism, 
the average Southerner feels most embarrassed because of it, and how 
reform activity in the South is often spurred by considerations of national 
opinions. Another factor which is bound to have great influence in the 
future is the developing Negro vote. Already Negroes get more legal 
justice in those cities where they vote — even when that vote is bought. 

It is the author's observation that, in principle, the average white South- 
erner is no longer prepared to defend racial inequality of justice. Much 
of the judicial discrimination against Negroes in the South seems to be 
backed or tolerated by public opinion because of carelessness and ignorance 
in regard to the Negro, rather than by an intentional and considered aim 
to discriminate. As far as public opinion is part of the problem, the task 
is, therefore, mainly one of adult education. White people must be taught 
to understand the damaging effects upon the whole society of a system of 
jus*''-* talnir\\ is not equitable. Means must be found to bring the pressing 



Chapter 26. Courts, Sentences and Prisons 557 

problems of crime prevention, and of punishment and prison reform, into 
the awareness of the general public 

It is astonishing to observe how far to the background these problems 
are pushed in America, and how deep the common ignorance of them is 
even in the higher classes- Most people discuss crime as if it had nothing 
to do with social conditions and was simply an inevitable outcome of 
personal badness. Southern whites tend to exaggerate the extent of Negro 
crime and tend to under-estimate the extent of white crime: one of the 
results is that they consider crime and prison reform part of the Negro 
problem and therefore not to be discussed. Rape and sexual crimes play a 
great role in Southern thinking on the problem, but the idea that such 
crimes, when they occur, have to be suspected as symptoms of psychic 
abnormality seems to be entirely absent. I understand that even the great 
number of murder cases in the South are tried without a sanity hearing. 
Capital punishment is not a problem to the general American public; that 
it stimulates violence does not occur to the average American. In the South, 
even educated people, when they think of punishment for crime, have their 
minds fixed on vengeance and on the isolation or eradication of the crim- 
inal. Seldom do they discuss punishment as a means of general crime 
prevention. Other techniques of individual prevention — by rebuilding the 
criminal himself — are usually entirely ignored. Under these circumstances 
the problems of court and prison reform are considered only by a small 
minority of the highly cultured. 

It is not difficult to understand the psychological mechanism behind 
this astonishing blind spot in the regional culture. These problems are 
unpopular because their discussion is bound to result in the rational demon- 
stration that */ is in the interest of society to care for the Negro — and even 
]or the criminal Negro. 



CHAPTER 27 

VIOLENCE AND INTIMIDATION 



1. The Pattern of ViotENCE 

It is the custom in the South to permit whites to resort to violence and 
threats of violence against the life, personal security, property and freedom 
of movement of Negroes. There is a wide variety of behavior, ranging 
from a mild admonition to murder, which the white man may exercise to 
control Negroes. While the practice has its origin in the slavery tradition, 
it continues to flourish because of the laxity and inequity of the administra- 
tion of law and justice. It would not be possible except for the deficient 
operation of the judicial sanctions in protecting Negroes' rights and liber- 
ties. Both the practice of intimidation and violence and the inadequate 
functioning of justice in the region are expressions of the same spirit of 
relative lawlessness; both arc tolerated and upheld by the same public 
opinion. Both are rooted in this strange Southern combination of conserva- 
tism and illegality." Both are expressions on the part of the Southern 
public of its dissatisfaction with formal laws, its disregard for orderly 
government. 

The social pattern of subduing the Negroes by means of physical force 
was inherent in the slavery system. The master himself, with the backing, 
if needed, of the local police and, indeed, of all white neighbors, had to 
execute this force, and he was left practically unrestricted by any 
formal laws. After Emancipation the Black Codes," of the period 1865- 
1867, were attempts to legalize a continued white control over the freed- 
men. Most of these laws were abolished during the Congressional Recon- 
struction, but their spirit prevailed in the complex of laws protecting the 
planters' interests — labor enticement laW9, crop lien laws, vagrancy laws' — 
by which the states sanctioned the actions of the police and the courts in 
virtually upholding peonage, in spite of its being a federal offense. As the 
federal judiciary agencies have lately become active in stamping out 
peonage, and as the decline in the foreign market, the A.A.A. crop restric- 
tion policy, and other factors have made labor supply relatively abundant 

* See Chapter zo, Section 7. 

* 8m Chapter 10, Section 3. 
*See Chapter to, Section 4. 

55« 



Chapter 27. Violence and Intimidation 559 

in the rural South and peonage unnecessary, these laws have become increas- 
ingly obsolete. 

But quite apart from laws, and even against the law, there exists a 
pattern of violence against Negroes in the South upheld by the relative 
absence of fear of legal reprisal. Any white man can strike or beat a Negro, 
steal or destroy his property, cheat him in a transaction and even take his 
life, without much fear of legal reprisal. The minor forms of violence — 
cheating and striking — are a matter of everyday occurrence, but the major 
ones are infrequent enough to be talked about. Negroes, of course, try to 
avoid situations in which such violence is likely to occur, and if Negroes 
do incur the displeasure of a white man, a mere command or threat is 
usually enough to control them without the use of actual violence. The 
Negro's economic dependence upon whites makes these verbal controls 
especially potent. But accidental insult, and sometimes nothing at all 
except the general insecurity or sadism of certain whites, can serve as occa- 
sion for violence. Of course, there are certain checks on violence: most 
Southerners do not want to be mean or dishonest toward Negroes directly. 
Public opinion in the South tends to frown upon any white man who acquires 
a reputation for being consistently mean or dishonest, and on rare occasions 
may even ostracize him socially or encourage the application of legal 
sanctions against him. But the general attitude is one of laissez fake: if a 
plantation owner cheats or beats his Negro tenants, "that's his business"; 
if a Negro is the victim of a sudden outburst of violence, "he must have 
done something to deserve it." Above all, the Negro must be kept in his 
"place." 

There is little that Negroes can do to protect themselves, even where 
they are a majority of the population." They cannot easily secure the 
protection of police or court against white men. They cannot secure the 
protection of white employers against white men, unless the latter are poor 
or have had a bad reputation. They can, of course, strike back but they 
know that that means a more violent retaliation, often in an organized 
form and with danger to other Negroes. In an important sense, lynching 
and the wholesale destruction of Negro property are often merely the 
extreme forms of organized white retaliation against Negroes who have 
struck back when they were struck or cheated first by whites. b This retalia- 
tion more frequently takes a less violent form: the legal system may be 
called on to imprison the Negro for "attacking a white man"; white men 
may pretend that they are going to lynch the Negro but end up by only 
beating him or using the "tar and feather" technique} or the Negro may 
be "run out of town" and warned not to return. 

'Negroes cannot protect themselves especially where they are a majority of the popu- 
lation, since this is for the most part in the Deep South. 

* The causes of lynching are discussed in Sections a and 3 of this chapter. 



560 An American Dilemma 

The principles that the law and the law-enforcing agencies are supreme, 
impartial and above "all groups in society has never taken strong root. 1 
White people are accustomed — individually and in groups — to take the 
law into their own hands and to expect the police and the courts to 
countenance this and sometimes lend their active cooperation. 2 In the 
plantation areas where the social and political subordination of Negroes is 
solidified, there is not much need for special organizations of vigilantes to 
effectuate the extra-legal sanctions. The Ku Klux Klan and similar secret 
societies thrive, rather, in the border regions and in industrial communities. 8 
But this is only a testimony that the extra-legal sanctions work more 
effectively where they are less challenged. 

In this region the custom of going armed continually or having weapons 
within easy reach at home was retained from ante-bellum days. This custom 
was taken over also by the Negroes during Reconstruction days. 4 The 
writer has been astonished to see how firearms and slashing knives are part 
of the equipment of many lower class whites and Negroes in the South. 
The laws against carrying "concealed weapons" are not efficient, as they 
do not — and for constitutional reasons cannot 5 — forbid the owning, buying 
and selling of arms. White policemen have often complained to the author 
that it is not possible to disarm the civil population. They do not urge 
reforms, however, but take the prevailing situation as natural and inevi- 
table. In the Negro community, where personal security is most lacking, 
this dangerous pattern of having knives and guns around is most wide- 
spread. It undoubtedly contributes to the high record of violent actions, 
most of the time directed against other Negroes. 

2. Lynching 

Lynching is spectacular and has attracted a good deal of popular and 
scientific 8 attention. It is one Southern pattern which has continued to 
arouse disgust and reaction in the North and has, therefore, been made 
much of by Negro publicists. It should not be forgotten, however, that 
lynching is just one type of extra-legal violence in a whole range of types 
that exist in the South. The other types, which were considered earlier 
in this chapter are much more common than lynching and their bad effects 
on white morals and Negro security are greater. 7 

Lynchings were becoming common in the South in the 'thirties, 'forties 
and 'fifties of the nineteenth century. Most of the victims in this early 
period were white men. The pattern of lynching Negroes became set 
during Reconstruction. No reliable statistics before 1889 are available. 
Between 1889 and 1940, according to Tuskegee Institute figures, 3,833 
people were lynched, about four-fifths of whom were Negroes. The South- 
ern states account for nine-tenths of the lynchings. More than two-thirds 



Chapter 27. Violence and Intimidation 561 

of the remaining one-tenth occurred in the six states which immediately 
border the South: Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and 
Kansas. Since the early 1890's, the trend has been toward fewer and fewer 
lynchings. The annual average in the 'nineties was near 200 ; in the 
'thirties it dropped to slightly over 10. In 1 941 it was down to 4, but 
there are already more than this in 1942 (July). The decrease has been 
faster outside the South, and the lynching of whites has dropped much 
more than that of Negroes. Lynching has become, therefore, more and 
more a Southern phenomenon and a racial one. Against the decrease in 
number of victims there has been a marked trend toward greatly aggra- 
vated brutality, extending to torture, mutilation and other sadistic ex- 



cesses. 8 



Lynching is a rural and small town custom and occurs most commonly 
in poor districts. 9 There are some indications that lynchings go in waves 
and tend to recur in the same districts. 10 The accusations against persons 
lynched during the period for which there are records were: in 38 per cent 
of the cases for homicide, 6 per cent for felonious assault, 16 per cent for 
rape, 7 per cent for attempted rape, 7 per cent for theft, 2 per cent for 
insult to white persons and 24 per cent for miscellaneous offenses or no 
offense at all. 11 In the last category arc all sorts of irritations: testifying 
at court against a white man or bringing suit against him, refusal to pay 
a note, seeking employment out of place, offensive language or boastful 
remarks. 12 Regarding the accusations for crime, Raper testifies: "Case 
studies of nearly one hundred lynchings since 1929 convince the writer 
that around a third of the victims were falsely accused."" The meaning 
of these facts is that, in principle, a lynching is not merely a punishment 
against an individual but a disciplinary device against the Negro group. b 

The danger of Negroes' desire to rape white women has acquired a 
special and strategic position in the defense of the lynching practice.' 
Actually, only 23 per cent of the victims were accused of raping or attempt- 
ing to rape. There is much reason to believe that this figure has been 

'Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," unpublished manuscript prepared for this 
study (1940), p. 274. Raper adds that it is his ". . . opinion that a great contribution could 
be made by some arrangement for immediate factual newspaper reports on each lynching and 
other race and class violence by trained newspaper men. At present the local representative 
of the news-gathering agencies sends in the story and usually says about what the community 
wants said. Expert reporters who could be sent wherever a mob threatened would be free 
to present the feicts in the case." (Ibid., pp. 274-275.) 

Raper's idea is that such a service, to be really useful, should be sponsored and under- 
written by an impartial agency. 

* See Section 3 of this chapter. 

'According to Sir Harry H, Johnston {The Negro in the New World [1910], p. 464), 
"Allusions to the rape or attempted rape of white women or girls, by negroes or mulattoes, 
are rare in the literature of the United States prior to 1870." 



562 An American Dilemma 

inflated by the fact that a mob which makes the accusation of rape is secure 
against any further investigation; by the broad Southern definition of 
rape to include all sex relations between Negro men and white women j 
and by the psychopathic fears of white women in their contacts with Negro 
men. The causes of lynching must, therefore, be sought outside the South- 
ern rationalization of "protecting white womanhood." 

This does not mean that sex, in a subtler sense, is not a background 
factor in lynching. The South has an obsession with sex which helps to 
make this region quite irrational in dealing with Negroes generally. In 
a special sense, too, as William Archer, Thomas P. Bailey, and Sir Harry 
Johnston early pointed out, 13 lynching is a way of punishing Negroes for 
the white Southerners' own guilt feelings in violating Negro women, or 
for presumed Negro sexual superiority. The dullness and insecurity of 
rural Southern life, as well as the eminence of emotional puritanical reli- 
gion, also create an emphasis upon sex in the South which especially affects 
adolescent, unmarried, and climacteric women, who are inclined to give 
significance to innocent incidents. 1 * The atmosphere around lynching is 
astonishingly like that of the tragic phenomenon of "witch hunting" which 
disgraced early Protestantism in so many countries. The sadistic elements 
in most lynchings also point to a close relation between lynching and 
thwarted sexual urges. 10 

Lynching is a local community affair. The state authorities usually do 
not side with the lynchers. They often try to prevent lynchings but seldom 
take active steps to punish the guilty. This is explainable in view of the 
tight hold on the courts by local public opinion. The lynchers are seldom 
indicted by a grand jury. Even more seldom are they sentenced, since the 
judge, the prosecutor, the jurors, and the witnesses are either in sympathy 
with the lynchers or, in any case, do not want to press the case. If sen- 
tenced, they are usually pardoned. 10 While the state police can be used to 
prevent lynching, the local police often support the lynching. From his 
study of iOO lynchings since 1929, Raper estimates that ". . . at least one- 
half of the lynchings are carried out with police officers participating, and 
that in nine-tenths of the others the officers either condone or wink at the 
mob action." 17 

The actual participants in the lynching mobs usually belong to the 
frustrated lower strata of Southern whites. 18 Occasionally, however, the 
people of the middle and upper classes take part, and generally they 
condone the deed, and nearly always they find it advisable to let the inci- 
dent pass without assisting in bringing the guilty before the court. 1 * 
Women and children are not absent from lynching mobs} indeed, women 
sometimes incite the mobs into action. 30 



Chapter 27. Violence and Intimidation 563 

3. The Psychopatholooy of Lynching 

The psychopathology of the lynching mob has been discussed intensively 
in recent years. 21 Poverty and economic fear have been stressed as back- 
ground factors. 22 It is generally held that the rise of lynchings and race 
riots during and immediately after the First World War had much to do 
with the increased mobility of, and competition from, Negroes during 
this period. 28 A substantial correlation from year to year between low 
cotton prices and high lynchings is demonstrated. 2 * 

Economic fear is mixed with social fear: a feeling that the Negro is 
"getting out of his place," and the white man's social status is being 
threatened and is in need of defense. ". . . lynching is much more an 
expression of Southern fear of Negro progress than of Negro crime," 
writes Walter White. 25 Tannenbaum observed that: 

The South gives indications of being afraid of the Negro. I do not mean physical 
fear. It is not a matter of cowardice or bravery; it is something deeper and more 
fundamental. It is a fear of losing grip upon the world. It is an unconscious fear of 
changing status. 28 

It is this feeling which is behind the common saying which a visitor to the 
South will hear even today from lower class whites that "a lynching now 
and then" is expedient or necessary in keeping the Negroes from becoming 
"uppity." It is commonly observed that after the First World War many 
lynchings of Negro soldiers — sometimes in uniform — were openly moti- 
vated by the fear that they had gotten "wrong ideas" about their social 
status while serving in France. 27 

The low level of education and general culture in the white South is 
another important background factor. Allied with it is the prevalence of 
a narrow-minded and intolerant, "fundamentalist" type of Protestant 
evangelical religion. 28 Occasional violently emotional revival services, and 
regular appeals in ordinary preaching to fear and passion rather than to 
calm reasoning, on the one hand, and denunciations of modern thought, 
scientific progress, and all kinds of nonconformism, on the other hand, help 
to create a state of mind which makes a lynching less extraordinary. 
Methodist and Baptist preachers were active in reviving the Ku Klux 
Klan after the First World War. 29 With but rare exceptions preachers 
and local religious leaders have not come out against lynchers. 80 

Another important background factor in the causation of lynching and 
other major forms of violence is the isolation, the dullness of everyday 
life and the general boredom of rural and small town life in the South." 
There is a lack of wholesome recreation or even variation, which gives a 



564 An American Dilemma 

real and sinister meaning to H. L. Mencken's statement that ". . . lynching 
often takes the place of the merry-go-round, the theatre, the symphony 
orchestra, and other diversions common to larger communities." 82 

Thus far we have considered the background factors and underlying 
causes of lynching. The causation is such that, when the time is ripe, almost 
any incident may touch it off. The incident is usually some crime, real or 
suspected, by a Negro against a white, or merely a "racial insult," such as 
when a Negro buys an automobile or steps beyond the etiquette of race 
relations in any way. Rumors will often start or accelerate a lynching. 
The lynching itself may take one or two main forms: in a mob lynching 
the whole community will participate with a high degree of frenzy; 3 * in 
a vigilante lynching a restricted number of men, often disguised, will 
perform the deed with much ceremony. 

The effects of lynchings are far-reaching. In the locality where it has 
happened and in a wide region surrounding it, the relations between the 
two groups deteriorate. The Negroes are terror-stricken and sullen. 34 The 
whites are anxious and are likely to show the asscrtiveness and suspicion of 
persons with bad, but hardened, consciences. Some whites are afraid of 
Negro retaliation or emigration. Every visitor to such a community must 
notice the antagonism and mutual lack of confidence between the two 
groups. 

The long-run effects of lynching also are bad. As students of the Negro 
problem have long recognized, crime will not be hampered but rather 
stimulated by violence. 86 Far outside the locality where the lynching has 
occurred, in fact, all over the nation, it brutalizes feelings. Even in the 
North, some people have ceased to be concerned when another lynching 
occurs, and they jest about going South to see a lynching. It must have a 
particularly bad influence upon interracial attitudes of young people in 
the two groups. 86 Thus lynching has a psychological importance out of 
all proportion to its small frequency. 

In every locality where there" has been a lynching there are a great 
many people — sometimes a clear majority — who, when they think calmly, 
consider the incident most unfortunate. The nation-wide publicity created 
around a lynching community is, for one thing, commonly recognized to 
be damaging. The present writer has met few whites of the middle and 
upper classes in the South who have expressed themselves as in favor of 
lynch justice. But equally few have pretended that they would take any 
personal risks to hinder a lynching, and they make no effort to punish the 
lynchers. The ordinary Southerner apparently thinks that neither the 
upholding of the majesty of the law nor the life of even an innocent 
Negro is worth such a sacrifice. And, above all, Negroes must not have 
the satisfaction of seeing the whites divided or their assailants punished. 



Chapter vj. Violence and Intimidation $6$ 

4. Trends and Outlook 

It is possible to speculate about the causes for the decline in lynching. 
If our analysis of the background factors is correct, the rising standard of 
living and the improved education must have been of importance. The 
fundamentalism and emotionalism of Southern religion have been decreas- 
ing. Cultural isolation is being broken by radio, improved highways and 
cheap motor cars. There is more diversion from the drab and monotonous 
small town life, and the sex taboos have been somewhat relaxed. The 
national agitation around lynching, strengthened after the organization of 
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909, 
has undoubtedly been of tremendous importance in awakening influential 
people in the South to the urgency of stopping lynching. The sharp decline 
in lynching since 1922 has undoubtedly something to do with the fact that 
early in that year the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill was put through the House 
of Representatives. It was later killed in the Senate by the filibuster of the 
Southern senators, and the sell-out of Western and Northern senators,''" 
but the continuous discussion of the measure from then on has probably 
been of great importance." A prominent Negro leader confided to the 
present author that, as a force to stamp out lynching, the agitation around 
the bill is probably as effective, or more effective, than the law itself 
would be. 

Southern organizations of whites have taken to condemning lynching. 
Some religious denominations of the South declare against lynching at 
their annual conventions and sponsor programs on racial matters for white 
youth. One of the most active fights of the Commission for Interracial 
Cooperation has been against lynching, 1 " and, under its auspices, the Asso- 
ciation of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching has collected 
nearly 50,000 signatures of Southern white women and of a few hundred 
peace officers to a pledge against lynching. Other women's organizations in 
the South also have been active in the propaganda against lynching. One 
of the most notable changes has been in the attitudes of the press. Today 
the great majority of Southern newspapers will come out openly against 
lynching. State authorities usually try to prevent lynchings, and they have 
an instrument in the state police systems which can be readily concentrated 
in any community where people are congregating for a lynching. Behind 
this movement is the growing strength of Southern liberalism, which we 
have considered earlier. 88 

" BilU against lynching have been introduced in Congress many times since 1911, but none 
of them has come so close to passage. Southern congressmen center their strategy against 
anti-lynching legislation by claiming that it would be unconstitutional and *n infringement 
upon states' rights. 

'See Chapter 39, Section 11. 



$66 An American Dilemma 

It is often said that the decrease of lynching is only nominal, or partly 
so. There are several substitutes for lynching. One is the killing of Negro 
criminals by the police officers. 89 Similar to this is the precipitate and 
predetermined trial given to an accused Negro when there is danger that 
he will be lynched.* Another substitute is quiet murder without the forma- 
tion of a mob.* A third substitute, "legal lynchings" proper, is that in 
which police and court officials promise to vigilante leaders that the accused 
Negro will receive a quick trial and the death penalty if he is not lynched. 41 

There is no way of finding out whether these substitute practices are 
really increasing. The present author is rather inclined to believe that 
they, too, have been declining. But there is no doubt that these substitutes 
have not declined as rapidly as lynching. All the other forms of violence 
against Negroes — striking, beating, robbing, destroying property, exiling, 
threatening — still occur in the South with great, though perhaps slightly 
decreasing, frequency. Such outrages do not get publicity in the white 
press and are not actively opposed by white organizations or state govern- 
ments. Yet it would be easier to prevent and punish them with an adequate 
police and court system than it would be to curb lynching, for the white 
perpetrators of these outrages are more often individuals than groups. 
As in the case of lynching, an aroused Northern and Southern liberal 
public opinion would be effective in preventing them. In the last analysis, 
the true perspective of lynching as of these other forms of violence and 
intimidation is the inherited pattern of white society in the South not to 
respect the rights of Negroes on equal terms: the custom of tolerating the 
cheating of Negroes in economic deals and, generally, the insistence that 
he shall humbly pray for his due as a personal kindness, not proudly 
demand it as a right. 

5. Riots 

In one sense, the riot is the most extreme form of extra-legal mob 
violence used to prevent Negroes from getting justice. In another sense, 
however, the riot is quite different from all other forms of mob violence: 
it is not a one-way punishment but a two-way battle. The Negroes may be 
hopelessly outnumbered and beaten, but they fight back. There is danger 
to the white man participating in the riot as there usually is not when he 
engages in other forms of violence against Negroes. Sometimes the killing 
and beating of a large number of Negroes is called a riot: we prefer to 
call this a tcrrorization or massacre and consider it as a magnified, or mass, 
lynching. Its effects are those of a lynching. In this book we shall reserve 
the term "riot" to refer to mass violence in which Negroes fight as unre- 
servedly as whites. 

1 Even the death sentence given by the courts to an accused Negro will not always deter 
a lynching mob. 



Chapter 27. Violence and Intimidation 567 

The riot is as much, or more, characteristic of the North than it is of the 
South. It is generally only when Negroes think they might have some- 
thing to gain that they will take the risk of fighting back, and in the North 
they know that some portion of the white population is on their side and 
that the police will ultimately restore order. The riot is primarily an urban 
phenomenon, as lynching is primarily a rural phenomenon, and the 
Northern Negro population is practically all urban. Housing segregation — 
or rather the concentration of Negroes in a few compact areas — is almost 
essential if Negroes are to fight back, and such segregation is more 
prevalent in Northern cities than in Southern cities.* 

The pre-Civil War equivalents of the riot were the slave insurrection 
and its suppression. b Unusually bad conditions or the rare rise of bellicose 
Negro leaders would, not infrequently, provoke small spontaneous insur- 
rections. The major insurrections of the early nineteenth century, led by 
Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, were planned well in advance, and met 
with some success before their ultimate failure. In the North there were 
small-scale but vicious riots between 1829 and 1840, and again after 1880. 

It is impossible to say whether there is a trend in the number of riots. 
The great number of riots occurred during and just after the First World 
War, when the North was concerned with the tremendous migration of 
Negroes from the South and the South was concerned about the possible 
demands of returning Negro soldiers. According to W. E. B. Du Bois, 
there were riots in 26 American cities in 1919. 42 The most notorious was the 
Chicago riot in which 15 whites and 23 Negroes were killed, and 178 
whites and 342 Negroes were injured. 48 The riot in Phillips County, 
Arkansas, in the same year, saw from 25 to 50 persons killed. 44 During 
the War, the most notorious riots were those in East St. Louis, Illinois, 
during which at least 39 Negroes and 8 whites were killed, 45 and in Hous- 
ton, Texas, where 17 whites were killed and 13 Negroes were hanged, 41 
were imprisoned for life, and 40 others held for trial. 40 Before the War, 
the most deadly riots were: the Atlanta, Georgia, riot of 1906 which 
killed 10 Negroes and 2 whites (more a one-way terrorization than a two- 
way riot) ;" and the Springfield, Illinois, riot of 1908, which cost the lives 
of 2 Negroes and 4 whites. 48 

Recent years have seen few race riots. They have become as unpopular 
as lynchings. The extreme tension of the First World War period has 
lessened, even if the northward migration and the existence of Negro 
soldiers continues. The beginning of the Second World War, however, 
shows some signs of recurrence of riots. There have been a number of 

'See Chapter 29, Section 3. 
"See Chapter 35, Section 1. 

'See: W. E. B. Du Bois, Tht Phiiadelfhia Negro (1899), pp. ^6-^^\ James Weldon 
Johnson, Black Manhattan (1930), pp. 117-1**. 



568 An American Dilemma 

incidents where Negro soldiers have clashed with Southern police and 
civilians with some fatalities on both sides.* In spring, 1942, there was a 
clash in the North: in trying to move into a government defense housing 
project built for them in Detroit, Negroes were set upon by white civilians 
and police. The project was built at the border between Negro and white 
neighborhoods but had been planned for Negroes. Encouraged by the 
vacillation of the federal government and the friendliness of the Detroit 
police (many of whom are Southern-born) and stimulated by the backing 
of a United States congressman and such organizations as the Ku Klux 
Klan, white residents of the neighborhood and other parts of the city staged 
protest demonstrations against the Negro housing project, which led to the 
riot. Whether these incidents presage another period of post-war riots, it 
is too early to say. On the whole, it does not seem likely that there will 
be further riots, of any significant degree of violence, in the North. Detroit 
is almost unique among Northern cities for its large Southern-born popula- 
tion and for its Ku Klux Klan. The main cause of riots in the North during 
the period after 1917 was the unusually large migration to the North and 
the consequent displacement of some whites by Negroes in jobs and resi- 
dences. So far, the present war boom has seen no unusual northward migra- 
tion of Negroes and relatively little displacement in jobs. A further reason 
why there probably will be no riots in the North after this War is that there 
is developing a new consciousness of the American Creed and of its signifi- 
cance for Negroes. 

What may occur in the North, rather than the two-way conflicts which 
we are calling riots, are some sporadic and unorganized outbreaks on the 
part of the Negroes with little opposition from the whites. Such was the 
character of the so-called "Harlem Riot" of 1935 in New York City. If 
these occur, they will be due to continuing discrimination from the whites 
and to growing realization by Negroes that peaceful requests for their 
rights are not getting them anywhere. Whether or not these outbreaks 
will occur in the North will depend on whether or not the trend continues 
toward increased willingness to stand by the precepts of the American 
Creed. 

While the future looks fairly peaceful in the North, there are many signs 
of growing race tension in the South. It seems almost probable that, unless 
drastic action is taken, severe race riots will break out in the South. We shall 
give some attention to this situation in the final chapter of this book. 

The causation of riots would seem to be much like that of lynching. 
There is a background of mounting tension, caused by economic insecurity 

* From the time of the inception of the draft in the fall of 1 940 until April, 1 942, there 
were three such clashes serious enough to get nation-wide publicity. These occurred in Fort 
Bratrg, North Carolina, Gurdon, Arkansas, and Alexandria, Louisiana. In addition, there was 
« diuh between Southern white soldiers and Negro soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey. 



Chapter 27. Violence and Intimidation 569 

of whites, belief that the Negro is rising, sex jealousy, boredom on the 
part of the lower strata of the white population. The local police are often 
known to be on the side of the whites. The breaking point is caused by 
a crime or rumor of crime by a Negro against a white person, or by the 
attempt of a Negro to claim a legal right. The effects of riots may be 
even more harmful to amicable race relations than are those of lynching. 
Whites do not feel the twinge of bad conscience which they have when they 
have lynched helpless and unresisting Negroes. The feelings of fear and 
insecurity on the part of the whites are only increased when some of their 
own number have been killed or injured. The memory of a riot is much 
longer than that of a lynching, for both whites and Negroes. Their devasta- 
tion and relative fewness make them landmarks in history. 



Part VII 
SOCTAL INEQUALITY 



CHAPTER 28 

THE BASIS OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY 



1. The Value Premise 

The word "social" has two distinct meanings. There is the ordinary 
scientific usage of the term to refer to the whole range of relations between 
men. There is also the narrower but more popular usage which refers to 
personal relations, particularly those of an intimate sort. It is in the latter, 
more limited, sense that we shall use the term "social" in this part. Equality 
in "social relations" is commonly denied American Negroes. An elaborate 
system of measures is applied to separate the two groups and to prevent the 
building up of intimate relations on the plane of equality. Personal identi- 
fications of members of the two groups is thereby hindered. Some of these 
segregation measures have a spatial or institutional character, others are 
embodied in an etiquette of racial behavior. 

Our main value premise in this part is again the precept of equality of 
opportunity in the American Creed. Race and color are not accepted as 
grounds for discrimination according to the Creed. Social discrimination is 
defined from this value premise as an arrangement which restricts oppor- 
tunities for some individuals more than for others. Judged by the norm 
of equality in the American Creed, such practices arc unfair and wrong. The 
Creed has, in this sphere, been given constitutional sanction in America as 
far as -public services and state regulations are concerned. 

But when segregation and discrimination are the outcome of individual 
action, the second main norm of the American Creed, namely, liberty, can 
be invoked in their defense. It must be left to the individual white man's 
own discretion whether or not he wants to receive Negroes in his home, 
shake hands with them, and eat with them. // upheld solely by individual 
choice, social segregation manifested by all white -people in an American 
community can be — and is — defended by the norm of personal liberty. 
When, however, legal, economic, or social sanctions are applied to enforce 
conformity from other whites, and when Negroes are made to adjust their 
behavior in response to organized white demands, this violates the norm of 
personal liberty. In the national ideology, the point where approved 
liberty changes into disapproved restriction on liberty is left somewhat 
uncertain. The old liberal formula that the individual shall be left free to 

573 



574 An American Dilemma 

follow the dictates of his own will so long as he does not substantially 
hamper the liberty of other persons does not solve the problem, because it 
is not definite enough. As remarked in an earlier chapter, the American 
Creed is in a process of change from "rugged individualism.'' It is giving 
increasing weight to "the other fellow's" liberty, and thus narrowing the 
scope of the actions which become condoned by the individualistic liberty 
formula. 

To apply the American value premises in this condition of internal 
conflict within the concept of liberty itself — which is only another aspect of 
its external conflict with the concept of equality — stress has to be laid on 
the actual amount of discrimination. When there is substantial discrimina- 
tion present, liberty for the white person has to be overruled by equality. 
To discern discrimination we must take into account the indirect effects of 
segregation in terms of cultural isolation, political and legal disabilities, 
and economic disadvantages, which are often much more important than 
the direct social discrimination. 

From these viewpoints there is hardly any doubt that the major portion 
of the system of social segregation and discrimination against Negroes is 
a challenge to the American Creed. As this system is administered in 
practice, most of it is unconstitutional and even contrary to the state laws 
which, in the South as in the North, are framed in terms of equality. There 
remains, however, a residual amount of idiosyncrasy in purely personal 
relations which may be upheld by the American liberty norm as it does not 
involve any substantial contradiction to the equality norm. In any case, 
these personal preferences and prejudices fall outside res fublica; in Lord 
Bryce's words: 

At regards social relations, law can do bat little save in the way of expressing the 
view the State takes of how its members should behave to one another. Good feeling 
and good manners cannot be imposed by statute. 1 

We must, however, also remember that the equalitarian, internally peace- 
ful society, envisaged in the democratic Creed of this country, cannot exist 
when good feeling and good manners do not usually characterize the 
relations between members of the society. 

We shall, in this chapter, attempt to study the mechanism of social segre- 
gation and discrimination, somewhat in detail, as it operates today in 
various regions of the country. But first we want to penetrate somewhat 
deeper into the rationalized ideologies behind its various manifestations and 
into the attitudes of different classes of white people who are upholding the 
color bar. We shall again have to devote the major part of our inquiry 
to conditions in the South where more than three-fourths of the Negro 
people live, and where segregation and discrimination are most prevalent. 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality $75 

2. The One-sidedness of the System of Segregation 

I have heard few comments made so frequently and with so much 
emphasis and so many illustrations as the one that "Negroes are happiest 
among themselves" and that "Negroes really don't want white company 
but prefer to be among their own race." Even sociologists, educators, and 
interracial experts have informed me that, when the two groups keep 
apart, the wish for separation is as pronounced among Negroes as among 
whites. 2 In the South, many liberals are eager to stress this assertion as 
part of the justification for their unwillingness to give up the Southern 
doctrine that the Negroes must not be allowed to aspire to "social equality." 
Southern conservatives will usually give a somewhat different twist to the 
argument and actually insist that Negroes are perfectly satisfied with their 
social status in the South. But the conservatives are more likely to con- 
tradict themselves bluntly in the next sentence by asserting that in the back 
of the Negro's mind there is a keen desire to be "like white people" and to 
"marry white girls." 

For the moment, we shall leave it an open question whether the whites 
understand the Negroes correctly on this point. We shall start from the 
evident fact that — quite independent of whether or not, to what extent, 
and how the Negroes have accommodated themselves — social segregation 
and discrimination is a system of deprivations forced upon the Negro group 
by the white group. This is equally true in the North and in the South, 
though in this respect, as in all others, there is more segregation and 
discrimination in the South, and thus the phenomenon is easier to observe. 

That segregation and discrimination are forced upon the Negroes by the 
whites becomes apparent in the one-sidedness of their application. Negroes 
are ordinarily never admitted to white churches in the South, but if a 
strange white man enters a Negro church the visit is received as a great 
honor. The guest will be ushered to a front seat or to the platform. The 
service will often be interrupted, an announcement will be made that there 
is a "white friend" present, and he will be asked to address the Negro audi- 
ence, which will loudly testify its high appreciation. Likewise, a white 
stranger will be received with utmost respect and cordiality in any Negro 
school, and everything will be done to satisfy his every wish, whereas a 
Negro under similar circumstances would be pushed off the grounds of a 
white school. Whenever I have entered a Negro theater in the South, the 
girl in the ticket office has regularly turned a bewildered face and told me 
that "it is a colored movie." But she has apparently done this because she 
thought I was making a mistake and wanted to spare me embarrassment. 
When I answered that I did not care, the ticket office girls usually sold the 
ticket and received my visit as a courtesy. I have never been refused service 
in a Negro restaurant in the South. 



576 An American Dilemma 

When the white conductor in a train has told me occasionally that I was 
in the wrong car, the underlying assumption has also been the same, that 
the separation was made in order to save white people from having to 
tolerate Negro company. Contrary to the laws — which are all written on the 
fiction of equality — he has, with a shrug of his shoulders, always left me 
where I was after I told him I had gone there purposely to have a look at 
the Negroes.* A Negro who would disclose a similar desire to observe 
whites would, of course, be dealt with in quite another way. 3 In the street- 
cars and buses the separation seems to be enforced fairly well in both 
directions. When, however, the conductor tells me, a white man, that I have 
taken the wrong seat, it is done in a spirit of respect and in order to help 
me preserve my caste status. The assumption is that I have made a mistake 
with no intention of overstepping the rules. In the case of a Negro the 
assumption is usually the contrary, that he is trying to intrude. In public 
.buildings or private establishments of the South, I have never encountered 
any objection to my entering the spaces set aside for the Negroes, nor to 
my riding in the elevator set apart for Negroes if, for any reason, the 
white car was not there or was filled. 

The rules are understood to be for the protection of whites and directed 
against Negroes. This applies also to social rituals and etiquette. The white 
man may waive most of the customs, as long as he does not demonstrate 
such a friendliness that he becomes known as a "nigger lover"; the reaction 
then comes, however, from the white society. He can recognize the Negro 
on the street and stop for a chat, or he can ignore him. He can offer his 
hand to shake, or he can keep it back. 4 Negroes often complain about the 
uncertainty they experience because of the fact that the initiative in defining 
the personal situation always belongs to the white man. It is the white man 
who chooses between the alternatives as to the character of the contact to 
be established. The Negro, who often does not know how the white man 
has chosen, receives surprises in one direction or the other, which constantly 
push him off his balance. 5 

The white man is not completely free either. He cannot go so far as to 
"lose caste" or to endanger the color line for the rest of the community. 
And when he takes certain freedoms, he must not allow the Negro to under- 
stand that he, the Negro, can claim them as a right. But each restriction 
on the white man's freedom is made to appear as a privilege, whereas each 
restriction on the Negro's freedom is culturally defined as an insult or a 
discrimination. Thus the one-sidedness of the segregation system is felt 
to hold, even when it does not so appear to the outsider. 6 The one-sidedness 

* Cases could be cited where conductors have forced white men out of the Negro car into 
the white car. These would seem, however, to be extremely rare in the Lower South, 
although not uncommon in the Upper South. 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 577 

of the system of segregation is apparent also in the fact that the better 
accommodations are always reserved for the white people. 

The sanctions which enforce the rules of segregation and discrimination 
also will be found to be one-sided in their application. They are applied by 
the whites to the Negroes, never by the Negroes to the whites. Whites 
occasionally apply them to other whites who go too far, but the latter are 
felt to have already lost caste. The laws arc written upon the pretext of 
equality but are applied only against the Negroes. The police and the 
courts, as we have pointed out in preceding chapters, are active in enforcing 
customs far outside those set down in legal statutes; the object of this 
enforcement is the Negro. Threats, intimidations, and open violence are 
additional sanctions, all directed against the Negroes and "nigger-loving" 
casteless whites. And there arc economic sanctions: most Negroes are 
dependent for their livelihood on the good-will of white employers and 
white officials. The more perfectly the rules work, the less do the sanctions 
need to be applied. 

In the North, where the whole system of social segregation and dis- 
crimination is kept sub rosa, the sanctions of the law are ordinarily turned 
the other way — to protect Negro equality. The Negroes in the North have, 
for these and other reasons, a greater margin for asscrtiveness. The author 
has observed that in the North, and particularly in New York's Harlem, he 
has occasionally been made to feel unwelcome in Negro restaurants. This 
attitude, however, is even there an exception. The Negroes who have 
attempted to "Jim Crow" me have explained their actions partly as revenge 
and partly as the result of suspicion against the intentions of white people 
who frequent Negro places. It has always disappeared and changed into 
the greatest friendliness when I have disclosed myself as not being an 
American. 7 

A major part of this chapter will be devoted to an analysis of the popular 
concepts, beliefs, and theories that are advanced by white people to 
motivate this one-sided system of segregation and discrimination. But 
before we proceed to this analysis, wc shall have to return to the conditions 
in the ante-bellum South. In the field of personal and social relations — as 
in other fields of the Negro problem — what we are studying is in reality 
the survivals in modern American society of the slavery institution. The 
white Southerner is right when, in discussing every single phase of the 
Negro problem, he constantly falls back in his arguments on the history of 
the region. 

3. The Beginning jn Slavery 

Inherent in slavery as a social arrangement was the principle that the 
slave was inferior as a human being. He was allowed certain indulgences 
but could claim nothing as a right or privilege. The paternalistic rule of the 



578 An American Dilemma 

master who owned his body and all his abilities, including his propensity 
to procreate, stretched out over the most intimate phases of his life and 
was absolute, personal and arbitrary. The stamp of social inferiority on the 
Negro slave became strengthened by the race dogma, the functional impor- 
tance of which we have studied in an earlier chapter.' This biological 
rationalization and the logic of the slavery institution itself also isolated the 
free Negroes and dragged them down into social inferiority. 

In most relations a fairly complete social separation of the Negro 
group was enforced as a matter of policy and routine in a slavery society. 
The lives of the slaves were closely regimented in the interest of exploit- 
ing their labor and hindering their escape. Under the influence of the rising 
fear of slave revolts, the spread of abolitionism in the North, and the actual 
escape of many Negro slaves along the "underground railroad," the regi- 
mentation became increasingly strict during the decades preceding the Civil 
War. This regimentation of the slaves prevented, almost entirely, social 
contacts between the slaves and the whites who had no slaves. On the 
larger plantations the field slaves were usually constrained to the company 
of each other. Their main white contact was the overseer and, occasionally, 
the master and members of his family. On small holdings their contacts 
with the master and his family were more frequent and intensive. 8 Even 
the household slaves, however, never shared in the whites' life, except as 
servants whose humble station was made evident by all available means, 
including a ceremonial etiquette of obsequiousness which naturally devel- 
oped between two groups of such different culture and such unequal status. 

The slaves were provided with living quarters apart from the whites. 
Their religious activities also were usually separate. When allowed to 
attend religious services in the presence of white people, they had a segre- 
gated place in the church. They received no regular schooling. It was even 
forbidden by law to teach the slaves to read. They had their own amuse- 
ments and recreations and never.mixed in those of the whites. Their travel- 
ing was closely restricted. Marriage between the two groups was, of course, 
quite out of the question. There was a considerable amount of interracial 
sex relations, but they were usually of an exploitative type and restricted 
to those between white men and slave women. Most of these generaliza- 
tions hold true also of the free Negroes in the South. They were forced into 
social isolation. White people did not, and could not in a slave society, accept 
them as equals. 

4. The Jim Crow Laws 

Emancipation loosened the bonds on Negro slaves and allowed them to 
leave their masters. The majority of freedmen seems to have done some 

'See 'Chapter * 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 579 

loitering as a symbolic act and in order to test out the new freedom.* 
Reconstruction temporarily gave civil rights, suffrage, and even some 
access to public office. It also marked the heroic beginning of the Negroes' 
efforts to acquire the rudiments of education. 

There is no doubt that Congress intended to give the Negroes "social 
equality" in public life to a substantial degree. The Civil Rights Bill of 
1875,* which, in many ways, represented the culmination of the federal 
Reconstruction legislation, was explicit in declaring that all persons within 
the jurisdiction of the United States should be entitled to the full and equal 
enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of 
inns, public conveyances on land and water, theaters, and other places 
of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations 
established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, 
regardless of previous condition of servitude. 10 The federal courts were 
given exclusive jurisdiction over offenses against this statute. Stephenson 
observes in Race Distinctions in American Law that "Congress apparently 
intended to secure not only equal but identical accommodations in all public 
places for Negroes and Caucasians." 11 

During Congressional Reconstruction some Southern states inserted 
clauses in their constitutions or in special laws intended to establish the 
rights of Negroes to share on equal terms in the accommodations of public 
establishments and conveyances. 13 Louisiana and South Carolina went so 
far as to require mixed schools. 1 " From contemporary accounts of life in the 
South during Reconstruction, it is evident, however, that Negroes met con- 
siderable segregation and discrimination even during these few years of 
legal equality. 1 * It is also apparent that nothing irritated the majority of 
white Southerners so much as the attempts of Congress and the Reconstruc- 
tion governments to remove social discrimination from public life. 

After Restoration of "white supremacy" the doctrine that the Negroes 
should be "kept in their place" became the regional creed. When the 
Supreme Court in 1883 declared the Civil Rights Bill of 1875 unconstitu- 
tional in so far as it referred to acts of social discrimination by individuals — 
endorsing even in this field the political compromise between the white 
North and South — the way was left open for the Jim Crow legislation of 
the Southern states and municipalities. For a quarter of a century this 
system of statutes and regulations — separating the two groups in schools, 
on railroad cars and on street cars, in hotels and restaurants, in parks and 
playgrounds, in theaters and public meeting places— continued to grow, 
with the explicit purpose of diminishing, as far as was practicable and 
possible, the social contacts between whites and Negroes in the region. 111 
We do not know much about the effects of the Jim Crow legislation. 
American sociologists, following the Sumner tradition of holding legisla- 

* See Chapter 10, footnote 7. 



Sio An American Dilemma 

tion to be inconsequential," are likely to underrate these effects. Southern 
Negroes tell quite a different story. From their own experiences in dif- 
ferent parts of the South they have told me how the Jim Crow statutes 
were effective means of tightening and freezing — in many cases of insti- 
gating — segregation and discrimination. They have given a picture of how 
the Negroes were pushed out from voting and officeholding by means of 
the disfranchisement legislation which swept like a tide over the Southern 
states during the period from 1875 to 19 10." In so far as it concerns the 
decline in political, civic, and social status of the Negro people in the 
Southern states, the Restoration of white supremacy in the late 'seventies — 
according to these informants — was not a final and consummated revo- 
lution but the beginning of a -protracted process which lasted until nearly 
the First World War. During this process the white pressure continuously 
increased, and the Negroes were continuously pushed backward. Some older 
white informants have related much the same story. 

Before the Jim Crow legislation there is also said to have been a tendency 
on the part of white people to treat Negroes somewhat differently depend- 
ing upon their class and education. This tendency was broken by the laws 
which applied to all Negroes. The legislation thus solidified the caste line 
and minimized the importance of class differences in the Negro group. 
This particular effect was probably the more crucial in the formation of the 
present caste system, since class differentiation within the Negro group con- 
tinued and, in fact, gained momentum. 1 ' As we shall find, a tendency is 
discernible again, in recent decades, to apply the segregation rules with some 
discretion to Negroes of different class status. If a similar trend was well 
under way before the Jim Crow laws, those laws must have postponed this 
particular social process for one or two generations. 

While the federal Civil Rights Bill of 1875 was declared unconstitu- 
tional, the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution — which pro- 
vided that the Negroes are to enjoy full citizenship in the United States, 
that they are entitled to "equal benefit of all laws," and that "no state shall 

* See Chapter 20. 

b See Chapter 31. 

' This problem of whether or not, and to what extent, the Jim Crow legislation 
strengthened and instigated Southern segregation and discrimination patterns is worthy of 
much more intensive study than has hitherto been given to it. The problem is important 
by itself as concerning a rather unknown phase of American history. In addition, it has a 
great theoretical interest. The common opinion among social scientists is that laws, particu- 
larly in the social field, are almost insignificant: "state ways cannot change folkways." This 
opinion is prevalent among Southern authors but is found, in one form or another, in most 
writings on the South and on the Negro problem even by Northern authors and by Negro 
writer*. I believe this view to be exaggerated and to be an expression of the general 
American bias toward minimizing the effects of formal legislation, a bias in the laissez-faire 
tradition. (See Chapter 1, Section 11; and Appendix *, Section 3.) The Jim Crow legisla- 
tion represents an excellent .test case for this a friori notion. 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 581 

make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities 
of citizens of the United States" — could not be so easily disposed of. The 
Southern whites, therefore, in passing their various segregation laws to 
legalize social discrimination, had to manufacture a legal fiction of the same 
type as we have already met in the preceding discussion on politics and 
justice. The legal term for this trick in the social field, expressed or implied 
in most of the Jim Crow statutes, is "separate, but equal." That is, Negroes 
were to get equal accommodations, but separate from the whites. It is evi- 
dent, however, and rarely denied, that there is practically no single 
instance of segregation in the South which has not been utilized for a 
significant discrimination. The great difference in quality of service for the 
two groups in the segregated set-ups for transportation and education is 
merely the most obvious example of how segregation is an excuse for dis- 
crimination. 17 Again the Southern white man is in the moral dilemma of 
having to frame his laws in terms of equality and to defend them before 
the Supreme Court — and before his own better conscience, which is tied to 
the American Creed — while knowing all the time that in reality his laws 
do not give equality to Negroes, and that he does not want them to do so. 
The formal adherence to equality in the American Creed, expressed by 
the Constitution and in the laws, is, however, even in the field of social 
relations, far from being without practical importance. Spokesmen for 
the white South, not only recently but in the very period when the segre- 
gation policy was first being legitimatized, have strongly upheld the prin- 
ciple that segregation should not be used for discrimination. Henry W. 
Grady, for instance, scorned the "fanatics and doctrinaires who hold that 
separation is discrimination," emphasized that "separation is not offensive 
to either race" and exclaimed: 

. . . the whites and blacks must walk in separate paths in the South. As near as may 
be, these paths should be made equal — but separate they must be now and always. 
This means separate schools, separate churches, separate accommodations everywhere 
— but equal accommodations where the same money is charged, or where the State 
provides for the citizen? 6 

Further, the legal adherence to the principle of equality gives the South- 
ern liberal a vantage point in his work to improve the status of the Negroes 
and race relations.* Last, but not least, it gives the Negro people a firm 
legal basis for their fight against social segregation and discrimination. Since 
the two are inseparable, the fight against inequality challenges the whole 
segregation system. The National Association for the Advancement of 
Colored People has had, from the very beginning, the constitutional pro- 
visions for equality as its sword and shield. Potentially the Negro is strong. 

'See Chapter xi, Section 5. 



582 An American Dilemma 

He has, in his demands upon white Americans, the fundamental law of 
the land on his side. He has even the better conscience of his white com- 
patriots themselves. He knows it; and the white American knows it, too. 

5. Beliefs Supporting Social Inequality 

In attempting to understand the motivation of segregation and dis- 
crimination, one basic fact to be taken into account is, of course, that many 
Negroes, particularly in the South, are poor, uneducated, and deficient in 
health, morals, and manners j and thus not very agreeable as social com- 
panions. In the South the importance of this factor is enhanced by the 
great proportion of Negroes in the total population. It is enhanced also 
by the democratic structure of public institutions in America. 18 William 
Archer, who, among the English observers of the Negro problem in 
America, probably better than anyone else was able to withstand the 
influence of race prejudice, declares himself for separation in railroad trav- 
eling for this reason: 

It is the crowding, the swamping, the submerging of the white race by the black, 
that the South cannot reasonably be expected to endure. 80 

This point is, however, much more complicated. For one thing, there is 
a great class of Southern whites who are also poor, uneducated, coarse and 
dirty. They are traditionally given various epithets, all with the connota- 
tion of social inferiority: "crackers," "hill-billies," "clay-eaters," "red- 
necks," "peckerwoods," "wool hats," "trash," "low-downers," "no 'counts." 
White farm laborers, sharecroppers, the permanently unemployed, and a 
great proportion of textile workers and other unskilled laborers are con- 
sidered to be in this submerged group of lower class whites. Their presence 
in the South does not help the Negroes, however. It is, rather, the very 
thing which raises the need for a sky-high color bar. This class of whites 
knows that upper class whites are disposed to regard them as "just as bad 
as niggers," and they know, too, that they have always been despised by the 
Negroes, who have called them "poor white trash," "mean whites," or 
"po' buckra." It is in their interest, on the one hand, to stress the funda- 
mental equality among all white people, which was the explicit assumption 
of the slavery doctrine, and, on the other hand, the gulf between whites 
and Negroes. The rising Negroes became an assault on the status of these 
poor whites. 

The very existence of whites in economic and cultural conditions compar- 
able to those of the masses of Negroes thus becomes a force holding 
Negroes down. Most middle and upper class whites also get, as we shall 
find, a satisfaction out of the subserviency and humbleness of the lower 
class Negroes. As Embree points out: 'The attitudes of the aristocrat and 
of the poor white, starting from opposite motives, often result in the same 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 583 

dscrimination." 21 The ordinary vicious circle — th'at the actual inferiority 
of the Negro masses gives reason for discrimination against them, while 
at the same time discrimination forms a great encumbrance when they 
attempt to improve themselves — is, in the social sphere, loaded with the 
desire on the part of lower class whites, and also perhaps the majority of 
middle and upper class whites, that Negroes remain inferior. 

This fact that a large class of whites is not much better off than th<; 
masses of Negroes, economically and culturally, while whole groups of 
Negroes are decidedly on a higher level — in this situation when a general 
segregation policy protecting all whites against all Negroes has to be justi- 
fied — makes the beliefs in the racial inferiority of Negroes a much needed 
rationalization. We have studied the racial stereotypes from this very 
viewpoint in an earlier chapter. 11 We pointed out that the racial inferiority 
doctrine is beginning to come into disrepute with people of higher educa 
tion and is no longer supported by the press or by leading public figures. 
As a result, racial beliefs supporting segregation are undoubtedly losing 
some of their axiomatic solidity even among the masses of white people, 
although they still play a dominant role in popular thinking. 

A tendency to exaggerate the lower class traits of Negroes also is apparent. 
This would seem to meet the need for justification of the caste order. We 
are being told constantly that all Negroes arc dirty, immoral and unreli- 
able. Exceptions are mentioned, but in an opportunistic fashion those 
exceptions are not allowed to upset the absolutistic theses. The fact that 
the average white man seldom or never sees an educated Negro* facilitates 
the adherence to the stereotypes. Even people who are modern enough 
not to regard these traits as biological and permanent find in them reasons 
to keep Negroes at a social distance. The feeling may be that Negroes have 
capacity but that it needs to be developed, and that takes a long time — 
"several centuries," it is usually said. Often it is argued that the low morals 
and the ignorance of Negroes are so prevalent that Negroes must be 
quarantined. It is said that at the present time any measure of social 
equality would endanger the standards of decency and culture in white 
society. It is also pointed out that Negroes are different in physical appear- 
ance even if they have the same basic mental capacity and moral propen- 
sities. These differences are claimed to be repugnant to the white man. 
Occasionally this repugnance is admitted to be an irrational reaction, as in 
the following comment by a young, middle class man of Savannah: 

You can't get a white man in the South to call them "Mr." I don't say "Mr." 
because it makes me feel uncomfortable. I know that's prejudice, but it's instinctive 
and not reasoning. 82 

* Sec Chapter 4. 

'See Chapter 30, Section t. 



584 An American Dilemma 

Besides these beliefs centering around Negro inferiority, there are a 
great number of other popular thoughts arranged to justify social segrega- 
tion. One such belief was mentioned in the opening section of this chapter 
— namely, that Negroes like to be separated, that they are happy in their 
humble status and would not like to be treated as equals. Another idea 
with the same function is that separation is necessary in order to prevent 
friction between the two groups. This thought is usually supported by the 
reflection that the whites "would not stand for" — or "would not yet stand 
for" — another social order. Segregation thus becomes motivated directly 
by the whites' will to segregate and by certain untested assumptions regard- 
ing the state of public opinion. Segregation and subordination of Negroes 
are also commonly supported by the consideration that they have "always 
been" subordinate and that it is part of the mores and social structure that 
they remain subordinate for a long time. A remark by a machine shop 
manager in Newport News will illustrate this point of view: 

I explain it in this way. A mule is made to work; a horse is made for beauty. The 
Negro is the working man ot the South. Plenty of Negroes here are much better 
than the whites. But as a class that is not as true for white people about being the 
workers. 28 

Earlier, and to some extent even today, this direct application of the con- 
servative principle was bolstered with a religious sanction. Race prejudice 
is presented as "a deep-rooted, God-implanted instinct." 21 It is often said 
in the South that God did not create two distinct races without having some 
intention in so doing. This theological sanction may be illustrated by a 
remark by a state official in Arkansas: 

The Negro in his place is really an assistant in the South. He's what the Lord 
Almighty intended him to be, a servant of the people. We couldn't get along without 
them. 28 

This thought that Negro subordination is part of God's plan for the world 
has, however, never been uncontested. The Bible, especially the New Testa- 
ment, is filled with passages supporting equality, and the heart of Christian 
teaching is to "love thy neighbor as thyself." 

Two points need to be made about the beliefs mentioned thus far: First 
— with the exception of the racial and theological beliefs both of which are 
gradually losing out — they support segregation but not discrimination, not 
even that discrimination which arises out of segregation. Second, they do 
not support a wholesale segregation, for some Negroes are not education- 
ally, morally, or occupationally inferior; some Negroes do not want to be 
segregated; and some whites feel no repugnance to the physical appearance 
of the Negro. If one held these beliefs alone, therefore, and were willing 
to act, upon them, and if he were provided with relevant facts, he would 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 585 

not advocate complete segregation and would permit immediate social 
equality to some Negroes in their relations to some whites (at the same 
time he would want to restrict equality for some whites). Further, he 
would look forward to a time when segregation would be wiped out, and 
full equality permitted.* As this is not the attitude of most whites, we have 
an indication that those beliefs fundamentally are rationalizations of valua- 
tions. 

It would, indeed, be possible to defend the caste order simply by arguing 
that it is in the white people's interests to keep the Negroes subordinate. 
Such a defense would be logically tight. It could not be challenged as an 
unscientific belief. Unlike the rationalizations mentioned in previous para- 
graphs, it need not look forward to an ultimate social equality as ideal. 
It differs from the other beliefs we have been considering also in that it 
demands discrimination primarily and segregation only incidentally. 20 

The remarkable thing, however, is that, in America, social segregation and 
discrimination will practically never be motivated in this straightforward 
way as being in white people's interests. Indeed, to judge from the discus- 
sion in all social classes of whites, and this is particularly true of the South, 
one is led to believe that such base and materialistic considerations never 
enter into their thoughts. The nearest approach one hears is oblique state- 
ments of the type: "This is a white man's country," or: "We've got to 
make these niggers work for us." Otherwise the matter is only touched 
by some liberal reformers who, interestingly enough, always try to prove 
to the whites that it is "in white people's own interest" to do away with this 
or that injustice against Negroes. I have become convinced that actually 
the interest motivation seldom explicitly and consciously enters the ordinary 
white man's mind. It is suppressed, as being in flagrant conflict with the 
American Creed and the Christian religion. But it is equally clear that most 
white people actually take good care of their interests and practice dis- 
crimination even when it is not required for segregation, and that segrega- 
tion most often has the "function" of allowing a discrimination held 
advantageous to the whites. 

Again a partial allegiance to the American Creed must be noted. Thomas 
P. Bailey talked about "the dissociation of a sectional personality." 27 The 
conflict between moral principles and actual conduct has its locus within 
persons; for this reason it will not be represented clearly in public discus- 
sion. The interests will have a part in setting the patterns of behavior and 
will give the emotional energy for the search for all the rationalizing 
beliefs we have mentioned. The Creed not only will prevent the interests 
from being explicitly mentioned and, indeed, from being consciously 

* Even if one felt that the Negro was repugnant in his physical appearance to some white 
men, scientific knowledge could reveal to him that antipathies of this sort could be removed, 
and new ones avoided. 



S86 An American Dilemma 

thought of, but will often qualify those rationalizing beliefs by hopes for 
improvement in Negro status toward greater equality and will actually also 
bend the behavior patterns considerably away from the crudest forms of out- 
right exploitation. 

But as yet we have not discussed the most powerful rationalization for 
segregation, which is the fear of amalgamation. It is this fear which gives 
a unique character to the American theory of "no social equality." 

6. The Theory of "No Social Equality" 

In his first encounter with the American Negro problem, perhaps nothing 
perplexes the outside observer more than the popular term and the popu- 
lar theory of "no social equality." He will be made to feel from the start 
that it has concrete implications and a central importance for the Negro 
problem in America. But, nevertheless, the term is kept vague and elusive, 
and the theory loose and ambiguous. One moment it will be stretched to 
cover and justify every form of social segregation and discrimination, and, 
in addition, all the inequalities in justice, politics and breadwinning. The 
next moment it will be narrowed to express only the denial of close personal 
intimacies and intermarriage. The very lack of precision allows the notion 
of "no social equality" to rationalize the rather illogical and wavering 
system of color caste in America. 

The kernel of the popular theory of "no social equality"* will, when 
pursued, be presented as a firm determination on the part of the whites to 
block amalgamation and preserve "the purity of the white race." 28 The 
white man identifies himself with "the white race" and feels that he has a 
stake in resisting the dissipation of its racial identity. Important in this 
identification is the notion of "the absolute and unchangeable superiority 
of the white race." 29 From this racial dogma will often be drawn the direct 
inference that the white man shall dominate in all spheres. 30 But when the 
logic of this inference is inquired about, the inference will be made indirect 
and will be made to lead over 'to the danger of amalgamation, or, as it is 
popularly expressed, "intermarriage." 

It is further found that the ban on intermarriage is focused on white 
women. For them it covers both formal marriage and illicit intercourse. 
In regard to white men it is taken more or less for granted that they would 
not stoop to marry Negro women, and that illicit intercourse does not fall 
under the same intense taboo. 81 Their offspring, under the popular doctrine 
that maternity is more certain than paternity, become Negroes anyway, 
and the white race easily avoids pollution with Negro blood. To prevent 
"intermarriage" in this specific sense of sex relations between white women 
and Negro men, it is not enough to apply legal and social sanctions against 

* We have already touched the notion of "no social equality" in Chapter 3, Section* 
3 and 4. 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 587 

it — so the popular theory runs. In using the danger of intermarriage as a 
defense for the whole caste system, it is assumed both that Negro men have 
a strong desire for "intermarriage," 32 and-that white women would be open 
to proposals from Negro men, if they are not guarded from even meeting 
them on an equal plane. The latter assumption, of course, is never openly 
expressed, but is logically implicit in the popular theory. The conclusion 
follows that the whole system of segregation and discrimination is justi- 
fied. Every single measure is defended as necessary to block "social 
equality" which in its turn is held necessary to prevent "intermarriage." 351 

The basic role of the fear of amalgamation in white attitudes to the 
race problem is indicated by the popular magical concept of "blood." 
Educated white Southerners, who know everything about modern genetic 
and biological research, confess readily that they actually feci an irrational 
or "instinctive" repugnance in thinking of "intermarriage."" These meas- 
ures of segregation and discrimination are often of the type found in the 
true taboos and in the notion "not to be touched" of primitive religion. 
The specific taboos are characterized, further, by a different degree of 
excitement which attends their violation and a different degree of punish- 
ment to the violator: the closer the act to sexual association, the more 
furious is the public reaction. Sexual association itself is punished by death 
and is accompanied by tremendous public excitement; the other social 
relations meet decreasing degrees of public fury. Sex becomes in this 
popular theory the principle around which the whole structure of segre- 
gation of the Negroes— down to disfranchisement and denial of equal 
opportunities on the labor market — is organized. The reasoning is this: 
"For, say what we will, may not all the equalities be ultimately based on 
potential social equality, and that in turn on intermarriage? Here we reach 
the real crux of the question." 34 In cruder language, but with the same 
logic, the Southern man on the street responds to any plea for social equal 
ity: "Would you like to have your daughter marry a Negro?" 

This theory of color caste centering around the aversion to amalga- 
mation determines, as wc have just observed, the white man's rather 
definite rank order of the various measures of segregation and discrimina- 
tion against Negroes. The relative significance attached to each of those 
measures is dependent upon their degree of expediency or necessity — in 
the view of white people — as means of upholding the ban on "intermar- 
riage." 11 In this rank order, (1) the ban on intermarriage and other sex 
relations involving white women and colored men takes precedence before 
everything else. It is the end for which the other restrictions are arranged 
as means. Thereafter follow: (2) all sorts of taboos and etiquettes in 
personal contacts; (3) segregation in schools and churches; (4) segregation 

* See Chapter 4, Section 6. 
k See Chapter 3, Section 4. 



588 An Americak Dilemma 

in hotels, restaurants, and theaters, and other public places where people 
meet socially; (5) segregation in public conveyances; (6) discrimination 
in public services; and, finally, inequality in (7) politics, (8) justice and 
(9) breadwinning and relief. 8 

The degree of liberalism on racial matters in the white South can be 
designated mainly by the point on this rank order where a man stops 
because he believes further segregation and discrimination are not necessary 
to prevent "intermarriage." We have seen that white liberals in the South 
of the present day, as a matter of principle, rather unanimously stand up 
against inequality in breadwinning, relief, justice and politics. These fields 
of discrimination form the chief battleground and considerable changes in 
them are, as we have seen, on the way. When we ascend to the higher 
ranks which concern social relations in the narrow sense, we find the 
Southern liberals less prepared to split off from the majority opinion of 
the region. Hardly anybody in the South is prepared to go the whole 
way and argue that even the ban on intermarriage should be lifted. Prac- 
tically all agree, not only upon the high desirability of preventing "inter- 
marriage," but also that a certain amount of separation between the two 
groups is expedient and necessary to prevent it. Even the one who has his 
philosophical doubts on the point must, if he is reasonable, abstain from 
ever voicing them. The social pressure is so strong that it would be foolish 
not to conform. Conformity is a political necessity for having any hope of 
influence; it is, in addition, a personal necessity for not meeting social 
ostracism. 

T. J. Woofter, Jr., who again may be quoted as a representative of 
Southern liberalism, observes that ". . . unless those forms of separation 
which are meant to safeguard the purity of the races are present, the 
majority of the white people flatly refuse to cooperate with Negroes" and 
finds no alternative to "constant discontent and friction or amalgama- 
tion . . . , except the systematic minimization of social contacts." 35 But 
when Woofter has made this concession in principle to the segregation 
system of the South, he comes out with demands which, in practice, would 
change it entirely. He insists that all other forms of segregation than 
"those . . . which are meant to safeguard the purity of the races" be 
abolished, and that the administration of the system be just and considerate 
and, indeed, founded upon the consent of the ruled.** 

... all that most Negroes see in separation is that it is a means to degrade, an oppor- 
tunity to exploit them. So long as it presents this aspect to them, it will be galling 
and insulting, and they will oppose it. Stated positively, this means that, in the final 

* A§ we pointed out in Chapter 3, Section 4, it so happens that Negroes have an interest 
in being released from segregation and discrimination in a rank order just the opposite of 
the whites' expressed rank order of having them retained. This is a principal fact in all 
attempt* to change and reform race relations. 



Chapter 28. The Basis op Social Inequality 589 

analysis, if segregation it to be successfully maintained, it must not be confused with 
discrimination and must finally be approved by the colored people themselves as 
beneficial to race relations. 87 

Virginius Dabney, to quote another prominent Southern liberal, actually 
goes so far as to assert that "there is ... a growing conviction on the part 
of a substantial body of Southerners that the Jim Crow laws should be 
abolished," 88 and argues that even if and in so far as the two population 
groups in the South should be kept apart, "the accommodations provided 
for Negroes should be identical with those provided for whites." 39 

It should be noted that neither Woofter nor Dabney takes up for discus- 
sion any segregation measure higher up on the white man's rank order 
than those imposed by the Jim Crow legislation. There they take their 
stand on the time-honored formula "separate, but equal," and insist only 
that separation should be rationally motivated, and that the constitutional 
precept of equality should be enforced. 

7. Critical Evaluation of the "No Social Equality" Theory 

The sincerity of the average white person's psychological identification 
with the "white race" and his aversion to amalgamation should not be 
doubted; neither should his attitude that the upholding of the caste sys- 
tem, implied in the various segregation and discrimination measures, is 
necessary to prevent amalgamation. But the manner in which he constantly 
interchanges the concepts "amalgamation" and "intermarriage" — in the 
meaning of a white woman's marriage to, or sex relations with, a Negro 
man — is bewildering. Amalgamation both in the South and in the North 
is, and has always been, mainly a result, not of marriage, but of illicit 
sexual relations. And these illicit sex relations have in the main been con- 
fined to white men and colored women. It is further well known that 
Negro women who have status and security are less likely to succumb to 
sexual advances from white men. 40 Deprivations inflicted upon Negroes in 
the South must therefore be a factor tending to increase amalgamation 
rather than to reduce it. Together these facts make the whole anti-amal- 
gamation theory seem inconsistent. 

But here we have to recall the very particular definition of the Negro 
and white "races" in America." Since all mixed bloods are classified as 
Negroes, sex relations between white men and colored women affect only 
the Negro race and not the white race. From the white point of view it is 
not "amalgamation" in the crucial sense. From the same point of view the 
race of the father does not matter for the racial classification of a Negro 
child. The child is a Negro anyhow. Sex relations between Negro men 
and white women, on the other hand, would be like an attempt to pour 

*8ee Chapter 5, Section t. 



S^o An American Dilemma 

Negro blood into the white race. It cannot succeed, of course, as the child 
would be considered a Negro. But the white woman would be absolutely 
degraded — which the white man in the parallel situation is not. She must 
be protected and this type of amalgamation prevented by all available 
means. This is, of course, only an extreme case of the morality of "double 
standards" between the sexes. It is slowly withering away, and white men 
are gradually also coming to be censured for relations with women of the 
other group. Still, there is in popular sentiment an abysmal difference 
between the two types of sexual relations. 

The statement frequently made by whites in the South that there is an 
instinctive and ineradicable sexual repulsion between the two groups is 
doubtful, in view of the present genetic composition of the Negro people. 
Besides, if it were true, the insistence upon the whole equipage of measures 
for racial separation for preventing "intermarriage" would be unnecessary, 
even to the white Southerner.* Even the more general allegation that 
there is an inherent repulsion to personal intimacies and physical contact 
between the two groups is unfounded. The friendly behavior of Negro 
and white children untrained in prejudice and also the acceptability of 
physical contact with favorite servants are cases in point. There are no 
reasons brought forward to make it likely that there are sex differentials 
in this respect, so that white men should react differently from white 
women. This brings us to a consideration of the extent to which the anti- 
amalgamation doctrine is merely a rationalization of purely social demands, 
particularly those concerning social status. 

We have already observed that the relative license of white men to have 
illicit intercourse with Negro women does not extend to formal marriage. 
The relevant difference between these two types of relations is that the 
latter, but not the former, does give social status to the Negro woman and 
does take status away from the white man. For a white woman both legal 
marriage and illicit relations with Negroes cause her to lose caste. These 
status concerns are obvious and they are serious enough both in the North 
and in the South to prevent intermarriage. But as they are functions of the 
caste apparatus which, in this popular theory, is itself explained as a means 
of preventing intermarriage, the whole theory becomes largely a logical 
circle. 

The circular character of this reasoning is enhanced when we realize that 
the great majority of non-liberal white Southerners utilize the dread of 

'Race prejudice has, therefore, a "function" to perform in lieu of the absence of sex 
repulsion. 

"It is just because primary race feeling is not deeply based in human instinct, whereas 
the mating instinct is so baaed, that a secondary racial feeling, race-pride, comes in from 
a more developed reflective consciousness to minimize the natural instinct for amalga- 
mation . . ." (Thomas P. Bailey, Race Orthodoxy in tht South [1914.], p. 43.) 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 591 

"intermarriage" and the theory of "no social equality" to justify discrim- 
inations which have quite other and wider goals than the purity of the 
white race. Things are defended in the South as means of preserving racial 
purity which cannot possibly be defended in this way. To this extent we 
cannot avoid observing that what white people really want is to keep the 
Negroes in a lower status. "Intermarriage" itself is resented because it 
would be a supreme indication of "social equality," while the rationaliza- 
tion is that "social equality" is opposed because it would bring "intermar- 
riage." 

Not denying the partial reality of the white person's psychological 
identification with the "white race" and his serious concern about "racial 
purity," our tentative conclusion is, therefore, that more fundamentally 
the theory of "no social equality" is a rationalization, and that the demand 
for "no social equality" is psychologically dominant to the aversion for 
"intermarriage." The persistent preoccupation with sex and marriage in 
the rationalization of social segregation and discrimination against Negroes 
is, to this extent, an irrational escape on the part of the whites from voicing 
an open demand for difference in social status between the two groups for 
its own sake. Like the irrational racial beliefs,* the fortification in the 
unapproachable regions of sex of the unequal treatment of the Negro, 
which this popular theory provides, has been particularly needed in this 
nation because of the strength of the American Creed. A people with a less 
emphatic democratic ethos would be more able to uphold a caste system 
without this tense belief in sex and race dangers. 

The fixation on the purity of white womanhood, and also part of the 
intensity of emotion surrounding the whole sphere of segregation and 
discrimination, are to be understood as the backwashes of the sore con- 
science on the part of white men for their own or their compeers' relations 
with, or desires for, Negro women. 41 These psychological effects are 
greatly magnified because of the puritan milieu of America and especially 
of the South. The upper class men in a less puritanical people could prob- 
ably have indulged in sex relations with, and sexual day-dreams of, lower 
caste women in a more matter-of-course way and without generating so 
much pathos about white womanhood. 42 The Negro people have to carry 
the burden not only of the white men's sins but also of their virtues. The 
virtues of the honest, democratic, puritan white Americans in the South 
are great, and the burden upon the Negroes becomes ponderous. 4 * 

Our practical conclusion is that it would have cleansing effects on race 
relations in America, and particularly in the South, to have an open and 
sober discussion in rational terms of this ever present popular theory of 
"intermarriage" and "social equality," giving matters their factual ground, 
true proportions and logical relations. Because it is, to a great extent, an 

'See Chapter 4. 



59 2 An American Dilemma 

opportunistic rationalization, and because it refers directly and indirectly 
to the most touchy spots in American life and American morals, tremendous 
inhibitions have been built up against a detached and critical discussion of 
this theory. But such inhibitions are gradually overcome when, in the 
course of secularized education, people become rational about their life 
problems. It must never be forgotten that in our increasingly intellectual- 
ized civilization even the plain citizen feels an urge for truth and objec- 
tivity, and that this rationalistic urge is increasingly competing with the 
opportunistic demands for rationalization and escape. 

There are reasons to believe that a slow but steady cleansing of the 
American mind is proceeding as the cultural level is raised. The basic 
racial inferiority doctrine is being undermined by research and education. 
For a white man to have illicit relations with Negro women is increasingly 
meeting disapproval. Negroes themselves are more and more frowning 
upon such relations. This all must tend to dampen the emotional fires 
around "social equality." Sex and race fears are, however, even today the 
main defense for segregation and, in fact, for the whole caste order. The 
question shot at the interviewer touching any point of this order is still: 
"Would you like to have your daughter (sister) marry a Negro?" 

8. Attitudes among Different Classes of Whites in the South 

Certain attitudes, common in the South, become more understandable 
when we have recognized that, behind all rationalizing stereotyped beliefs 
and popular theories, a main concern of the white man is to preserve 
social inequality for its own sake. One such attitude is the great sympathy 
so often displayed in the upper classes of Southern whites toward the "old 
time darky" who adheres to the patterns of slavery. The "unreconstructed 
aristocrat" after the Civil War believed with Carlyle that "[the Negro] 
is useful in God's creation only as a servant"; 44 he remained paternalistic; 
he wanted to keep the Negroes dependent and resented their attempts to 
rise through education; he mistrusted the younger generation of Negroes; 
he had a gloomy outlook on the future of race relations. But he liked the 
individual Negro whom he knew personally and who conformed to the 
old relation of master-servant — who "stayed in his place." 45 

Even today this attitude helps to determine the relations between the 
two groups in rural districts. 40 It particularly forms the pattern of the 
relationship between employer and employee on the plantation and in 
household service. It is also the basis for the quasi-feudal use of white 
character witnesses for Negro offenders, and for the great leniency in 
punishing Negro offenders as long as they have not intruded upon white 
society.* One is amazed to see how often, even today, white people go out 
of their way to help individual Negroes and how many of them still take 

' See Chapter 26, Section 2. 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 593 

it for granted that Negro cooks shall be allowed to pilfer food for their 
own families from the white man's kitchen. The other side of this paternal- 
istic relation is, of course, that servants are grossly underpaid. But it is not 
to be denied that on this point there is — in the individual case — a break 
in the bitterness of caste relations. Negro beggars who make their appeal 
to this old relationship will often be amply and generously rewarded by 
white people who are most stingy in paying ordinary wages and who 
deprive Negro children of their share of the state appropriations for 
schools in order to provide for white children. 47 

This is a survival of slavery society, where friendliness is restricted to 
the individual and not extended to the group, and is based on a clear and 
unchallenged recognition from both sides of an insurmountable social 
inequality. There are obvious short-term gains in such relations for the 
Negroes involved. 48 The whites in the South always stress that they, and 
not the Northerners, like and love the Negro and that they provide for 
him. The conservative Negro leaders in the Booker T. Washington line — 
and occasionally the others also — have endorsed this claim by pronouncing 
that the "best people of the South" always could be counted among "the 
friends of the race." 49 "No reputable Southerner is half as bad as Senator 
Tillman talks," exclaimed Kelly Miller, 00 and even the most violent 
Negro-baiting politicians occasionally show great kindness toward the 
individual Negroes who are under their personal control. 61 

The paternalistic pattern becomes particularly cherished by the white 
men as it so openly denotes an aristocratic origin. This gives it its strength 
to survive. It is a sign of social distinction to a white man to stand in this 
paternalistic relation to Negroes. This explains why so much of the conver- 
sation in the Southern white upper and middle classes turns around the 
follies of Negro servants. Their Negro dependents and their own relations 
to them flay a significant role for white ■people's status in society. 

To receive this traditional friendliness on the part of Southern white 
upper class persons, a Negro has to be a lower class Negro and to behave 
as an humble servant. James Weldon Johnson observed: 

... in fact, I concluded that if a coloured man wanted to separate himself from hit 
white neighbours, he had but to acquire some money, education, and culture . . . the 
proudest and fairest lady in the South could with propriety — and it is what she 
would most likely do — go to the cabin of Aunt Mary, her cook, if Aunt Mary was 
sick, and minister to her comfort with her own hands; but if Mary's daughter, 
Eliza, a girl who used to run around my lady's kitchen, but who has received an 
education and married a prosperous young coloured man, were at death's door, my 
lady would no more think of crossing the threshold of Eliza's cottage than she would 
•think of going into a bar-room for a drink. 0J! 

When the Negro rises socially and is no longer a servant, he becomes a 
stranger to the white upper class. His ambition is suspected. He is disliked. 



594 An American Dilemma 

The exceptions are when he, in spite of not being a servant, can establish 
a relationship of personal dependence and when he, in this relationship, can 
act out a role of deference and humility. He is then in the position to 
confer even more of a sense of status elevation to the white partner, and 
he is also rewarded by more protection and favors. Moton gives us the 
Negro angle of this situation: 

In a much more matter of fact way the Negro uses his intimate knowledge of the 
white man to further his own advancement. Much of what is regarded as racially 
characteristic of the Negro is nothing more than his artful and adroit accommodation 
of hit manners and methods to what he knows to be the weaknesses and foibles of 
his white neighbour. Knowing what is expected of him, and knowing too what he 
himself wants, the Negro craftily uses his knowledge to anticipate opposition and 
to eliminate friction in securing his desires. 83 

The present author has time and again heard white men with a local 
public interest praise Negro college presidents and other white-appointed 
Negro leaders quite beyond any reasonable deserts, merely for their hum- 
ble demeanor. One influential white editor in the Deep South indulged 
with zest in lengthy descriptions of the particular manner in which the 
principal and leading teachers of a nearby Negro educational institution — 
• of which he spoke highly — walked, talked, and laughed, and he ended by 
exclaiming: "They bear themselves just like old field slaves." This was, 
in his opinion, a praiseworthy thing. The importance attached by white 
people to the forms of subservience on the part of Negroes can be measured 
by the degree to which they show themselves prepared to give in on 
material interests if those forms are duly observed. This attitude on the 
part of influential whites puts a premium on the individual Negroes most 
inclined and best gifted to flatter their superior whites, even if they lack 
other qualities. It is apparent that this attitude still represents a main 
difficulty in the effort to get Negro schools and other Negro institutions 
manned by Negro personnel with high professional standards. 

Generally speaking, this attitude on the part of upper class whites has 
demoralizing effects on Negroes. In employment relations the paternalistic 
pattern tends to diminish the Negroes' formal responsibilities. The Negro 
worker has less definite obligations as well as more uncertain rights. He 
comes to be remunerated, not only for his work, but also for his humility, 
for his propensity to be satisfied with his "place" and for his cunning in 
cajoling and flattering his master. He has ready excuses for not becoming 
a really good worker. He is discouraged when he tries "to work his way 
up." It is considered better for him never to forget his "place," and he 
must scrupulously avoid even any suspicion that he seeks to rise above it. 
If successful, he might see good reasons to conceal it. Upper class Negroes 
in the South have often confided to me that they find it advantageous to 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 595 

annulate dependence in order to avert hostility from the whites and engage 
their paternalism. But even if the successful Negro puts on a show of 
dependence, he sometimes feels that he is less safe than if he had stayed at 
the bottom. A psychological milieu more effective in stifling spontaneous 
ambition is hardly thinkable. 

This is one of the main roots of Negro "laziness and shiftlessness." And 
there are circular effects back on the whites 6 * — on their own standards and 
on the standards they expect from the servants. Deference is bought for 
lowered demands of efficiency. Cable observed this long ago in his pam- 
phlet, The Negro Question, and explained that: 

... the master-caste [in the South] tolerates, with unsurpassed supineness and 
unconsciousness, a more indolent, inefficient, slovenly, unclean, untrustworthy, ill 
mannered, noisy, disrespectful, disputatious, and yet servile domestic and public 
menial service than is tolerated by any other enlightened people. 85 

This might be slightly exaggerated even for his time, but it is true that 
patriarchalism breeds unambitious sycophants and keeps labor standards 
low. 

This whole pattern was originally a rural pattern in the South. It fits 
best today into communities dominated by the semi-feudal plantation 
system. In the cities of the South, the tendency toward more casual and 
secondary relations is gradually breaking it up. But even in the cities, 
among the white upper classes in their relations to domestic servants, 
large parts of it are preserved today. 

There is in the South, however, also another type of aristocratic attitude 
toward the Negroes, which is equally reluctant to modify the color bar 
but is prepared to allow the Negro people a maximum of possibilities for 
cultural growth and economic advancement behind the bar. This attitude, 
which involves a more unselfish friendliness and a truer social responsibil- 
ity, not only to the individual Negro, but to the Negroes as a group, is 
perhaps best expressed by Edgar Gardner Murphy, who had the opinion 
that "there is no place in our American system for a helot class. . . . We 
want no fixed and permanent populations of 'the inferior.' " M As spokes- 
man for the white South he declared: 

It is willing that the negro, within his own social world, shall become .v great, 
as true, as really free, as nobly gifted as he hat capacity to be. 07 

It was Murphy who coined the phrase "parallel civilizations." 

This is a clear misinterpretation of the position of the majority of aristo- 
cratic white Southerners who most certainly do not look, and never have 
looked, upon the advancement of the Negro people with this equanimity 
and generosity. But it is a fair expression of what Murphy, himself, and 
many other white gentlemen of the region before and after him have felt. 



596 An American Dilemma 

This spirit has animated a growing number of white educators, churchmen, 
and politicians who, for a long time, in cooperation with Northern phil- 
anthropic organizations, have worked — "quietly and cautiously," as they 
always stress — to improve Negro schools and social conditions. This is also 
the ideological origin of modern Southern liberalism." It has, from the 
beginning, stamped the work of the Interracial Commission. Fundamen- 
tally it is the attitude of the independent, secure, and cultured Southern 
upper class person who feels the social responsibility of his position and 
does not need to flatter his ego by the vulgar means of Negro subservience. 
He has good fences, and he keeps them up, but just because of this he can 
afford to be a good Christian neighbor to the poor Negro people around 
him. 

He is well informed enough about social realities in his region to know 
also that such a policy, in the long run, is the best protection for the whites. 
He understands that the lower class Negroes, gradually losing their per- 
sonal relations to the old master class among the whites, are a social menace 
and an economic liability to the South : 

But build him up. Make him sufficient in himself, give him within his own race, 
life that will satisfy, and the social question will be solved. The trained Negro is 
less and less inclined to lose himself in the sea of another race. 58 

The difference in attitude will show up significantly in relation to the 
upper and middle class Negroes. The ordinary white upper class people 
will "have no use" for such Negroes. They need cheap labor — faithful, 
obedient, unambitious labor. Many white Southerners will even today 
explain to the visitor that they prefer the Negro workers because they are 
tractable. When Negroes become prosperous, acquire education, or buy 
land, and when they are no longer dependent, this relationship is broken. 
But already, writing at the very beginning of this century, Page had 
pointed out "the urgent need . . . for the negroes to divide up into 
classes, with character and right conduct as the standard for elevation," 
and added the admonition: "When they make distinctions themselves, 
others will recognize their distinctions." 50 The younger school of Southern 
thinkers took up this idea, but had a greater trust in education and progress 
than Page, and a greater willingness to make it their own responsibility 
to do something to assist the rising Negroes in reaching, not only occa- 
sional landownership and education, but, in more recent times, to help get 
for them fair and equal justice, personal security and even political suffrage. 
Even for some of the modern liberals, however, it is apparent that they 
have great difficulties in freeing themselves entirely from the patronizing 
attitude which is the main tradition of the Southern white upper class. "I 
have frequently noted that with many white up-lifters the Negro is all 

.'See Chapter xi, Section 5. 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 597 

right until he is up-lifted," James Weldom Johnson observed.* But great 
changes are under way. During this period of transition the ordinary upper 
. class person, even if he is not touched by modern liberalism, will show a 
vacillating mind when judging the educated Negro trying to climb in 
social status: one moment hostility will hold sway — this Negro is "smart,'* 
"uppity," he "wants to be white"; the next moment respect becomes dom- 
inant — "this Negro is as good or better than many whites." 

So far we have considered only white upper class people. It is the am- 
bition of the white middle class people in the South to identify themselves 
with the aristocratic traditions of the region, and, for reasons already 
mentioned, their relation to the Negroes is crucial to the achievement of 
their ambition. They will hasten to inform even the casual acquaintance 
of their relationship to slave owners and of any old Negro servants — 
particularly if by any stretch of the definition a servant can be called 
"mammy." In their public contacts many middle class whites try to 
manifest benevolent condescension toward Negroes. On the other hand, 
some of them are in competition with Negroes, and many of them are able 
to rise economically only by exploiting Negroes. Too, their memories 
include fewer recollections of friendly contacts with Negroes than earlier 
fears and competitive attitudes. The attitudes of this white middle class 
toward the rising Negroes arc decidedly less friendly than arc those of 
the white upper class, and their attitudes even toward the subservient lower 
class Negroes are decidedly conflicting. 

Lower class whites in the South have no Negro servants in whose 
humble demeanors they can reflect their own superiority. • Instead, they 
feel actual economic competition or fear of potential competition from the 
Negroes. They need the caste demarcations for much more substantial 
reasons than do the middle and upper classes. They arc the people likely 
to stress aggressively that no Negro can ever attain the status of even the 
lowest white. The educated Negro, the Negro professional or businessman, 
the Negro landowner, will particularly appear to them "uppity," "smart" 
and "out of place." They look on the formation behind the color line of 
a Negro upper and middle class as a challenge to their own status. They 
want all Negroes kept down "in their place" — this place is to them defined 
realistically as under themselves. They are naturally jealous of every 
dollar that goes to Negro education. They will insist that the caste 
etiquette be enforced upon the rising Negroes as well as upon lower class 
Negroes.' 1 

The lower class whites have been the popular strength behind Negro 
disfranchisement, and are the audience to which the "nigger-baiting" 
political demagogue of the South appeals. They create the popular pressure 
upon the Southern courts to deny the Negroes equal justice. They form 
die active lynching mobs; they are responsible also for most of the petty 



598 An American Dilemma 

outrages practiced on the Negro group. They are the interested party in 
economic discrimination against Negroes, keeping Negroes out of jobs 
which they want themselves. But even in their case, the general attitude , 
of hatred toward Negroes collectively is modulated by occasional friendly 
relations with individual Negroes, and the most brutish of them have had 
some contact with the humanitarianism of the American Creed and of 
Christianity. 02 

The unfriendly attitudes on the part of the lower class whites become, 
as we have seen in earlier chapters, especially detrimental to the Negroes 
since upper and middle class whites are inclined to let them have their 
way. Plantation owners and employers, who use Negro labor as cheaper 
and more docile, have at times been observed to tolerate, or even cooperate 
in, the periodic aggressions of poor whites against Negroes. It is a plausible 
thesis that they do so in the interest of upholding the caste system which 
is so effective in keeping the Negro docile. 03 It is also difficult to avoid 
the further reflection that the hatred of lower class whites toward Negroes 
shows significant signs of being partly dislocated aggression arising from 
their own social and economic frustrations in white society: 

Although the poor white's antagonism toward the wealthy white is denied expres- 
sion by considerations of economic and legal expediency, Negro dependents of hated 
landowners or other employers, offer vulnerable targets for suppressed antagonisms. 
The poor white utilizes tvery opportunity for asserting "white supremacy," partly 
because in his case it is a very meager and uncertain superiority, partly as an outlet 
for the hatreds generated by the social system of the South. Thus, the Negro is the 
target of the poor white not only because he is a competitor but also because of the 
Negro's identification with the upper-class white group of the South. 84 

Thus, in the three-cornered tension among upper class whites, lower class 
whites, and Negroes, the two white groups agree upon the Negroes as a 
scapegoat and the proper object for exploitation and hatred. White solidar- 
ity is upheld and the caste order protected. This hypothesis — if it could 
be confirmed by further research — would tend to raise some hope of a 
change for the better. Displaced aggression is less stable and less deep- 
rooted than other aggression. It cannot only be eradicated by such economic 
developments and reforms as mitigate the primary frustration, but it can 
also be redirected more easily by education. 

The bitterness of racial feelings on the part of whites seems to be slowly 
declining, and the lower classes are probably following the trend. But still 
they are apparently the most prejudiced. There is one big factor of change, 
however, which works directly on the lower classes of whites. If labor 
unions should spread and increasingly come to include both white and 
Negro workers in a common solidarity, this development would revolu- 
tionize the situation. The author has seen how a quick and radical change 
in racial attitudes has been brought about in some places where the tie of 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 599 

a common organization has materialized. Aggression has been redirected 
and a certain amount of labor solidarity has taken the place of white 
solidarity. The labor movement is, however, still in its infancy in the 
South. The existing segregation in industrial work will, further, have the 
effect that, in many industries, trade unions will be white and will actually 
become an additional barrier against the intrusion of Negro labor, which 
will certainly not tend to diminish the urge for social discrimination but 
rather strengthen it. In the fields where there is actual competition for 
jobs, racial friction will remain one of the principal hindrances to successful 
unionization, and the odds are that it will often become successful only 
by eliminating the Negroes.* Negro labor will, however, hardly be driven 
out entirely from Southern industry. As we have shown, there will prob- 
ably be an increasing pressure for jobs from the side of Negroes driven 
out of agriculture, if Negroes also become organized and if the collabora- 
tion between different unions increases, this might eventually prepare the 
ground for a growing labor class solidarity. There are great uncertainties 
involved in this problem and much will depend upon the educational 
forces in the South and the ideological trend in the whole nation. 

9. Social Segregation and Discrimination in the North 

At the outbreak of the Civil War, most Northern states were nearly as 
far removed in time from actual slavery in their own realms as the South- 
ern states are now. Their Negro populations were comparatively small in 
numbers. But slavery was a living institution within the nation. Though 
conditions were rather different in different Northern states, the general 
statement can be made that wherever Negroes lived in significant numbers 
they met considerable social segregation and discrimination. The Abolition- 
ist propaganda and the gradual definition of emancipation as one of the 
main goals of the War undoubtedly tended to raise the status of Negroes 
somewhat. Still, one of the difficulties congressional leaders had in passing 
the Reconstruction legislation was the resistance in some Northern states 
where people found that they would have to change not only their behav- 
ior but also their laws in order to comply with the new statutes. 65 

In the social field — as in breadwinning, but not as in politics and justice 
— the North has kept much segregation and discrimination. In some respects, 
the social bars were raised considerably on account of the mass immigration 
of poor and ignorant Negroes during and immediately after the First 
World War. In the latter part of the 'twenties this movement was perhaps 
turned into a slight tendency in the opposite direction, namely, an appre- 
ciation of "The New Negro." b After a new wave of unpopularity during 
the first years of the depression, there seems again to have been a slow but 



* See Chapter 1 8, Sections 3 and 4. 
"See Chapter 35, Section 8. 



6oo An American Dilemma 

steady development toward less social discrimination during the era of the 
New Deal. But quite apart from these uncertain fluctuations during the 
last couple of decades, it is obviously a gross exaggeration when it is 
asserted that the North is getting to be "like the South." 

Even in the realm of social relations it is of importance that the average 
Northerner does not think of the Negroes as former slaves. He has not 
the possessive feeling for them and he does not regard their subservience 
as a mark of his own social status. He is, therefore, likely to let the Negroes 
alone unless in his opinion they get to be a nuisance. Upon the ideological 
plane the ordinary Northerner is, further, apparently conscious that social 
discrimination is wrong and against the American Creed, while the average 
Southerner tries to convince himself and the nation that it is right or, in 
any case, that it is necessary. The white newspapers in the North ordinarily 
ignore the Negroes and their problems entirely — most of the time more 
completely than the liberal Southern press. But when they have to come 
out in the open on the Negro problem, they usually stand for equality. 
Back of this official attitude, of course, is the fact that most Northerners 
are not in direct contact with Negroes. The patterns of social discrimination 
in the South have originally formed themselves as rural ways of life. In 
the North the rural sections arc, and have always been, practically free of 
Negroes. Even in the big cities in the North, where there are substantial 
Negro populations, only a small part of the white population has more 
contacts with Negroes. 

Lacking ideological sanction and developing directly contrary to the 
openly accepted equalitarian Creed, social segregation and discrimination 
in the North have to keep sub rosa. The observer finds that in the North 
there is actually much unawareness on the fart of white people of the 
extent of social discrimination against Negroes. It has been a common 
experience of this writer to witness how white Northerners are surprised 
and shocked when they hear about such things, and how they are moved 
to feel that something ought to be done to stop it. They often do not 
understand correctly even the implications of their own behavior and 
often tell the interviewer that they "have never thought of it in that light." 
This innocence is, of course, opportunistic in a degree, but it is, neverthe- 
less, real and honest too. It denotes the absence of an explicit theory and 
an intentional policy. In this situation one of the main difficulties for the 
Negroes in the North is simply lack of publicity. It is convenient for the 
Northerners' good conscience to forget about the Negro. 

In so far as the Negroes can get their claims voiced in the press and in 
legislatures, and are able to put political strength behind them, they are 
free to press for state action against social discrimination. The chances are 
that they will meet no open opposition. The legislatures will practically 
never go the other way and attempt to Jim Crow the Negroes by statutes. 



Chapter s8. The Basis of Social Inequality 6oi 

The federal Reconstruction legislation has taken better root in the North. 
When the Supreme Court in 1883 declared the Civil Rights Bill of 1875 
unconstitutional, most states in the Northeast and Middle West, and some 
in the Far West, started to make similar laws of their own, while the 
Southern states, instead, began to build up the structure of Jim Crow 
legislation.* 

With the ideological and legal sanctions directed against them, social 
segregation and discrimination have not acquired the strength, persuasive- 
ness or institutional fixity found in the South. Actual discrimination varies 
a good deal in the North : it seems to be mainly a function of the relative 
number of Negroes in a community and its distance from the South. In 
several minor cities in New England with a small, stable Negro popula- 
tion, for instance, social discrimination is hardly noticeable. The Negroes 
there usually belong to the working class, but often they enter the trades, 
serve in shops, and even carry on independent businesses catering to whites 
as well as to Negroes. They belong to the ordinary churches of the com- 
munity, and the children attend the public schools. Occasional intermar- 
riages do not create great excitement. They fit into the community and 
usually form a little clique for themselves beside other cliques, but nobody 
seems to think much about their color. The interracial situation in such 
a city may remain even today very similar to that of Great Barrington, 
Massachusetts, some sixty years ago, which W. E. B. Du Bois portrays in 
his recent autobiography, Dusk of Dawn. 00 

In the bigger cities, even in New England, the conditions of life for 
the Negroes have probably never been so idyllic. Since the migration 
beginning in 19 15, the status of Northern Negroes has fallen perceptibly. 87 
In the Northern cities nearer the Mason-Dixon line there has always been, 
and is even today, more social segregation and discrimination than farther 
North. 

One factor which in every Northern city of any size has contributed to 
form patterns of segregation and discrimination against Negroes has been 
residential segregation, which acts as a cause as well as an effect of social 
distance. This fundamental segregation was caused by the general pattern 
for ethnic groups to live together in Northern cities. But while Swedes, 
Italians, and Jews could become Americanized in a generation or two, and 
disperse themselves into the more anonymous parts of the city, Negroes 
were caught in their "quarters" because of their inescapable social visibility; 
and the real estate interest kept watch to enforce residential segregation. 
With residential segregation naturally comes a certain amount of segre- 
gation in schools, in hospitals, and in other public places even when it is 

* See Section 4 of this chapter; sec also Chapter 19. Maine, New- Hampshire, and Vermont 
have no civil rights laws expressly relating to race and color. But there is little social 
discrimination against their small Negro populations. 



602 An American Dilemma 

not intended as part of policy. Personal contacts become, as a matter of 
course, more or less restricted to Negro neighborhoods. As the Negro 
sections grew during the northward migration, it became more and more 
possible for Negroes to have their entire social life in Negro neighbor- 
hoods, and white people became conditioned to look upon this as a natural 
and desirable situation. 

In this process white Southerners who also moved northward have 
played a crucial role. To make a manager of a hotel, a restaurant, or a 
theater interested in trying to keep Negroes out of his establishment, it is 
not necessary that more than a tiny minority of customers object, particu- 
larly if they make a scene. Time and again I have, in my interviews with 
managers of various public places in the North, been told this same story: 
that they, themselves, had no prejudices but that some of their customers 
would resent seeing Negroes around. The fact that most Negroes are poor 
and residentially isolated and, hence, do not patronize white places often, 
and the further fact that upper class Negroes, who could afford to, abstain 
voluntarily from visiting places where they are afraid 01 being embar- 
rassed, solidifies the situation. I have also noticed that Negroes often have 
an entirely exaggerated notion of the difficulties they would meet. They 
are conditioned to suspect discrimination even when there is no danger of 
it. So they abstain from going to places where they actually could go 
without any trouble. When once this pattern is set by themselves the 
result might later be discrimination when some Negro tries to break it. 

The migrating Negroes have probably been even more influential in 
spreading Southern patterns in the North than the Southern whites. The 
low cultural level and poverty of the average Southern Negro stand out 
even more when he comes North where general standards are higher. If 
he comes without any other education, he is at least thoroughly trained in 
the entire ceremonial system of scraping his foot, tipping his hat, and 
using self-abasing vocabulary and dialect, and generally being subservient 
and unobtrusive in the company of whites. A Negro recently from the 
South is characterized as much by his manners and bearing as by his racial 
traits. He might get some ideas of a new freedom of behavior in the North 
and actually try his best to behave as a full man; and he might, indeed, 
easily succeed in becoming aggressive and offensive. But fundamentally it 
takes a radical reeducation to get him out of his Southern demeanor or the 
reaction to it. For a long time after migrating he will invoke discrimination 
by his own behavior. The submissive behavior of lower class Southern 
Negroes is usually not appealing at all to the white Northerner, who has 
not been brought up to have a patronizing attitude and who does not need 
it for his own self-elevation. The white Northerner also dislikes the 
slovenliness and ignorance of the Southern Negro. Thus the Negro often 
seems only strange, funny or repulsive to the white Northerner. 



Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 603 

Even the poor classes of whites in the North come to mistrust and 
despise the Negroes. The European immigrant groups are the ones thrown 
into most direct contact and competition with Negroes: they live near each 
other, often send their children to the same schools, and have to struggle 
for the same jobs. Obviously attitudes among immigrants vary a good deal. 
Recent immigrants apparently sometimes feel an interest solidarity with 
Negroes or, at any rate, lack the intense superiority feeling of the native 
Americans educated in race prejudice. But the development of prejudice 
against Negroes is usually one of their first lessons in Americanization. 
Because they are of low status, they like to have a group like the Negroes 
to which they can be superior. For these reasons, it should not be surpris- 
ing if now, since new immigration has been restricted for a considerable 
time, a study of racial attitudes should show that the immigrant groups 
are on the average even more prejudiced than native Americans in the 
same community. 

I have an impression that the resentment against Negroes in the North 
is different from that in the South, not only in intensity, but also in its 
class direction. It does not seem to be directed particularly against the 
rising Negroes. In the more anonymous Northern cities, the Negro middle 
and upper classes do not get into the focus of public resentment as in the 
South. More important is the Yankee outlook on life in which climbing 
and social success arc generally given a higher value than in the more 
static Southern society, and the ambitious Negro will more often be re- 
warded by approval and even by admiration, while in the South he is 
likely to be considered "smart," "uppity" or "out of his place." 

Otherwise, the North is not original in its racial ideology. When there 
is segregation and discrimination to be justified, the rationalization is some- 
times a vague and simplified version of the "no social equality" theory of 
the South which we have already discussed. It is continuously spread by 
Southerners moving North and Northerners who have been South, by 
fiction and by hearsay. But more often the rationalizations run in terms 
of the alleged racial inferiority of the Negro, his animal-like nature, his 
unreliability, his low morals, dirtiness and unpleasant manners. The refer- 
ences and associations to amalgamation and intermarriage are much less 
frequent and direct. This does not mean that the Northerner approves of 
intermarriage. But he is less emotional in his disapproval. What Paul 
Lewinson calls "the post-prandial non-sequitur" — if a Negro eats with a 
white man he is assumed to have the right to marry his daughter — 
practically does not exist in the North. 

In this situation, however, not only is intermarriage frowned upon, but 
in high schools and colleges there will often be attempts to exclude 
Negroes from dances and social affairs. Social segregation is, in fact, likely 
to appear in all sorts of social relations. But there is much less social 



604 An American Dilemma 

segregation and discrimination than in the South: there is no segregation 
on streetcars, trains, and so on, and above all, there is no rigid ceremonial 
governing the Negro-white relations and no laws holding the Negro down. 
The fact that there are no laws or denned rules of etiquette is sometimes 
said to cause friction and bitterness because some whites in the North will 
want Negroes to keep away from them, and Negroes cannot tell which 
whites these are. But the absence of segregating laws also keeps the 
system from being so relatively locked as in the South. It allows Negroes 
to be ambitious. And since Negroes in the North have the vote and a 
reasonable amount of justice in court, and since they can go to good schools 
and are, in fact, forced to get at least an elementary education, they can 
struggle for fuller social equality with some hope. 



CHAPTER 29 

PATTERNS OF SOCIAL SEGREGATION AND 
DISCRIMINATION 

1. Facts and Beliefs Regarding Segregation and Discrimination 

In the preceding chapter we were primarily interested in the attitudes 
displayed in connection with segregation and discrimination and the 
popular concepts and theories advanced as motivation. Here we shall 
describe the actual patterns of social segregation. This we shall not be able 
to do in the detail we should like, partly because it is impossible to cover 
the whole of social life in a single chapter and partly because no studies 
have been made which quantify the extent of social segregation in any of 
its different forms or local variations. 1 

There is no little divergence of opinion as to the extent of segregation 
and discrimination in the interpersonal sphere. The literature tends to 
emphasize "interesting" individual experiences, which may be exceptions. 
In eliciting opinions as to the extent of segregation and discrimination, 
there exists enough divergence of interest to result in the collection of 
beliefs rather than facts. These beliefs are important data in themselves, 
but are no substitute for the facts. Both whites and Negroes in the South 
have a tendency to exaggerate the general scope and the local stability of 
segregation and discrimination patterns, to magnify unduly some occasional 
experience of their own and claim it as "characteristic." This varies consid- 
erably, however, depending upon political leanings and personality. The 
conservative white Southerner will often generalize what is merely occa- 
sional in his community and so also will the radical or dissatisfied Negro. 
The conservative Negro leader and his white friends in interracial work 
often show the contrary tendency to play down existing segregation and 
discrimination and to play up small favorable occurrences (that white and 
colored students meet for a discussion j that a prominent Negro, thanks to 
the influence of his white friends, can travel in a Pullman sleeper; that 
a supper is secretly shared). The lower class Negro in the South and in 
the North will usually be found to have vague and sometimes incorrect 
ideas of what he, as a Negro, can do and cannot do outside the narrow 
groove where he lives and where often his chief rule is merely that he 

605 



606 An American Dilemma 

has to be subservient in every contact with whites and try to "keep out of 
trouble." As already mentioned, the white people in the North often do 
not realize the scope of actual segregation and discrimination against 
Negroes, while Negroes in the North, particularly in the upper and middle 
classes, have beliefs which are wrong in the other direction. These deviations 
of belief from reality are interesting and worth study. But, to repeat, 
statements purporting to describe general patterns of segregation and 
discrimination without systematic quantitative evidence — whether offered 
spontaneously or after questioning — may be expected to be deficient as 
descriptions of actual conditions. 

We shall consider social segregation and discrimination under three 
categories: personal, residential, institutional. As we have seen, segregation 
in interpersonal relations is partly basic to most other forms of segregation 
and discrimination. Because of the strategic place it holds in the minds 
of white people, we shall consider it as the peak category of the rank order 
of social segregation and discrimination." Much of what we shall have to 
say about the personal sphere is peculiar to the South and is unknown to 
Northerners. Residential and institutional segregation, on the other hand, 
are found in the North almost as much as in the South. Residential segre- 
gation is treated before institutional because it facilitates the latter by 
creating "natural" groupings of Negroes separate from whites. 

2. Segregation and Discrimination in Interpersonal Relations 

The ban on intermarriage has the highest place in the white man's rank 
order of social segregation and discrimination. Sexual segregation is the 
most pervasive form of segregation, and the concern about "race purity" 
is, in a sense, basic. No other way of crossing the color line is so attended 
by the emotion commonly associated with violating a social taboo as inter- 
marriage and extra-marital relations between a Negro man and a white 
woman. 2 No excuse for other forms of social segregation and discrimination 
is so potent as the one that sociable relations on an equal basis between 
members of the two races may -possibly lead to intermarriage. 

Intermarriage is prohibited by law in all the Southern states, in all but 
five of the non-Southern states west of the Mississippi River, but only in 
Indiana among the Northern states east of the Mississippi. 8 In practice 
there is little intermarriage even where it is not prohibited, since the social 
isolation from the white world that the white partner must undergo is 
generally intolerable even to those few white people who have enough 
social contact and who are unprejudiced enough to consider marriage with 
Negroes. 4 It is said that — as a reaction to the white attitude and as a matter 
of "race pride" — the Negro community also is increasingly likely to 

s See Chapter 3, Section 4, and Chapter aS, Section 6. 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 607 

ostracize mixed couples. This reaction is, however, much more pronounced 
toward illicit relations involving Negro women, and it has there the good 
reason that such relations are mostly of an exploitative type. 

Extra-marital relations between Negro men and white women are all 
but nonexistent in the South. 5 If an incident occurs and is detected, it is 
either punished by the courts as rape, or the Negro is lynched, or he is 
run out of town. (The white woman is also run out of town if it becomes 
known that her action was voluntary.) In the North the sanctions are not 
so violent. There seems to be some small amount of interracial sexual 
experimentation in bohemian and radical circles involving Negro men 
and white women. There are also some white prostitutes catering to Negro 
men. The extent of extra-marital relations between white men and Negro 
women is a subject on which investigators give divergent estimates,* but 
there can be no doubt that it is a fairly common phenomenon throughout 
the South and the North. Though tolerated, it is far from favored by 
public opinion and is usually clandestine." It is also increasingly of a 
casual type. The old custom of white men keeping Negro concubines is 
disappearing in the South 7 and is rare in the North. 

The prohibition of intermarriage in most states and the concomitant lack 
of effective legal protection — for claiming inheritance and alimony, for 
example— undoubtedly tend to decrease the deterrents on white men to 
take sexual advantage of Negro women. Miscegenation will thereby be 
kept on a higher level than under a system where the interests of Negro 
women and their mixed offspring were more equally protected." The 
practically complete absence of intermarriage in all states has the social 
effect of preventing the most intimate type of acceptance into white 
society: if Negroes can never get into a white family, they can never be 
treated as "one of the family." Perhaps more important in the South as 
an effect of the lack of sanction for intermarriage is the regimentation of 
the whole gamut of contacts between adult members of the two races so 
that these contacts will be as impersonal as possible. This is commonly 
called "the etiquette of race relations." 8 This ceremonious attitude in race 
relations is especially striking when we consider that the American tends 
to be unceremonious in all his other relations. Although the racial etiquette 

* See Chapter 5, Section 6. 

b According to Jenks, one Southern (Louisiana) and two Northern (Nevada and South 
Dakota) states have laws against cohabitation and concubinage between members of the two 
races, as well as laws against intermarriage. (Albert E. Jenks, "The Legal Status of Negro- 
White Amalgamation in the United States," The American Journal of Sociology [March, 
1916], p. 671.) 

* This is the chief argument — besides, general considerations of civil liberty and equality 
— of Negro spokesmen who want to have the ban on intermarriage abolished (See Walter 
White, Rope and Faggot [1929], pp. 77 &) 



6o8 An American Dilemma 

serves other functions, 1 its relation to the primary sex taboo is important 
enough to justify the ranking of the specific items of the etiquette accord- 
ing to their degree of intimacy or of closeness to the sex relation. 6 This 
would also seem to be the order in which any violation of the etiquette 
13 likely to call forth excited condemnation and violent retaliation and, 
therefore, also the order of rigidity in the etiquette. The rank order and 
the correlation between degree of intimacy of the contact and degree of 
emotion caused by violation of the etiquette are hypotheses developed 
from impressionistic observations of white people's attitudes and behavior. 
The hypotheses are applied only to the South, but parallels in the North 
will be noted. 

The relations which, outside of the purely sexual, are most intimate 
and are never tolerated between Negroes and whites in the South are those 
which imply erotic advances or associations, if the male partner is a Negro. 
Any attempt at flirtatious behavior in words or deeds will put him in 
danger of his life. Negro-white dancing as a heterosexual social activity 
with strong erotic associations is forbidden in the South whether the Negro 
partner be male or female. Even in the North interracial dancing seldom 
occurs. In high schools and colleges Negro students are usually expected 
not to attend social affairs where dancing is part of the entertainment. The 
same has been true of social functions given by mixed trade unions. If 
Negroes are allowed to come, they are often expected to bring partners of 
their own group. One can observe in the North that, when interracial 
dancing occurs, it intentionally has the significance for the white partici- 
pants of demonstrating racial emancipation. The taboo against swimming 
together in the South is equally absolute, apparently for the reason that it 
involves the exposure of large parts of the body.' In the North the taboo 
against using the same beaches or swimming pools is ordinarily also 
strong, though several public beaches, for instance, around New York, 
are open to both races. 

The main symbol of social inequality between the two groups has tradi- 
tionally been the taboo against eating together. It should at the outset be 
observed that, generally, the taking of meals in America has little social 
importance and is almost barren of all the rituals and ceremonial niceties 
commonly preserved in the older countries. In spite of frequent assertions 

* One of the most important of the other functions of the etiquette in the South is to give 
whites — no matter how low in the social scale — a sense of power and importance. This 
"gain" has been excellently analyzed by John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town 

(i937). PP- 98 ff. 

"This rank order is an expansion of the top layers of the rank order we proposed in 
Chapter 3, Section 4. It will be remembered that we placed the sexual sphere on top in the 
rank order of caste-defined relations, with the "social" sphere following it. This chapter 
gives consideration to these two orders, as previous chapters have considered the lower 
orders (justice, political and economic relations). 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 609 

to the contrary, eating in the South when only white people are present 
is generally an even simpler affair than in the North. But in interracial 
relations eating together has been infused with a tremendous social signif- 
icance. "In the South, the table, simple though its fare may be," explains 
a Southerner, "possesses the sanctity of an intimate social institution. To 
break bread together involves, or may involve, everything." 9 And, of 
course, even the less ritualized American eating is, in a degree, an equal- 
itarian activity; persons are forced to exhibit equal susceptibility to 
physiological needs, and if they are to sit facing each other for half an 
hour or so, they are inevitably thrown into social conversation. 

For whites and Negroes to eat together would call forth serious con- 
demnation in the South. It is apparent — and well in accord with our hypoth- 
esis^ — that if a Negro man and a white woman should cat together, the 
matter would be even more serious. There are, however, occasions even 
in the South when upper class Negroes participate in interracial confer- 
ences — including the purely business or professional conferences — where 
eating takes place. In such cases the Negro participants are sometimes 
served in separate rooms or at separate tables in the same room. Even if 
there is only one Negro present and the conference is in a private home, 
the rule is that he must be served at a separate table. Liberal white educa- 
tors visiting Negro colleges sometimes take part in common meals, and 
they will not always be served at a separate table. Through this interracial 
activity, on a high level of social and cultural respectability, the eating 
taboo is slowly being broken down. People in the South generally know 
that such things are happening, and they are not as excited about it as they 
would have been a generation ago. In the case of eating incidental to the 
ordinary routines of life — such as in factory lunch rooms — Negroes regu- 
larly eat in separate rooms or have to wait until the whites have finished. 
Drinking is apparently less of an issue than eating. It is not considered 
quite so intimate since it requires less time, and it does not demand that 
participants sit down. At any rate, it would seem to be slightly less taboo 
for Negroes and whites to drink together than to eat together. For a 
white woman to take part in an interracial drinking party would, however, 
be worse even than eating with Negroes and it practically never occurs. 

In the North, the taboo against interracial eating and drinking is weak: 
Negroes and whites will often be found eating together in restaurants, 
conferences and factory lunchrooms. Negro servants are practically never 
invited to eat at the same table with their white employers, but this is 
only slightly less true of white servants. In some Northern milieus it does 
seem to be considered objectionable for whites to invite Negroes to their 
houses for social gatherings, but the few occurrences seldom result in any 
reaction more violent than gossip. 10 

Next in order in degree of intimacy and in degree of reaction aroused 



6lO Am American Dilemma 

by violation is a series of relations which involve at least one of the elements 
associated with eating: satisfying physiological needs, sitting down together, 
and engaging in sociable conversation. In public places, where there is a 
chance that whites and Negroes will want to use the facilities at the same 
time, there are separate rest rooms, toilets and drinking fountains all over 
the South. The use of the same toilet and drinking fountain does occur 
sometimes where it is not feasible to build separate facilities, as in some 
gas stations, factories and households. This indicates that the taboo is not 
quite so strong as in the case of eating and drinking. Separate rest rooms, 
toilets, and drinking fountains are not maintained in the North, 

Perhaps allied with the prohibition against the use of the same facilities 
for the satisfaction of physiological needs is the prohibition against the 
participation of Negroes in activities where the human body is used. Dancing 
and swimming together are, as we have mentioned, especially taboo because 
of their erotic associations, but the prohibition extends — in a greater or less 
degree — to the various other sports and games." The prohibition would seem 
to be less effective where social relations are least necessary — in group or 
professional sports. Also the prohibition does not extend to children, who 
often play together freely until puberty — a fact which shows the relation 
of this phase of the etiquette to sex. Playing together of children is 
reported to have been much more common in earlier times than now and 
extended then into the upper classes. Now it is increasingly becoming a 
lower class pattern both among whites and among Negroes. The Negro 
upper class families want to spare their children from early interracial 
experiences. 11 There is no general prohibition against Negroes taking part 
in sports and games in the North, although individual whites often refuse 
to play with Negroes. With the increase in sports and the greater prepara- 
tion of Negroes for them, there has been an increase in interracial participa- 
tion in them. 

The conversation between whites and Negroes in the South is heavily 
regimented by etiquette. In content the serious conversation should be about 

* Sometimes the prohibition against mixed sports is extended to mixed equipment. Charles 
S. Johnson {Patterns of Negro Segregation, prepared for this study [1943], p. 274) records 
the case of a principal of a white high school refusing to accept a basketball belonging to 
hi* school after the team of a Negro high school had borrowed it. 

The principle of "not to be touched" extends in many directions. In a county in 
Georgia, where the Negro schoolhouses were dilapidated, I observed that in two cases there 
were good schoolhouses nearby which earlier had been used for white children but had 
been left vacant as a result of the recent centralization of the white school system. Upon 
my inquiry why they were not used for the Negro children, I was informed that this was 
impossible, for these reasons: in the one case, that there was a nearby old white graveyard 
and that white people in the community would not like to think of the barefoot Negro 
children passing by the graves and perhaps even treading upon them, and, in the other case, 
that the schoolhouse was used for occasional elections and that the white voters could not 
possibly be asked to enter a house used as a Negro school for casting their votes. 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 611 

those business interests which are shared (as when a white employer 
instructs his Negro employee or when there is a matter to be discussed con- 
cerning the welfare of the Negro community) or it should be polite but 
formal inquiry into personal affairs (either a white or a Negro person may 
inquire as to the state of the other's health or business). There can gen- 
erally be no serious discussion — although there can be the banter of polite 
conversation or joking — about local or national politics, international rela- 
tions, or "news," on the one hand, or about items connected with the 
course of daily life, such as the struggle for existence or the search for pleas- 
ure, on the other hand. There are exceptions, of course. Some white women 
use their Negro servants as sources of gossip and local news. 

The conversation is even more regimented in form than in content. The 
Negro is expected to address the white person by the title of "Mr.," "Mrs.," 
or "Miss." 12 The old slavery title of "Master" disappeared during Recon- 
struction entirely and was replaced by "Boss" or sometimes "Cap" or 
"Cap'n." From his side, the white man addresses the Negro by his first 
name, no matter if they hardly know each other, or by the epithets "boy," 
"uncle," "elder," "aunty," or the like, which are applied without regard to 
age. If he wishes to show a little respect without going beyond the etiquette, 
he uses the exaggerated titles of "doctor," "lawyer," "professor," or other 
occupational titles, even though the term is not properly applicable.' The 
epithets "nigger" and "darky" are commonly used even in the presence 
of Negroes, though it is usually well known that Negroes find them insult- 
ing. That there has been a slight tendency for this pattern to break down 
is shown by the use of the Negro's last name without title in many recent 
business relations. Too, a few salesmen will actually call Negroes by their 
titles of "Mr.," "Mrs.," and "Miss" in order to gain them as customers. 
Also significant is the fact that upper and middle class whites in the 
Upper South are beginning to call upper class Negroes by these titles. b 

* In a small city I found tlie greatest difficulties in locating the principal of the Negro 
high school, whom I wanted to see (let us call him Mr. Jim Smith). The white people I 
asked had never heard about a Negro with that name and did not seem to know even where 
the Negro high school was. When I finally found him and told him about the difficulties 
I had met, he inquired: "Whom did you ask for?" I answered: "Mr. Jim Smith." He laughed 
and told me: "You should have asked for Trofessor Smith' or just for 'Jim' — sure, every- 
body knows me in this town." 

* They are more inclined to use the titles of "Mr.," "Mrs.," and "Miss" for Negroes in 
private than in public. There is a deep and admittedly irrational aversion to using these 
titles*on the part of some upper class whites. An educated Negro in a Southern Negro univer- 
sity was approached by an upper class white lady during the depression to ask for another 
Negro by his first name (let us call him Sam) who had charge of dispensing emergency 
relief for Negroes in the locality. Her interlocutor replied, "Sam who?" She did not know 
his last name and said, "You know who I mean, the nigger who sits at this desk and gives 
out the emergency relief. I want some relief for some of my niggers," Her interlocutor, 
wanting to tease her, went on : "Do you mean Mr. So-and-so or Mr. So-and-so," hoping to 



612 An American Dilemma 

Another aspect of the form of conversation between Negroes and whites 
is the rule that a Negro must never contradict the white man nor mention 
a delicate subject directly. That is, a good part of the Negro's conversation 
must be circumlocutory rather than direct. This is much less common now 
than formerly, but it has not disappeared. The tone of the conversation 
also was formerly fixed and still remains so to a certain extent: the Negro 
was to use deferential tones and words; 18 the white man was to use 
condescending tones and words. If the white man became angry or violent 
in his speech, the Negro could not reciprocate. 

The apparent purpose of this etiquette of conversation is the same as that 
of all the etiquette of race relations. It is to provide a continual demonstra- 
tion that the Negro is inferior to the white man and "recognizes" his 
inferiority. This serves not only to flatter the ego of the white man, but 
also to keep the Negro from real participation in the white man's social 
life. Conversation with other people is the principal way to participate in 
the lives of those people, to understand each other completely. In the 
North, the caste etiquette of conversation does not exist. That is, whites do 
not expect it. When Southern Negroes act it out they usually embarrass 
the average Northerner more than they please him. Where Negroes and 
whites meet socially on the same class level in the North (which they do 
relatively seldom because of residential and institutional segregation) they 
actually may come to understand one another. Southern whites have a myth 
that they "know" their Negroes. This is largely incorrect, and in their 
franker moments white Southerners will admit that they feel that Negroes 
are hiding something from them. They cannot know Negroes as they know 
other human beings because in all their contacts Negroes must, or feel they 
must, pose in a framework of etiquette. "What the white southern people 
see who 'know their Negroes' is the role that they have forced the Negro 
to accept, his caste role." 14 The racial etiquette is a most potent device for 
bringing persons together physically and having them cooperate for 
economic ends, while at the same time separating them completely on a 
social and personal level. 

Closely allied to the forms of speech are the forms of bodily action when 
whites and Negroes appear before one another. For a Negro to sit down in 
the same room with a white person is not taboo, but it may be done usually 

get her to say "mister" in designating a colored person. She finally broke down in tears and 
said, "Ob, please give me some relief for my niggers," but she refused to "mister" anybody. 
Robert R. Moton, the late principal of Tuakegee, cites the case of "a distinguished Epis- 
copal clergyman, a friend of mine and by everyone recognized as a friend of the race, 
[who] used to say that he always felt like laughing whenever he heard the principal 
of Hampton Institute, where he was a frequent visitor, refer to a coloured man as 'Mr.' To 
Mm, he said, it sounded just like saying 'Mr. Mule': it seemed no less ridiculous," (What 
tk* Ntgro Thinks [1929], p. 195.) 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 613 

only at the request of the white person. Since the invitation is often not 
extended, it frequently happens that Negroes are standing in the presence 
of whites, even those who are of the same or lower socio-economic status 
as themselves. In conferences and public places, Negroes sit down without 
invitation, but there is usually segregation: Negroes will sit at one end of the 
conference table, or in the rear of or on one side of a courtroom, or in the 
balcony or gallery of a theater which they are permitted to enter. In the 
North, Negroes, when they are allowed to enter, take seats much in the 
same manner that whites do. Whatever segregation in seating there is in the 
North would seem to have a voluntary or class basis rather than a strict caste 
basis as in the South. Many theaters in the North, however, refuse to let 
a Negro enter, or, if they are in a state with a civil rights law, they try to 
6nd some excuse to make him stay away voluntarily. Where seats are 
reserved, the management will often try to sell seats to Negroes in a special 
section. Changing seats on the part of individual whites also will sometimes 
isolate Negroes in a Northern theater. 

In general, the American is a great and indiscriminate hand-shaker. 
The ceremony is to him a symbol of friendliness and basic human equality. 
The partial taboo against shaking hands with Negroes is, therefore, signifi- 
cant. Formerly there was practically no hand-shaking between members of 
the two races except for that occurring when a Negro house servant would 
greet his returning master. The taboo is much less strong now, but the rela- 
tion — in so far as it exists — is, as we have mentioned, entirely one-sided: 
the white man in the South may offer to shake hands with the Negro, but 
the Negro may not offer his hand to the white man. A white woman prac- 
tically never shakes hands with a Negro man. The greeting of the Negro 
has traditionally been a bow and a removal of the hat. This, too, has 
become much less demanded. While talking, the traditional pattern was for 
the Negro to remain with hat off, with eyes directed on the ground, and 
with foot scraping the ground to "demonstrate" that he was incapable of 
standing and talking like a human being. This pattern, too, has rapidly been 
going into discard. 

If he had to come into a white man's house, the rule was, and still is in 
most parts of the South, that the Negro must enter by the rear door. Since 
Negroes could plan this activity in advance they often avoided it by avoid- 
ing the need to talk to a white man in his house (by deliberately waiting 
until he came out to the street, or by going to his office, or by calling to him 
from the street or from the front yard). This etiquette form still exists for 
the most part, but many exceptions could be cited. Also, the increase in the 
number of houses without back doors is helping to break down the pattern. 
When a white man enters a Negro's house, he cannot be expected to show 
any signs of respect. He will enter without knocking; he will not remove 
his hat; he will not stand up when a Negro woman enters the room; he 



614 An American Dilemma 

may even insist that the Negro occupants stand in his presence (the old- 
fashioned Negro will not presume to sit down anyway unless asked). 
There is little occasion for a white man to enter a Negro's house: if he 
wants to see a Negro he will send for him or call him on the telephone, 
or drive in his car to his house and blow the horn. White salesmen have 
found that they gained business if they showed Negroes some respect in 
their own homes, so they quite frequently violate the etiquette. a Practi- 
cally nothing of any phase of the etiquette of bodily action, or of that asso- 
ciated with entering the houses of members of the other race, exists in the 
North. 

In an essential and factual sense the cumbersome racial etiquette is 
"un-American." American civilization has received its deepest imprints 
from immigrants from the lower classes in Europe who were not 
much versed in the intricacies and shibboleths of upper class ceremonial 
behavior in the old countries and who often consciously resented them on 
ideological grounds. The equalitarian Revolutionary ethos also endorsed 
simple and unaffected manners. Aristocratic travelers from England and 
other countries during colonial times complained about the Americans not 
caring about social distinctions of birth and breeding. This is part of the 
historical background for the European (and American) myth of the 
Americans as being particularly "materialistic." 18 European observers 
with democratic leanings, from de Tocqueville on, have, on the contrary, 
found the lack of mannerisms of the typical American, his friendly, spon- 
taneous, and equalitarian ways of meeting other human beings, a great 
charm of the new continent. The symbols a culture acquires are no accident 
and no forms are of more intrinsic importance than those of human contacts 
and relations. All these observers have, therefore, related this trait to the 
democratic and Christian ethos of the American Creed. When democratic 
European countries are said to become "Americanized," one of the positive 
elements in this change has commonly been recognized to be the throwing 
off of the inherited class etiquette, which is no longer functional in a modern 
democracy, and the breaking up of class isolation. Against this background, 

* In violating the etiquette of caste, the white salesmen simply follow the normal etiquette 
of the society as a whole. Thus, the term "etiquette" as we have been using it is quite dif- 
ferent from the term as understood by the man in the street, especially when applied to the 
behavior of the white man in the intercaste relation. But the term has a technical sociological 
meaning, and we are using it in this sense. The sociological term refers to all the formalisms 
which accompany interpersonal relations, regardless of whether or not they make for pleasant 
relations and increased mutual respect. But even when used by sociologists the term has 
the popular connotation of being a means of accommodation, and because of this the term 
is not the best one that could be used to describe the formalisms of Negro- white contacts' 
it is bard to see how the deliberate insults of the white man performing the actions required 
by the etiquette add to the "accommodation" of the intercaste relation. 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 615 

the caste etiquette in America stands out as a glaring contradiction. It 
indicates the split in the American's moral personality. 

The entire etiquette of interpersonal relations between Negroes and 
whites in the South is a systematic, integrated structure which serves to 
isolate the two groups from each other and to place the Negro group in an 
inferior social status. It formerly regimented practically every personal 
contact between members of the two races. It is breaking down to a certain 
extent — especially in those relations which are least intimate and most 
removed from the sexual. 10 It seems to be breaking down for two reasons: 
first, some Negroes are rising in class position so that many arc above a good 
proportion of the whites, and class etiquette is chiseling in on caste eti- 
quette j second, modern physical conditions (such as the absence of back 
doors, through which Negroes are supposed to enter whites' houses) prevent 
the full performance of an etiquette which developed under other condi- 
tions. Both of these conditions are more prevalent in the city than in the 
country. Coupled with the generally higher degree of secularization of 
attitudes in the city, they cause the etiquette to be somewhat less rigid in 
the city than in the country. As implied in the first cause of change, the 
etiquette is less rigidly applied to upper class than to lower class Negroes. 
This would not seem to be true, however, where a need was felt to re- 
affirm the caste line: when, for example, a white person of any class (usually 
the lower class) feels that a certain Negro or group of Negroes is getting 
too "uppity." Thus, while in everyday practice the upper class Negro need 
not abase himself in accordance with the full requirements of the etiquette, 
he must never be allowed to consider his privilege as a right. Even so, 
the very existence of the privilege is a sign of change. 

Allied with change in the etiquette is uncertainty in its performance. 
Despite the basic uniformity of the pattern as we have described it, there 
has always been a great deal of local variation in detailed aspects of the eti- 
quette." This local variation per se should not, in most cases, be given too 
great importance in the study of the racial etiquette. The common denomi- 
nator is not a stock of basic specific rules of behavior, but rather their com- 
mon purpose, which is to isolate and subordinate the Negro group. One 
specific ride or another can equally well fill this function. But with increas- 
ing mobility of both Negroes and whites in the South it is becoming dif- 
ficult for Negroes to follow the local requirements, and whites are in many 
cases unclear as to what they should expect or demand. Other influences 
which we have noted as modifying the etiquette also add to the uncertainty 

* This variation has been a result not only of different local traditions, but also oi th.- 
nnmber and proportion of Negroes in the community, and the presence or absence of other 
minority groups. In many Texas communities where there are Negroes, their status is 
raised by reason of their small number and of the presence of a Mexican minority. In 
other Texas communities, prejudice against Negroes is very strong. 



616 An American Dilemma 

of its performance from both Negro and white points of view. While such 
a situation works hardships for individual Negroes — even to the extent of 
causing them to become innocent victims of police or court punishment or 
of mob violence — over a span of years it can be seen as a factor helping to 
break down the etiquette and to raise the status of Negroes in the attitudes 
of whites. Change from this source has occurred in the Border states to a 
greater extent than in the rest of the South. 

Another area of life in which the patterns of segregation and discrimina- 
tion are put under a strain is that in which they come in conflict with 
basically human inclinations. Negroes sometimes appear before whites in 
situations which evolve feelings of pity and sympathy. The inclinations 
of whites in these situations would be to help the Negroes were it not for 
the informal etiquette and formal rules of segregation. Of course, one of 
the effects of segregation and discrimination is to minimize the number of 
situations in which Negroes in desperate need of help appear before whites. 
Too, the etiquette is often so defined as to permit the white person to help 
the Negro. For example, the mistress could always administer any sort 
of bodily assistance to faithful servants who needed it without fear of violat- 
ing the etiquette, whereas normally no white woman could touch a Negro 
man. There have always been situations, however, in which suffering 
Negroes have appeared before whites who were forbidden to help them 
because of the etiquette or formal rules. It is probable that, with the grow- 
ing impersonality of the employer-servant relation and with the increase in 
the number of casual contacts, these situations are increasing in number. 
In such situations, the etiquette or rule is sometimes violated, sometimes 
not. We may cite illustrations of two types of these situations, where the 
etiquette was not violated, in order to bring out more fully the nature of 
the problem: 

The other day I saw a good-looking, modest-appearing, well-dressed, but frail 
colored woman with a child in her arms attempt to board a street-car. She was about 
to fail. The conductor started to help her, then looked at the other passengers and 
desisted. His face was a study. Prejudice wonj but it vvas a Pyrrhic victory. 17 

When I was working as a truant officer I was bitten by a dog. I went to a private 
physician. I had to go to the head of the welfare department (F.E.R.A.). The white 
woman in charge was very nice. She was as nice as white people can be. She sent me 
to the hospital. When I got there I had to wait a long time, and then I was sent to 
a white intern. He took me in a little room on one side. It looked like a storeroom. 
He told me to sit down and said that he wanted to look at my leg. My leg had a 
bandage on it, and the tape was stuck to the skin. He started tearing the bandage off. 
1 asked him if he didn't have some ether to loosen the bandage with, and he said 
he didn't have any and that he could get it off without getting any. I was in this 
■nail room with the door shut. After he got the bandage off he refused to give me 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 617 

the Pasteur treatment. I got up and walked out. He followed me and called me 
everything but a child of God. He certainly did scare me. It is against the law to 
refuse the Pasteur treatment, but I never got it. 18 

Whether the rule or etiquette will be broken will obviously depend on 
the nature of the situation, on the presence or absence of white spectators 
and on the personality of the white man. A study of the effects on the white 
man's attitudes toward the etiquette and toward his own behavior would 
shed a great deal of light both on the nature of the etiquette and on human 
nature. Negroes seldom meet the problem since they are supposed to 
render assistance to whites under almost all circumstances. This fact only 
increases their bitterness when whites fail to reciprocate. There are certain 
situations, however, in which Negroes have the choice of refusing to aid 
a white person in need because they can avoid doing so without fear of 
detection. Such a revenge situation provides a subject for study parallel 
to that mentioned for whites. Even apart from the revenge motive, a 
Southern Negro, who is passing through territory where he is not known, 
has good reasons not to stop and offer his services, as he never knows what 
might come of it in the end. If the white person is a woman, he would be 
taking a considerable risk in offering to help her. 

Conditions are sufficiently different in the North to lead us to regard 
the pattern of segregation and discrimination in interpersonal relations as 
having a different basis. It certainly does not cover the whole gamut of 
interpersonal relations but is spotty: it restricts marriage, but does not for- 
bid itj it restricts dancing and swimming together but not eating and 
drinking together; it does not affect speech and body actions during speech. 
The Northern pattern could hardly be called an etiquette because it does not 
require that Negroes act in a special way toward whites or that whites act 
in a special way toward Negroes. Rather it takes the form of institu- 
tionalizing and rendering impersonal a limited number of types of segre- 
gation: Negroes are requested not to use bathing beaches reserved for 
whites; Negroes are requested not to patronize certain dance halls, hotels, 
and restaurants, and things are made unpleasant for them if they do. 
There is no organized force to stop intermarriage in most Northern states 
— whether legal or illegal. The pressure against intermarriage is simply, 
but effectively, the unorganized one of public opinion. Too, there seems to 
be little connection in motivation between the types of relations in which 
there is segregation and discrimination. It would seem much more reason- 
able in the North than in the South to accept the belief that Negroes are 
dirty as the main reason why they are not liked on the same bathing 
beaches. This belief is more natural for Northerners, since there is quite a 
bit of physical touch contact between Negroes and whites in the South and 
little in the North. Southerners tie up the bathing prohibition to the 
sexual prohibition — which Northerners less frequently do. Economic rea 



6i8 An American Dilemma 

sons seem to be important ones for demanding housing segregation in the 
North and are also more freely expressed, while in the South economic 
considerations are subordinated to, and all the specific segregations ration- 
alized by, the closely interwoven theory of social equality. 

For the most part, the etiquette of interpersonal relations between the 
races does not exist in law. In the South there are laws to segregate Negroes 
in institutions and to restrict interpersonal relations, but there are no laws 
to govern the behavior of Negroes and whites meeting on the street or in 
the house. The etiquette is enforced, however, to an extent by the police 
and the courts in the South as well as by public opinion and physical 
violence: policemen in the South consider the racial etiquette as an extension 
of the law, and the courts recognize "disturbance of the peace" as having 
almost unlimited scope." The main sanctions are those of individual or group 
opinion and violence. Deprived of police and court protection, and usually 
dependent economically on white opinion, the Negro cannot take the risk 
of violating the etiquette. 

3. Housing Segregation 

If sexual segregation, or rather the concern about "race purity," is basic 
to most other forms of segregation psychologically — in so far as it gives 
them a main rationalization and an emotional halo which they otherwise 
should not have — residential segregation is basic in a mechanical sense. It 
exerts its influence in an indirect and impersonal way: because Negro people 
do not live near white people, they cannot — even if they otherwise would 
— associate with each other in the many activities founded on common 
neighborhood. Residential segregation also often becomes reflected in uni- 
racial schools, hospitals and other institutions. It is relatively more impor- 
tant in the North than in the South, since laws and etiquette to isolate 
whites from Negroes are prevalent in the South but practically absent from 
the North, and therefore institutional segregation in the North often has 
only residential segregation to rest upon. For this reason, we shall empha- 
size the Northern situation in this section. 

Housing segregation necessarily involves discrimination, if not supple- 
mented by large-scale intelligent planning in the housing field of which 
America has as yet seen practically nothing. Housing segregation represents 
a deviation from free competition in the market for apartments and houses 
and curtails the supply available for Negroes. It creates an "artificial scar- 
city" whenever Negroes need more residences, due to raised economic 
standards or increased numbers of the Negro population. It further permits 
any prejudice on the part of public officials to be freely vented on Negroes 
without hurting whites. This last mentioned discriminating factor is more 

'See 1 Chapter 25, Section 1. 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 619 

potent in the South than in the North, where race prejudice is less solidified 
and where Negroes have the vote. It is in Southern cities that Negroes 
receive few neighborhood facilities, such as paved streets, adequate sewage 
disposal, street lights, and so on. Rapid increases in the Negro population 
are much more prevalent in Northern cities, and residential segregation — 
by its curtailment of housing supply available for Negroes — prevents a 
proportional rise in housing facilities. In some neighborhoods of Northern 
cities housing conditions for Negroes are actually as bad as, or worse than, 
Southern ones.* 

The available statistics refer directly to the actual concentration of 
Negroes in certain areas of a city and not to segregation in the sense of 
forced concentration. A sample study of 64 cities 18 in 1930 showed that 
84.8 per cent of the blocks were occupied exclusively by whites. On the 
other hand, only 4.9 per cent of the blocks were completely occupied by 
nonwhite persons, some of whom were not Negroes. The percentage of 
blocks containing both whites and nonwhites was 10.3 — over twice as large 
as the percentage of blocks having no whites. A large part of this lack of 
complete concentration is due to the fact that the data refer to entire 
blocks and not to individual houses. In many mixed blocks Negroes arc 
concentrated in the backyards. Even so, we should not take it for granted 
that the concentration of Negroes is complete. 20 Most of the mixed areas, 
however, are cases of whites living in "Negro areas" and not of Negroes 
living in "white areas." 

Residential concentration tends to be determined by three main factors: 
poverty preventing individuals from paying for anything more than the 
cheapest housing accommodation; ethnic attachment; segregation enforced 
by white people. Even in the absence of enforced segregation Negroes 
would not be evenly distributed in every city because as a group they are 
much poorer than urban whites. This applies with particular strength to the 
masses of Northern Negroes who are newly arrived from the South. 
Negroes would also be likely to cluster together for convenience and mutual 
protection. In the North this is again particularly true of Southern-born 
Negroes who have been brought up in a strict ethnic isolation enforced by 
the Jim Crow laws and the racial etiquette in the South. The three causal 
factors are closely interrelated. Even if initially the tendency on the part 
of whites to enforce segregation on Negroes was but slight, the actual con- 
centration of a growing population consisting of poor uneducated Negroes 

* See Chapter 16, Section 6. The discussion in this section will refer to cities. The residence 
of Negro tenants, sharecroppers, and farm laborers is controlled by the farm owners, who 
usually keep their Negroes separate from their whites when they have them both on the same 
land. Segregation operates on Negro farm owners in much the same way as it operates on 
city Negroes — they are seldom allowed to buy the more desirable land or land surrounded 
by white-owned property. (See Chapter n, Section 6.) 



6ao An American Dilemma 

in the slum sections would soon call forth more active intentions on the 
part of the whites to force segregation upon this group. These tendencies 
would become strongest in the middle and upper class areas. Generally it 
is true both in the South and in the North that segregation as a factor in 
concentrating the Negro population is a pattern that is most characteristic 
of higher class areas and is much weaker or totally absent in slum areas. 
Neither actual concentration nor segregation proper is restricted to Negroes. 
All the various national groups of immigrants have, for reasons of economy 
and ethnic cohesion, formed "colonies" in the poorer sections of Northern 
American cities. As long as they were poor and strange in language and 
other cultural traits, this concentration has been strengthened by segrega- 
tion on the part of the older Americans. If this factor has not been noticed 
so much, the reason is not only that the first two factors were usually 
sufficient as causes, but also that the situation did not become permanent. 
For when the members of a national group become so "assimilated" that 
they no longer regard members of their ancestral group as closer than 
persons of the dominant group in the society — when they feel themselves 
to be more American than Italian, Polish, or Czech — they tend to disre- 
gard ethnic affiliation in seeking a residence and to pay more attention to 
their personal needs and their ability to pay rent. Within two or three 
generations, it has usually been the practice for families which stemmed 
from a certain section of Europe to forget about their ethnic background 
in seeking residences and to have the means of paying higher rents in 
almost the same proportion as Old Americans. 

Negroes meet greater difficulties in rising economically, educationally and 
socially. But even apart from this, they are kept as aliens permanently. 
Otherwise Negroes who live in a Southern community and whose 
ancestors have been living there for several generations would no longer 
be living together, apart from the whites. Northern Negroes would 
similarly be expected to be distributed throughout Northern cities, rather 
than forced to remain in the Black Belts, if they were treated as members 
of ethnic groups from Europe are treated. Negroes who migrated from the 
South to the North in the last twenty-five years would be expected to live 
together because they arc poor and because they feel less out of place among 
their own kind. But they would also be beginning to disperse themselves 
throughout the white population if it were not for segregation. Only 
Orientals and possibly Mexicans among all separate ethnic groups have as 
much segregation as Negroes. 21 

From this point of view residential segregation may be defined as resi- 
dential concentration which, even though it were voluntary at the beginning 
or caused by "economic necessity," has been forced upon the group from 
outside: the Negro individual is not allowed to move out of a "Negro" 
neighborhood. The question whether the average Negro "wants" to live 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 621 

among his own kind then becomes largely an academic one, as we have no 
means of ascertaining what he would want if he were free to choose. In 
this sense practically all the statistically observed Negro housing concen- 
tration is, in essence, forced segregation, independent of the factors which 
have brought it about. 

Southern whites do not want Negroes to be completely isolated from 
them: they derive many advantages from their proximity. Negroes, on their 
side, are usually dependent on whites for their economic livelihood, directly 
or indirectly. For these reasons, there are few all-Negro towns or villages 
in the South, and whites have never seriously endorsed the back-to-Africa 
and Kansas movements. 22 In some Southern cities, especially in the older 
ones, Negroes usually live in side streets or along alleys back of the 
residences of whites and sometimes in rear rooms of the whites' homes 
themselves— a practice surviving from slavery, when the slaves lived in 
shacks in the rear of the master's house. In such cases there is also segrega- 
tion, but the segregation is based on what we may term "ceremonial" dis- 
tance rather than spatial distance. Ceremonial distance occurs in Northern 
cities, too, when Negro servants live in or near the white employer's home." 
In Northern cities, when Negroes were a small element in the population 
in numbers and in proportion and when they were practically all servants 
in the homes of wealthy whites (as they still are in many Northern cities 
outside of the largest ones), they also lived scattered throughout the city 
near the residences of their employers. 

If, however, a Southern city received most of its Negro population 
after the Civil War, and if a Northern city has a large number of Negroes, 
such a city will tend to have large areas in which Negroes live separated 
in space from the whites. In other words, there are roughly two patterns 
of housing segregation in cities: one is found in Northern cities where there 
are few Negroes and in old Southern cities where the successors of local 
slaves make up the bulk of the Negro population; there Negroes live in 
practically all parts of the city but x>nly along certain poorer streets or 
alleys. The other is found in Northern cities with a fairly large Negro 
population and in Southern cities where the proportionate bulk of the 
Negroes has come in since the Civil Warj there Negroes live in a limited 
number of distinct Black Belts. This is a rather gross classification of types 
of residential segregation in cities: both patterns are to be found in the same 
city — and there are many variations. 23 In fact, as Woofter says: 

' Ceremonial distance is regularly called into existence to preserve spatial segregation on 
the borderline between white and Negro neighborhoods. It becomes especially apparent when 
the accidents of city growth have brought wealthy white neighborhoods in close physical 
proximity to poor Negro neighborhoods. For example, New York's Harlem is adjacent to 
the Columbia University area and Chicago's small Near North Side Negro community 
is within a block or two of the Gold Coast. 



622 An American Dilemma 

Each city has a pattern of its own determined by the percentage of Negroes in 
the total [population], the distribution of Negro employment, the distribution of 
the areas where property is within the means of colored families, the attitude of the 
people toward segregation, and the rate of expansion of business and manufacturing 
sections. 8 * 

The geography of a city also helps determine the pattern of segregation. 
In a flat city like Chicago, which expanded in practically all directions from 
a single center, Negroes are concentrated in the slums around the central 
business district and their better class neighborhood stretches out like a 
spoke from this slum base. 25 In a hilly city like Cincinnati, Negroes are 
concentrated in the lowlands. In a long, narrow city like New York, 
Negroes tend to live in a section of the strip, and the transportation lines 
go right through the Negro section. This latter variation should not lead 
us to believe that there is no segregation in such a narrow city as Man- 
hattan, although some Negroes would like to believe that there is none. 
Claude McKay is in error when he says: 

Segregation is a very unfortunate word. It has done much harm to the colored 
group by paralyzing constructive thinking and action. Not by the greatest flight of 
the imagination could Negro Harlem be considered as a segregated area. Besides the 
large percentage of whites who do business there, quite a number of them also 
reside there in the midst of the colored people. Harlem is more like a depressed 
area. In my last book I compared it to the servant quarters of a great estate. The 
servants live on a lower level. But they arc not segregated. 20 

To depict more clearly the character of residential segregation in Ameri- 
can cities, Appendix 7 describes the pattern of Negro residences in 
selected cities. 

4. Sanctions for Residential Segregation 

Probably the chief force maintaining residential segregation of Negroes 
has been informal social pressure from the whites. Few white property 
owners in white neighborhoods woulcl ever consider selling or renting to 
Negroes j and even if a few Negro families did succeed in getting a foot- 
hold," they would be made to feel the spontaneous hatred of the whites 
both socially and physically. The main reason why informal social pressure 
has not always been effective in preventing Negroes from moving into a 
white neighborhood has been the tremendous need of Negroes to move 

"The first foothold of Negroes in a white neighborhood is often achieved by accident: 
1 piece of property is deeded to an absentee landlord who has no interest in the neighbor- 
hood) a white real estate agent wishes to make the large profit involved in selling to 
wrassed Negroes 1 one of the local whit* residents may not be morally integrated into the 
wighborhood (the strategic 3500 block on fashionable Grand Boulevard in Chicago was 
opposed to have been first opened to Negroes by a white prostitute who wished to retaliate 
m her neighbors for exposing her to the police) , 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 623 

out of their intensely overcrowded ghettos and their willingness to bear a 
great deal of physical and mental punishment to satisfy that need. 

The clash of interests is particularly dramatic in the big cities of the 
North to which Negro immigrants from the South have been streaming 
since the First World War. When white residents of a neighborhood see 
that they cannot remove the few Negro intruders and also see more Negro 
families moving in, they conjure up certain stereotypes of how bad Negro 
neighbors are and move out of the neighborhood with almost panic speed. 
For this reason Negroes arc dangerous for property values," as well as for 
neighborhood business, and all whites are aware of this fact. In describing 
the succession of Negroes down the South Side in Chicago, an informant 
said, "This was not an incoming of the Negroes, so much as an outgoing 
of the whites. If one colored person moved into the neighborhood, the 
rest of the white people immediately moved out." 27 

Such a situation creates a vicious circle, in which race prejudice, economic 
interests, and residential segregation mutually reinforce one another. When 
a few Negro families do come into a white neighborhood, some more white 
families move away. Other Negroes hasten to take their places, because the 
existing Negro neighborhoods arc overcrowded due to segregation. This 
constant movement of Negroes into white neighborhoods makes the bulk 
of the white residents feel that their neighborhood is doomed to be pre- 
dominantly Negro, and they move out — with their attitudes against the 
Negro reinforced. Yet if there were no segregation, this wholesale invasion 
would not have occurred. But because it does occur, scgrcgational attitudes 
are increased, and the vigilant pressure to stall the Negroes at the border- 
line is kept up. b 

Various organized techniques have been used to reinforce the spontaneous 
segregational attitudes and practices of whites in keeping Negro residences 
restricted to certain areas in a city. These include local zoning ordinances, 
restrictive covenants and terrorism. 

The earliest important legal step to enforce segregation was taken in 19 10 
when an ordinance was passed in Baltimore, Maryland, after a Negro family 

* If white property owners in a neighborhood rush to sell their property all at once, 
property values naturally are hurt. After the transition to Negro occupancy is made, 
however, property values rise again at least to the level justified by the aging and lack 
of improvement of the buildings. No statistical study has been made which shows unequivo- 
cally that Negroes pay higher rents for equivalent apartments but this seems to be the 
opinion of all those — including white real estate agents — who have looked into the matter. 
Certain conditions, such as the lowering of rents to white tenants when there is a threat 
of Negro succession and the conversion into smaller apartments to meet the needs ot Negro 
tenants, make it extremely difficult to measure the changes in rent that accompany a shift 
from white to Negro occupancy. (See Chapter 16, Section 6.) 

''Negroes also get into neighborhoods which have deteriorated because industry, crime, 
or vice are moving in. 



624 An American Dilemma 

had moved into what had previously been an all-white block. Many South- 
ern and Border cities followed suit, 28 after state courts upheld zoning 
ordinances. Even after the Louisville ordinance was declared unconstitu- 
tional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 19 17, 29 certain cities 
put into effect other segregative laws designed to get around the decision. 
A more comprehensive and severe denunciation of segregation by law was 
made in the 1927 decision of the Supreme Court in the New Orleans 
case, but even as recently as 1940 the North Carolina State Supreme Court 
had to invalidate a residential segregation ordinance passed in Winston- 
Salem. 

When the courts' opposition to segregation laws passed by public bodies 
became manifest, and there was more migration of Negroes to cities, 
organized activities on the part of the interested whites became more 
widespread. The restrictive covenant — an agreement by property owners 
in a neighborhood not to sell or rent their property to colored people for 
a definite period — has been popular, especially in the North. The exact 
extent of the use of the restrictive covenant has not been ascertained, but: 
"In Chicago, it has been estimated that 80 per cent of the city is covered 
by such agreements . . ." 30 This technique has come up several times for 
court review, but, because of technicalities, the Supreme Court has as yet 
avoided the principal issue of the general legal status of the covenants. 31 
If the Court should follow up its action of declaring all local laws to segre- 
gate Negroes unconstitutional by declaring illegal also the private restrictive 
covenants, segregation in the North would be nearly doomed, and segre- 
gation in the South would be set back slightly. 

In addition to restrictive covenants, neighborhood associations have served 
as organized extra-legal agencies to keep Negro and white residences sepa- 
rated. The devices employed by them range all the way from persuasion 
to bombing. The Washington Park Court Improvement Association in 
Chicago shifted its function from planting shrubbery and cleaning the 
streets to preventing Negroes from getting into the neighborhood, when 
the Black Belt began to expand in the direction of this community. 82 

But in spite of the white vigilance on the frontiers of the Negro districts, 
the line never gets absolutely fixed in all directions. Now and then a small 
break occurs, and the Negro community gains a little more space. Here and 
there some upper class Negroes succeed in moving out to a white neighbor- 
hood without causing a wholesale removal of the whites in the area or in 
building houses on vacant land at the outskirts of cities. If such cities 
expand, it is possible that these few Negroes will find themselves part of a 
large white neighborhood — at least in the North. Meanwhile more South- 
ern Negroes move in and the pressure accumulates behind the main front 
line. The crowded lower class Negro ghetto. remains alongside industry, 
vice and crime centers. 33 Because recent immigrants from Europe, especial lv 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 625 

Italians and Jews, have been less prejudiced — and because they are poor and 
segregated themselves — foreign colonies also become their neighbors. But 
they are isolated from the main body of whites, and mutual ignorance 
helps reinforce segregative attitudes and other forms of race prejudice. 

Opposed to this hypothesis has been the Southerner's theory that 
minimizing contacts means minimizing conflicts. In this particular respect, 
this theory is the less rational in view of the fact that the main distributive 
effect of segregation is to keep the few well-educated upper and middle 
class Negroes out of white neighborhoods. Segregation has little effect on 
the great bulk of poor Negroes except to overcrowd them and increase 
housing costs, since their poverty and common needs would separate them 
voluntarily from the whites, just as any European immigrant group is 
separated. The presence of a small scattering of upper and middle class 
Negroes in a white neighborhood would not cause conflict (unless certain 
whites were deliberately out to make it a cause of conflict), and might serve 
to better race relations. The fact is neglected by the whites that there 
exists a Negro upper and middle class who are searching for decent homes 
and who, if they were not shunned by the whites, would contribute to prop- 
erty values in a neighborhood rather than cause them to deteriorate. The 
socially more serious effect of having segregation, however, is not to force 
this tiny group of middle and upper class Negroes to live among their 
own group, but to lay the Negro masses open to exploitation and to drive 
down their housing standard even below what otherwise would be econom- 
ically possible. 

As pointed out in an earlier chapter," recent government policies have, 
on the whole, served as devices to strengthen and widen rather than to 
mitigate residential segregation. The Federal Housing Administration, in 
effect, extends credit to Negroes only if they build or buy in Negro neigh- 
borhoods and to whites only if they build in white areas which are under 
covenant not to rent or sell to Negroes. This policy of the F.H.A. is the 
more important since it has been an ambition and accomplishment of thi 
agency to make housing credit available to low income groups. The effect, 
has probably been to bring about an extension of such "protection" 
to areas and groups of white people as were earlier without it. The 
United States Housing Authority and its local affiliates are not so 
intentionally restrictive. But they have been forced by public opinion to 
build separate housing projects for whites and Negroes, and even where 
they have mixed projects, they have been forced, in all but one or two 
instances, to keep the Negroes at one end and the whites at the other. 
Negroes have, however, had reasons to be grateful to the U.S.H.A. for 
the relatively large share of low cost housing this agency has given them 

1 See Chapter 15, Section 6. 



6i6 An American Dilemma 

even if it has not been effective in opening up new areas for the congested 
Negro populations in American cities. 

The local government authorities have, for natural reasons— both in the 
South, where the Negroes are numerically strong but disfranchised, and in 
the North, where they have votes but are small minorities — rather sided 
with the white segregationalists. In the big Northern cities that have been 
the goal of the Negro migration northward, they have had the special 
and potent reason that they do not want to encourage more Negro migra- 
tion. This reason — which, of course, in consideration of the Negro vote, 
has not often been announced openly, though, as the author has observed, 
it is freely admitted in conversation — has had a fateful influence on social 
policy generally. Even administrators, who on general principles have 
deplored the standards of public service in the Negro slums, have been 
inhibited from going in wholeheartedly for reform. They must tell them- 
selves that even without reform the Negroes arc much better off in North- 
ern cities than in the South, and that any improvement is likely to attract 
more Negro migration. This attitude makes them also generally reluctant to 
enter into large-scale planning, and they use their influence to discourage 
even the Negro leaders from considering broad programs for social 
improvement. It is one of the factors which explains why both Negro and 
white leaders and experts in large Northern cities are found to be so barren 
of constructive ideas on policies in so far as Negro problems are concerned.* 

This also explains why, in practice and often in discussion, the only two 
alternatives have been segregation and free competition. It must be empha- 
sized that segregation can be "positive" or "negative." The average individ- 
ual white's attitude is, of course, only negative: he wants to be "protected" 
from Negro neighbors. 1 * But as long as the Negro population in a city is 
increasing — or even if it were stationary but the Negro group for some 
reason, such as higher income or an increased proportion of persons of mar- 
riageable age, were in need of more housing facilities — it is an irrational and, 
indeed, impossible policy in the long run only to "protect" white areas 
against Negro intrusion. The result will be "doubling up," scandalous 
housing conditions for Negroes, destroyed home life, mounting juvenile 
delinquency, and other indications of social pathology which are bound to 
have their contagious influence upon adjoining white areas. And inevitably 
the Negros will finally break through somehow and in some degree — this 

* There is another problem after areas for Negro housing- have been attained. This is the 
problem of finding capital to invest in such housing. (See Chapter 16 and Appendix 7.) 

' In the opinion poll taken for this inquiry by Fortune magazine, from 77 to 87 per 
Cent of the informants in various regions of America expressed themselves in favor of 
residential segregation of Negroes, based either on legislation or on social pressures. Only 
10 to 19 per cent were against segregation. (See: Eugene L. Horowitz, "Race Attitudes," 
Table. XX, in Otto Klineberg [editor], Characteristics of the American Negro, prcnared for 
this study) to be published.) 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 627 

eventual Negro invasion of white areas must actually be considered to be 
an insufficient "self-healing" which in Northern cities takes the place ot 
intelligent political action. The impossible situation which prevails js 
being studied in excellent "ecological" research — a branch of social science 
and a direction of scientific interest which is itself a by-product of big cities' 
being allowed to grow without any plan. But in the practical field there is 
great lack of courage and interest. It must be stressed that if white people 
insist on segregation — and if society is assumed not to tolerate a socially 
costly sub-standard housing for Negroes — the logical conclusion is that, 
in a flanned and orderly way, either areas of old housing now inhabited 
by whites or vacant land must be made available for Negroes. The F.H.A. 
has tended to tighten the present impossible situation. The U.S.H.A. has 
not been in a position to change it. The local city authorities avoid going 
into the problem. And the Negroes themselves are inarticulate and void 
of constructive ideas. 

It seems of urgent importance that residential segregation and all the 
connected problems of Negro housing become the object of scientific 
research with more practical vision than hitherto. The general structure of 
this complex of problems is clear-cut and ready for social engineering. 
There is material available for the detailed statistical analysis needed for 
local planning. The field of conflicting and converging interests is easily 
mapped in every community. The strategic time for this planning work is 
now. After the War a great increase in private and public building is likely, 
since housing construction has been moribund for several years, and popular 
needs seemed about to cause a building boom when the War started and 
diverted the construction industries' efforts into the field of defense hous- 
ing. Also, the War will leave in its wake a tremendous need for public 
works and private investment to prevent a new and more devasting world 
depression. To be maximally useful this housing boom should be planned 
in advance." And it would be prudent not to overlook segregation and the 
abominable housing conditions for Negroes. Gross inequality in this field 
is not only a matter for democratic American conscience, but it is also 
expensive in the end. 

5. The General Character of Institutional Segregation 

While there is much segregation of Negroes in the North in public 
facilities and private commercial establishments — a segregation which we 
term "institutional," for convenience, to distinguish it from both personal 
and residential segregation — there is a tremendous difference between the 
North and the South in this form of segregation. The difference arises cut 
of two facts. 

'The National Resources Planning Board is now planning for post-war housing con- 
struction as a public works program. 



628 An American Dilemma 

One is that institutional segregation in the South is supported and, 
indeed, inspired by an elaborate racial etiquette and a clearly perceived 
popular theory of "no social equality." The etiquette is, as we have shown, 
for the most part entirely lacking in the North, while the theory of "no 
social equality" is perceived only vaguely and is not invested with the same 
deadly seriousness as in the South. For this reason institutional segregation 
fits in more "naturally" in the South, while in the North it is constantly 
challenging other elements of popular ideologies and customs. The North 
is more secularized in its way of thinking, and life is more anonymous. It 
is to a greater degree bent upon technical efficiency, which means that the 
economic irrationality of institutional segregation, when it does occur, is 
likely to appear more striking. This last mentioned point becomes the more 
important since the North, being more law-abiding and having to take the 
Negro vote into consideration, will usually have to carry on segregation 
without much financial compensation from discrimination. The second 
great cause of difference is that in the South institutional segregation is in 
the laws of the states and of the local communities and thus allows for 
few individual exceptions. In the North institutional segregation, arising 
out of personal distaste for Negroes and as a consequence of residential 
segregation, is entirely extra-legal and often illegal. 

Every Southern state and most Border states have structures of state laws 
and municipal regulations which prohibit Negroes from using the same 
schools, libraries, parks, playgrounds, railroad cars, railroad stations, sections 
of streetcars and buses, hotels, restaurants and other facilities as do the 
whites." In the South there are, in addition, a number of sanctions other 
than the law for enforcing institutional segregation as well as etiquette. 
Officials frequently take it upon themselves to force Negroes into a certain 
action when they have no authority to do so. The inability of Negroes to get 
justice in the courts extends the powers of the police in the use of physical 
force. Beating and other forms of physical violence may be perpetrated by 
almost any white man without much fear of legal reprisal . b Equally impor- 
tant sanctions are the organized threat and the risk of Negroes getting the 
reputation of being "bad" or "uppity," which makes precarious all future 
relations with whites. The Negro's reliance on the tolerance of the white 
community for his economic livelihood and physical security makes these 
threats especially potent. 

As long as the Supreme Court upholds the principle established in its 
decision in 1883 to declare the federal civil rights legislation void, the Jim 

' See Chapter 28, Section 9. For a survey of these lavs and of the extent of the variations 
in law and judicial procedure in these matters, the reader is referred to Charles S. Manfrum's 
recent book, The Legal Status of the Negro (1940). 

b See Part VI. 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 629 

Crow laws are to be considered constitutional. It is a notorious fact, how- 
ever, that institutional segregation as it is actually practiced is the basis for 
gross discrimination, and this is unconstitutional. To prove discrimination 
before a court is always difficult, and such judicial procedures are expen- 
sive and can hardly be undertaken by private individuals. The Negro 
defense organizations, and primarily the National Association for the 
Advancement of Colored People, because of their limited funds — and 
also because they do not wish to call forth a new revolutionary move- 
ment in the South — have restricted themselves to attacks on selected 
strategic points. In the legal situation described, and particularly since the 
Supreme Court in recent years has become increasingly prepared to observe 
the intent of the Reconstruction Amendments, the defenders of the legal 
rights of Negroes go from victory to victory." 

It is often maintained— even by Negro intellectuals — that the fight for 
the Negroes' civil rights and against discrimination in institutional segre- 
gation is doomed to be fruitless, as the inequalities have much deeper 
roots and are upheld by other sanctions than law. This criticism, however, 
overlooks several points. The courts in the Southern states want to have 
their decisions upheld and the state authorities want to have their policies 
covered by law as far as possible. It is noticeable everywhere in the South 
that even the threat of legal action puts a certain restraint on institutional 
discrimination. And court decisions are increasingly exposing the Southern 
statutes backing the system of institutional segregation as unconstitutional. 
This system is thus gradually losing its legal sanctions and increasingly 
defending upon extra-legal or illegal sanctions. The parallel with dis- 
franchisement should be observed. 1 ' 

The dilemma of Southern whites in this field is accentuated by the fact 
that segregation, which is the proclaimed purpose of the Jim Crow legis- 
lation, is financially possible and, indeed, a device of economy only as long 
as it is combined with substantial discrimination. If institutional segregation 
should have to be made constitutional in practice — that is, by giving truly 
equal though separate facilities to both groups — it would in most cases turn 
out to be financially ruinous. Under the onslaught of legal action, which we 
shall have to expect to increase rather than to abate, and in the general 
trend toward legality which is visible in the South, this fundamental 
dilemma will become increasingly exposed and the stability of the entire 
system of institutional segregation will be gradually undermined. A factor 
which, on the contrary, works toward stabilizing the Southern Jim Crow 
system is the increasing amount of vested interest which the higher strata of 
the Negro community are acquiring in its preservation. The dilemma of 
the Negro business and professional class is that the segregation they are 

* See Chapter 39. 

b See Chapter 23, Section <. 



630 An American Dilemma 

fighting against affords them the monopolistic basis of their economic 
existence." 

In the North the Jim Crow laws are absent. In addition, eighteen states 
have civil rights acts roughly similar to the kind which the federal govern- 
ment was prohibited from having by decision of the Supreme Court in 
1883.°* These laws are not rigorously enforced, and there are all sorts of 
ways of getting around them. But their very existence makes institutional 
segregation a qualitatively different problem in the North than in the South, 
and the scope of these laws is continually being increased. 85 Physical vio- 
lence, organized threats, giving Negroes a bad reputation, extensions of 
police and court powers and laws are, further, seldom used in the North as 
sanctions in enforcing institutional segregation . b The main sanctions of 
institutional segregation in the North are individual protest and refusal 
to serve. The individual protester or refuser may be a white store or organ- 
ization manager, a white customer, or even — at some risk of legal reprisal 
— a white public official. These sanctions are much weaker than any others 
used in the South. 

Yet there is institutional segregation in the North, and its effects are 
far from negligible. Many institutions — such as schools, parks, playgrounds, 
stores, theaters, other places of amusement — have a community basis, and 
residential segregation is, therefore, an effective means of getting separate 
units for Negroes. Sometimes certain devices are employed artificially to 
increase the separating power of residential segregation. School boundaries, 
for example, are usually set at the boundary of the white and Negro 
neighborhoods: if a white child lives in a "Negro school district," he is 
readily given a permit to go to another school; if a Negro child lives in 
a "white school district," he is encouraged and sometimes coerced into 
going to a Negro school. Residential segregation is the main cause of insti- 
tutional segregation also in other public facilities where it sometimes occurs, 
at hospitals, clinics, relief agencies, and so on, in the North. 

In private facilities and organizations, however, there is the important 
added control of the manager's or group's desires. In states where there is 
no civil rights law, a manager of any private organization, commercial 
or noncommercial, can simply refuse to serve Negroes and may even put 
up a sign to that effect. In states where there are civil rights laws, no man- 
ager or employee may refuse to Negroes, theoretically, the service that he 

*See Chapter 38, Section 10. A Southern white liberal pointed out to me that until com- 
paratively recently Charleston, South Carolina, had employed white teachers in the Negro 
schools. He taw in this practice, in such places where the tradition from the ante-bellum 
South had been preserved, an example of white people helping the Negroes to rise. When 
I later visited Charleston, the Negroes related to me, as their main success in their fight to 
protect their interests, that they had succeeded in driving out the white teachers from the 
Negro schools and in giving these jobs to Negroes. 

11 See Chapter 24. 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 631 

would offer to white persons. Actually, many stores, hotels, and other 
establishments refuse service to Negroes without excuse unless someone 
asks the police or courts to take action. Occasionally they even have signs 
up: "Whites Only." Even when the police and courts take action, the 
practice may be kept up, since the fine is usually small and the probability 
of being called before the law a second time also is small. Much more 
frequently employed than a direct violation of the law are the indirect 
devices of discouraging the Negro from seeking service in these establish- 
ments; by letting him wait indefinitely for service, by telling him that there 
is no food left in the restaurant or rooms left in the hotel, by giving him 
dirty or inedible food, by charging him unconscionable prices, by insulting 
him verbally, and by dozens of other ways of keeping facilities from him 
without violating the letter of the law. 30 

In addition to residential segregation and managerial refusal of services 
as techniques of effecting institutional segregation in the North, there are 
other means that should be mentioned. A voluntary organization, whether 
for civic, religious, political, economic, or associational purposes, will most 
often simply not invite Negroes to membership, even though they meet all 
other requirements. No state attempts to restrict the membership or service 
policies of voluntary associations. Even semi-public associations in Northern 
states with civil rights laws — such as the American Red Cross, the United 
Service Organizations, charities, universities 37 — grossly discriminate against 
Negroes. A fourth device is for individual whites to insult or stare at 
Negroes in restaurants or other public places where the management does 
not restrict service to them. 

This all leads to a fifth, and equally important, cause of segregation: vol- 
untary withdrawal of Negroes into their own group. This cause operates in 
the South, too. It is impossible to draw the line between voluntary with- 
drawal and forced segregation, and the latter is practically always con- 
tributory to the former, indirectly if not directly. The effects — in terms of 
cultural isolation and lack of equality of opportunity — are the same. In fact, 
the voluntary withdrawal often goes further than the demand for segre- 
gation on the part of the whites. Many Negroes in the upper and middle 
classes make it a policy to abstain as far as possible from utilizing the 
Southern Jim Crow set-ups in theaters, transportation, and the like, or 
from entering places in the North where they know that they are not 
welcome. 

Institutional segregation and discrimination in the Border states is 
roughly between that of the North and that of the South. In some things, 
the Border is closer to the South and in others it is more like the North. 
In a few things, the Border is even harsher than the South: "In Baltimore 
and Washington, D. C, for example, there is more rigid segregation and 
rejection of Negro patronage in the large department stores than anywhere 



6$2 Ah American Dilemma 

in the South." 88 In Washington the theaters for whites are completely 
closed to Negroes, but libraries, public buildings and parks are open.* 9 
The Border states have fewer restrictive laws than the Southern states but 
do not have the general civil rights laws found in the North. Still, there are 
a few laws both to restrict association and to prohibit discrimination, and 
even more laws making these things optional. According to Charles S. 
Johnson: "It is frequently necessary to be more explicit regarding segre- 
gatory intent [in the Border states] than in the South." 40 Still there is 
probably more confusion about the behavior required and more rapid break- 
down of the various types of segregation and discrimination. But confusion 
and breakdown exist in other regions of the country also. The rules are com- 
plicated, and they vary locally even when they are kept stable in time. 
All Negroes point to this fact, some to argue the irrationality of the 
segregation system, others to explain how difficult it is for the Negro to 
find his way through the Jim Crow jungle. 

6. Segregation in Specific Tvpes of Institutions 

It is in government-owned institutions that legal segregation is most 
complete in the South. One of the most inclusive definitions of the South — 
including all the Border states and some localities in such Northern states 
as Indiana and New Jersey — is that based on legal segregation in schools. 
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have two complete sets of 
elementary and secondary schools as part of state law. With the exception 
of the District of Columbia, nearly every community in these states has a 
substantial amount of discrimination coupled with segregation in the provi- 
sion of education for Negroes. The buildings and equipment are inferior; 
in rural areas most of the schools are not run during the planting or har- 
vesting seasons; the teachers get a lower rate of pay; 4 Negroes have little 
control over their school; 41 many common academic subjects are not offered 
in the secondary schools in order" to prevent Negroes from getting anything 
but a low grade vocational training." 

For higher education, Negroes are still worse off. Some of the Southern 
states support small Negro colleges — never comparable in facilities and 
personnel with even the average Southern state university. Other Southern 
states help to support privately run Negro colleges if these colleges agree 
to accept Negro students of that state at low tuition rates. Since many of 
these colleges do not have graduate departments, some of the state govern- 
ments have paid tuition fees at any university in the United States for 
Negro students who wish to pursue certain studies provided for whites 
but not for Negroes by the state. Not only is it hard to obtain this out-of- 

*See Chapter 14, Section 4. At the present time (winter, 1941-1942) Negro teachers 
in. states a£ the Upper South, are waging successful court battles to get equal pay. 
*See Chapter 41. 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 633 

state support, but Negro students are faced sometimes with the dilemma 
of whether to fight for their right to enter the state university or to seek 
the advantages of the superior Northern universities. In the recent (Decem- 
ber, 1938) case of Lloyd Gaitivs v. the University of Missouri, the United 
States Supreme Court decided that a Negro could insist upon entrance into 
a regular state university if no separate but equal university were provided 
for Negroes by that state. 42 

There is little school segregation required by law in the Northern and 
Western states: Arizona requires it in elementary schools and makes it 
permissive in secondary schools} 43 Kansas, Wyoming, Indiana, and New 
Mexico make school segregation permissive in the elementary grades and 
sometimes also in the secondary grades. 44 Some communities in the south- 
ern parts of New Jersey, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois use 
organized pressure contrary to law to segregate Negroes in at least the 
elementary grades. 48 In practically all other areas of the North there is 
partial segregation on a voluntary basis, caused by residential segregation 
aided by the gerrymandering of school districts and the system of "per- 
mits." This segregation is fairly complete for elementary schools, except 
where Negroes form only a small proportion of the population, but there 
is much less segregation in secondary schools. In few cases — if any — is this 
segregation accompanied by discrimination, however, except that form of 
discrimination which inevitably arises out of isolation. In fact there is 
probably more discrimination in the mixed schools than in the segregated 
ones in the North: frequently Negroes in mixed schools are kept out of 
swimming, dancing, and other athletics, and out of social clubs. There are, 
however, some Negro teachers in mixed schools in many Northern cities, 
and Negroes sit on the boards of education in a few big Northern cities. 

No Northern state university prohibits the ; enrollment of Negroes, 
although a few practice minor forms of discrimination once they are 
enrolled. This is often a matter of individual prejudice rather than of 
official policy. Private universities in the North restrict Negroes in rough 
inverse relation to their excellence: the great universities — Harvard, 
Chicago, Columbia, and so on, restrict Negroes to no significant extent, 
if at all. A few exceptions exist: Princeton University, for example, has no 
Negro students, but this university has Southern traditions. Most of the 
minor private universities and colleges prohibit or restrict Negroes. Some 
of these permit the entrance of a few token Negroes, probably to demon- 
strate a racial liberalism they do not feel. Four or five Northern colleges 
or universities, outside the Negro ones, have a Negro on their instructional 
staff. 46 That there is no serious restriction on higher education for Negroes 
in the North is shown by the fact that there are only four Negro colleges 
in all the 30 non-Southern states, and two of these were started before 
the Civil War. 



6J4 An American Dilemma 

Most other public facilities— such as libraries, parte, pJaygrounds— are 

available to Negroes with about the same amount of discrimination and 
segregation, in the various regions of the country, as in schools. Negroes 
are not permitted to use these in the South unless they are acting in z 
servant capacity. Many Southern cities have separate parks, playgrounds, 
and Jibraries for Negroes, but in all cases they are poor substitutes for 
those available to whites. In a few cities in the Upper South Negroes are 
allowed to enter some of the general parks. In a few Southern cities, such 
as Nashville and Richmond, upper class Negroes are allowed to use the 
white library if they sit at a special table or in a special room. Interlibrary 
loans from the white to the Negro library also improve the situation in 
some cities. 47 In the North there is no segregation or discrimination in the 
use of these facilities, except that created by residential segregation and 
the unfriendliness of a relatively few white officials and members of the 
public. 

Segregation of Negroes in jails, penitentiaries, reformatories, insane 
asylums, follows the same pattern found for schools and other public 
facilities, except that there is somewhat more segregation in the North in 
this respect than in others, and practically no exceptions to the segregational 
pattern in the South. When the institution has as its primary importance, 
not to protect white society, but to be of service to the Negro individual 
or community — as in the case of asylums for the insane and feeble-minded 
or specialized institutions for juvenile delinquents — many Southern states 
and localities do not have a Negro unit at all. 48 Charles S. Mangum 
comments on this last point: "This is one of the most flagrant violations 
of the spirit of the constitutional guarantee of equal treatment by the 
states discovered in this investigation." 40 

Negroes may enter public buildings in the South as well as in the North, 
but in the South the rules are that they must not loiter, must remove their 
hats, must not expect service until all whites have been accommodated 
(with the exception of many post offices and other buildings owned by the 
federal government), must sit in rear or side seats in most courtrooms, and 
in general must follow the etiquette most cautiously. Of all the institutions 
run by the government, public bathing beaches, pools and bath houses 
have the most complete segregation. 

The pattern of segregation found in privately run public services is in 
the South often less rigid than in those operated by government. This 
differential — not great — occurs because businessmen are more solicitous 
about Negro customers than local governments are about Negro citizens. 
A good part of the segregation and discrimination that does occur in such 
facilities as railroad trains, railroad waiting rooms and ticket offices, street- 
cars, buses and taxicabs occurs because the law requires it. The law compels 
the transportation companies to bear the extra costs of maintaining two sets 



Chapter at). Social Segregation and Discrimination 635 

of facilities. This becomes the more expensive as many Negroes avoid Jim 
Crow facilities by using their own cars 30 or walking. On the other hand, h 
is notorious that the companies— with a few exceptions— save money by 
giving Negroes inferior service for equal charge. While white opinion 
would no doubt force these companies to maintain segregated facilities, 
there would be many exceptions and a slow trend toward a breakdown of 
segregation if there were no laws to keep the pattern rigid. This inference 
may be drawn from observation of segregation practices in privately run 
stores where there are no laws to prohibit or to segregate Negro customers. 

Oklahoma and all the former slaveholding states, with the exception of 
Delaware, Missouri, and West Virginia, have laws requiring separation of 
whites and Negroes on railways operated in their jurisdiction. 51 Delaware 
has a law making it optional for railroad companies to Jim Crow, and a 
Missouri state court has upheld the validity of a railway's regulation direct- 
ing a separation of the races on its coaches. 52 Although these laws could 
not be meant to apply to a Negro who was merely crossing the state with- 
out stopping in it, since such a law would be clearly unconstitutional even 
if the intra-state Jim Crow law would not, in practice it applies to such 
Negroes also. The conductors are given police power to enforce these 
statutes. Certain types of exceptions are commonly made: for nurses, 
police officers, railway employees. Sometimes the segregation is mainly 
ceremonial: Negroes may enter Alabama in Pullman cars but are given 
"Lower 13" (the drawing room in a Pullman with 12 sets of berths). 58 
All the Southern states having railway Jim Crow laws, except Alabama, 
Kentucky, and Maryland, also require separate accommodations on street 
railways. ' In those three states, the practice of Jim Crowing is left up 
to the streetcar companies: it is universal in Alabama, but does not occur 
in the Border states. It is a common observation that the Jim Crow car is 
resented more bitterly among Negroes than most other forms of segrega- 
tion. In the North there is practically no segregation in public carriers. 

Segregation is practically complete in the South for hotels and restau- 
rants, places of amusement 8 and cemeteries. b The same is true of churches." 
Many hospitals in the South receive Negro as well as white patients, but 
they are segregated; the Negro wards are mostly inadequate and inferior, 

'Negroes are excluded from swimming pools, dance halls, skating rinks, pool parlors and 
bowling alleys patronized by whites. In theaters and assembly halls, where they are not 
excluded, they are segregated and usually given pooier seats. 

* Before the Civil War it was not uncommon for Negro servants to be buried in the white 
family's plot. With the development of a new taboo in respect to mixed cemeteries, cases 
have occurred where Negro bones have been dug up and replaced in Negro cemeteries by 
white men. (Johnson, Patterns of Negro Segregation, p. 1 70.) 

' In the ante-bellum South slaves often went to the churches of their masters. The 
exclusion on the part of the whites met a movement on the part of the Negroes to develop 
their own churches. Today the separation is complete. (See Chapter 40.) 



636 Am American Dilemma 

and Negro doctors are not allowed to treat their patients there.' In the 
North the patterns vary a good deal. In all states where there are civil 
rights laws, hotels, restaurants, and amusement places are theoretically 
open to Negroes on equal terms with whites. In the states without such 
legislation, courts usually uphold the rights of proprietors to prohibit or 
segregate as they please. 55 In practice the higher priced establishments 
attempt to keep out Negroes all over the North, and the difference is not 
great in this respect between the South and the North, except for the 
presence of etiquette in the South. The low and moderate priced places 
probably most often accept Negro customers. Northern white churches do 
not prohibit Negroes, or even segregate them, but traditional adherence 
and residential segregation effectively keep Negroes practically separated 
in their own churches. Cemeteries are usually segregated even in the 
North. 66 The Y.M.CA.'s ordinarily segregate Negroes even in the North, 
a main reason being that they are usually equipped with swimming pools ; 
the Y.W.CA.'s seem to show a tendency to be more liberal. There are 
separate hospitals for Negroes also in the North, and the hospitals which 
serve both races sometimes segregate Negroes but, on the average, the 
discrimination involved is slighter. In the North, Negro doctors are fre- 
quently given a chance to follow up their Negro cases in the hospitals. 

As noted in Chapter 13 and Appendix 6, segregation in factories is usual 
throughout the South. It is not a matter of law in most cases, however, 
but is put into effect by the factory owners. If Negroes are allowed in an 
industry at all, they will usually be put either in a separate building or in 
a separate part of the regular factory building. The practice of giving 
Negroes only the hardest and least desirable jobs facilitates segregation. 
In most factories in the South, Negroes are required to use separate toilets 
and drinking fountains. Occasionally these things are put into law: a South 
Carolina law requires segregation in the cotton textile factories with respect 
to entrances, pay ticket windows, stairways, lavatories, toilets and drinking 
utensils. 87 

In the ordinary commercial establishments the variation is tremendous, 
since there are indefinite numbers of combinations of types and degrees of 
segregation in this field. 68 Only a few Southern communities have com- 
plete segregation for every commercial establishment, 1 " just as only a few 
Northern communities have absolutely no segregation or discrimination. 
The situation is constantly changing in both North and South and is subject 
to a great variety of personal, customary and legal factors. It is reported 
from many localities, particularly in the South, that during the depression 

"See Chapter 7, Section 5. 

' Some Southern towns, especially in Texas, do not permit any Negro to spend over 24 
hours within the town limits. Miami, Florida, and perhaps a few other Southern cities have 
laws forbidding Negroes tcr buy or to work outside the Negro district. 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 637 

the competition for customers made store managers inclined to change 
their policy to greater compliance toward at least upper class Negroes. 5 * 
There are possibly significant differences in the segregation patterns found 
for two distinct types of establishments — say, banks and department stores 
— but without detailed information we shall not risk saying that there 
definitely are. 

We may generalize thus far, however: for each community there would 
seem to be less discrimination and segregation where the service is less 
personal and requires least manifestation of personality. Barbershops and 
beauty parlors will both in the North and in the South be most completely 
segregated. Stores for clothing will discriminate more than hardware 
stores. Gas stations will be least segregated; both in the South and in the 
North the rule is that the customer is to be served without regard to his 
color, but often with some regard to the quality or make of his car. 
Discrimination has many degrees: sometimes it will appear only in the 
way in which customers are served. Clothing stores, for example, may 
refuse to sell to Negroes, may have separate sections for them, may sell to 
them as to whites but refuse to let them try on clothing, may let them try 
on clothing if they keep the clothing from their bodies (for example, 
cloth over head before trying on hat) or may not discriminate at all. As 
a general conclusion, we can state that there is a good deal of difference 
between the North and the South in the discrimination practices of com- 
mercial establishments, but less here than in most other fields. The lack 
of laws, the impersonal nature of the relationship, and the profits to be 
made by commercial establishments if they cater to Negroes, all tend to 
weaken the patterns in the South. The present author has observed cities 
in the Deep South where the ordinary department store apparently discrim- 
inates less than in the North. 

The prohibitions and restrictions on the Negro in the use of privately 
run establishments take two major directions: discrimination, and separate 
establishments for Negroes. There arc usually not enough persons or 
wealth in the Negro community to provide Negroes with some of the more 
expensive services that are available to whites. This is especially true of 
theaters, concert halls, lecture halls and dance halls. When Negroes are 
permitted to go to these in the South — and seldom are they permitted to 
go to the best ones — they must occupy inferior sections, such as balconies. 
Segregated sections — whether of trains or of theaters — arc commonly 
frequented by white men who often come there to engage in activities 
they would not dare to do in white sections (as, for instance, drinking or 
playing cards). The Negro sections usually have inferior equipment and 
are poorly cared for. In white stores where he may be served, the Negro 
customer is handicapped by not being allowed to try on clothing, by not 
being permitted to exchange any merchandise and by not being given the 



638 An American Dilemma 

full services ordinarily volunteered by clerks. Too, in the South there is 
the abasing etiquette which is only slightly modified when the Negro is a 
customer. For all these reasons, Negroes are inclined to patronize estab- 
lishments devoted exclusively to them. 

These may be owned and operated by Negroes or by white men — Jews 
especially, in the North — but are seldom patronized by whites except those 
seeking unusual pleasures. Most Negro communities — except the smallest 
ones — now have the whole gamut of commercial establishments which 
cater to persons of low income. This is a relatively recent achievement in 
most cities, since Negroes had little capital to open businesses and Southern 
whites regarded with disgust any white man who served Negroes exclu- 
sively. Negroes of middle and high income are still under great handicaps 
except in the largest cities. For amusements they have often turned to 
social clubs rather than to commercial establishments, and they are in- 
clined to stay at the home of a friend while traveling rather than to 
patronize the cheap restaurants and hotels which in larger cities are 
available to them. Thus, on the one hand, discrimination has helped to 
build up a separate Negro community j on the other hand, it has been an 
outcome of enforced segregation on the part of the whites. While there is 
less segregation and discrimination against upper class Negroes than against 
lower class Negroes, the former have isolated themselves more. 

The services of white professional men have always been available to 
Negroes. There are relatively few Negro doctors, lawyers, dentists, phar- 
macists, nurses, and there are handicaps on the few there are: a Negro 
lawyer has little chance in a Southern courtroom, and a Negro doctor can- 
not get into most hospitals to operate." Philanthropic organizations often 
refuse to hire Negro professionals to serve the members of their own 
group. Negro professionals are further handicapped by a low reputation 
in the Negro community. There is much more use of Negro professionals 
by Negroes in the North than in the South. But everywhere, white pro- 
fessionals are used more frequently by Negroes. Some white professionals 
refuse to serve Negroes for fear of lowering their prestige, but probably 
the majority will serve Negroes who can afford to pay their fee. There is 
one semi-professional service which is unique in that only Negroes serve 
Negroes: this is the undertaking service. The live Negro body may be 
handled by the white physician, but the dead one is handled only by the 
Negro undertaker. This is as much, or more, in accordance with desires 
of Negroes as of whites. Undertaking is consequently one of the most 
lucrative businesses open to Negroes. 11 

Voluntary associations — civic, social, business, and professional — almost 

■See Chapter 14, Sections 6 and 7. A few Negro doctors — mainly in the North but a!«o 
occasionally in the South-— have a significant number of white clients. 
" See Chapter 14, Section 2. 



Chapter 29. Social Segregation and Discrimination 639 

always prohibit Negro members in the South and sometimes even in the 
North, unless the association is concerned with some phase of the Negro 
problem. They simply refuse to invite Negroes to membership or to 
admit them when they apply for membership, whether by formal policy 
or by informal ad hoc action of the membership committee. Sometimes 
national organizations — dominated by Northerners — would be willing to 
admit Negroes but are prevented by their Southern minorities. The only 
types of groups that almost consistently take in Negroes without restriction 
are the scientific or other intellectual societies. 00 The professional associa- 
tions, such as the state bar and medical societies, usually admit Negro 
members in the North but not in the South; the national organizations 
are built upon this compromise, where membership depends upon the 
policy of the local unit. 

The position of trade unions has been dealt with earlier in this book; 1 
it is still true that most of them exclude or segregate Negroes. 

Because of their exclusion from the various associations, Negroes have 
formed their own associations. Every Negro community is abundantly 
supplied with social and fraternal organizations, and nearly every city has 
its Negro businessmen's group. Negro professionals have formed national 
associations which usually take the name National (Medical, Bar) Asso- 
ciation in contradistinction to the white American (Medical, Bar) Associa- 
tion. Negro clergymen also are excluded from organizations of their white 
co-professionals, and in reacting have sometimes gone so far as to form 
new denominations. While the white groups lose a little of the strength 
which they might get by admitting all qualified persons, regardless of 
race, Negroes are materially hurt by not getting the advantages of mem- 
bership in these bodies. 

'Sec Chapter tS, Section 3. 



CHAPTER 30 

EFFECTS OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY 



1. The Incidence of Social Inequality 

The "function" — and in any case the effect — of the social mechanism 
discussed in the preceding chapter is to isolate the Negroes and to assign 
them to a lower social status. From this point of view, most of the minor 
variations in place and time are of little social significance. Significant only 
are those variations in the patterns which denote real differences in the 
degree of inferior status conferred. We have noticed such differences in 
relation to regions and social classes. But we have also noticed the "common 
denominator." Being a Negro involves — everywhere in America, and 
independent of social class — having an inferior status. 

The Southern courts generally take judicial notice of the lower social 
status of Negroes by sentencing as defamation the act of insinuating a 
white person to be a Negro. 1 Stephenson quotes a South Carolina court 
as arguing: 

When we think of the radical distinction subsisting between the white man and 
the black man, it must be apparent that to impute the condition of the Negro to a 
white man would affect his [the white man's] social status, and, in case anyone 
publish a white man to be a Negro, it would not only be galling to his pride, but 
would tend to interfere seriously with the social relation of the white man with hia 
fellow white men. . . ? 

When Northern courts do not follow this practice, it does not mean that 
it is not at all injurious to a white person in the North to be called a Negro, 
but it indicates primarily that social inequality is not a matter of public 
policy in the North as it is in the South. 

The lower social status of the Negro represents, apparently, a gain to 
the whites. Besides the direct deprivation it imposes on the Negro, it indi- 
rectly hampers his ambitions in spheres of life other than the purely 
"social." Whereas it was appropriate to center the discussion of the causa- 
tion of segregation and discrimination around the attitudes of the whites, 
who enforce the system, it is expedient, when we now proceed to investigate 
the results of it, to view them as they affect the Negro people. 

'No responsible Negro leader ever accepted social discrimination or gave 
up the* demand for ultimate full equality. Booker T. Washington — the 

64.0 



Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality 64.1 

great conciliatory leader of his people in its relation with white society 
during the period of grim reaction after Reconstruction — made it a point 
to obserye scrupulously the customs of the South and always avoided 
offending the prejudices of the white Southerners in so far as was possible. 8 
In his speeches and books he sometimes went far in his diplomacy. He not 
only formally accepted segregation and implicitly the entire racial etiquette, 
but presented excuses for much more than that. He pressed hard only for 
his most urgent demands. 11 But in principle he never gave up the Negro 
protest against social discrimination. His last article, published posthu- 
mously in 191 5, "My View of Segregation Laws," brought out clearly 
that he saw that there were limits to the extent to which Negroes could 
accept segregation. It concluded with the following statement: 

Summarizing the matter in the large, segregation is ill-advised because: 

1. It is unjust. 

2. It invites other unjust measures. 

3. It will not be productive of good, because practically every thoughtful negro 
resents its injustice and doubts its sincerity. Any race adjustment based on 
injustice finally defeats itself. The Civil War is the best illustration of what 
results where it is attempted to make wrong right or seem to be right. 

4. It is unnecessary. 

5. It is inconsistent. The negro is segregated from his white neighbor, but white 
business men are not prevented from doing business in negro neighborhoods. 

6. There has been no case of segregation of negroes in the United States that has 
not widened the breach between the two races. Wherever a form of segregation 
exists it will be found that it has been administered in such a way as to 
embitter the negro and harm more or less the moral fibre of the white man. 
That the negro does not exprebs this constant sense of wrong is no proof that 
he does not feel it. 4 

Robert R. Moton, Washington's successor as a conservative Negro leader 
trusted by the whites, went even further in his appeal for equality, 5 and 
the other outstanding Negro leaders have been outspoken in repudiating 
all social discrimination. 

The Negro protest will be discussed in later chapters. For the moment 
we want to point out an intrinsic difficulty in the makeshift compromise 
with white society in the South, set forth by Washington in his Atlanta 
speech of 1 895 : "In all things purely social we can be separate as the five 
fingers, and yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress." 
Segregation and the racial etiquette mean humiliation and this in itself is 
a severe discrimination. It has psychological effects. Only fifteen years 
after the Atlanta compromise, Archer declared the formula impossible: 

But to imagine it realized in perfection is to imagine an impossibility — almost a 
contradiction in terms. We are, on the one hand, to suppose the negro ambitious, 
'See Chapter 35, Section 3, and Chapter 38, Section 4. 



6^£ An American Dilemma 

progressive, prosperous, and, on the other hand, to imagine him humbly acquiescent 
in his status as a social pariah. The thing is out of the question; such saintlike humil- 
ity has long ceased to form any part of the moral equipment of the American negro. 
The bullet could never be thoroughly encysted; it would always irritate, rankle, 
fester. 6 

If the Negroes were to rise out of illiteracy, economic distress, and so on, 
they would no longer have the psychological basis for keeping themselves 
socially inferior and servile. It is possible that a limited social segregation, 
purified of all elements of discrimination — of the type the Southern white 
liberals have dreamed of — would perhaps solve the problem. But this is 
far beyond present-day practical discussion. 

There is a fundamental flaw in that distinction between what is purely 
social and all the rest of discrimination against Negroes. Social discrimina- 
tion is powerful as a means of keeping the Negroes down in all other 
respects. In reality it is not possible to isolate a sphere of life and call it 
"social." There is, in fact, a "social" angle to all relations. When the 
Negro is disfranchised or kept from public office, the motivation of the 
whites is partly that political activity is "out of place" for Negroes. When 
he is discriminated against in courts or by the police, the justification is 
that he is "inferior" and that he must be "kept in his place." If his citizen- 
ship rights were no longer infringed upon, the Negro's social status would 
immediately rise as well, and — quite apart from state action made possible 
by his political power — much of the psychological basis for social inequality 
would be undermined. The very existence of the heavy mechanism of 
social segregation and discrimination makes inequalities in politics and 
justice more possible and seemingly justifiable on grounds of inferiority. 

The interrelations between social status and economic activity are partic- 
ularly important. Occupations have .numerous social connotations. In the 
first place, they help to give social status. As long as Negroes, solely 
because of their color, are forcibly held in a lower social status, they will 
be shut out from all middle class occupations except in their own segregated 
social world. White nurses, stenographers, bank clerks, and store attendants 
will decline to work with Negroes, especially when the white person is a 
woman and the Negro a man. If social segregation is to be carried out in 
the factories, it will be expensive to the employer since he will have to 
provide special coordinating facilities and separate toilets, washrooms and 
lunchrooms. The same tendencies will work in public employment, in the 
schools, and in the armed forces; the only difference being that in public 
employment the state authority might be made to interfere and enforce 
equality. If a Negro holds any high occupational position, he will seem 
pretentious. 

At the lower end of the occupational scale the tendencies are more 
complicated. It is clear that white workers with a lower and more uncertain 



Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality t>43 

status in the occupational hierarchy may feel not less but more reason to 
object to Negro fellow workers. It is to be expected that the present trend 
of organizational stratification — giving more power over employment 
policy to the agents of the employees and attempting to raise standards of 
responsibility and respectability in all occupations — will tend to squeeze 
out the Negroes. This is not true, however, where they are already firmly 
entrenched, or their equality can be sanctioned by law, or an ideology of 
labor solidarity can be successfully invoked. This is the big question of 
what increasing unionization of labor will mean to the Negroes.* Every- 
where in the labor market the very idea of their social inferiority is one 
of the Negroes' strongest handicaps in the competition for jobs. The 
vicious circle works here, too: the very fact that the masses of Negroes, 
because of economic discrimination — partly caused by social inequality — 
are prevented from entering even the bottom of the occupational hierarchy, 
are paid low wages and, consequently, are poor gives in its turn motivation 
for continued social discrimination. 

The fact that social segregation involves a substantial element of 
discrimination will add its influence to this vicious circle. Negroes are given 
inadequate education, health protection, and hospitalization; they are 
segregated into districts where public services of water provision, sewage 
and garbage removal, street cleaning, street lighting, street paving, police 
protection and everything else is neglected or withheld while vice is often 
allowed. All this must keep the Negro masses inferior and provide reasons 
for further discrimination in politics, justice and breadwinning. 

Under these circumstances there develops also what John M. Mecklin 
calls "the curious dualism in the social conscience or a double standard of 
conduct, one for the white and another for the black," which puts the 
Negro in a still more inferior social position. 7 This is partly the result of 
social segregation and discrimination but, at the same time, it gives justifica- 
tion to the whites for insisting upon their supremacy and for relegating 
the Negroes to a subordinate position. Here again we see the vicious circle 
in operation. It makes the task of the educator and reformer difficult. "As 
long as it is possible for a negro to violate half of the commands of the 
decalogue and still not lose social standing with his group, it is useless to 
hope for material improvement." 8 The ambition of the Negro youth is 
cramped not only by the severe restrictions placed in his way by segrega- 
tion and discrimination, but also by the low expectation from both white 
and Negro society. He is not expected to make good in the same way as 
the white youth. And if he is not extraordinary, he will not expect it him- 
self and will not really put his shoulder to the wheel. 9 

Segregation and discrimination have had material and moral effects or. 

' See Chapter 1 8, Sections 3 and 4. 



644 An American Dilemma 

whites, too. Booker T. Washington's famous remark, that the white man 
could not hold the Negro in the gutter without getting in there himself, 
has been corroborated by many white Southern and Northern observers.* 
Throughout this book we have been forced to notice the low economic, 
. political, legal, and moral standards of Southern whites — kept low because 
of discrimination against Negroes and because of obsession with the Negro 
problem. Even the ambition of Southern whites is stifled partly because, 
without rising far, it is so easy to remain "superior" to the held-down 
Negroes. The Southern whites are tempted to remain on low levels of 
sexual morals, thrift, industriousness, reliability, punctuality, law obser- 
vance and everything else. This mechanism of descending self-adjustment 
in a system of moral double-dealing works also in the field of public affairs. 
There are few popular movements in the South to improve social conditions 
and standards of efficiency and morality partly because of the feeling that 
"we" are so much better than "they" and partly because any attempt at 
improvement is bound to help the Negroes as well as the whites." Most of 
these things are true of the North as well as of the South, though to a 
much smaller extent and for reasons connected with other minority groups 
as well as the Negro. 

One of the effects of social segregation is isolation of Negroes and whites. 
The major effects of isolation are, of course, on Negroes. Contrary to pop- 
ular opinion, however, there are bad effects on whites also, and these are 
increasing as the level of Negro cultural attainment is rising. It is as much 
a misfortune for whites not to have contacts with Negroes of high educa- 
tion and achievement as not to have contacts with other whites of com- 
parable attainment — perhaps more, since such Negroes have a unique range 
of experience. Whether they know it or not, white people are dwarfing 
their minds to a certain extent by avoiding contacts with colored people. 

2. Increasing Isolation 

Against the obstacles of the powerful interlocking system of social, 
judicial, political, and economic inequalities and disabilities, and in spite 
of the desire on the part of the majority of Southern whites that the 
Negroes remain in an inferior social status, and the great indifference and 
ignorance about it all on the part of most Northern whites, the Negroes 

' Next to Washington's, probably the most frequently quoted remark on this matter is that 
of Chancellor Kirkland of Vanderbilt University: 

"In whatever form slavery may be perpetuated, just so far will it put shackles on the 
minds of Southern whites. If we treat the Negro unjustly, we shall practice fraud and 
injustice to earh other. Wc shall necessarily live by the standards of conduct we apply to 
him. This is the eternal curse of wrong and injustice, a curse that abides on the ruler as well 
as the slaves. The South will be free only as it grants freedom." (Quoted from Mark 
Ethridge, "About Will Alexander," The New Rcfublic [September 22, 1941], p. 366.) 

* See* Chapter 10, Section 2. 



Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality 645 

are rising. They are rising most rapidly in the North, but their rate of rise 
in the South is not inconsiderable. It is one of the paradoxes of the Amer- 
ican situation, ultimately due to the split morality of the nation on the 
issue of racial democracy, that this rise of the Negroes to a great extent is 
the result of education and other public efforts, which — solicited by the 
Negro leaders, pushed by a small minority of Southern liberals, and 
assisted by Northern philanthropy — is largely provided by the Southern 
states themselves with the approval of the ordinary Southern whites in 
political power, acting in partial obedience to the American Creed. 

The fundamental character of these efforts and their result have been 
to diffuse American middle class norms to the uneducated and crude 
Southern "folk Negroes," emerging out of the backwardness of slavery. 
Besides education, the persistent forces of industrialization and urbanization 
are having an impact on the Negro. Migration, occupational changes, the 
easy methods of communication, the Negro press, the growth of Negro 
organizations, the radio, the moving pictures, and all other vehicles of 
"modern life" are working upon the minds of Southern Negroes, gradually 
upsetting the older static tradition of compliance and introducing new 
thoughts and presumptions, dissatisfaction and unrest. In so far as the caste 
line remains comparatively fixed, one result of these changes is increasing 
isolation. The spiritual effects of segregation are accumulating with each 
new generation, continuously estranging the two groups. 

One phase of the rise of the Negroes is the formation of a Negro middle 
and upper class. 11 A nucleus of such a class was already forming among free 
Negroes in slavery times. Since then it has been steadily, but slowly, grow- 
ing, partly as a result of segregation itself, which holds down the Negro 
masses but opens petty monopolies for a few. These middle and upper 
class Negroes, who have stepped out of the servant status, live mostly by 
catering to their own people. b Not only have their economic contacts with 
whites been reduced but, because they know they are not liked by whites 
and are likely to feel humiliated in all contacts with them, they avoid 
whites in all other spheres of life. They even avoid, as we have had 
occasion to mention, the segregated set-ups where contact with whites is 
formalized and kept to a minimum. 

It is the present writer's impression that, generally speaking, this tiny 
upper group of the Negro community often lives in a seclusion from white 
society which is simply extraordinary and seldom realized by white people. 
Measured in terms of the number of personal contacts with white people, 
there are Negro doctors, dentists, teachers, preachers, morticians, and 
druggists in the South who might as well be living in a foreign country: 
". . . as the progressive colored people advance, they constantly widen the 

* See Chapter 32. 

* See Chapter 14. 



646 An American Dilemma 

gulf between themselves and their white neighbors. mo Those contacts 
with whites which are unavoidable are becoming increasingly formal and 
impersonal. This means much for the development of Negro personality 
and cultural traits. In the present context it means that white men in all 
classes usually have jew occasions ever to meet a Negro above the servant 
classes} 1 Certain minor exceptions will be discussed presently. 

Parallel to this tendency is the habit of Southern whites to ostracize 
those white persons who work with Negroes in the field of education or 
who in other ways devote themselves to Negro welfare. This pattern was 
built up after the Civil War in animosity against the educational mission- 
aries from the North. The attitudes are now changing in some respects. 
One of the chief accomplishments of the Interracial Commission is to have 
given social respectability among whites to interracial work. But today 
there are no white teachers of Negroes below the college level in the 
South, and there is often a sphere of isolation around the white teachers 
in a Negro college, particularly in the Deep South. The maximum of 
tolerance given them is often to let them alone because "they are living 
with the niggers." More important is the related trend for Negro colleges 
to be manned by an all-Negro staff, which again means a growing separa- 
tion between the two groups on the middle and upper class level. 

From the viewpoint of the popular theory of "no social equality" and 
the goal of preventing "intermarriage," this development must seem 
natural and, indeed, highly desirable. If any Negroes would be able to 
tempt white women to marry them, it would be the educated and econom- 
ically prosperous ones; it is against them that the bars are most necessary 
in the Southern whites' own theory of color caste." Nevertheless, white 
Southerners who have been interested in promoting improved interracial 
relations have, for a long time, been complaining about the fact that the 
"races meet only on the lower plane." 18 On this point there is fundamental 
agreement between Negro and white spokesmen. 18 

The Interracial Commission, various universities, and religious bodies 
have attempted to counteract this tendency by arranging interracial meet- 
ings for representatives of the "best people" of both groups, by teaching 
white youth about Negro progress and by having college students of both 
races meet together. Of even greater importance is the growing number 
of liberal newspapers in the South which make a planned effort to give 
fuller and more sympathetic publicity to the Negro community . b But there 
is doubt in the present writer's mind whether these laudable efforts out- 
weigh the cumulative tendency in the segregation system itself, which 
continuously drives toward greater spiritual isolation between the two 

' See Chapter 28, Section 6. 
* See Chapter 4*1 Section 3. 



Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality 647 

groups. This is a heavy cost for Southern society, and it might create great 
dangers in the future. 14 

The behavior patterns and attitudes of the small Negro middle and 
upper class group are of greatest importance for the whole Negro people 
as they set the standards which arc spread from the pulpit and the teacher's 
desk, by the influential Negro press and through social imitation. As has 
already been suggested, popular education in America is even more essen- 
tially directed oh the dissemination of middle class views and ways of life 
than in most other countries. The cultural rise of the Negro masses means 
their gradual approach to middle class standards. Negro education is now 
segregated in the South nearly to the limit and is, consequently, in the 
hands of this spiritually isolated Negro middle and upper class group. 
White people do not know much about what goes on in Negro schools or 
what is printed in the Negro press. They would be shocked if they knew. 
But more fundamentally, white people are caught in the contradictions of 
their own thinking. The white control of the Negro schools cannot check, 
and cannot be intent upon checking, the spread among Negroes of the 
middle class attitudes leading to Negro social withdrawal. This is what 
the whites have asked for. Racial pride and voluntary isolation is increas- 
ingly becoming the pattern for the whole Negro people. Lower class 
Negro parents now teach their children to keep out of the way of white 
people. 

Meanwhile the old bonds of intimacy between upper class white families 
and their Negro servants have been breaking down. This process started 
immediately after Emancipation but is not yet fully consummated. Con- 
tacts are becoming less personal and intensive, more formal, temporary and 
casual. In so far as Negro professionals increasingly are taking care of the 
souls and the bodies of Negroes generally, the result is not only the 
creation of a culturally isolated Negro middle and upper class but also, on 
the other side of the fence, a new barrier to communication between white 
people and lower class Negroes. 15 In their daily work also Negroes and 
whites have been becoming increasingly separated. The only exception in the 
South to the general trend of increasing separation is the recent coming 
together of Negro and white workers in the new labor unions. 

Voluntary withdrawal is now becoming a habit in all social classes of 
Negroes. 18 It can be observed on the street. It can be seen in the stores. 
Raper describes a general store in the rural South, for example: 

Both races frequent the same store, at the same time, for the same purpose; whites 
and blacks stand together at the counter and buy. Negroes can buy anything, in any 
part of the store, at any time they have the money or credit to secure it. The mem- 
bers of the two races, however, mingle in the store only when they occupy the 
status of prospective purchasers, only when they are moving. 

As soon as the Negroes have finished their buying, they tend to move off to 



648 Am American Dilemma 

themselves. When a Negro goes to sit down at the stove, he just naturally, it seems, 
sits by a member of his own race. Other Negroes drift in and the "Negro side" of 
the stove, which may be any side, reaches two-thirds around; half an hour later, 
the "white tide," may take up two-thirds of the circle. All day long this circle 
around the stove gradually changes its racial complexion, with almost no intermixing 
of the races. The seating is not prearranged, and doubtless the sitters themselves are 
unaware of the typical arrangement, which anyone may observe for himself by 
"hanging around" a store in the rural portions of [a] county. 17 . 

Even the children keep apart. When occasionally they play together — only 
in very young ages and then only in the lower classes — the picture is 
usually one like that observed in Washington, D.C., by E. Franklin 
Frazier: 

The colored children seemed to form a play group within a play group, the 
white children's talk almost all being addressed to other white children. Moreover, 
the colored children seemed to hang back and let the white children take the lead 
during the play. The colored children stood around and watched the white children 
as if admiring them. However, when the number of colored children increased and 
the two groups were about equal in numbers, the colored children showed much 
greater courage in swinging higher and longer on the limb, and much less fear than 
did the white children. ... It is apparent from their overt behavior that the colored 
children hesitated to participate freely in the play group until they had the support 
of larger numbers of their own race. Even then it appears that they did not partici- 
pate individually but rather as a group. Their self-consciousness was indicated not 
only by their initial hesitancy about participating freely in the play but also by their 
attempt to outstrip the white children. 18 

The present writer has made similar observations in all sorts of life 
situations: 

I once visited a progressive prison in the North, one of the very finest institutions 
of its kind I have ever seen. The director pointed out to me that he was most eager 
to avoid every vestige of segregation between white and Negro prisoners. The 
individual cells where they slept during the night were allotted them in the alpha- 
betic order of their names. But when I looked at the prisoners playing ball, the 
picture was one of separate cliques of whites and Negroes. Balls were passed from 
one clique to another but apparently always with minute observance of the color line. 
The director saw my reflection and explained to me that he has now given up 
fighting against the prisoners' self-segregation. He had even allowed the common 
rooms to be divided between the two groups. "The Negroes arc nearly all born in 
the South," he commented. "If I were ignorant about the American race order in 
which they are all brought up, I should believe that this tenacious segregation is in 
their blood, or, at least, that the Negroes are just as eager to withdraw as the whites. 
In a sense they are. But in a deeper sense they are not. It is just social pressure con- 
gealed into habit." 

This all seems to give a confirmation of the Southern white stereotype 
that "Negroes are happiest among themselves." and that by the mass of 



Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality 649 

the Negro people "separation is not looked upon as a hardship but rather 
as a simple, natural fact, which is never questioned."* It is, however, my 
impression that this is a rationalization just as deceptive, and for a similar 
cause, as the belief that Southern Negroes are politically apathetic and do 
not care for suffrage. If they do not bother to try to vote, they have, as we 
found, in most cases good reasons in various sanctions they would meet and 
in the knowledge that elections do not have much importance anyhow 
under the system of the white primary. Likewise the Negroes have good 
reasons to keep to themselves socially, and the habit has grown into a stiff 
pattern. But this isolation is a consequence of segregation and discrimina- 
tion and should not be construed as a cause (except in so far as it is part of 
a vicious circle), and still less as a moral support for the system. On this 
point Negroes are, in general, quite sophisticated. 

The material presented in the American Youth Commission studies 
suggests a most important general observation: there is almost a complete 
lack of reference in the interviews with young Negroes in the South to 
intimate and -personal, friendly relations with white persons or families of 
the type so prevalent in earlier times. For the Negro youth growing up 
today in the Black Belt y both in cities and in the country, this old protective 
master-servant pattern seems to have almost entirely disappeared. What 
still exists of it is felt by the older generation of Negroes and is bound to 
disappear with them. A social process is drawing to its close. A negative 
practical conclusion may be drawn from this observation: in planning for 
future race relations in the South the factor of personal intimacy and 
friendliness between individual whites and Negroes upon the old patri- 
archal principle should be left out entirely as lacking in practical impor- 
tance. If it be deemed desirable to establish more positive human contacts 
in order to mitigate the dangerous accumulating estrangement between the 
two groups, this must be built on another foundation than the master- 
servant relation inherited from slavery. 

In the North the Negroes have always been more isolated from whites. 

' A much more representative statement of the Negro attitude toward segregation is that 
of A. Philip Randolph: "Jim Crow ... is a moral, spiritual and intellectual insult 
to the very soul of the Negro." (Mimeographed address, at Madison Square Garden, New 
York City, June 16, 1942, p. 3.) Du Bois calls attention to what segregation means to the 
Negro in the South: 

"In a world where it means so much to take a man by the hand and sit beside him, to look 
frankly into his eyes and feel his heart beating with red blood; in a world where a social 
cigar or a cup of tea together means more than legislative halls and magazine articles and 
speeches, — one can imagine the consequences of the almost utter absence of such social 
amenities between estranged races, whose separation extends even to parks and street-cars." 
(The Sauls of Black Folk [1903], p. 185.) 

A similar statement is made more recently by a prominent white man, Edwin R. Ernhrer 
(Brown America [19331 first edition, 1931], p. 2x6.) 



650 An American Dilemma 

They have for generations had less of both patriarchal dependence and 
protection. Before the Great Migration accentuated segregation and dis- 
crimination, they had, however, established a place for themselves, in 
many cases not more isolated and subdued than the several immigrant 
groups. Their small numbers, their fairly high educational status, and their 
acceptable manners and personal habits in most places prevented a too 
severe exclusion. The children ordinarily went to the same schools as did 
whites} the grown-ups often belonged to the same churches and other 
organizations and not infrequently visited socially. With the formation of 
Black Belts in the metropolitan cities, isolation grew. In this particular 
respect the conditions of the Negro population in the two regions are 
approaching each other. 

3. Interracial Contacts 

The isolation we are speaking about — caused by all the barriers to con- 
tact involved in etiquette, segregation, and discrimination from the side of 
the whites and in voluntary withdrawal and resentment from the side of 
the Negroes — means a decrease of certain types of contacts between the 
two groups and a distortion of the ones that are left. It is useful here to 
put the reverse question: What contacts do remain? and what is their 
significance for interracial relations? To answer these questions there ought 
to be quantitative studies of the sort we have discussed previously." Since 
no such studies have been made, our observations have to be general, 
tentative, and in the nature of somewhat schematic hypotheses for further 
research. 

Negroes constitute about 10 per cent of the American population, and 
since there has been little 18 attempt to segregate them by region, there is 
naturally some contact. Of course, Negroes have been concentrated — for 
historical reasons — in the South, but there are enough Negroes throughout 
the North and in cities of the -West for their appearance to be commonly 
recognized by the majority of the white inhabitants of these latter areas. 
The patterns of segregation and withdrawal are so effective, however, that 
even where Negroes are a common sight there is actual contact with them 
in practically only three spheres of life: the casual, the economic and the 
criminal. 

By casual contacts we mean all those instances where Negro individuals 
and white individuals see each other but without the condition of recog- 
nizing each other as individuals, or at least for the whites to recognize the 
Negroes as individuals. Casual contacts would thus include passing on the 
street, passing or remaining briefly in the presence of each other in public 
buildings or public vehicles, having visual or auditory contact with each 

'Chapter 29, footnote 1. 



Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality 651 

other by reason of independent relations with common third persons, or 
the like. Such contacts are the most numerous type, except possibly on the 
plantation and in other rural areas where either the Negro or the white 
population forms a small proportion of the total. Casual contacts are 
important in an urban civilization. But they are especially important in 
Negro-white contacts, since they arc only slightly diminished by patterns of 
segregation and discrimination as compared to other types of Negro-white 
contacts. Since the casual contact is one in which the participants have no 
occasion to regard each other as individuals but only as members of a 
group, the main effect of the casual contact would seem to be a strength- 
ening of stereotypes. Negroes, but not whites, have something of an antidote 
for the casual contact in their economic contact with whites. The main effect 
of casual contacts is, therefore, to create and preserve stereotypes of 
Negroes in the minds of the whites. This is not to say that casual contacts 
are the only, or even the most important, cause of stereotypes of Negroes. 
But the impersonality of the comparatively numerous casual contacts allows 
whites to see Negroes as a relatively uniform biological and social type and 
to ignore the great variations that would become apparent if observation 
were more attentive. All Negroes come to look alike to the average white 
person. 

Casual contact between Negroes and whites is probably increasing as 
Negroes — and whites — are becoming more mobile and as the scope of 
Negro activity is becoming broader. Also it has been taking on a slightly 
different character as it enters the urban environment. In a city it is some- 
times impossible to avoid close physical contact. Negroes and whites jostle 
each other unconcernedly on crowded streets, and Negroes have been 
observed to be standing in the white sections of crowded Jim Crow buses. 
The increase of casual contacts in Southern cities is undoubtedly wearing 
away somewhat the strictness of racial etiquette. 

The increased range of casual contacts in recent years is not unrelated 
to the growth of a Negro upper class. This is especially important in the 
North, where there are no laws against Negroes using public facilities. A 
well-mannered Negro dressed in good taste who appears in a restaurant, a 
white church, or a railroad station is likely to weaken unfavorable Negro 
stereotypes rather than to strengthen them. In the South the effect of the 
appearance of the upper class Negro is somewhat more problematical. In 
the long run this will probably have a favorable effect, but in many known 
instances it has led to violence from lower and middle class whites who 
felt that the Negroes were getting too "uppity." The Negro's physical 
appurtenances — that is, his home, store, or automobile — will serve as a 
casual contact in the same manner as his person. 

The effect of increased casual contacts due to increased Negro mobility 
has, thus far and when considered alone, probably hurt the Negro in the 



652 An American Dilemma 

North, even if other advantages for the Negro people as a whole from the 
northward migration have more than compensated for this disadvantage. 
The Northern white man, who formerly felt little prejudice against the 
few Northern Negroes and was inclined to idealize Negroes as part of his 
Civil War heritage, reacted unfavorably when the Great Migration 
brought up thousands of illiterate, dirty, and poor Negroes from the Deep 
South. In Chicago in 1910, for example, a few Negroes were scattered all 
over the city, and they were invited to many ordinary white homes as 
neighbors.* Now Negroes are forced to live in definite sections and prac- 
tically the only white homes they are invited to are those of a few intel- 
lectuals and radicals. 

Unlike casual contacts, economic contacts^ though usually not intimate or 
protracted, are important enough for the whites and Negroes to see one 
another as individuals. In the great majority of economic contacts, whites 
see Negroes as economic inferiors, as when they are servants or other types 
of menial workers. More rarely they meet as economic equals, as when 
Negro and white workers work on the same level or when businessman 
meets businessman or salesman meets customer. Practically never do whites 
see Negroes as their economic superiors. This is due, of course, to the 
striking differential in economic and occupational status of whites and 
Negroes. In contacts arising out of economic relationships, the Negro 
partner is rarely employer, supervisor, skilled worker, merchant, or pro- 
fessional man. An additional reason for this is the fact that Negroes who 
occupy these higher economic positions tend to serve and to employ other 
Negroes. Of course, most whites are vaguely aware that there are Negroes 
in high economic positions. But it is probable that they everywhere under- 
estimate the number of such Negroes, and it is certain that they rarely 
have enough contact with them to know them as individuals. From their 
side, Negroes have economic contacts with whites mainly as superiors and 
occasionally as equals. They thus tend to have their attitudes of inferiority 
and dependence — already in existence because of the slavery tradition — 
reinforced. The same can be said of their attitudes of resentment. 

There is one sphere of economic relationship which is extremely impor- 
tant for several reasons. We refer to the Negro as a personal and domestic 
servant, a position in which he held practically a monopoly in the South 
until the depression of the 1930's, and in which he is numerically important 
in the North. The social importance of this relationship derives mainly 
from the fact that it is very intensive on one side. The Negro maid knows 
the life of her white employer as few white persons know it 5 and the 
Negro janitor and elevator operator knows a great deal of what goes on 

'Gotnell informs us: "Before the Negro migration it was easier for a colored man to be 
elected to a county- wide position [in Chicago] than it has been since." (Harold F. Gosnell, 
Ntgro Politicians [1935], p. 369.) 



Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality 653 

in his building/ In slavery days the house servant learned the culture of 
his white master and — from a position on the top of the Negro class struc- 
ture — transmitted it to the other slaves. Servants no longer have the high- 
est socio-economic status among Negroes, but it can be safely said that 
Negroes know the white world very well, in its private, though not in its 
' public, aspects. 20 

The white employer, on the other hand, does not know the Negro's 
world just because he has Negro servants. The white employer ordinarily 
is interested mainly in getting his servant to work, and his attitude toward 
the servant is, therefore, usually impersonal. We have already commented 
upon the fact that this relationship has in the main lost in intimacy and 
personal friendliness. Even if the white mistress takes an interest in her 
servant's well-being, she seldom gets first-hand acquaintance with the 
Negro's living conditions, and Negroes show an extreme suspicion of 
inquisitive whites, who, even though friendly, have a superior and some- 
times insulting attitude. 21 In the South, there are also the barriers of 
etiquette: when the content of friendliness and mutual feeling of belonging 
is carved out from the system of etiquette, it becomes, to the Negroes, a 
cause for generalized resentment against the whites, and, to the whites, a 
formalization of their power over the Negroes. In both directions the 
etiquette works toward estranging the two groups. Even if, by some rare 
chance, a white employer should really come to know intimately his or 
her Negro servant, he would not thereby come to know the whole wide 
range of Negro life. What often happens in the employer-servant rela- 
tionship is that — depending on the degree of friendliness or appreciation 
of the white employer and the degree of confidence felt by the Negro 
servant — the white man or woman makes an exception of his or her servant 
to the stereotyped conception of the "Negro in general." Similarly, the 
Negro servant might under happy conditions come to regard his or her 
employer as an exception to the general run of mean and exploitative 
white people. Too, the lower and dependent position of the Negro servant 
enhances the white person's belief that "the Negro is all right in his place." 

The contacts between white and Negro workers were formerly of the 
same type. In the trades and handicrafts, the pattern in the South was, and 
is, that the white worker had a Negro helper. In factories the Negro 
workers are usually segregated or, in any case, held to certain jobs. 22 As 
we have pointed out, the mixed trade unions are a new adventure with an 
uncertain future. It is commonly reported that white workers, if they 
become accustomed to working with Negro workers, tend to become less 
prejudiced, and consequently that the Negro workers become less suspi- 

*AU service workers have, in one degree or another, this intimate type of contact with 
those they serve. 



554 An American Dilemma 

cious and resentful/ If, in later stages of the War, necessities in the nature 
of a national emergency should tend to open up new employment possibil- 
ities for Negroes in the war industries, this would probably have perma- 
nently beneficial effects on racial attitudes on both sides of the caste gulf. 
Our general hypothesis is that everything which brings Negro and white 
workers to experience intimate cooperation and fellowship will, on the 
balance, break down race prejudice somewhat and raise Negro status. The 
possibilities for Negroes to rise to the position of skilled workers have, 
therefore, not only economic significance but also a wider social import as 
this will tend to weaken the stereotype of the menial Negro. 

There are other types of economic contacts between Negroes and whites 
in which the members of the two groups are of equal or near-equal status. 
Over a long time span Negro purchasing power has been increasing, b and 
. the number of Negro businessmen who can deal as economic equals with 
whites in a similar position has been rising. The long-run effect of this is 
probably to make more whites realize that some Negroes have as much 
capacity as they, although some whites feel nothing but irritation and 
resentment that can turn into violence at the thought of Negroes rising in 
the economic scale. The effect, as usual, is cumulative: white merchants 
and salesmen in the South are chipping away at the etiquette in order to 
please their Negro customers, and the absence of the etiquette in a social 
relation helps to create a spirit of equality. 

Another sort of economic relationship in which Negroes have a measure 
of near-equality with whites is that in which the Negro is an entertainer 
or artist. The Negro as a musician, actor, dancer, or other type of artist is 
allowed to perform almost freely for a white public in the North — and to 
some extent in the South 8 — in a way that he can in no other economic 
sphere outside of the service occupations. His excellence in these fields — 
cultivated by folk stimulation from earliest childhood and by the realiza- 
tion that other means of earning a living are closed — is recognized. In 
fact, it is even supported by the stereotypes: the Negro must make up for 
an intellectual lack by an emotional richness. Nevertheless, a Negro who 
achieves distinction or popularity in these fields is regarded as an individual, 
and there can be little doubt that he raises the general prestige level of 
the Negro population. What has been said of the entertainment and artistic 

* See Chapter 1 7, Section 7. 

b That is, the average Negro has more money to spend (holding constant the purchasing 
value of the dollar), although his increase has not paralleled that of the average white man. 

* Negro entertainers may appear before white audiences in the South if there is no implica- 
tion of social equality. Individual Negro artists appear before Southern white audiences with- 
out difficulty. All-Negro dance orchestras may play for white dancers. But Negro players are 
not allowed in large white bands. In September, 194.1, the well-known white band leader, 
Artie, Shaw, broke all his Southern engagements because he was not allowed to bring along 
his Negro trumpeter, "Hot Lips" Paige. 



Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality 655 

fields is true also of the athletic field, in which Negroes have achieved 
notable successes.* 

Besides the respectable entertainment fields in which Negroes excel, 
there are the "low-brow" and shady ones. "Black-and-tan" cabarets are 
sought as amusement centers by many levels of urban whites, occasionally 
if not frequently. White cabarets, theaters, and burlesques in the North 
often have the popular attraction of Negro dancers and performers. Negro 
prostitutes are often considered to be especially desirable, in the South as 
well as in the North. More often they compete by underselling white 
prostitutes. The effect on white attitudes toward Negroes of contacts in 
these circumstances is problematical. Probably such contacts serve only to 
strengthen the stereotype that Negroes have wilder passions and that their 
excellence is limited to emotional activities. At most, they increase the 
favorableness of attitudes toward Negroes in individual cases only. 

We mentioned criminal contacts as the third most important field 
of Negro-white relationship. Ordinarily in American societies, as in prac- 
tically all other societies, criminal relationships are minor. The fact that it 
is so important in Negro-white relationships has unique causes and unique 
effects. The actual extent of Negro crime will be discussed in a subsequent 
chapter; 1 * at this point we are interested only in the fact that whites 
believe the Negro to be innately addicted to crime.' The importance of 
Negro crime as a basis of social relations arises not only out of this fact, 
but also out of the fact that Negro crime gets great publicity. Even today 
a large proportion — perhaps a majority — of the news about Negroes that 
appears in the white newspapers of both South and North is about Negro 
crimes. 23 When a Catholic or Jew, Swede or Bulgarian, commits a crime 
that is serious enough to get into the newspapers, it is not usual for his 
religion or nationality to be mentioned. When a Negro commits a news- 
worthy crime, on the other hand, only rarely is an indication of his race 
not prominently displayed. To many white Northerners, this crime news 
is the most important source of information they get about Negroes. To 
white Southerners, the crime news reinforces the stereotypes and sometimes 
serves to unite the white community for collective violence against the 
individual Negro criminal or the local Negro community in general. 

The crime news is unfair to Negroes, on the one hand, in that it em- 
phasizes individual cases instead of statistical proportions (a characteristic 
of all news, but in this case unfair to Negroes because of the racial associa- 
tion with especially disliked crimes) and, on the other hand, in that all 

' See Chapter 44, Section 5, for a discussion of Negro achievements, 

"See Chapter 44, Section 2. 

"This belief is connected with two more basic beliefs: that the Negro cannot control hi* 
passions and so is addicted to crimes against persons; that the Negro has no sense of morals 
and thus is addicted to crimes against property. 



6$6 An American Dilemma 

other aspects of Negro life are neglected in the white press which gives 
the unfavorable crime news an undue weight. Sometimes the white press 
"creates" a Negro crime wave where none actually exists. In the latter part 
of the summer of 1941, Washington, D.C. was disturbed by a Negro 
"rape-and-murder wave," according to white newspapers throughout the 
country. Actually only one Negro was found to be responsible for the 
several crimes. 24 

Crimes against Negroes outside of lynching receive no publicity in the 
white press. Lynching receives a wide but declining publicity, especially 
in the North, and such publicity probably serves to raise Negroes — by 
contrast with Southern whites — in the attitude of Northern whites. 

We have emphasized the most important aspects of the three most im- 
portant spheres of Negro-white contacts — the casual, the economic and the 
criminal. The casual contact is inevitable if Negroes live in the same com- 
munities as do whites; the economic contact is the main reason for not 
wanting to send Negroes back to Africa or to segregate them in an isolated 
region and is, therefore, "inevitable" ; the criminal contact is the result of 
a prejudiced but news-interested society. Besides contacts in the casual, 
economic, and criminal spheres of life, there are a few contacts between 
Negroes and whites in almost every other sphere. Usually they are unim- 
portant numerically, but they may be important in bringing about change. 
The personal relations arising out of Negro activity in science and literature 
are restricted to a small proportion of the white population, whose preju- 
dice — if not already low — is diminished considerably by such contacts. 
Indirectly the effect may be greater. The scientific discoveries of a George 
Washington Carver or the literary product of a Richard Wright will 
achieve nation-wide publicity and acclaim and will affect people as far 
down as the lower middle classes. A second minor field of interracial 
contact of growing importance is that of professional interracial relations. 1 
A third minor type of interracial contact is that between radicals. In the 
main our conclusion is that the lack of personal and intimate contacts 
between members of the two groups is extraordinary. 

4.. The Factor, of Ignorance 

In a sense, this isolation is the result of cultural assimilation itself. 
When the masses of the Negroes found out that they could acquire an 
education and make notable cultural achievements and — even more — 
when they absorbed the white American's ideals of democracy and equality, 

"The work and significance of such organizations as the National Association for the 
Advancement of Colored People, the Urban League, the Commission on Interracial Coopera- 
tion, and the various local or temporary groups of similar purpose will be considered in 
Chapter 39. 



Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality 657 

they came to resent discrimination and felt it necessary to withdraw from 
white society to hold these advantages of America. Lord Bryce observed: 

Stares or serfs who have been bred up to look upon subjection as their natural 
lot bear it as the dispensation of Nature. When they have attained a measure of 
independence, when they speak the tongue and read the books and begin to share 
the ideas of the dominant race, they resent the inferiority, be it legal or social, to 
which they find themselves condemned. Discontent appears and social friction is 
intensified, not only because occasions for it grow more frequent, but because the 
temper of each race is more angry and suspicious. 35 

The paradox is that it is the very absorption of modern American culture 
which is the force driving the Negroes to self-segregation to -preserve self- 
respect. It is, indeed, an impossible proposition to educate the American 
Negroes and at the same time to keep them satisfied with their lower caste 
position. To try to make it possible, the white Americans should, at least, 
have given them a different kind of education. But this has not been pos- 
sible in the face of the American Creed. The attempts to keep the Negroes 
shut out of the wider national and world culture by purposively stamping 
them with a low-grade vocational education for a servant and peasant life 
have never, after Reconstruction, been wholehearted enough" to prevent 
the kindling of unrest and resentment. 

White Southerners are still proud of insisting that they "know the 
Negro," but the observer easily finds out that the actual ignorance about 
the other group is often astonishingly great. The average Southerner 
knows roughly — with many easily detected opportunistic gaps — the history 
of the Negro and the conditions under which Negroes live in the South. 
His lack of knowledge is of the Negro himself as an individual human 
being — of his ambitions and hopes, of his capacities and achievements. He 
zealously cultivates barren half-truths into rigid stereotypes about "the 
Negro race." Because of this pretentious ignorance, and because of the 
etiquette, the white Southerner cannot talk to a Negro as man to man and 
understand him. This, and the habit of living physically near this strange 
and unknown people — and resisting energetically the incorporation of it 
into the total life of the community — breeds among Southern whites a 
strained type of systematic human indifference and callousness. Although 
the Southerner will not admit it, he is beset by guilt-feelings, knowing as 
he does that his attitude toward the Negroes is un-American and un-Chris- 
tian. Hence he needs to dress his systematic ignorance in stereotypes. The 
Southern whites need the sanctioning tradition: "the Negroes we have 
always with us." They need the ceremonial distance to prevent the Ne- 
groes' injuries and sufferings from coming to their attention. W. E. B. Du 
Bois comments bitterly: 

* See Chapter 41. 



658 An American Dilemma 

It » easy for men to discount and misunderstand the suffering or harm done 
othert. Once accustomed to poverty, to the sight of toil and degradation, it easily 
seems normal and natural; once it is hidden beneath a different color of skin, a 
different stature or a different habit of action and speech, and all consciousness of 
inflicting ill disappears. 86 

Under the old master-servant relationship, the white man's "under- 
standing" of the Negro was not great, but with the disappearance of this 
relationship even this small amount of sympathetic knowledge declined. 
What remains is a technique of how to work Negroes and how to keep 
them "in their place," which is not a difficult task for a majority group 
which can dispose of all the social power instruments — economic, legal, 
political, and physical — and has made up its mind to use them for this 
purpose. 27 But insight into the thoughts and feelings of Negroes, their 
social organization and modes of living, their frustrations and ambitions is 
vanishing. Some white Southerners are aware of this fact. Baker reported 
that they were already so thirty years ago: 

I don't know how many Southern people have told me in different ways of how 
extremely difficult it is to get at the real feeling of a Negro, to make him tell what 
goes on in his clubs and churches or in his innumerable societies. 28 

The present author has often met the same revealing curiosity on the part 
of white Southerners. In spite of human curiosity, however, Southerners 
do not really seek to know the Negro or to have intimate contacts with 
him, and consequently their feelings toward Negroes remain hard. 

On their side, Negroes in the South instantaneously become reserved 
and secretive when they are in company with "their own whites." I have 
also witnessed how submissiveness, laughter, and fluent talking — which 
are sometimes displayed by Negroes in accordance with the rural tradition 
of interracial formality — most of the time, in reality, are nothing but a 
mask behind which they conceal their true selves. 29 Robert R. Moton, 
when writing a book on What the Negro Thinks, for white people, con- 
firms the growing seclusiveness of his group. The Negro "seldom tells all 
the truth about such matters," he points out, and adds: "a great deal of it 
may not find its way into this volume." 30 Baker drew the conclusion, after 
observing the Negro's deliberate secretiveness, that this was a major source 
of deteriorating race relations. 

The Negro has long been defensively secretive. Slavery made him that. In the 
past, the instinct was passive and defensive; but with growing education and intel- 
ligent leadership it is rapidly becoming conscious, self-directive and offensive. And 
right there, it seems to me, lies the great cause of the increased strain in the South. 31 

The Northerner also is ignorant about the Negro, but his ignorance is 
less systematic and, therefore, often less deep. As he is ordinarily less 



Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality 659 

inhibited from looking upon the Negro as a normal human being, and as 
his observation of the Negro is not blinded by the etiquette, he is usually 
more cognizant of Negro attitudes and capacities and is more willing to 
lend a sympathetic ear to the Negro's plight. But he is much more igno- 
rant of the conditions which the Negro faces. If the Southerner's whole 
race philosophy and even his kindliest thoughts are insulting to the new 
type of Negro emerging out of the cultural assimilation process, the 
Northerner is likely to insult him out of sheer ignorance. The average 
Northerner does not realize that to call a Negro woman a "Negress" is 
taken as an insult, and he does not understand in what high esteem the 
Negro holds the title "Mr." He does not see the discrimination under 
which the Negroes labor. Not knowing the patterns of violence and of 
laxness of law in the South, the Northerner does not comprehend the full 
reason for the Negroes' pathological bitterness and fear. 

On his side, the Negro is inclined to be suspicious of the Northerner's 
good intentions and to retain in the North the cynical attitude and secre- 
tive manners that he has developed as a camouflage in the Southern race 
warfare. As a servant the Negro goes into middle and upper class homes 
even in the North and acquires a sort of knowledge about white people. 
But this knowledge is distorted, since it covers only the private life of the 
whites and not the public life. Seldom does a Negro know how white 
people on his own level live and think. In part, the Negro's ignorance is 
an effect of exclusion from white society. In part, it is the result of the 
Negro's having different interests and worries. He is preoccupied with 
Negro life and problems, and this makes him a little blind to the general 
American ones. 

Mutual ignorance and the paucity of common interests is a barrier to, 
and a modifier of, social contact between even educated and liberal whites 
and Negroes in the North, even in the extraordinary circles where segre- 
gation and discrimination play no role. I have seen Negro and white social 
scientists together as friends and colleagues. But I know that when their 
minds meet it usually concerns some aspect of the Negro problem. The 
Negro is ordinarily not present — and if he is present, he is a stranger — 
when the whites meet to discuss more general problems. If this is true 
among liberal social scientists, it is still more true among prejudiced people 
in all classes. The Negro is an alien in America, and in a sense this becomes 
the more evident when he steps out of his old role of the servant who 
lives entirely for the comfort of his white superiors. Ignorance and dispar- 
ity of interests, arising out of segregation and discrimination on the part 
of whites, increased by voluntary withdrawal and race pride on the part 
of Negroes, becomes itself an important element increasing and perpetuat- 
ing isolation between the groups. 



66o Atf American Dilemma 

5. Present Dynamics 

Negroes adjust and have to adjust to this situation. They become condi- 
tioned to patterns of behavior which not only permit but call for discrim- 
inatory observance on the part of the whites. The people who live in the 
system of existing relations have to give it a meaning. The Negroes have 
the escape, however, that they can consider the system unjust and irra- 
tional and can explain it in terms of white people's prejudices, material 
interest, moral wrongness and social power. They can avoid contacts and 
in the unavoidable ones have a mental reservation to their servility. It 
becomes to them a sign of education and class to do so and thereby preserve 
their intellectual integrity. Many Negroes succeed in doing this, and their 
number is growing. But the unfortunate whites have to believe in the 
system of segregation and discrimination and to justify it to themselves. 
It cannot be made intelligible and defensible except by false assumptions, 
in which the whites force themselves to believe. 

So the social order perpetuates itself and with it the sentiments and 
beliefs by which it must be expressed. The lower caste may with some 
exertion release themselves intellectually. The higher caste, on the con- 
trary, is enslaved in its prejudices by its short-range interests. Without 
their prejudices, white people would have to choose between cither giving 
up the caste system and taking the resultant social, political, and economic 
losses, or becoming thoroughly cynical and losing their self-respect. The 
whites feel the Negroes' resentment and suspect new attitudes. Formerly, 
the whites got some support for their false prejudices from the Negroes. 
This is becoming less and less true. Now they can hardly claim to "know 
their Negroes" and are forced to admit their ignorance. The social separa- 
tion they asked for is becoming a reality. Thus the tragedy is not only on 
the Negro side. 

But the system is changing, though slowly. Modern knowledge and 
modern industrial conditions make it cumbersome. The South is becoming 
"normalized" and integrated into the national culture. Like every other 
"normal" province, it is beginning to dislike being provincial. The world 
publicity around the Dayton trial, for instance, did much to censor funda- 
mentalism in Southern religion. A great part of the region's peculiarities 
in its racial relations is becoming, even to the Southerner, associated with 
backwardness. The Southerner is beginning to take on an apologetic tone 
when he speaks of his attitude toward the Negro. To insist upon the full 
racial etiquette is beginning to be regarded as affectation. 

The South has long eagerly seized upon every act of prejudice practiced 
against the Negro in the North and, indeed, all other social ills of the 
other region. The visitor finds even the average run of white Southerners 
intensely aware of the bad slum conditions in Northern metropolises and 



Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality 661 

of the North's labor troubles. Even the Southern liberal has the habit of 
never mentioning a fault of the South without mentioning a corresponding 
condition in the North. Many a Northern visitor to the South gets the 
feeling that the South is "still fighting the Civil War." But, as Kelly 
Miller observed, the "you also" argument is never resorted to except in 
palliation of conduct that is felt to be intrinsically indefensible.* 2 

Southerners travel and migrate and are visited by Northerners and 
Europeans. They listen to the radio 33 and read papers, magazines and books 
directed to the wider national audience. Southern writers — in social science, 
politics, and belles-lettres — aspire to national recognition and not only pro- 
vincial applause. The thesis that the region is poor and culturally backward, 
and that this is largely due to the presence of the Negroes and to the 
Southern Negro policy, has been for a long time developed by Southern 
authors. The average Southerner is beginning to feel the need for funda- 
mental reforms. Many Southern newspapers have become liberal. Inter- 
racial work is beginning to be recognized as socially respectable. 

The diffusion of scientific knowledge regarding race cannot be region- 
alized any more effectively than it can be segregated along a color line. 
Racial beliefs are becoming undermined, at least for the younger genera- 
tion in the middle and upper classes. Most of them never reach the printing 
press or the microphone any more, as they are no longer intellectually 
respectable. The educated classes of whites are gradually coming to regard 
those who believe in the Negro's biological inferiority as narrow-minded 
and backward. When a person arrives at the point where he says that he 
knows his views are irrational but that "they are just instinctive" with 
him, he is beginning to retreat from these views. 

The capital N in "Negro" is finding its way into the Southern newspapers 
as it earlier did into books. It is becoming a mark of education in the white 
South to speak of Negroes as "niggras" and not as "niggers" — a com- 
promise pronunciation which still offends the Yankee Negro but is a great 
step from the Southern white man's traditional point of view. In Southern 
newspapers Negro problems and Negro activity even outside crime are 
beginning to be commented upon, not only to draw Negro subscribers, but 
also because these matters are actually found to be of some general com- 
munity interest. Letters from Negroes are not infrequently printed and 
sometimes the content discussed with respect. It would be no great revolu- 
tion, at least not in the Upper South, if a newspaper one morning carried 
a portrait of a distinguished Negro on the front page. In liberal newspapers 
in the Upper South, Negro pictures have already occasionally been printed 
in the back pages. 

The educated, respectable, self-possessed Negro is to the average white 
Southerner not so often as earlier just the "smart nigger" or the "uppity 
nigger." As the South becomes urbanized and some Negroes rise in status, 



66a An American Dilemma 

it is becoming increasingly impracticable and, in some relations, actually 
impossible to bracket all Negroes together and treat them alike. Social 
classes among Negroes are becoming recognized. Titles of respect, the offer 
to shake hands, permission to use the front door and other symbols of 
politeness are more and more presented to certain Negroes who have 
attained social success. 

We must not exaggerate these signs of wear and tear on the Southern 
color bar. "Social equality" is still a terribly important matter in the region. 
But it is not as important as it was a generation ago. One needs only to 
compare the tremendous upheaval in the South when President Theodore 
Roosevelt in the first decade of the twentieth century had Booker T. Wash- 
ington to a luncheon at the White House 34 with the relatively calm irrita- 
tion the white South manifested in the 'thirties when President Franklin 
Roosevelt and his gallant lady did much more radical things. It even 
continued to vote for him. The South is surely changing. 

But the changes themselves elicit race prejudice. From one point of 
view, Robert E. Park is right, of course, in explaining race prejudice as 
"merely an elementary expression of conservatism," as "the resistance of 
the social order to change." When the Negro moves around and improves 
his status, he is bound to stimulate animosity. 35 The white South was — and 
is— annoyed whenever the Negro showed signs of moving out of his 
"place." And the white North definitely became more prejudiced when hun- 
dreds of thousands of crude Southern Negroes moved in. But condi- 
tions for Negroes are improving, Southerners are being jolted out of 
their racial beliefs, and the group of white people interested in doing some- 
thing positive for the Negro has grown. The increase in prejudice due to 
the rise of the Negro is a local and temporary phenomenon in both the 
North and the South. 

The Second World War is bound to influence the trends of prejudice and 
discrimination. At the time of revising this book (August, 1942) it is still 
too early to make a more definite prediction. It would seem though, that 
the War would tend to decrease social discrimination in the North. The 
equalitarian Creed has been made more conscious to the Northerners. Radio 
speeches and newspaper editorials keep on pointing to the inequalities 
inflicted upon the Negroes as a contradiction to the democratic cause for 
which America is fighting. There have been some incidents of racial friction 
in Detroit and other places but, generally speaking, race relations have 
rather improved. In New Jersey and other states the police and the courts 
have become more active in stamping out illegal discrimination in restau- 
rants and other public places. 

In the South, however, reports in the press as well as what we hear 
related by competent .Negro and white observers point to a rising tension 
between the two groups. There seems to be an increased determination on 



Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality 663 

the part of white Southerners to defend unchanged the patterns of segre- 
gation and discrimination. Even some Southern liberals fall in with the 
tendency toward a hardened white opinion. Mark Ethridge, former chair- 
man of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice and editor 
of a liberal Southern newspaper, the Louisville Courier-Journal, declared 
at the Birmingham hearings of the F.E.P.C. in July, 1942, that: 

There is no power in the world — not even in all the mechanized armies of the 
earth, Allied and Axis — which could now force the Southern white people to the 
abandonment of the principle of social segregation. It is a cruel disillusionment, 
bearing the germs of strife and perhaps tragedy, for any of their [the Negroes'] 
leaders to tell them that they can expect it, or that they can exact it as the price of 
their participation in the war. 80 

There has been some friction between Negro soldiers and Southerners, 
and the South's old fear of the armed Negro is rising. 

Much the same thing happened during the First World War. But this 
time the isolation between the two groups is more complete. White people 
in the South know less about Negroes and care less about them. This time 
the Negroes, on their side, are firmer in their protest, even in the South.* 
And this time the North is likely to be more interested in what happens to 
race relations in the South. 

'See Chapter 35, Section 10. 



Part VTII 
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 



CHAPTER 3 I 

CASTE AND CLASS 



i. The Concepts "Caste" and "Class" 

The Emancipation of 1863 stopped the practice of calling the Negroes 
"slaves." For a while "freedmen" and "cx-slaves" were popular terms, 
but it soon became evident that the nation wished to forget the issue which 
tore the country apart. Yet some term had to be found to describe the 
inferior status of the Negro, especially in scientific and literary circles. In 
the literature the term "caste," which was already in use before the Civil 
War, was increasingly employed. 

As alternatives — often as synonyms — for denoting the Negro as a 
separate group in American society and its relationship with other groups, 
the term "race" and sometimes the term "class" have been used. The 
former term, "race," is, as we have shown in Chapter 5, inappropriate in a 
scientific inquiry, since it has biological and genetic connotations which are 
incorrect in this context and which are particularly dangerous as they run 
parallel to widely spread false racial beliefs. The latter term, "class," is 
impractical and confusing in this context since it is generally used to refer 
to a nonrigid status group from which an individual member can rise or 
fall. There is a class stratification within each of the two groups. When 
used also to indicate the difference between the Negro and white groups, 
the term "class" is liable to blur a significant distinction between the two 
types of social differences. The recently introduced terms "minority group" 
and "minority status," 1 arc also impractical as we have pointed out in 
Chapter 3, since they fail to make a distinction between the temporary social 
disabilities of recent white immigrants and the permanent disabilities of 
Negroes and other colored people. 11 We need a term to distinguish the 
large and systematic type of social differentiation from the small and spotty 
type and have throughout this book used the term "caste." 

The sole criterion in defining scientific terms is practicality. Concepts are 
our created instruments and have no other form of reality than in our own 
usage. Their purpose is to help make our thinking clear and our observa- 
tions accurate. The scientifically important difference between the terms 
"caste" and "class" as we are using them is, from this point of view, a 

'See Chapter 3, Sections 1 and 2. 

6«7 



668 An American Dilemma 

relatively large difference in freedom of movement between groups. This 
difference is foremost in marriage relations. Intermarriage between Negroes 
and whites is forbidden by law in 30 states of the Union and even where 
it is not legally forbidden it is so universally condemned by whites that it 
occurs extremely infrequently. 11 The ban on intermarriage is one expres- 
sion of the still broader principle, which is valid for the entire 'United 
States without any exception, that a man born a Negro or a white is not 
allowed to fass from the one status to the other as he can pass from one 
class to another . b In this important respect, the caste system of America 
is closed and rigid, while the class system is, in a measure, always open and 
mobile. This has social significance because, as is evident from the preceding 
chapters, being a Negro means being subject to considerable disabilities in 
practically all spheres of life. 

It should, however, be clear that the actual content of the Negro's lower 
caste status in America, that is, the social relations across the caste line, 
vary considerably from region to region within the country and from class 
to class within the Negro group. It also shows considerable change in time. 
But variation and change are universal characteristics of social phenomena 
and cannot be allowed to hinder us from searching for valid generaliza- 
tions. It will only have to be remembered constantly that when the term 
"caste relations" is used in this inquiry to denote a social phenomenon in 
present-day America, this term must be understood in a relative and quan- 
titative sense. It does not assume an invariability in space and time in the 
culture, nor absolute identity with similar phenomena in other cultures. 3 
It should be pointed out, incidentally, that those societies to which the term 
"caste" is applied without controversy — notably the ante-bellum slavery 
society of the South and the Hindu society of India — do not have the "stable 
equilibrium" which American sociologists from their distance are often 
inclined to attribute to them. 6 

Much of the controversy around the concept caste seems, indeed, to be 
the unfortunate result of not distinguishing clearly between the caste 
relation and the caste line. The changes and variations which occur in the 
American caste system relate only to caste relations, not to the dividing line 
between the castes. The latter stays rigid and unblurred. It will remain 
fixed until it becomes possible for a person to pass legitimately from the 
lower caste to the higher without misrepresentation of his origin. The 
American definition of "Negro" as any person who has the slightest 
amount of Negro ancestry has its significance in making the caste line 

*See Chapter a 9, Section z. 

* A person can pass if he misrepresents his orgin, which it is impossible to do in most cases. 
For discussion of "passing" see Chapter 5, Section 7. Also see Section 4 of this chapter. 

"A Hindu acquaintance once told me that the situation in the United States is as much, 
or more, describable by the term "caste" as >s the situation in India. 



Chapter 31. Caste and Class 669 

absolutely rigid. Had the caste line been drawn differently — for example, 
on the criterion of predominance of white or Negro ancestry or of cultural 
assimilation — it would not have been possible to hold the caste line so rigid. 

The general definition of caste which we have adopted permits us to 
infer a concrete definition for our particular problem. When we say that 
Negroes form a lower caste in America, we mean that they are subject to 
certain disabilities solely because they are "Negroes" in the rigid American 
definition and not because they are poor and ill-educated. It is true, of 
course, that their caste position keeps them poor and ill-educated on the 
average, and that there is a complex circle of causation, but in any concrete 
instance at any given time there is little difficulty in deciding whether a cer- 
tain disability or discrimination is due to a Negro's poverty or lack of 
education, on the one hand, or his caste position, on the other hand. In this 
concrete sense, practically the entire factual content of the preceding parts 
of this book may be considered to define caste in the case of the American 
Negro. 

We conceive of the social differentiation between Negroes and whites 
as based on tradition and, more specifically, on the traditions of slavery 
society. We have attempted to trace this cultural heritage in various spheres 
of life. The caste system is upheld by its own inertia and by the superior 
caste's interests in upholding it. The beliefs and sentiments among the 
whites centering around the idea of the Negroes' inferiority have been 
analyzed and their "functional" role as rationalizations of the superior 
caste's interests has been stressed. The racial beliefs and the popular 
theory of "no social equality" were found to have a kernel of magical logic, 
signified by the notion of "blood." We have been brought to view the caste- 
order as fundamentally a system of disabilities forced by the whites upon 
the Negroes," and our discussion of the Negro problem up to this point 
has, therefore, been mainly a study of the whites' attitudes and behavior. 
And even when we proceed to inquire about the internal social structure of 
the Negro caste, about Negro ideologies, Negro leadership and defense 
organizations, the Negro community and its institutions, Negro culture and 
accomplishments, and Negro social pathology, we shall continue to meet 
the same determinants. Little of this can be explained in terms of Negro 
characteristics. The Negro problem is primarily a white man's problem. b 
In this part we shall find that the class order within the Negro caste is 
chiefly a function of the historical caste order of America. 

*The voluntary withdrawal and the self-imposed segregation were shown to be a 
secondary reaction to a primary white pressure. 
" See Introduction, Section j. 



670 Am American Dilemma 

2. The "Meaning" of the Concepts "Caste" and "Class" 

When attempting to define our value premise for the discussion of 
social stratification in this chapter, we have first to take notice of the fact 
that Americans in general in all castes and classes are outspoken in their 
disapproval of distinctions in social status. Leaving out of consideration 
for the moment the several subordinate castes (Asiatics and Indians, as well 
as Negroes), whose members have specific reasons for favoring an equali- 
tarian social philosophy, the visitor from abroad meets everywhere in 
America an ideology denouncing class differences which is more pronounced 
and sanctioned by more patriotic pride than perhaps anywhere else in West- 
ern civilization. This ideology has clearly a definite intent to mark off 
American ideals from those of the Old World. 

Even the educated Americans exaggerate the amount of class discrimina- 
tion in Europe, especially with regard to England, the old mother country. 3 
This is an old tradition from colonial times. But it has been adopted and 
strengthened by wave after wave of immigrants who partly rationalized 
their uprooting and transference to this country by a belief in the rigidity 
of the class system in Europe and the free competition and boundless 
opportunities in the New World. As wc have pointed out, this equali- 
tarianism was — for the whites — given a most prominent place even in the 
ideology of the ante-bellum South." 

This ideology permeates popular thinking to the degree that Americans 
in general do not recognize their own actual class status. Most Americans 
— in all social classes — believe they are "middle class." 4 Perhaps this 
national theory is responsible also for the fact that American sociology 
(which generally must be given the highest ranking in the world) is weak 
•and undeveloped in regard to the problems of social stratification. When 
recently a group of social anthropologists and sociologists stressed caste 
and class, 6 their colleagues everywhere in America exhibited an interest in 
the adventure rather out of proportion to the specific scientific novelties 
involved. Also the tendency to exaggerate the rigor of the American class 
and caste system, which is sometimes apparent in the work of the group of 
investigators led by Professor W. Lloyd Warner, is more easily understood 
when it is recalled that they are out to challenge a popular national theory 
with deep historical anchoring in the American Creed. 6 

Before we proceed, it is necessary to consider some reasons why the 
popular theory that America has little class stratification is more plausible 
and, indeed, also more true than superficial observation of the tremendous 
socio-economic differentiation would lead one to believe. Because of the 
settling of the colonies largely by religious dissenters, the Revolution 
against England, the expulsion and voluntary exile of the Loyalist Tories, 

' See Chapter 20, Section 4. 



Chapter 31. Caste and Class 671 

and the adoption of a democratic Constitution, the country started out with- 
out the heritage of royalty, a titled aristocracy or a church hierarchy. The 
frontier, the mobility, the relatively democratic structure of higher educa- 
tion, and the democratic form of government were factors hindering the 
emergence of rigid class distinctions." Even today a higher percentage of 
Americans in the highest positions of wealth, authority, and culture have 
near relatives on the farms or in the factories than do people of similar 
status in most other capitalistic countries. A democratic simplicity and a 
great deal of formal equality in everyday contacts have been characteristic 
of America. The "American dream" and an optimistic outlook on the future 
for every individual have been cherished. 

On the other hand, there have been factors which have accentuated social 
distinctions. These include: the immense and unprecedented differences in 
income and wealth, which until recently have been left comparatively undis- 
turbed by taxation} the relatively unrestricted property rights inherited 
from English common law, which not only allowed monopolistic exploita- 
tion on a huge scale of the natural resources of the new continent, but 
also permitted types of consumption directly intended to demarcate social 
distance; 1 " the relatively small hcope of public ownership and controls over 
consumption and production generally and particularly over natural 
resources such as minerals, waterfalls, forests, and the means of transporta- 
tion; the relative lack of producers' and consumers' cooperatives; the 
absence, until recently, of organized efforts to equalize economic and 
educational opportunities of rural and urban localities and of the major 
regions of the country ; the continuous mass immigration until recently and 
the practice of ruthlessly exploiting immigrants; the consequent cultural 
and racial fragmentation of the lower strata of the population; and the 
lack of organized and persistent popular movements. 

Even though there are tremendous differences in wealth and social 
position among Americans, this is not the predominant influence in the 
national ethos. The American Creed has insisted upon condemning class 
differences, and it continues to do so in the face of the facts. Part of the 
paradox is solved, however, when we observe that the American Creed] 
does not demand equality of economic and social rewards independent of 
an individual's luck, ability and push. It merely demands equality of 
opportunity. Abraham Lincoln expressed this in concrete and pertinent 
terms: 

* It is symbolic, but not directly important, that there is a provision in the Constitution 
forbidding the acceptance of titles of nobility. 

b The unrestrictive property laws have, for instance, made it possible for rich people is 
America actually to keep out the common people not only from the spots where their 
homes are built but from whole sections of country including roads, lake shores, fields and 
forest*. 



672 An American Dilemma 

What is the true condition of the laborer? I take it that it is best to leave each 
man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe 
in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. 
So while we don't propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest 
man an equal chance to get rich with anybody else. When one starts poor, as most 
do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition; 
he knows that there is no fixed condition of labor for his whole life. ... I want 
every man to have a chance — and I believe a black man is entitled to it — in which 
he can better his condition — when he may look forward and hope to be a hired 
laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterwards, and finally to Aire men 
to work for him. That is the true system. 7 

The class differences denounced by the American Creed are the rigid 
and closed ones. The Creed demands free competition, which in this sphere 
of social stratification represents the combination of the two basic norms: 
"equality" and "liberty." And it is prepared to accept the outcome of 
competition — if it is really free — though there be some inequality. This 
demand is the essence of American economic and social liberalism. Behind 
it is the theory that lack of free competition results in social inefficiency. 
Rigid class distinctions, therefore, hamper social progress. And this gives 
us the clue to the more precise valuation of caste and class in the American 
Creed. A contemporary American sociologist, investigating the American 
minority problem, emphatically expresses and gives his allegiance to this 
national valuation: 

Democracy is an empty word unless it means the free recognition of ability, 
native and acquired, whether it be found in rich or poor, alien or native, black man 
or white. Minorities in the United States consume as much of our national wealth 
as they arc permitted by group prejudices and productive capacity. When their 
productivity is artificially held far below their potentialities, the final result is not 
that there is more left for a dog-in-the-manger majority, but that a selfish majority 
is defeating its own purpose by limiting the total national productivity to the detri- 
ment of the welfare of American residents as a whole. The days are gone when 
one class in the western world may long prosper, at the expense of the masses. 8 

Our value premise in this chapter will be the American Heal of free 
competition and full integration in this sense. Social distinctions which 
hamper free competition are, from the viewpoint of the American Creed, 
wrong and harmful. From this value premise we derive our more precise 
definition of caste and class. The "meaning" of social status and of distinc- 
tions in social status is not an a priori evident matter. It varies from one 
culture to another depending upon what is commonly considered important. 
It is not quite the same in England, France, Sweden and America. It has 
to he defined, or otherwise we do not know exactly what we arc observing 
ftak measuring. And.it is usually best defined in terms of the ethos in the 
particular national culture we are studying. 



Chapter 31. Caste and Class 673 

In a vague way we mean, of course, somewhat the same thing by social 
status in all the capitalistic democratic civilizations within the Western 
sphere, and we know that social status is ordinarily connected with income, 
wealth, occupation, education, family background, home ownership. Owing 
primarily to the great immigration to America, nationality, length of resi- 
dence, language, and religion are additional factors indicating or deter- 
mining class in this nation. These characteristics have different relative 
importance for the class structure in different national cultures. And none 
of them gives the full "meaning" of class in any one of the Western cul- 
tures. 

One school of thought defines class in terms of class feeling: the con- 
sciousness of the individuals of a class that they belong together in a cor- 
porate unity, and that they have different interests from individuals in other 
classes. This criterion — which has been worked out partly under the influ- 
ence of Marx's class sociology and which is closely related to the idea of 
"class struggle" — is obviously inadequate at least as far as America is con- 
cerned. In America, particularly in the lower strata, class feeling, in this 
sense of interest solidarity, is undeveloped. It docs not give the true mean- 
ing or importance of class to any ordinary American. 

The Warner group defines class as "the largest group of people whose 
members have intimate social access to one another." 8 This suggestive 
definition seizes upon the fact that, even when class consciousness and 
class solidarity are not developed, 10 people do feel social distance and act 
it out in their everyday life by forming more or less cohesive groups for 
leisure time activity. 11 This group formation centers around the family 
and has the most important effects in controlling the behavior of individ- 
uals even outside the leisure time spheres of their life, and particularly in 
determining the social orientation given children and youth. 12 

This viewpoint is certainly wholesome as a reaction against the tendencies 
to use the most easily available class indices — income and occupation — as 
more than approximate measures of social class. 13 But it obviously over- 
emphasizes the role of purely social contacts and underemphasizes the 
importance of other criteria. It fails to consider such important things as 
the imperfect correlation of leisure groups, the continuity of the social 
status scale, the arbitrariness of class demarcations, the differential infre- 
quency of social contacts, the difficulty of separating social from purely 
personal distances, the relation between social structures in all the various 
American communities, the desire of some individuals to gain a position of 
leadership in a lower class rather than rise to a higher one. The ordinary 
American — particularly the male American — will not recognize his own 
class concept in this definition. , 

Class is in America one of the "value-loaded" terms and has to be related 
to our value premise. Classes and class differences in America are thus i# 



674 An American Dilemma 

tf&s inquiry conceived of as the result of restriction of free competition 
and, consequently, of the lack of full social integration. The upper classes 
enjoy their privileges because the lower classes are restricted in their 
"pursuit of happiness" by various types of relative or absolute social monop- 
olies. Attaching importance to family background instead of, or in addition 
to, merit is one type of monopoly and the basic one for the degree of closed- 
ness and rigidity of a class system. The ownership of wealth and income 
and, in America, national origin or religion become other causes of monop- 
olies, if education is not absolutely democratic and if positions in the 
occupational hierarchy are not filled with regard to merit only. In view of 
the inequality of opportunity in getting an occupation, and since occupational 
positions carry incomes roughly in proportion to their status associations, it 
is possible, in an approximate way, to determine social class by considering 
income or occupation as the chief index of social monopoly. 

This view of the American class structure also gives a nucleus of a theory 
for the causal relations between income, wealth, occupation, education, 
family background, home ownership, national origin, language and religion, 
on the one hand, and the integration of them to form a class system, on the 
other hand. In America, as elsewhere in the Western world, the develop- 
ment of democracy and of economic and social technology, as well as the 
growth of occupational organizations and their increasing stress on pro- 
fessionalism, all tend to make education more and more important as a 
vehicle for social mobility. Education gives respectability by itself and opens 
the road to higher occupations and incomes. The "self-made man" without 
educational background and professional training is disappearing even in 
America. Higher education is held a monopoly practically closed not only 
to older generations who have passed their chance — which is not contrary 
to the American Creed with its stress on equality of opportunity — but often 
also to youth without a certain minimum amount of wealth, parental push, 
and all the other factors associated with high social status. 

In a similar way each of the other factors can be linked to the rest and 
used as an index of social status in general. Participation in cliques, clubs, 
associations — which Warner considers to be most important for determining 
one's class position — is itself a factor determined in large part by these 
other factors and contributes to their significance by emphasizing them, by 
serving as a source of information that helps one to make money, by 
encouraging a certain type of social behavior. Class consciousness may or 
may not be present in this system of interrelated factors determining class 
position, depending, among other things, upon how shut up in their pigeon 
holes the individuals of a class actually feel themselves. If class con- 
sciousness is present, it will tend to have reciprocal influences with other 
factors. 

Caste, as distinguished from class, consists of such drastic restrictions 



Chapter 31. Caste and Class 675 

of free competition in the various spheres of life that the individual in a 
lower caste cannot, by any means, change his status, except by a secret and 
illegitimate "passing,". which is possible only to the few who have the 
physical appearance of members of the upper caste. Caste may thus in a 
sense be viewed as the extreme case of absolutely rigid class. Such a harsh 
deviation from the ordinary American social structure and the American 
Creed could not occur without a certain internal conflict and without a 
system of false beliefs and blindnesses aided by certain mechanical controls 
in law and social structure. To the extent, however, that false beliefs in 
Negro inferiority are removed by education and to the extent that white 
people are made to see the degradations they heap on Negroes, to that 
extent will the American Creed be able to make its assault on caste. 

Within each caste, people also feel social distance and restrict free com- 
petition, so that each caste has its own class system. The dividing line 
between two castes is by definition clear -cut, consciously felt by every mem- 
ber of each caste, and easily observable. No arbitrariness is involved in 
drawing it. The class lines, on the other hand, are blurred and flexible. 
The very fact that individuals move and marry between the classes, that 
they have legitimate relatives in other classes and that competition is not 
nearly so restricted in any sphere, blurs any division lines that are set. 
Lines dividing the classes are not defined in law or even in custom, as 
caste lines are. Therefore, it is probably most correct to conceive of the 
class order as a social continuum. In most communities, and certainly in the 
United States as a whole, class differences between the nearest individuals 
at any point of the scale cannot be easily detected. It is only differences 
between individuals further away from each other that are easily observ- 
able. This is true for practically every one of the factors that go to make up 
the class system — income, family background, social participation, and so 
on — and it is doubly true of the class system as a whole since the factors are 
not perfectly correlated. There are no "natural" class boundaries. 

For scientific purposes, of course, we have to draw lines breaking up the 
social continuum of the class order. But they are arbitrary. It has been 
customary for a long time to divide the population into three classes: "upper 
class," "middle class," "lower class." It would be possible, however, to have 
four or five classes. The Warner group uses a system of six classes, dividing 
the conventional three classes each into two. For some purposes even more 
classes would be most convenient. But we should never imagine that there 
is any deeper reality in our measuring scale than there is in measuring a 
distance in kilometers instead of miles. If a conventional class division— 
for instance, the one in three classes — entered into the popular consciousness, 
people might come to think of themselves as organized in this way, which 
would undoubtedly have certain consequences for the actual class situation. 
In some European countries this might hold true. In America, where the 



676 An American Dilemma 

social class structure is dimly intellectualtzed by the general public— in 
spite of much observance in actual life of small and big status differences — 
this is not quite so true.* 

The actual class stratification differs much between different communities. 
This is particularly true between rural and urban communities, between 
communities in the different historical regions of the country, and between 
the white and Negro castes. Different class divisions for each of these would 
be appropriate. If for convenience's sake the same scale of division is being 
used, this should not lead us to exaggerate the similarity between the dif- 
ferent class structures." What is regarded as the upper class in one com- 
munity or caste, for example, would not be regarded as upper class in 
another community or caste, even if community associations and caste marks 
were changed. 

3. The Caste Struggle 

The Marxian concept of "class struggle" — with its basic idea of a class 
of proletarian workers who are kept together in a close bond of solidarity 
of interests against a superior class of capitalist employers owning and con- 
trolling the means of production, between which there is a middle class 
bound to disappear as the grain is ground between two millstones — is in all 
Western countries a superficial and erroneous notion. It minimizes the 
distinctions that exist within each of the two main groups j it exaggerates 
the cleft between them, and, especially, the consciousness of it; and it 
misrepresents the role and the development of the middle classes. It is 
"too simple and sweeping to fit the facts of the class-system." 14 In America 
it is made still more inapplicable by the traversing systems of color caste. 
The concept of "caste struggle," on the other hand, is much more realistic. 
Archer talked of a "state of war" between Negroes and whites in the 
United States; 15 James Weldon Johnson spoke about "the tremendous 
struggle which is going on between the races in the South." 18 The caste 

* An exception to this occurs at the very top of the social status scale in America, where 
each big city, and some smaller ones, has its "400" and its social register and where, in 
recent years, part of the nation has become aware of "America's 60 families." 

b Even where there is no caste division in a community, it sometimes requires doing 
violence to facts to consider all members of that community on a single social status con- 
tinuum. Social status, as we have seen, is made up of many components, which do not 
correlate perfectly. One's position on the income continuum, for example, may be higher 
than his position on the family background continuum. To get a single social status con- 
tinuum these components need to be weighted and combined. But sometimes even then the 
members of a community who are found to have equivalent social status will be found 
to follow different lines of social advancement. It may be found, for example, that a physi- 
cian, an army captain and an artist have about the same social status. While none looks down 
on any of the others, and all may be invited to the same party, their interests, associations, 
and lines, of advancement are so dissimilar that it is more convenient, for most purposes, to 
consider the community as having several parallel social status continua. 



Chapter. 31. Caste and Class 677 

distinctions are actually gulfs which divide the population into antagonistic 
camps. And this is a conscious fact to practically every individual in the 
system. 

The caste line — or, as it is more popularly known, the color line — is 
not only an expression of caste differences and caste conflicts, but it has come 
itself to be a catalyst to widen differences and engender conflicts. To main- 
tain the color line has, to the ordinary white man, the "function" of uphold- 
ing the caste system itself, of keeping the "Negro in his place." The color 
line has become the bulwark against the whites' own adherence to the 
American Creed, against trends of improvement in Negroes' education, 
against other social trends which stress the irrationality of the caste system, 
and against the demands of the Negroes. The color line has taken on a 
mystical significance: sophisticated Southern whites, for example, will often 
speak with compassionate regret of the sacrifices the Negroes "have to" 
make and the discriminations to which they "have to" submit — "have to" 
in order to preserve the color line as an end in itself. This necessitates a 
constant vigilance. Southern whites feel a caste solidarity that permits no 
exception: some of them may not enforce the etiquette against all Negroes 
in all its rigor, but none will interfere with another white man when he is 
enforcing his superiority against a Negro. A white man who becomes 
known as a "nigger lover" loses caste and is generally ostracized if not made 
the object of violence. Even a Southern white child feels the caste solidarity 
and learns that he can insult an adult Negro with impunity. 17 

An extreme illustration of white solidarity in the South is given every 
time the whites, in a community where a lynching has occurred, conspire 
not to let the lynchers be indicted and sentenced. 18 In less spectacular cases 
it operates everywhere. Davis and Gardner give a good description of its 
psychology and its relation to Negro pressure: 

Although the whippings described above appear to be more or less routine punish- 
ments of Negroes for some specific violation of the caste rules, in many of them 
Jiere is another factor involved. Periodically there seems to develop a situation in 
which a number of Negroes begin to rebel against the caste restrictions. This is not 
an open revolt but a gradual pressure, probably more or less unconscious, in which, 
little by little, they move out of the strict pattern of approved behavior. The whites 
feel this pressure and begin to express resentment. They say the Negroes are getting 
"uppity," that they are getting out of their place, and that something should be 
done about it. Frequently, the encroachment has been so gradual that the whites 
have no very definite occurrence to put their hands on ; that is, most of the specific 
acts have been within the variations ordinarily permitted, yet close enough to the 
limits of variation to be irritating to the whites. Finally, the hostility of the whites 
reaches such a pitch that any small infraction will spur them to open action. A 
Negro does something which ordinarily might be passed over, or which usually 
provokes only a mild punishment, but the whites respond with violence. The Negro 
victim then becomes both a scapegoat and an object lesson for his group. He taffeta 



€78 An American Dilemma 

for all the minor cute violations which hare aroused, the whites, and he becomes a 
warning against fnture violations. After such an outburst, the Negroes again abide 
strictly by the caste rules, the enmity of the whites is dispelled, and the tension 
relaxes. The whites always say after such an outburst: "We haven't had any trouble 
since then." 19 

In the North, a large proportion of the white population would never 
discriminate against Negroes, and there is a small number who stand up 
against violation of the Negro's rights even if the matter does not concern 
them personally. Since such friends of the Negroes are not ostracized, and 
are in fact looked up to as "fighters," the color line may be said to be broken 
at spots in the North. Further, as seen in the previous chapter, the color 
line in the North is not a part of the law or of the structure of buildings 
and so does not have the concre eness that it has in the South. But still there 
is a color line in the North: most white individuals and groups discriminate 
in one way if not in another; all feel a difference between themselves and 
Negroes even if the feeling is only that Negroes labor under a different 
history, different conditions, and a different problem, and no Negro can 
legitimately pass out of the Negro group. A crisis brings out the character 
of the color line in the North more distinctly: An example is provided by 
a struggle around a Negro housing project in Detroit that culminated in a 
minor riot in early 1942. The federal government (U.S.H.A.) built a 
housing project for Negro defense workers in Detroit and named it after 
the Negro poet, Sojourner Truth. The project was built in a mixed white 
and Negro neighborhood, and as the project neared completion the local 
whites — aided by the Ku Klux Klan — picketed the city hall in protest 
against Negro occupancy. The congressman for the district joined in the 
protest; the federal authorities temporarily abandoned the idea of giving 
the project to Negroes but later went back to their original intention. When 
Negroes tried to enter the homes for which they had paid rent, they were 
prevented from doing so by a white mob that used violence, and the Detroit 
police aided the mob and arrested Negroes. On the other hand, there was 
a nation-wide protest against this treatment of the Negroes, and even the 
common man of other Northern cities and towns could be heard to say 
that it was "pretty bad" when the police were beating Negroes and prevent- 
ing them from moving into homes built for them. Public opinion helped 
to stiffen the backs of the federal authorities who, without this new and 
powerful backing, would probably have bowed to local sentiment. The 
caste line in the North exists, but has gaps. 

The mechanism of the caste struggle in the South can be illuminated by 
observing more closely what happens when a person breaks caste solidarity. 
On the white side this exceptional person is called the "nigger lover." To 
be known by this characterization means social and economic death. Except 
for legal differences, such a person is virtually dealt with as a traitor in 



Chapter 31. Caste and Class 679 

fundamentally the same sense as a citizen who, during the war, is in friendly 
contact with the enemy. The "scab" who goes over to the employer during 
a strike is another appropriate comparison. The disgrace and the persecu- 
tion of the "nigger lover," the traitor and the labor "scab" is fundamentally 
independent of their motives. These will usually and unquestionably be 
presumed to be base. No explanation is accepted. The reason is in all three 
cases that they are considered dangerous to the interests of the group. In 
recent years the "nigger lover" has generally been associated with the 
"reds," and the "Communists," terms that in all America and particularly 
in the South are given a wide and vague meaning. 

Interracial workers in the South have to tread carefully ir order not to 
invoke this terrible condemnation of being "nigger lovers." They know — 
and their Negro friends "understand" — that they will have to avoid break- 
ing such social etiquette as would "offend public opinion." I have repeatedly 
been informed by white participants in interracial work about the fine 
diplomacy involved, about the compliant understanding of the Negroes, 
and of the tremendous importance of this matter both to their own wel- 
fare and to the success of their interracial undertakings. The Negroes 
in the South, knowing the whites' treatment of "nigger lovers" and the 
probability that they themselves would come in for a share, often show con- 
siderable shyness with a friendly white man, until they feel sure that he 
is going to leave the community soon and that he will not advertise his 
friendliness. The fear of being stamped as "nigger lovers" on the part of the 
white interracialists accounts for their preference to "work quietly" and foi 
their reluctance to appeal to the white masses. By working only with the 
"best people of both races" they hope, and have actually succeeded, in gain- 
ing social respectability for their strivings. But they always stress that they 
are treading upon a volcano, even if white solidarity is apparently losing 
some of its fury. 

The Negro, from his side, is even more aware of the caste line than is 
the white man. Because Negroes are a numerically smaller element in the 
population of most communities, the average Negro has more contacts with 
whites than the average white man has with Negroes. Too, the contact 
usually means more to the Negro j it is the Negro who must be prepared 
to meet the white man in the way demanded by etiquette, and an insult 
rankles longer than an expression of ego-superiority. Further: the Negro 
thinks and talks more about his caste position than the white man, especially 
in the North, and thus has many more caste experiences in his imagination. 
Since the caste line restricts the Negro without providing him with many 
compensating advantages, he feels it not only surrounding him but also 

* Some white interracial workers have not been able to avoid the designation of "nigger 
iover." But they manage to exist by living in the anonymity of cities and by getting their 
economic support from Northern philanthropy. 



680 Am American Dilemma 

holding him back. Du Bois has expressed the Negro's feeling of caste in 
poetic language: 

It it difficult to let others tee the full psychological meaning of caste segregation. 
It is as though one, looking out from a dark care in a side of an impending moun- 
tain, sees the world passing and speaks to it; speaks courteously and persuasively, 
showing them how these entombed souls are hindered in their natural movement, 
expression, and development; and how their loosening from prison would be a 
matter not simply of courtesy, sympathy, and help to them, but aid to all the world. 
One talks on evenly and logically in this way but notices that the passing throng does 
not even turn its head, or if it does, glances curiously and walks on. It gradually 
penetrates the minds of the prisoners that the people passing do not hear; that some 
thick sheet of invisible but horribly tangible plate glass is between them and the 
world. They get excited; they talk louder; they gesticulate. Some of the passing 
world stop in curiosity; these gesticulations seem so pointless; they laugh and pass on. 
They still either do not hear at all, or hear but dimly, and even what they ^iear, 
they do not understand. Then the people within may become hysterical. They may 
scream and hurl themselves against the barriers, hardly realizing in their bewilder- 
ment that they are screaming in a vacuum unheard and that their antics may actually 
seem funny to those outside looking in. They may even, here and there, break 
through in blood and disfigurement, and find themselves faced by a horrified, 
implacable, and quite overwhelming mob of people frightened for their own very 
existence. 80 

The counterpart to white solidarity on the Negro side of the caste gulf 
is the "protective community." It is revealing of the nature of the system 
of superior and subordinate castes that this Negro cohesion is defensive 
instead of offensive, and that, compared with white solidarity, it is imper- 
fect. The individual Negro, as a member of the lower caste, feels his weak- 
ness and will be tempted, on occasion, to split Negro solidarity by seeking 
individual refuge, personal security and advantages with the whites. Com- 
menting upon the Atlanta riot; in 1906, when 10 Negroes were killed and 
60 wounded, Ray Stannard Baker remarked: 

It is highly significant of Southern conditions — which the North does not under- 
stand — that the first instinct of thousands of Negroes in Atlanta, when the riot broke 
out, was not to run away from the white people but to run to them. The white man 
who takes the most radical position in opposition to the Negro race will often be 
found . . . defending "his Negroes" in court or elsewhere. . . . Even Hoke Smith, 
Governor-elect of Georgia, who is more distrusted by the Negroes as a race probably 
than any other white man in Georgia, protected many Negroes in his house during 
the disturbance. 31 

The historical background of this attitude lies in the patriarchal relations 

between master and slave.* Its tenacity is explained by the power situation. 

On the other hand, there has been a growing tendency on the part of 

* See Chapter 30, Section 2. 



Chapter 31. Caste and Class 681 

Negroes to fight back, to maintain solidarity in a crisis. Claude McKay 
wrote: 

If we must die, let it not be like hogs 
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, 
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, 
Making their mock at our accursed lot. 
If we must die, Oh let us nobly die, 
So that our precious blood may not be shed 
In vain; then even the monsters we defy 
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! 

Oh, kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! 
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, 
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! 
What though before us lies the open grave? 
Like men we'll face the murderous cowardly pack, 
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! 22 

McKay tells how the poem was reprinted in every Negro publication of 
any consequence, that it was repeated in Negro clubs, cabarets, and at Negro 
mass meetings, and that ministers ended their sermons with it. The Negro 
statesman, James Weldon Johnson, in his Negro Americans, What Now? 
prompts his people: 

When we arc confronted by the lawless, pitiless, brutish mob, and we know that 
life is forfeit, we should not give it up; we should, if we can, sell it, and at the 
dearest price we are able to put on it. 23 

Johnson is, of course, far from recommending force as a political means for 
Negroes. Just above the words quoted in the text he stated: 

We must condemn physical force and banish it from our minds. But I do not 
condemn it on any moral or pacific grounds. The resort to force remains and will 
doubtless always remain the rightful recourse of oppressed peoples. Our own country 
was established upon that right. I condemn physical force because I know that in 
our case it would be futile. 24 

But even today when the mob or the vigilantes are out for Negro blood in 
the South the ordinary effect will be that the Negroes in terror will individ- 
ually stay where they are or run to seek escape. They will ordinarily not 
fight back." Considering the power situation, they cannot be criticized. They 
are probably wise, not only individually but in the interest of their group. 25 
In Northern cities, where the Negro population is more compact and 

* Since the beginning of the Second World War, Southern Negroes have shown some 
inclination to organize and fight back when they are attacked. (See Chapter 27, Section 
5; Chapter 35, Section 10; and Chapter 45, Section 7.) 



682 An American Dilemma 

where they have *egal protection and the suffrage, the situation, is becom- 
ing different. There they will fight." 

But Negro solidarity produced by caste pressure and appearing as a 
mutually protective cohesion has its function in more ordinary and every- 
day problems. Even then it has nothing of the strength and regularity of 
white solidarity. Perhaps we can best illustrate the difference by observing 
the Negro who breaks caste solidarity. The Negro counterpart to the 
"nigger lover" is the "white man's nigger." He is much less exceptional. 
In the Negro community there is no fuss about his motives: they are simply 
assumed to be the selfish ones of attempting to benefit from playing up to 
the whites. His crime is not that he "fraternizes" with individuals of the 
other caste, but, quite the contrary, that he submits to excessive subservience 
and that he takes orders and carries them out even against the interests of 
his own caste. He will usually not be universally condemned by the Negro 
community. There arc regularly other Negroes who would be prepared 
to take the same role or are actually doing it. In a way he is only exaggerat- 
ing the "natural" role of the lower caste individual. To the white man he 
is a "good" Negro, continuing the cherished tradition from slavery. He 
puts the white man into his "natural" aristocratic role and becomes rewarded 
with condescending benevolence. b 

The disapproval of the "white man's nigger" in the Negro community 
will depend upon the relative material and cultural independence of the 
community and usually varies directly with the social and educational status 
of the reacting individual Negro. It never approaches the rage, on the 
other side of the caste line, against a "nigger lover." His white protection 
will make the "white man's nigger" powerful. I have observed in several 
instances, both in the South and in the North, that individuals who are 
notorious as "white man's niggers" or "Uncle Toms" have a status in the 
Negro community for this very reason. Negroes in general, even if they 
dislike them, and, in a sense, despise them, are nevertheless inclined to 
envy them and give them deference at the same time. Negroes ordinarily, 
it must be remembered, depend upon the good-will and help of whites in 
most matters. When Negroes want something done in their community, 
they will send their "Uncle Toms" as intermediaries. They will often 
do so even if they know in the individual case that those persons are 
thoroughly unreliable from the Negro point of view and, perhaps, that 
they actually act as spies and stool pigeons for the whites. The Negroes 
know that they will not succeed if they try to ignore the white man's 
trusted Negroes. The "white man's nigger" exists in the North as well 
as in the South, but he is rarer and has less influence in his own caste. 
In the South he is sometimes an humble uneducated servant or ex-servant, 

* See Chapter 27, Section 5. 

* See Chapter 34. 



Chapter 31. Caste and Class 683 

but may also be a businessman, a landowner, a school principal or a col- 
lege president. He is then the white-appointed "leader" of his race.* 

4. Crossing the Caste Line 

Another interesting side glance on the American caste system is provided 
by observing the phenomenon called "passing." To cross the caste line from 
the white side would be a comparatively easy matter, since in America a 
Negro is not necessarily supposed to have any Negro features at all. 1 * The 
passer would also be fairly unsuspected, as it is generally assumed that 
nobody would want to descend in caste status. And there is no reason — 
except race pride emerging as a reflection of and a reaction against white 
' superiority — why Negroes would resent such passing. Passing from the 
white to the Negro caste occurs extremely rarely. 26 

For all practical purposes "passing" means that a Negro becomes a white 
man, that is, moves from the lower to the higher caste. In the American 
caste order, this can be accomplished only by the deception of the white 
people with whom the passer comes to associate and by a conspiracy of 
silence on the part of other Negroes who might know about it. A few per- 
sons with half of their ancestry Negro are known to have passed, and, of 
course, passing is much easier for those with smaller proportions of Negro 
ancestry." Even if there are probably quite a substantial number of Ameri- 

* For a discussion of Negro leadership, see Part IX. 
k See Chapter 5, Sections 1 and 7. 

* Louis Wirth and Herbert Goldhamer, "The Hybrid and the Problem of Miscegenation," 
in Otto Klineberg (editor), Characteristics of t/te American Negro, prepared for this study) 
to be published, manuscript pp. 82-83 and 100 ff.j and Caroline Bond Day, A Study 
of Negro-White Families in the United States (1932), pp. 10-11. 

I have made numerous observations which discount the common notion that Southern 
whites are particularly trained to identify a Negro by his physical appearance. My opinion 
on this point, which is contrary to that of most Negro and white experts with whom I have 
discussed the matter, becomes more reasonable when it is recognized that, though Southern 
white people undoubtedly see more Negroes, they constantly see them in the relatively rigidly 
defined caste role of the Southern Negro. In the marginal case, when a strange person's 
physical appearance leaves room for doubt, they probably recognize the Negro mostly from 
his bearing and his way of doing things. If, however, a Negro throws off the Negro role 
and starts to walk, talk, and behave as an ordinary white man, he must, I believe, have 
quite distinct Negro features to be recognized as a Negro in the South, at least in the first 
encounter. On the other hand, the fact that Negroes in the South arc trained to appear and 
behave in a very different way from white people must raise a great subjective and objec- 
tive barrier for every Southern or Southern-reared Negro who would like to pass in the 
South or in the North. 

Once I traveled by car for a considerable time all over the Lower South with a Negro 
colleague who was reared and trained in the West and the North to be a very "normal" 
person judged by white standards of behavior. As was, of course, necessary, we separated 
for the night, I staying in a hotel and he somewhere in the protective Negro community. 
We carried with us a portable dictaphone for recording our interviews, and we needed to 
work together for some hours now and then in my hotel room. My colleague, who hoi 



684 An American Dilemma 

can Negroes passing over permanently to the white caste every year,* a 
much greater number would be able to pass if they wanted to depart from 
the Negro community and were prepared to take the personal costs and 
the risks involved. 

Passing requires anonymity and is, therefore, restricted to the larger cities 
where everyone does not know everyone else. A Negro from a small com- 
munity can pass only if he leaves that community. Only a small portion of 
all passing is intentional and complete. There is a considerable amount of 
inadvertent and nonvoluntary passing. This must be particularly true in the 

tome unmistakable Negro features, found soon that it was not necessary to go through all 
the ordinary inconveniences with the hotel manager to get up to my hotel room. He just 
walked straight in, kept his hat on his head and behaved as a normal white person of the 
educated class. Nobody bothered him. My explanation is that the ordinary white Southerner, 
if he sees a man walking into a hotel and carrying himself with assurance and ease, actually 
does not see his color. He, literally, "does not believe his eyes." Behind the Southern whites' 
not seeing a Negro in my friend, might also — unconsciously — be the realization of all the 
trouble it would mean for them to effectuate the caste rules, if they recognized facts, and 
the great risk they incurred if they were mistaken. 

My general conclusion is that the white Southerner, being accustomed to seeing all Negroes 
in a subservient caste role and living in a society where the inconvenience and risk involved 
in telling a person that he is a Negro are so considerable, will have greater difficulties up 
recognizing a Negro who steps out of his caste role. This hypothesis could be tested by 
properly controlled experiments. 

I had once another experience which throws light on the same problem from the sex 
angle. The N.A.A.C.P. had, in 1939, their annual convention in Richmond, Virginia. I 
visited the meetings and took part in a boat excursion which ended the convention. On 
board I approached a group of officers and crew (whites) who held themselves strictly apart, 
looking on the Association members who had crowded their ship for the day with an 
unmistakable mixture of superiority, dislike, embarrassment, interest and friendly humor. 
My advance was first received coldly and deprecatingly — as I understood later, because they 
assumed I was a Negro. But when they had become aware of my foreign accent, and I had 
told them that I was a stranger who by chance had come on the boat, just for the excur- 
sion, they were most friendly and entertained me for more than an hour by telling me every- 
thing about the Negro and the Negro problem in America. During the course of our 
conversation I remarked that there were apparently a lot of white people, too, on the boat. 
At first they just laughed at my remark and insisted that all persons present were Negroes. 
Some Negroes are so fair, they told me, that only Southerners, who know them by lifelong 
intimate association can distinguish them from whites. I insisted and pointed to Mr. Walter 
White, the secretary of the N.A.A.C.P. and some other "white" Negroes, and actually 
succeeded in drawing an acknowledgment that he and some other men (who I knew were 
all Negroes) were, indeed, white upon closer observation. One of my interlocutors went 
to have a closer look at the persons I had pointed out, and came back and confirmed 
authoritatively that they were indeed white. "There are some 'nigger lovers' in the North 
and we have a few down here, too," he commented. When, however, I then pointed to a 
lady (whom I knew to be white) and intimated that she might be white, the whole 
company dismissed my idea as nothing less than absurd and, indeed, insulting. "No white 
woman would be together with niggers." Their theories of "white womanhood" obviously 
blinded .them in a literal sense. 
'See Chapter 5. Section 7. 



Chapter 31. Caste and Class 685 

North where segregation is not so complete and is actually illegal. Much 
passing is partial and sporadic, as when Negroes (in Washington, for 
example) pass for whites to attend theaters, lectures, concerts and recep- 
tions. To some extent such passing breaks the cultural and spiritual isola- 
tion of the Negro community and favors the dissemination of broader ideas 
and patterns into the Negro community. 27 In the Deep South passing for 
such purposes is so dangerous that it is much less common. Another type of 
temporary passing is that done by Negro youths to secure entrance to 
educational institutions where Negroes are not allowed, or where they are 
allowed but feel more comfortable appearing as whites. I have come across 
several such cases, all in the North. In the South the risk incurred would 
ordinarily be too great. 

In the Northern and Border states it seems to be relatively common for 
light-skinned Negroes to "pass professionally" but preserve a Negro social 
life. Negro girls have practically no chance of getting employment as 
stenographers or secretaries, salesclerks in department stores, telephone 
operators, outside the establishments run by Negroes for Negroes." In 
most communities their chances are slight even to become regular teachers, 
social workers, or the like, if they do not conceal their Negro ancestry. 
This practice is fairly widespread. Some establishments take the precautions 
through their personnel departments of making home visits and other 
inquiries in order not to get Negroes in their employment. Not only in 
these female middle class occupations but in all male and female trades 
where Negroes are excluded, there must be a similar incentive to attempt 
to "pass professionally." Since the middle and upper class occupations are 
almost all closed to Negroes, these occupations — especially medicine, den- 
tistry, journalism, acting, in addition to those mentioned above — are most 
pervaded by "professional passers." The retention of a Negro social life 
while passing for white occupationally involves considerable difficulties in 
all sorts of personal relations with associates in the place of work, and there 
is a great risk of being found out. This explains why the practice seems to be 
so much more common in the North and the Border states than in the 
real South. In none of the regions, it should be emphasized, is it possible 
for the bulk of the Negroes to pass, because of their obviously Negroid 
physical appearance. 

Professional passing often seems to be a transitional stage of life. Prob- 
ably in most cases these passers voluntarily retreat from the higher caste's 
occupational life by getting married or employed in the segregated sphere, 
or they become detected after some time and have to flee the ground with 
shame. Sometimes professional passing is, however, only a step on the way 
to complete and permanent passing. By cutting off their Negro relations 
entirely they are able to decrease the risk of being exposed. But their fuller 

' See Chapter 14. 



686 An American Dilemma 

participation in the life of the higher caste will mean that they will be hit 
the harder if they are found out. 

In view of the advantages to be had by passing, it is not difficult to 
explain why Negroes pass, professionally or completely. It is more difficult, 
however, to explain why Negroes do not pass over to the white race more 
often than they actually do. On this point, as on all others' concerning this 
necessarily secretive matter, our actual knowledge is most inadequate. It 
is probable that race pride and a missionary spirit of wanting to remain in 
the lower caste in order to fight its cause or otherwise work for its elevation 
might be a prominent motive for certain individuals. But for the great 
majority of passable Negroes such an explanation is not plausible and is 
seldom advanced. A young and gifted college graduate among my Negro 
friends, who had "passed" in college but later accepted a teaching position 
as a Negro in his home city, gave, upon my questioning, the following 
reasons why he preferred not to pass: (i) When passing as a white (with 
some Indian blood), he could never overcome a slight feeling of strain and 
nervousness when in company j he would have to make forced explana- 
tions concerning his family} and he always felt suspicion around him — 
probably more suspicion, he remarked, than there actually was. (2) Be- 
cause of his teaching position and his "good looks" he is "tops" in the 
Negro community} while if he were white in a similar job, he would be 
one among many and far from the social ceiling. (3) Because his profession 
was one in which there are few qualified Negro workers, he got his position 
more easily as a Negro than he would have as a white man. He was aware 
that he could advance further in the white world, but observed that even a 
large advance as a white man would carry much less esteem than a corre- 
spondingly smaller advance as a Negro. (4) Social life was so much more 
pleasant in the higher ranks of the Negro community than in the corre- 
sponding ranks of the white community: a Negro had so many more 
intimate associates; there were so many more social affairs and family 
entertainments going on in the Negro community — due probably, he 
observed, to the Negro's reaction against segregation in public places. 

I am inclined to believe that this young man's account of his reasons 
for preferring to be an upper class Negro, protected by the professional 
monopolies enjoyed by this class and surrounded by the social pleasantness 
of Negro society, rather than to be an isolated middle class white person 
with a minimum of initial contacts, was not only an honest statement on 
his own part, but is also fairly representative of many other passable young 
Negroes' motivation to stay Negro. Particularly important is his observa- 
tion that light-skinned Negroes have great advantages in the Negro com- 
munity and that a disproportionate number of them are in the upper strata 
or have hopes of getting there.* 

'See Chapter 32. 



Chapter 31. Caste and Class 687 

Light-skinned and "good featured" Negro women are preferred as 
marriage partners by Negro men, while their chances on the white mar- 
riage market as lonely women without a known or presentable family 
must be slight. This explains why Negro women pass even less frequently 
than do Negro men. 28 Established personal relations, from family bonds 
to less intimate but still not meaningless relations, will to a degree always 
tie a Negro to his own caste, and will tend to do so more and more the 
older and better established he becomes. Quite often marriage will put a 
stop to all dreams of passing, since it is less likely that the mate is also 
capable of passing. The unfamiliarity with life conditions and expected 
patterns of behavior on the other side of the gulf also acts as a deterrent. 
As Wirth points out, this particular factor is likely to decline in importance 
as educational and cultural opportunities for Negroes widen. 29 Negroes 
believe that social life is generally more pleasant among Negroes than 
among whites: ". . . white people don't begin to have the good times that 
Negroes do. They're stiff and cold. They aren't sociable. They don't 
laugh." 80 Even if such pronouncements are often only compensating 
rationalizations, they have probably enough background in personal con- 
viction to be of real importance in motivation. Finally, there is the impor- 
tant factor of inertia: complete passing is a major step that requires careful 
planning and decisive action, and it is not surprising that many Negroes 
who could take this step do not. 

To the whites, passing is an insult and a social and racial danger. Most 
whites have heard about passing, but, for natural reasons, do not know any 
specific cases. Most Negroes, particularly in the upper strata, on the con- 
trary, know of many other Negroes, sometimes half a hundred or more, 
who pass as whites. As they usually do not expose them, this shows a 
significant difference between the two castes in attitude toward passing. 
Many Negroes obviously take a sort of vicarious satisfaction out of the 
deception of the whites. It is a big joke to them. Some show envy. This is 
particularly apparent among darker Negroes who cannot think of passing. 
Negroes realize, of course, that as a mass they cannot find an escape from 
the lower caste by passing. Further, they are increasingly brought to the 
compensatory feeling of race pride: 

The Negro community is built around the idea of adjustment to being a Negro, 
and it rejects escape into the white world. Community opinion builds up a picture 
of whites as a different kind of being, with whom one associates but does not become 
intimate. Without much conscious instruction, the child is taught that his first loyalties 
are to the Negro group. He may criticize Negroes and even dislike them, but he is 
a Negro and must not even wish to be otherwise. This doctrine is reinforced by 
stories of the meanness -and cruelty of white people. To wish to be white is a 
sacrifice of pride. It is equivalent to a statement that Negroes are inferior, and, 
consequently, that the youth himself is inferior.' 1 



688 An American Dilemma 

This, however, does not necessarily mean that a Negro becomes willing 
to disclose another Negro who is passing. The spirit of the protective 
community will usually work to help the ex-member to pass. If a passing 
Negro is disclosed by other Negroes, the cause is ordinarily not Negro 
solidarity but rather private envy, of which there is a great deal in a frus- 
trated lower caste. 

As a social phenomenon, passing is so deeply connected with the psycho- 
logical complexes — built around caste and sex — of both groups that it has 
come to be a central theme of fiction and of popular imagination and story 
telling. The adventures of the lonesome passer, who extinguishes his entire 
earlier life, breaks all personal and social anchorings, and starts a new life 
where he has to fear his own shadow, are alluring to all and have an 
especially frightening import to whites. There is a general sentimentality 
for the unhappy mulatto — the "marginal man" with split allegiances and 
frustrations in both directions" which is especially applied to the mulatto 
who passes. From all we know about personality problems there is prob- 
ably, as yet, substantial truth in the picture of the passer which our literary 
phantasy paints for us. But since there has been little observation of the 
personality problems of the passers, the picture of their difficulty is hard to 
define. 

* See Chapter 3*, Section 6. 



CHAPTER 32 

THE NEGRO CLASS STRUCTURE 



1. The Negro Class Order in the American Caste System* 

The caste principle, as insisted upon and enforced by white society, 
would undoubtedly be best satisfied by a classless Negro community 
wherein all Negroes in all respects — educationally, occupationally, and 
economically — were in the lowest bracket and placed under the lowest 
class of whites. That "all Negroes are alike" and should be treated in the 
same way is still insisted upon by many whites, especially in the lower 
classes, who actually feel, or fear, competition from the Negroes and who 
are inclined to sense a challenge to their status in the fact that some 
Negroes rise from the bottom even if they professionally and socially keep 
entirely within the Negro community. 1 The popular theories rationalizing 
and justifying the caste order to the whites have been framed to fit this 
principle of a homogeneous lower caste. None of the Jim Crow legislation 
distinguishes between classes of Negroes. 

This absolutistic principle has, however, never been fully realized even 
in the South. Already in slavery society there came to be a social stratifica- 
tion within the slave community, as house servants and skilled mechanics 
acquired a level of living and culture and enjoyed a social prestige different 
from that of the field slaves. The blood ties of the former group of slaves 
with the white upper class widened this difference. There may also have 
been some difference in status between the slaves owned by the aristocracy 
and the slaves owned by the small farmers. 2 Contemporary sources give 
us the impression that the hatred between Negro slaves and "poor white 
trash" was largely due to this social stratification in the Negro group. 3 
It was mainly the superior slave who could be a challenge and danger to 
the poor whites, and it was he who, on his side, would have the social 
basis for a contemptuous attitude toward them. The early emergence of a 

* In this chapter we shall confine ourselves to the relation between caste and Negro 
classes. This does not mean that caste has no effect on the white class structure. Attitudes and 
actions toward Negroes have always differentiated the various white classes in the South. 
(See Chapter 28, Section 8.) Also there have been concrete effects: for example, when 
practically all Negroes were below them during slavery, the lower class whites probably 
felt less social distance from upper class whites in the South than today when they realise 
that many Negroes have a class status above them. 

689 



690 An American Dilemma 

class of free Negroes, which at the time of Emancipation had grown to 
one-half million individuals, strengthened this trend toward a social 
stratification of the Negro population in America. All sorts of restrictive 
laws were enacted and also partly enforced to keep the free Negroes down. 
But in spite of this, their condition of life and social status was different 
from that of the masses of slaves. 4 

After Emancipation this development continued. The measures to keep 
the Negroes disfranchised and deprived of full civil rights and the whole 
Structure of social and economic discrimination are to be viewed as attempts • 
to enforce the caste principle against the constitutional prescripts and 
against the tendency of some Negroes to rise out of complete dependence. 
The Constitution — and the partial hold of the American Creed even on 
the Southern whites' own minds — prevented effective caste legislation. All 
laws, even in the South, had to be written upon the pretense of equality. 
Education for Negroes was kept backward, but it was given in some 
measure and gradually improved. Some Negroes became landowners, 
often under the protection of individual white patronage. And, most 
important of all, social segregation itself — which has always been main- 
tained as the last absolute barrier — afforded protection for a rising number 
of Negro professionals and businessmen. Negroes had to be ministered to, 
their educational institutions had to be manned, their corpses had to be 
washed and buried, and, as white people did not wish to take on these 
tasks and as Negroes gradually found out their own needs and chances, a 
Negro middle and upper class developed to perform these functions, and 
thus drew its vitality from the very fact of American caste. The dividing 
line between the two castes did not crack, however. Thus, this dual system 
of social class developed, one class system on each side of the caste line. 

Robert E. Park has schematized this development as follows: 

Originally race relations in the South could be rather accurately repreaented by a 
horizontal line, with all the white folk above, and all the Negro folk below. But at 
present these relations are assuming new forms, and in consequence changing in 
character and meaning. With the development of industrial and professional classes 
within the Negro race, the distinction between the races tends to assume the form 
of a vertical line. On one side of this line the Negro is represented in most of the 
occupational and professional classes; on the other side of the line the white man is 
similarly represented. The situation wen this: 

All white 



All colored 



It is now this: 

Whitt Colored 



Professional occupation 
Business occupation 
Labor 



Professional occupation 
Business occupation 
Labor 



Chapter 32. The Negro Class Structure 691 

The result it to develop in every occupational data professional and industrial 
bi-racial organizations. Bi-racial organizations preserve race distinction, but change 
their content. The distances which separate the races are maintained, but the attitudes 
involved are different. The races no longer look up and dozen: they look across.* 

This description contains — as the author is probably well aware — several 
overstatements. The caste line is not vertical but rather "diagonal" (that 
is, a sloped line). The line has moved, and is moving, from horizontal, 
but it is still far away from the vertical position, as Warner has shown. 6 
But Warner is not correct either, since he thinks of the caste line as a 
straight one, implying that the Negro group gets proportionately smaller 

Warner's Diagram 1 

d 



B 



u 


1 


M 


w 


1 
1 
1 
1 
1 






L 






^?-**^ 


M 


A 






N 


L 



1 W. Lloyd Warner, Introduction to Deep South, by Allison Davis, B. B. Gardner and 
M. R. Gardner (1941), p. 10. 

Legend: W — White. N — Negro. U — Upper Class. M — Middle Class. L — Lower Class. 
AB — Caste Line, de — Ultimate Position of Caste Line. 

as one goes up the social status scale. Actually, the Negro middle and upper 
class are more than proportionately smaller than their lower class. Du 
Bois brings this out clearly. 

It goes without saying that while Negroes are thus manifestly of low average 
culture, in no place nor at any time do they form a homogeneous group. Even in 
the country districts of the lower South, Allison Davis likens the group to a steeple 
with wide base tapering to a high pinnacle. This means that while the poor, igno- 
rant, sick and anti-social form a vast foundation, that upward from that base stretch 
classes whose highest members, although few in number, reach above the average not 
only of the Negroes but of the whites, and may justly be compared to the better- 
class white culture. The class structure of the whites, on the other hand, resembles 
a tower bulging near the center with the lowest classes small in number as compared 
with the middle and lower middle classes; and the highest classes far more numerous 
in proportion than those among blacks. 7 



6"92 



An American Dilemma 



We can diagram the caste-class situation in two ways: one, in terms of 
absolute numbers after the manner of the ordinary population pyramid — 
as in Du Bois* description; two, in terms of percentages at each social level 
— after the pattern of a box diagram. The latter diagram brings out the 
line, in temporal changes in which Warner and others have been interested. 
The pyramid and the line are drawn hypothetically — it would take an 
enormous amount of work to draw them with an approximation of em- 
pirical quantitative accuracy. But as to their general shape there can be 

Absolute Numbers op 

Whites and Negroes 

at Each Level of 

Social Status 



Percentage op Whites and Negroes 
at Each Level of Social Status 





Legend: W — White. N — Negro. -U — Upper Class. M — Middle Class. L — Lower Class. 



little doubt: the pyramid is heavier at the bottom on the Negro side than 
on the white side, and the line is a diagonal curve, not a straight line 
diagonal. 8 

There is at least one weakness of all diagrams of this sort: they assume 
that the class structures of the two castes are exactly comparable, which 
they are not. On the same class level — that is, assuming white and Negro 
individuals with the same education, occupation, income, and so on — the 
white does not "look across" the caste line upon the Negro, but he 
definitely looks down upon him." And this fundamental fact of caste is 

' On the other hand, vAMn tht Negro community, the upper clan Negro is placed higher 
than is the white man of-comparable income, education, and to on, in the white community. 
Dn Bois observed this: 



Chapter 32. The Negro Class Structure 69$ 

materialized in a great number of political, judicial, and social disabilities 
imposed upon Negroes somewhat independent of their class, and in the 
rigid rule that the Negro is not allowed to pass legitimately from the one 
side to the other. 

The diagonal and curved character of the caste line and this fact that 
whites can look down on Negroes of the same income, educational, or 
other level, form one of what Dollard calls the major "gains" of the caste 
order to the whites. 8 The difference between the South and the North and, 
in a degree, between rural and urban communities is, from this point of 
view, that the caste line tends to be somewhat more vertical in the latter 
than in the former regions and localities. The caste status of the Negro in 
the North and in cities generally has fewer rigid restrictions of free compe- 
tition. In this direction the class system has been continually moving in 
the South and — except for the transitional extraordinary pressure of recent 
mass immigration — also in the North. 

We have seen that Southern whites, especially in the lower brackets, 
often refuse to recognize class differences in the Negro community and 
insist upon distinguishing only between "bad niggers," "good niggers," 
and "uppity niggers," and that they, until recently, have succeeded in 
retaining a legal and political system which corresponds most closely tc 
this view. But this uncompromising attitude is disappearing under the 
pressure of the facts of Negro social differentiation. Thus the actual import 
of caste is gradually changing as the Negro class structure develops — 
except in the fundamental restriction that no Negro is allowed to ascend 
into the white caste. 

2. Caste Determines Class 

While the Negro class structure has developed contrary to the caste 
principle and actually implies a considerable modification of caste relations, 
fundamentally this class structure is a function of the caste order. We have 
repeatedly had to refer to this important fact that, while the caste order 
has held the Negro worker down, it has at the same time created petty 
monopolies for a tiny Negro middle and upper class. Negroes understand 
this, although they seldom discuss it openly.* 

"... a white Philadelphian with $1,500 a year can call himself poor and live simply. 
A Negro with $1,500 a year ranks with the richest of his race and must usually spend more 
in proportion than his white neighbor in rent, dress and entertainment." (W. E. B. Du Bois, 
The Philadelphia Negro [1899], p. 178.) 

* The author once attended a meeting in Detroit where one of the national Negro leaders 
gave a speech. The church where the meeting was held was filled with professionals and 
business people of the local Negro upper class with a sprinkling of humbler people. After 
the address, there was some discussion, and the eternal question of Negro strategy was 
brought up. The speaker in answering began to give the standard arguments for a 
cautious approach. In the middle of his answer he seemed to sense the futility of the ques- 



694 An American Dilemma 

The lower caste monopolies are strongest in some of the professions and 
in the service occupations near the professions (funeral work, beauty work, 
retail trade, and so on) ; some monopolistic leeway is also afforded small- 
scale Negro banking, insurance and real estate. For the rest of the occupa- 
tions, the caste barriers block the way for Negroes.* It is thus understand- 
able that, next to the small size of the middle and upper class, the Negro 
class system has its most characteristic feature in the fact that, on the whole, 
capitalist business and wealth mean so relatively little, and that general 
education and professional training mean so relatively much, as criteria 
for attaining upper class status.* This is evidently not due to a lower 
valuation of wealth among Negroes than among whites. Rather independ- 
ent of the respectability of the source, wealth is as sure — and perhaps 
even a little more sure — to give upper class status among American 
Negroes as it does among whites. But there is so little of it in the Negro 
community. And education is such a high value to this group, which has 
to struggle for it, that it is understandable why education is more impor- 
tant, relatively, for Negro status than for white status. Among the conse- 
quences of the relative prestige of education among Negroes is that prac- 
tically all Negro college teachers are upper class, and that most of the 
national Negro leaders are academic men. In both these respects, the 
American Negro world is strikingly different from the American white 
world. 

One of the consequences of the small range of wealth and occupation in 
the Negro community, and of the importance of education, is that there is 
probably less social distance between bottom and top among Negroes than 
there is among whites. It is not uncommon for a Negro boy— especially in 
the North — to rise from the lowest to the highest social status in one gener- 
ation. While a white boy could rise the same absolute social distance in the 
white caste during his lifetime — that is, he could attain the same increase 
in education, wealth, and manners — this distance would not appear so great 
because he would still be far from the top. This fact has tended to keep the 
various Negro classes in better contact with each other, except for the 
declining mulatto aristocracies, than is the case with the white classes. 
Other factors — such as caste pressure, the northward migration, and the 

tion} be smiled and remarked that perhaps segregation should not be bullied so without 
qualifications: "How would you all feel if you awakened tomorrow morning and found 
yourself in the wild sea of white competition?" He cashed in a big laugh, somewhat nervous 
and bashful, but relieving. 

'See Chapters 13 and 14. 

* Two other characteristics that are rather unique make for upper class status in the Negro 
world: caste leadership and achievement in the white world. Marcus Garvey, Oscar 
DePriest, and Father Divine, on the one hand, and Joe Louis, Paul Robeson, and 
Rochester, on the other hand, have high status and would have had it even if they were 
neither rich nor educated. 



Chapter 32. The Negro Class Structure 695 

existence of national organizations fighting for the whole caste — have had 
a similar effect. 

Another characteristic of the Negro class structure — which would 
superficially seem contradictory to the previously mentioned trait, but is 
not on closer examination — is the smaller amount of pride in individual 
climbing among upper class Negroes. It is my impression that, in a sense, 
the typical Negro upper class person attaches more importance to family 
background than the typical Yankee. At least he is less likely to brag about 
his lowly origin. In this, as in many .other respects, the American Negro 
seems more similar to the Southern white man, who also places a lower 
estimation on the self-made man. I should imagine that this is not only a 
cultural pattern borrowed from Southern white society but also, and more 
fundamentally, a trait connected with the fact that both Negroes and 
Southern whites are, though in different degrees, disadvantaged groups 
and do not feel the security of the Yankee, who can afford to brag about 
having started as newsboy or shoeshiner.' 

Also important for the spirit of the Negro class .structure is the fact that 
such a relatively large portion of the Negro middle class groups in all 
regions of America have positions in personal service of whites. In South- 
ern cities some of the upper class Negroes still engage in some of the 
service occupations, as they did even in the Northern cities a generation 
ago. A great number of their sons and daughters have proceeded into the 
upper class professions. I have also been struck by the relatively high 
proportion of upper class professionals who during their college years, for 
lack of other employment opportunities open to Negroes, have done 
service work for whites. It appears plausible that both the refined and 
worldly-wise manners, especially in the older generation of upper class 
Negroes, and their often conservative social and economic views are not 
unconnected with such earlier experiences in personal service of well-to-do 
whites. 10 

An individual's relation to white society is of utmost importance for his 
social status in the Negro community. This aspect of the Negro class 
structure will be considered in the next part on Negro leadership and con- 
certed action. 

3. Color and Class 

The American order of color caste has even more directly stamped the 
Negro class system by including relative whiteness as one of the main 

*A special reason why upper class Negroes often make so much of their family back- 
ground is that if they had free Negro or upper class white ancestry it puts them above 
the hated slave background. 

A few Negroes who have risen very high and who are secure may — like the white 
man— boast of their lowly origin. Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington did this. 



696 Am American Dilemma 

factors determining status within the Negro community. This has a history 
as old as class stratification itself among Negroes. Mixed bloods have 
always been preferred by the whites in practically all respects. They made 
a better appearance to the whites and were assumed to be mentally more 
capable. They had a higher sales value on the slave market. 11 The select 
classes of trained mechanics and house servants who early came in closer 
contact with the dominant culture of the whites seem largely to have been 
drawn from the group of mixed bloods, and their superior training further 
raised their status. 

A sexual selection added its influence to this occupational differentiation. 
The fair-skinned house girls were more frequently used as mistresses by 
men of the planter class than were the plantation hands. They became the 
mothers of successive generations of even whiter children. Many white 
fathers freed their illegitimate mulatto offspring and often also the chil- 
dren's mothers, or gave them the opportunity to work out their freedom 
on easy terms. Some were helped to education and sent to the free states 
in the North. Some were given a start in business or helped to acquire land. 

For this reason the free Negro population everywhere contained a 
greater proportion of mixed bloods than did the slave population. 12 The 
mulattoes followed the white people's valuation and associated their 
privileges with their lighter color. They considered themselves superior 
to the black slave people and attributed their superiority to the fact of their 
mixed blood. The black slaves, too, came to hold this same valuation. The 
white people, however, excluded even the fairest of the mulatto group 
from their own caste — in so far as they did not succeed in passing — and the 
mulattoes, in their turn, held themselves more and more aloof from the 
black slaves and the humbler blacks among the free Negroes; thus the 
mulattoes tended early to form a separate intermediary caste of their own. 
Although they were constantly augmented by mulatto ex-slaves, they sel- 
dom married down into the slave group. In such cities as New Orleans, 
Charleston, Mobile, Natchez, and later Washington, highly exclusive 
mulatto societies were formed which still exist, to a certain extent, today. 
Color thus became a badge of status and social distinction among the Negro 
people. 

Emancipation destroyed any possibility there might have been for the 
mulatto group to form an intermediary caste of their own in America as a 
substitute for their not being able to get into the white group." Even their 
upper class position lost in relative exclusiveness as their monopoly of free- 
dom was extinguished and white philanthropy began to aid the recently 
emancipated slave masses. The new definition of the Negro problem in the 

* In £outh Africa, the mulatto group holds itself as a separate caste, even though the 
blacks are not slaves. A similar situation exists in many other countries. Our statement refers 
a conditions in the United States only. 



Chapter 32. The Negro Class Structure 69} 

South and the increased antagonism on the white side toward all Negroes 
who were "out of their place" made the whites less inclined to draw a 
distinction between light and dark Negroes. 

But at the same time Emancipation broadened the basis for a Negro 
upper class and increased the possibilities for this class relatively even 
more than for the Negro masses themselves. What there was in the Negro 
people of "family background," tradition of freedom, education and prop- 
erty ownership was mostly in the hands of mulattoes. They became the 
political leaders of the freedmen during Reconstruction, as well as their 
teachers, professionals and business people. Compared with the newly 
freed slave population they had a tremendous head-start. In the social 
stratification of the Negro community their social distance toward the 
Negro masses perpetuated itself. Darker Negroes who rose from the 
masses to distinction in the Negro community by getting an education or 
by conducting successful business enterprises showed an almost universal 
desire to marry light-skinned women and so to become adopted members 
of the light-colored aristocracy and to give their children a heritage of 
lighter color. Blackness of skin remained undesirable and even took on an 
association of badness. 18 

Without any doubt a Negro with light skin and other European features 
has in the North an advantage with white people when competing for jobs 
available for Negroes. 1 * It is less true in the South, particularly in the 
humbler occupations. The whites continue to associate the nearness to their 
own physical type with superior endowments and cultural advancement, 
and the preponderance of fair-skinned Negroes in the upper strata seems 
to give this prejudice a basis in fact. Perhaps of even greater importance 
is the fact that the Negro community itself has accepted this color prefer- 
ence. 15 In conversation Negroes often try to deny or to minimize this fact. 
But there are a number of indications which an observer cannot help 
recording. For one thing, many individual Negroes will be found, when 
speaking about themselves, to rate their own color lighter than it actually 
is, but practically none to rate it darker. 16 The desire on the part of Negro 
women of all shades and in all social classes to bleach their skin and 
straighten their hair — observed decades ago by Ray Stannard Baker and 
William Archer 17 — has been the basis for some of the most important 
Negro businesses and some of the largest fortunes. Cosmetics for such 
purposes are most prominently advertised in the Negro press. The pictures 
of the social lions displayed on the social pages of the Negro newspapers 
give evidence in the same direction, as does listening to the undertones of 
conversation in Negro society even when an outsider is present. 

Cliques, clubs, and social life in general seem to be permeated by this 
color preference. 18 The color problem enters into the Negro home, where 
children show differences in shades, and into the schools. 1 * In marriage 



698 An American Dilemma 

selection, as we have had occasion to mention previously, it becomes a 
dominant factor. It is impossible not to observe that in the higher classes 
the wives regularly tend to be of a lighter shade of color than the hus- 
bands. 20 For a dark Negro woman, especially in the middle or upper 
classes, the chances of getting a husband are fewer than for a dark Negro 
man: men achieve more on the basis of merit and also take the initiative 
in marriage selection. A fair Negro woman, on the other hand, has such 
superior marriage chances that this fact is generally recognized as the 
major explanation of why passable women do not seem to pass out of the 
Negro caste as often as do passable men. 

Fair-skinned Negroes have not been allowed by the white caste to 
establish an intermediary caste of their own. Their superior status has not 
been recognized. With great consistency they have been relegated to the 
Negro caste. In the Negro community their exclusiveness has been broken 
up by social mobility, aided by the growth of the Negro upper classes. 
Darker Negroes can rise to the top among Negroes in social status, and 
intermarriage with lighter Negroes is possible and actually not infrequent. 
But the marriage selection referred to and the greater opportunities gener- 
ally for economic and cultural advance of fair-skinned Negroes have 
preserved an inherited situation where the darker individuals tend to form 
the lower classes»while the fairer individuals tend to belong to the upper 
strata. The actual quantitative correlation between class and color is not 
known. 21 It would seem, however, as if it were higher in urban districts 
than in rural ones. 22 It is also probable that, in spite of the selective factors 
still working in favor of the fair-skinned individuals, the relative propor- 
tion of dark-skinned individuals in the upper classes is increasing as these 
classes are growing. The "blue-veined" societies are breaking up. 

As the Negro community is becoming increasingly "race conscious" it is 
no longer proper to display color preferences publicly. The light-skinned 
Negroes have to pledge allegiance to the Negro race. There is and has 
always been much envy on the part of darker Negroes toward lighter ones. 
There is even some tendency to regard a light skin as a badge of undesir- 
able illegitimacy, especially when the light-skinned individual has a dark- 
skinned mother or siblings. 23 There is also a slight tendency to attribute 
bad biological effects to miscegenation. 24 The Garvey Back-to-Africa move- 
ment appealed systematically to the darker Negroes and tried to impute 
superiority to an unmixed African heritage.* Other more recent movements 
have made similar appeals. 1 * This reaction has, however, never outweighed 
the primary tendency, which has always been to regard physical and 
cultural similarity to white people with esteem and deference. And the 
reaction itself is in many cases a psychological defense against a dominant 



•See Chapter 35, Sectidn 7. 
k See Chapter 39, Section 2, 



Chapter 32. The Neoro Class Structure 699 

belief in the desirability of light skin and "good" features. It has often 
been remarked that this tendency is not entirely unique among Negroes. 
It will appear in every disadvantaged group, for instance, among Jews in 
America. But Negro features are so distinct that only in the Negro problem 
does this factor become of great social importance. 

Their color valuation is only one instance, among many, of the much 
more general tendency for the Negro people, to the degree that they are 
becoming acculturated, to take over the valuations of the superior white 
caste. a In other spheres this process can, on the whole, be regarded as a 
wholesome and advantageous adjustment of the Negroes to American life. 
In this particular respect, however, a conflict emerges which is unsolvable, 
as the average Negro cannot effectively change his color and other physical 
features. If the dark Negro accepts the white man's valuation of skin color, 
he must stamp himself as inferior. If the light Negro accepts this valuation, 
he places himself above the darker Negroes but below the whites, and he 
reduces his loyalty to his caste. The conflict produces a personality problem 
for practically every single Negro. And few Negroes accomplish an entirely 
successful adjustment. 

There is a considerable literature on the personality problem of the light- 
skinned Negro. 25 He has been characterized as a "marginal man" — "one 
whom fate has condemned to live in two societies and in two, not merely 
different but antagonistic cultures" 28 — and he has been assumed to show 
restlessness, instability, and all sorts of deviations from a harmonious and 
well-balanced personality type. 27 This literature, which is largely of a 
speculative character, 28 probably reflects — like the great amount of fiction 
devoted to the mulatto — more the imaginative expectations of white people 
as they think of themselves with their white skin, if placed under the caste 
yoke, than the actual life situation of mulattoes in the Negro caste. It is 
forgotten that the Negro upper strata enjoy considerable protection behind 
the wall of segregation and that a light skin in all social strata of the Negro 
community has definite advantages, two factors which must tend to make 
mulattoes rather more satisfied to be Negroes than are the darker Negroes." 
It should not be denied, of course, that there are fair-skinned Negroes in 
America who develop the personality traits traditionally ascribed to them.' 

* See Chapter 44, Section 1. 

* Another problem for dark-skinned Negroes who reach the upper class arises out of the 
fact that they are newly arrived and so have a tenseness which the light-skinned who, for 
the most pan, are long established in the upper class, do not have. 

The studies for the American Youth Commission (see footnote 9 of Chapter 30) 
corroborate the author's impression that the personality problems of the dark-skinned Negro 
are often greater than are those of the light-skinned Negro. This is especially true among 
the educated groups. 

' I have met two violently anti-Negro mulattoes who identified themselves with the whites. - 
One was a passer. The other was just a little bit too dark to pass safely. The latter proudly 



700 An American Dilemma 

But, as Wirtb and Goldhamer point out, "It is important to recognize . . . 
that in a sense every Negro, whether light or dark, is a marginal man in 
American society." 28 And skin color is only one factor among many creat- 
ing personality problems for Negroes. 

4. The Classes in the Negro Community* 

The static or cross-sectional configuration of the Negro class system, 
particularly as it is observable in the South, has recently been delineated in 
a number of community studies, 30 and we know much more on this topic 
today than we did ten years ago. In all these studies the conventional 
division of a population into three classes — "lower class," "middle class,'* 
"upper class" — has been applied to the Negro community. 81 Some of these 
studies, further, subdivide each of the three classes into two. It is quite 
convenient for the investigator to describe two extremes — the lower and 
upper classes — and then handle the great amount of variation by describing 
a middle class between them. We shall follow this pattern for the conven- 
ience of both ourselves and the reader. It should be understood that the 
description is in terms of the average, the general and the typical. Actually 
each class has a considerable amount of variation and there are often indi- 
viduals who are complete exceptions. The actual situation, it must be 
remembered, is one of a continuum of social status, with an imperfect 
correlation between the factors making up social status and between social 
status and the other traits which are to be ascribed to the various classes. 
There are also differences between regions and communities, and the class 
structure is constantly changing. 

The Negro lower class, as it is usually described, contains the large 
majority of Negroes everywhere. 82 Any reasonable criteria used to describe 
the white lower class would, when applied to Negroes, put the majority of 
the latter in the lower class. 33 They are the unskilled or semi-skilled laborers 
and domestic workers of the cities in the South and the North; and the 
agricultural wage laborers, tenants and household servants in Southern 
rural districts. During the 'thirties a large portion of this group has, perma- 
nently or temporarily, been on relief. Incomes are low and uncertain; 

emphasized that he was "the descendant of slave owners," which, of course, is not uncom- 
mon in the Negro world, but in his announcement it had a definitely sadistic and hateful 
import. I have been with many passers; with the exception mentioned, they did not show 
any extraordinary hatred of Negroes or any abnormal fixation on "white blood." Fair- 
skinned nonpassing Negroes are generally conscious of their social advantage and are 
sometimes cautiously critical of the black masses. They do not ordinarily appear particularly 
off balance, but are rather inclined to belong to the complacent type of well-accommodated 
fttit bourgeois Negro. 

"For other dynamic interpretations of Negro classes, see: E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro 
Fmmly-in the United Statu (1939), pp. 391-475; and Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, 
and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South (194.1), Chapters 9 and 10. 



Chapter 32. The Negro Class Structure 701 

levels of living do not include most of what is considered cultural necessities 
according to the "American standard."' They generally have little educa- 
tion. The older generation is often illiterate or practically illiterate. Books, 
periodicals, and newspapers, social movements and ideas, play an almost 
insignificant role in their lives. 

This class is Southern in origin and character. Even in the Northern cities 
the lower class of Negroes is largely made up of recent migrants from the 
South and of their children. Both economically and culturally the Southern 
origin projects into present time the attitude and behavior patterns from 
slavery to a great extent. Lower class Negroes have kept more of the mental 
servility and dependence of the slave population and developed less 
resourcefulness, self-reliance and sense of individual dignity. Their situation 
is not favorable for developing strong incentives to personal accomplish- 
ment and improvement. Standards of industry and honesty are generally 
low. Judged by American standards, their family life is disorganized and 
their sexual morals are lax. b Aggression and violence are neither rare nor 
censored much by community disapproval. They are the group most sub- 
ject to lack of legal protection in the South, and they probably have least 
respect for law and justice as it is applied in that region." 

Before the Civil War, ignorance and isolation probably kept most of the 
slaves accommodated to their inferior caste status. The bulk of this group 
remained in the lower class after the War. As the intimate servant-master 
relations have been progressively broken up, Negroes became increasingly 
resentful, in a sullen and concealed way, and behind their caste mask often 
manifested bitter resignation and suspicion against the whites. Some of 
them have been looked upon by the whites as the "good old darkies," but 
others are turning into "bad niggers," likely to fight back. 8 * Their strange- 
ness is increasingly felt. This process has gone much further in the North 
than in the South and, in the South, further in urban districts than in rural 
ones. 

This Negro lower class is, to reiterate, not homogeneous. In respect to 
security of employment and level of income, but more fundamentally to 
variations in family circumstances and individual endowments and propen- 
sities, some are falling below the average class norm and some are managing 
to keep above. To a section of the lower class belong the chronic relief cases, 
the habitual criminals, prostitutes, gamblers and vagabonds. It is a matter 
of definition and, partly, a matter of unemployment cycles, where the 
dividing line is to be drawn. In some cases, a gambler will have the prestige 

* Concerning occupational status, unemployment and relief, incomes and levels of living, 
see Chapters 15 and 16. 

* See Chapter 4.3, Section a. 
'See Chapter 44, Section a. 

* See Part VI. 



702 Aw American Dilemma 

and wealth of a person in the middle or upper class, and during the depres- 
sion of the 'thirties, the majority of the Negro population became either 
actual or potential relief clients. For the rural districts, Charles S. Johnson 
emphasizes rightly that a distinction should be made between the "folk 
Negro" and the rest of the lower class. The "folk Negro" has a low degree 
of assimilation to modern American standards but has, nevertheless, some 
measure of family organization and internal group cohesion. 85 In the upper 
levels of the lower class, there are many persons who have definite am- 
bitions to better their own, or at least their children's, status. These people 
will take care not to let their insurance lapse j they will have more perma- 
nent affiliation with churches and lodges; they will try to keep their children 
in school. It is again a matter of definition as to how large a portion of the 
Negro lower class should be included in this sub-group. 

At the other end of the social status scale is the small Negro upper class. 

In rural districts the ownership and successful management of a sizable 

farm may be said to give a person upper class status. All over the country 

the training for a profession or the carrying on of a substantial business, 

particularly in the field of banking or insurance, but also in contracting, real 

estate, and personal service, is the regular basis for an upper class position. 

In smaller communities even today, and previously also in big cities, every 

steady employment where some training or skill was required, and the 

incojne was substantially above the average among Negroes, conferred 

upper class status. Employment by public agencies, particularly federal 

agencies like the United States postal service, has always carried high social 

esteem in the Negro community, and if coupled.with some home ownership 

and some education, usually put the person in the upper class. Generally, in 

the absence of wealth, higher education is becoming practically an essential 

to an upper class position. 80 

Often family background is stressed in this class. The family is organized 
upon the paternalistic principle, legal marriage is an accepted form, and 
illegitimacy and desertion are not condoned. Children are shielded as far as 
possible both from influences of the lower class Negroes and from humiliat- 
ing experiences of the caste system. They are ordinarily given a higher 
education and assisted to acquire professional training. As Negroes are 
commonly believed to be loud, ignorant, dirty, boisterous, and lax in sexual 
and all other morals, good manners and respectability become nearly an 
obsession in the Negro upper class. If the community offers a choice, they 
will tend to belong to Episcopal, Congregational, or Presbyterian churches, 
or, in any case, to those churches where there is less "shouting" and where 
the preacher also has some education and refinement. In Southern cities the 
Negro upper class will often adhere more closely to strict puritanical 
itandards of conduct than the white upper or middle class. 87 In the larger 
cities, however, the younger generation in the upper class shows allegiance 



Chapter 32. The JNeoro Class Structure 703 

to the modern American fashion of being "smart" and "sporting." Conspic- 
uous consumption in automobiles, dresses, and parties -carried on with 
"good taste" — is becoming of increasing importance *nd may even supplant 
respectability as the major characteristic of upper class status. 

The Negro upper class is most thoroughly assimilated into the national 
culture, but it is also most isolated from the whites.* They are the most race 
conscious. They provide the leadership and often almost the entire member- 
ship of the nationally established Negro defense organizations, such as the 
local branches of the N.A.A.C.P. 38 But they sometimes fee! gteat difficulty 
in identifying themselves with the Negro masses whose spokesmen they 
are, 38 although, perhaps, no more than the white upper class with the white 
lower class. The Negro upper class is characterized by many of the traits 
which are in complete contrast to those of the masses of Negroes in the 
lower class. Their social ambition is to keep up this distinction. In private 
they are often the severest critics of the Negro masses. Their resentment 
against the "lazy, promiscuous, uneducated, good-for-nothing" lower class 
Negro is apparent to every observer. W. E. B. Du Bois talks about the 
"inner problems of contact with their own lower classes with which they 
have few or no social institutions capable of dealing." 40 

But their small numbers in rural districts and small cities of the South 
and the segregation everywhere enforce physical proximity to the lower 
class Negroes and make isolation difficult. The Negro masses, further, 
usually form the basis for their economic position and their income: usually 
they cannot afford too much exclusiveness. Moreover, they think of 
themselves, and are thought of by all other Negroes and by the whites, as 
the "Negro elite," membership in which confers the presumption of local 
leadership. This ties them spiritually to the protective Negro community. 
"Though the upper class is relatively small in numbers, ... it provides the 
standards and values, and symbolizes the aspirations of the Negro commu- 
nity j being the most articulate element in the community, its outlook and 
interests are often regarded as those of the community at large." 41 Not only 
as a basis for its economic livelihood but also as a sounding board for its 
role of leadership, the Negro upper class needs contact with the Negro 
masses. They have their social status and, indeed, their existence as an upper 
class only by virtue of their relationship to the lower classes of Negroes. 

The conflict in their attitudes toward the lower class creates a tension and 
confusion in the political convictions of the upper class. Their wealth and 
security tend to make them conservative; their extreme dependence on the 
lower class forces them to sympathize with reforms which would aid the 

* See Chapter 30, Section a. This fact does not, however, prevent upper class Negroes 
from occasionally enjoying class solidarity over the caste line with upper class whites. See 
Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, of. cit., p. S3 J John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern 
Town (1937), p. 83j and Hortense Powdennaker, After Freedom (1039), p. 33»- 



704 Aw American Dilemma 

lower class — and, therefore, themselves indirectly. Negro doctors, for 
example, have reasons to be against socialized medicine, as do many white 
doctors, since they might lose some of their clients. But they stand to profit 
enormously if the government should use Negro doctors to treat Negro 
patients under a socialized set-up/ 

The Negro middle class is usually assumed to be larger than the upper 
class but smaller than the lower class. 1 * There would be a good deal of 
difference of opinion among experts as to what occupations were associated 
with middle class status. They have usually achieved a small but, in com- 
parison with the lower class, less insecure occupational position, but are 
characterized even more by a striving toward a better economic position. 
Usually they have had primary or secondary education, but few have been 
to college except the school teachers. Education has a high ranking in their 
scale of social values, and they want to give their children this means of 
fuller cultural emancipation. They also look down on the lower class 
Negroes and attempt to appear respectable. Thrift, independence, honesty 
and industriousness are included in their standards. In the middle class, it 
becomes a proud boast never to have been in trouble with the law. Their 
family life is rather stabilized. Even if many of them are married under 
common law," these marriages tend to be relatively stable. Extra-marital 
relations are not uncommon, at least for the men, but it is expected that 
affairs shall be carried on in decent secrecy. They are ordinarily energetic 
and loyal members of lodges and of churches — usually of the Baptist or 
Methodist variety. 

In the bigger cities where prostitution, gambling, and other types of 
"protected" businesses reach considerable importance, there is, parallel to 
the ordinary "respectable" class structure, a less respectable, or "shady," 
class structure. Its upper class consists of the successful racketeers. The 
middle class may be said to consist of their lieutenants and the less successful 
independents. The lower class would then consist of hangers-on and petty 
criminals. Wealth and power is the main criterion of status in this society. 

* See Chapter 15, Section 4. 

'This arbitrary assumption would have an empirical justification if, as we assumed, the 
class pyramid has a tapering point and concave sides. See Section 1 of this chapter. 

'There is a divergence of opinion among those who have studied the matter as to 
whether the middle class among Negroes tends to have formal marriage or only common- 
law marriage. Those who say that the Negro middle class tends to have legalized marriage 
probably consider that the middle class contains people occupied in skilled work and 
business. They are also probably thinking of Negroes in the North. We follow Powder- 
maker (of. cit., pp. 152-153): "In the middle class, licensed marriages are few." We 
regard the middle class as consisting of mainly semi-skilled workers and workers in the 
"higher" service occupations, and we are giving main emphasis to conditions in the South. 
Practically all experts agree that the Negro middle class family is fairly stable, even where 
it has common-law marriage (see, for example Dollard, of. cit., p. 87; E. Franklin 
Frazier, Negro Youth at the Crosswayi [1940], p. 178). 



Chapter 32. The Negro Class Structure 705 

Education, family background, and respectability have no significance. 
The upper and middle classes of this shady society have a certain prestige 
with the lower classes of the general Negro society in the cities. For this 
reason, vice and crime can appear as a desirable career to almost any lower 
class urban youth. This shady Negro society has a parallel in the white 
world, but the shady white society probably has less general prestige.* 

The foregoing picture of the Negro class structure is, like most other 
descriptions, static. Actually, however, the Negro class structure is dynamic: 
not only is there movement between the classes and changes within each of 
the classes, but also the entire class system is moving upward. We have set 
forth our specifications for a study of class structure and the Negro commu- 
nity, which takes into account this dynamic perspective, in Appendix 8. 

'See Chapter 14, Section 10, 



Part IX 
LEADERSHIP AND CONCERTED ACTION 



CHAPTER 33 

THE AMERICAN PATTERN OF INDIVIDUAL 
LEADERSHIP AND MASS PASSIVITY 

r. "Intelligent Leadership" 

Despite the democratic organization of American society with its em- 
phasis upon liberty, equality of opportunity (with a strong leaning in favor 
of the underdog), and individualism, 11 the idea of leadership pervades 
American, thought and collective action. The demand for "intelligent 
leadership" is raised in all political camps, social and professional groups, 
and, indeed, in every collective activity centered around any interest or 
purpose — church, school, business, recreation, philanthropy, the campus 
life of a college, the entertaining of a group of visitors, the selling of a 
patent medicine, the propagation of an idea or of an interest. As a standard 
demand it appears with great frequency in public speeches and newspaper 
editorials and will seldom be absent even when the social reformer or the 
social scientist speaks. 

If an ordinary American faces a situation which he recognizes as a 
"problem" without having any specific views as to how to "solve" it, he 
tends to resort to two general recommendations: one, traditionally, is 
"education"; the other is "leadership." The belief in "education" is a part 
of, or a principal conclusion from, the American Creed." The demand for 
"leadership" plays on a different plane of his personality. It is a result less 
of a conscious ideological principle than of a pragmatic approach to those 
activities which require the cooperation of many individuals. For this reason 
it is also much less a part of Americans' self-knowledge. While the demo- 
cratic Creed and the belief in education are an ever present popular theory 
with highest national sanctions— held conscious not only by affirmative 
references in practically every solemn public utterance, but also maintained 
by an ever growing literature — it will be found that Americans in general 
are quite unaware that the leadership idea is a particular characteristic of 
their culture. Since the leadership concept— though, with a quite different 
import — has recently become associated with fascism and nazism, it is 

" See Chapter i . 

"See Chapters i and 41. 

7»9 



710 An American Dilemma 

understandable that Americans regularly show a marked reluctance to 
admit the fact even when it is pointed out by the observer. 

What Americans display in their demand for leadership are primarily 
the general traits of their culture which may be referred to as individual- 
ism and romanticism. The ordinary American has a liking for the personal 
and the dynamic in collective activity, a longing for the uniquely human, 
the unexpected, the adventurous. He wants changes, and he likes to asso- 
ciate them with new faces. He hopes for individuals to step out of the mass, 
to find the formulas for directing the course of events, to take the lead. 
And he is prepared to create room for the exceptional individual's initiative. 
He is willing to gamble quite a bit on his choice. Not least important in his 
attitude toward the "outstanding" person is the inclination to be hopefully 
experimental. James Bryce observed: 

I doubt if there be any country [except the United States] where a really brilliant 
man, confident in his own strength, and adding the charm of a striking personality 
to the gift of popular eloquence, would find an easier path to fame and power, and 
would exert more influence over the minds and emotions of the multitude. Such a 
man, speaking to the people with the independence of conscious strength, would find 
himself appreciated and respected. 1 

In retrospect the American becomes rather pronouncedly a hero-wor- 
shiper. He usually conceives of the American Revolution as the deed of a 
group of outstanding, courageous and resourceful individuals. The Repub- 
lic has its "Founding Fathers," such as few other democratic nations have. 
In fact, the American dramatizes and personifies the entire history of his 
country and of the world. Social changes are rarely looked upon as the 
outcome of broad trends and deep forces. The long toils and seemingly 
blind moves of anonymous masses are pushed into the background of his 
world view. 2 

Like no other people, Americans have continually succeeded in creating 
popular heroes — national, local and professional. Outstanding individuals 
may become heroes while they are still living. In no other part of Western 
culture is it less true that "no one is a prophet in his own country and his 
own time." A rising leader in America has quite commonly the backing of 
his home town and his own group: the American ideas of "favorite son" 
and "local boy who made good" are significant indications of this trait 
of American culture. 

American individualism and romanticism have, in this particular respect, 
a personality basis to operate upon, which, for want of a better term, we 
shall call "personal generosity." On the average, Americans-show a greater 
kindness and patience with others than Europeans do. This attitude is a 
natural product of the opportunities on the frontier and, more generally, 
in a rapidly expanding economy. Americans worship success. This peculiar- 



Chapter 33. Leadership and Mass Passivity 711 

ity has been the object of their own and others' ironical and often scornful 
comments. What has less often been pointed out is that this success cult in 
America is not particularly self-centered; instead it is generous. Usually it 
is not in his own hut in other persons' success that the ordinary American 
rejoices and takes -pride. He identifies himself with those who succeed. He 
is inclined to "jump on the bandwagon," as the American expression runs, 
to "be on the winning side." 

Americans have thus come to develop an unmatched capacity for vicari- 
ous satisfaction in watching others fight. The immense and agitated crowds 
of spectators, who can always be counted on to fill the stadiums when a 
hard struggle is staged, testify to this, as does also the manner in which 
international and national news is presented by press and radio to suit the 
American public. In America, as everywhere else, ninety-nine out of a 
hundred do not "succeed," of courses — or "succeed" only if the standards 
are set low. But the extraordinary fact is that these ninety-nine less success- 
ful individuals in America, when they see their own hopes disappointed and 
their ambitions thwarted, are less likely than similar individuals in other 
countries to retreat into sour chagrin. The individual who is rising in 
America is not held back much by the mortification of his fellows and 
compeers. Occasionally he may even be pushed ahead. 

Let us not be misunderstood. Of course there is personal envy in 
America, too. But there has been decidedly less of it than in the more 
static, less "boundless" civilizations of the Old World. Luck, ability and 
drive in others are more tolerated and less checked in America. Climbing 
is more generally acclaimed. Leadership is more readily accepted. 

2. "Community Leaders" 

So it becomes more natural, and more possible, in America, to associate 
the dynamic forces of society with individuals instead of with masses. In 
the Negro problem it is evident to the observer that the "community 
leaders" are given an astonishingly important role. When the white people 
want to influence Negro attitudes or behavior in one direction or another — 
to get the Negro farmers to plant a garden around their shacks, to screen 
their windows, to keep their children in school, to cure and prevent syphilis, 
to keep Negroes more respectful to the whites, to prevent them from join- 
ing trade unions, and to frighten them against "outside meddlers" or "red" 
seducers— the natural device (besides the long-range one of "education") 
is to appeal to the "community leaders." These leaders are expected to get 
it over to the Negro masses, who are supposed to be rather passive. 

There are, as we shall point out, special reasons in the caste situation ror 
this practice. But more fundamentally this is a common American culture 
pattern. Caste accentuates it, but in the sphere of the Negro problem both 
whites and Negroes display a general attitude toward leadership and follow- 



712 An American Dilemma 

ership which permeates the entire American nation. It is incorrect to discuss 
Negro leadership except in this general setting. If we should study Negro 
leadership as an isolated phenomenon, we should be inclined to ascribe to 
the Negro people certain cultural characteristics which are simply Amer- 
ican. Actually the Negro, in this as in so many other respects, because of 
the peculiar circumstances in which he lives, is an "exaggerated American." 
For in all America it is assumed that every group contains leaders who 
control the attitudes of the group. Everywhere — not least in idealistic pur- 
suits — the method of reaching a goal is assumed to be the indirect one of 
first reaching the leaders and, through them, influencing the masses. The 
leaders are organized locally in civic clubs of all sorts, and they are conscious 
of their role. They create a "public opinion," the peculiarity of which 
becomes apparent when, for instance, it is said about a strike which has 
failed, in spite of the fact that practically all the workers — making up the 
majority of the population — participate, that "local opinion did not favor 
the strikers," or even more explicitly that "public opinion suppressed the 
strike." 

3. Mass Passivity 

The other side of this picture is, of course, the relative inertia and inartic- 
ulateness of the masses in America. The remarkable lack of self-generating, 
self-disciplined, organized people's movements in America is a significant 
historical fact usually overlooked by American historians and social 
scientists. 

The new continent has always offered fertile soil for "isms," including 
every possible "European-ism" and, in addition, a great variety of home- 
grown ones. Communist societies have been built by Shakers, Rappites, 
Zoarites, True Inspirationists, and other sects, and by secularized Owenites 
and Fourierists. The Mormons experimented with polygamy, as well as 
with communism, and the Oneida Community with idealistic unchastity. 
Fantastic slogans of easy money and cheap credit, "ham and eggs," "thirty 
dollars every Thursday," "share the wealth," "every man a king," have 
inflamed local sections of opinion and startled the world. 

America has had its full share of Utopians and idealists, and much more 
than its due of charlatans and demagogues. America is also the country of 
countless associations.* For every conceivable "cause" there is at least one 
association and often several. De Tocqueville and Bryce observed this, and 
it is true today. Americans in the upper and middle classes are great 
"joiners" and "supporters" of all sorts of schemes for the common good. 
If a proposal makes sense to people, their participation and purse can be 
counted on. But somehow the associations seldom reach down to the masses 

'See Chapter 43, Section 5. 



Chapter 33. Leadership and Mass Passivity 713 

of people. In spite of all this lively organizational activity, America has had 
few protracted zealous movements among the people. There has frequently 
been popular unrest among farmers and workers in America} they have 
been dissatisfied and have dimly felt the need of one reform or another. 
Occasionally there have been bloody clashes: resort to violence both 
by employers and by workers in settling labor disputes has, until recently, 
been rather characteristic of America. Undoubtedly a general influence on 
the course of national and local politics has been exerted by the masses 
through democratic elections. But for some reason these forces, working 
in the masses, have seldom crystallized into orderly mass organizations. 

The trade union movement is one of the oldest in the world, but in 
America it has always been comparatively inconsequential. Even with the 
active support of the federal government during the 'thirties, instituting 
protective legislation unmatched in other democratic countries, it has not 
even reached the size of the peak unemployment.* The observer is struck 
by the importance played by salaried "organizers" and the relative unim- 
portance of, or often the lack of, a spontaneous drive from the workers them- 
selves. There has never been much of a cooperative movement in America. 
Often cooperatives are still petty neighborhood organizations based on the 
activity of the individual idealists — the "leaders" — more than on the con- 
certed effect of cold economic reasoning and of the desire for independence 
and economic power on the part of the mass of consumers. The diverse 
activities collectively known as "adult education" in America are often 
laudable strivings to disseminate education among the common people by 
universities, philanthropic organizations, state and federal agencies, radio 
companies, or groups of enlightened community leaders. There is still 
little concerted drive for self-education in civic affairs. There is no sponta- 
neous mass desire for knowledge as a means of achieving power and inde- 
pendence. 

The passivity of the masses in America is, of course, a product of the 
nation's history. The huge immigration through the decades has constantly 
held the lower classes in a state of cultural fragmentation. They have been 
split in national, linguistic, and religious sub-groups, which has hampered 
class solidarity and prevented effective mass organization. Folk movements 
require close understanding among the individuals in the group, a deep 
feeling of common loyalty, and even a preparedness to share in collective 
sacrifices for a distant common goal. Only on a basis of psychological 
identification with the interest group is it possible to ask the individual to 
renounce his own short-range interests for the group's long-range ones. 
The immigrants have felt social distance to other lower class persons with 
different cultural origin. Also because they have difficulty in communicating 

* The top estimate of union membership in 1940 was 9 million. Estimates of peak unem- 
ployment in 1933-1935 ranged between 10 and 14 million. 



714 Aw American Dilemma 

with other Americans, immigrants have had to have leaders for this pur- 
pose. Bent on accommodation to social and economic pressure and on indi- 
vidual climbing, they have been conditioned to be even more individualistic 
than the native Americans. 

The open frontier* and the relatively good prospects for every able and 
energetic individual to rise out of the lower classes kept down social discon- 
tent. Perhaps even more important, this social mobility drained the masses 
in every generation of most of their organizational catalysts. Few potential 
"leaders" remained in the lower classes to stimulate their loyalty and to 
organize their resistance against pressure. Since American industry was 
organized as it was, it required no sinister intention of the industrial execu- 
tive to promote the rising labor leader to personnel expert or labor manager 
to the great advantage of the enterprise, but at the expense of weakening 
ihe energy of the workers. The way into independent business was even 
more open. If the workers wanted to keep a man under these circumstances, 
they had to give him a salary which raised him much above their economic 
and social level. b A similar process worked on the potential organizers of 
cooperatives, farmers' movements and, indeed, every germ of concerted 
action on behalf of the lower classes in America. 

Cultural fragmentation, the division of interest of the lower classes, and 
their loss of leaders, thus stamped the masses with inertia. They are accus- 
tomed to being static and receptive. They are not daring, but long for 
security. They do not know how to cooperate and how to pool risks and 
sacrifices for a common goal. They do not meet much. They do not organ- 
ize. They do not speak for themselves: they are the listeners in America. 
They seldom elect representatives from their own midst to Congress, to 
state legislatures or to city councils. They rather support friendly leader? 
from the upper strata, particularly lawyers. Labor politics in America has 
constantly held to the common minority pattern of supporting parties and 
individual candidates who favored them and of assailing candidates who 
opposed them. Labor has never — except in a few localities — successfully 
sought political power for itself. It has never seriously tried to plan to 
utilize its large potential share of the electorate to capture the government 
of the country. Farmers' politics has, in the main, followed the same 
minority scheme. Farmers' organizations in America have constantly been 
in danger of being run by the small top group of big farmers, who, most 
of the time, have different interests from the mass of small farmers. Gener- 

* Pioneer communities also bad to depend heavily on leaders to maintain law and 
order, and these leaders have often remained after the legal order was more firmly 
established. 

b In no other democratic country is the salary scale of trade union officials so differenti- 
ated and the higher brackets so high, o.npared with workers' income, as in America. 



Chapter 33. Leadership and Mass Passivity 715 

ally speaking, the lower classes in America have been inarticulate and 
powerless. 

This is the more striking when the lower classes are compared with the 
"Pullman class,' 1 which had greater cultural homogeneity, more self- 
confidence, and more of a tendency to pool its power than a similar class in 
most other countries. There are closer ties and a more easy understanding 
between upper clasr persons in the various professions and businesses in this 
country than anywhere else. They travel more than in other countries; 
being together on a Pullman train brings people together intimately. They 
meet constantly for conferences. They are accustomed to being dynamic and 
courageous and to taking big risks. They know how to cooperate and even 
how to sacrifice for a common cause. They feel responsibility for the whole 
nation, as they view its interests, partly because they usually have a long 
line of American ancestry. The "Pullman class" has been fairly open to 
talent from below and has contained a disproportionate amount of the 
nation's brains and courage. Its members have been willing and prepared 
to take the leadership made so easy for them by the inertia of the masses. 

For judging future possibilities, it is important to note that the era of 
mass immigration has ended. The proportion of foreign-born white persons 
in the population is deci casing from decade to decade: it was 12.5 per cent 
in 1920, 10.9 per cent in 1930 but only 8.7 per cent in 1940. 8 The other 
main factors behind the political inertia of the American masses — the open 
frontier and the easy escape out jf the lower classes — are also disappearing. 
There is no longer any free land, and agriculture is depressed and likely to 
remain depressed. The modern organization of American industry is not 
favorable to small independent enterprise, and no lower class person can 
accumulate the huge capital necessary to start a large enterprise. The con- 
trol of production from Washington during the present War is inevitably 
stepping up this movement to eradicate small independent business. The 
growth and improvement of education and the trend toward professional- 
ization in all desirable occupations also has helped to eliminate the "self- 
made man" even in America. Ambitions for children are real, but they 
cannot compensate entirely for the lessened possibilities for climbing of the 
parents themselves. 

The class barriers are thus becoming higher and more unyielding, at the 
same time as the cultural heterogeneity within those barriers is continuously 
decreasing. The masses receive a steadily improved general education and 
keep a greater number of their own potential leaders. These trends might 
make them active and articulate. For the time being, however, there are 
only minor indications of such a change. If and when it comes, it is destined 
to remake the entire public and social life of America. 

The present observer is inclined to view the American pattern of individ- 
ual leadership as a great strength ot this nation, but the passivity of the 



71 6 An American Dilemma 

masses as a weakness. These two cultural traits of America have, in their 
historical development, been complementary. But individual activity and 
mass activity are not necessarily antagonistic principles. It is possible to 
envisage a future development where the masses in America participate 
more intensively in political activities of various sorts, but where, never- 
theless, outstanding individuals are permitted to have wide space for their 
initiative according to the great American tradition. Such a social system, if 
it ever developed, would realize in the highest degree the age-old ideal of 
a vitalized democracy. It would result, not only in a decrease in the im- 
mense class differences in America, but more fundamentally, it would effect 
a higher degree of integration in society of the many millions of anony- 
mous and atomized individuals: a strengthening of the ties of loyalty run- 
ning through the entire social fabric; a more efficient and uncorrupted 
performance of all public functions; and a more intense and secure feeling 
on the part of the common citizen of his belongingness to, responsibility 
for, and participation in the commonwealth as a great cooperative human 
endeavor — a realization of a fuller life. 

4. The Patterns Exemplified in Politics and Throughout the 
American Social Structure 

This is a dream — and a dream well in line with the ideals contained in 
the American Creed — but the American patterns of individual leadership 
and mass passivity are a reality that can be studied in all social spheres. 
They are, of course, particularly apparent in the political life of the nation. 
In both local and national politics the individual officeholder is — for the 
period he is in office — awarded much more power than he would be in 
democratic European nations. What is even more important, he is allowed 
and, indeed, expected to follow the inclinations of his personal drives and 
ideas much more unhampered by laws and regulations or particularly by 
continuous and democratic participation from the people." 

In local politics, America has, on the whole, not spread political respon- 
sibility upon countless citizens' boards, as have, for example, the Northern 

* This is another and most important aspect of the relative lack of an independent and 
law-abiding administration, commented upon in Chapter 20, Section 2. It is also closely 
related to the fact that the American political parties do not correspond closely to the 
broad divisions of ideals and interests among the people. 

This American party system breaks up the natural groupings based on the ideals and 
interests of the American electorate. It can itself be explained only by taking the passivity 
of the masses into account. On the other hand, it results in elections being fought relatively 
much more over personalities than over programs, which, in its turn, enhances the impor- 
tance of the personality of the individual candidates. Another effect is that citizens, in 
the masses, are not being trained to have systematic, consistent, and stable political 
ideas, which also is likely to make the electorate more easily moved by individual leaders. 
Again we see a social mechanism adhering to the principles of cumulative causation in a 
vicious circle. See Appendix 3. 



Chapter 33. Leadership and Mass Passivity 717 

European countries (including England), thereby widening political 
participation and making politics more anonymous and less dependent on 
outstanding leadership. Much more, not only of broad policy-making, but 
also of detailed decisions are, in America, centralized in the offices of 
salaried functionaries. Political participation of the ordinary citizen in 
America is pretty much restricted to the intermittently recurring elections: 
Politics is not organized to be a daily concern and responsibility of the 
common citizen. The relative paucity of trade unions, cooperatives, and 
other civic interest organizations tends to accentuate this abstention on the 
part of the common citizens from sharing in the government of their 
communities as a normal routine of life." In this essential sense American 
politics is centralized. The same is even more true of national politics. 

The basic democracy, however, is maintained in spite of the extraordinary 
power awarded to the individual officeholders and the equally extraordinary 
lack of participation by the common citizens in the running of public 
affairs. While American democracy is weak from the aspect of the citizens' 
sharing in political action and responsibility , it is strong in the ultimate 
electoral controls. And there is logic in this. Several elements of what, from 
the other side of the Atlantic, looks like "exaggerated democracy" in 
American measures of popular contral may be explained as having their 
"function" in preserving for the common man the ultimate political power 
in this system of government where he participates so little in its daily 
duties. b It is this trait which prevents the delegation of such tremendous 
power to leaders and the hero worship from degenerating into fascism. 

' It should be observed that this American pattern of nonparticipation in government, 
the historical explanation of winch we have hinted at above, does not have its roots in the 
American Creed. The development came to run contrary to the hopes of Thomas Jefferson. 
In his desire for a decentralized government there was an expectation of the growth of a 
close and never ceasing democratic collaboration in community affairs. John Drwcy has 
recently pointed out: 

"His project for general political organization on the basis of small units, small enough 
so that all its members could have direct communication with one another and take care 
of all community affairs was never acted upon. It never received much attention in the 
press of immediate practical problems." {Freedom and Culture L'939J» P- '59-) 

'The great political power awarded the President of the United States is prescribed 
in the Constitution. But this is a formal explanation. The head of the state in other 
countries also often has, according to the constitutions, great powers, which in the course 
of development he has not been allowed to retain. In America it has fitted well into the 
general leadership pattern to let the President retain this great power. But he is elected 
by popular vote — the device for indirect election provided in the Constitution broke down 
nearly at the beginning. And — most important from our viewpoint — it became the tradition 
•o restrict the period of office to two terms. Both the power concentration in the Presidency 
and the restriction of the power period to eight years are a direct outflow of the common 
American attitude of leadership. Contrariwise, the actual development of this central 
conspicuous power institution in American politics has undoubtedly had its influence in 
molding attitudes in all other political spheres and in the entire American culture. 



71 8 An American Dilemma 

Americans have thus such "exaggerated" democratic devices as frequent 
elections, long ballots (so that even minor officers can be elected), the 
initiative and referendum, short terms of office, prohibitions against running 
for a second or third term. The intensive and ruthless publicity focused 
upon all officeholders — which does not even spare their private life — serves 
the same "function" of making officeholding precarious. Finally, the 
American system of "checks and balances" has not only gone into the 
federal and state constitutions but has become deeply entrenched in the 
American attitude toward all power problems even outside politics proper. 
Americans are inclined to give not only much power but overlapping power 
to two or more officials or agencies and then leave it up to them to work 
out a modus •o'mendi through cooperation, mutual hamperings and occa- 
sional stalls. 

The Roosevelt administration, with all its duplication of offices for the 
same or similar functions, exaggerates only somewhat an American tradi- 
tion. In a lesser degree this is a trait which runs through the whole gamut 
of social institutions in America. 

To the foreign observer this American pattern of power control, built 
upon systematic friction and actual competition of competent people, looks 
sometimes not only cumbersome but wasteful of energy and dangerous to 
reasonable efficiency of government. In a system where such extraordinary 
powers are constantly being delegated to the functionaries and where so 
little is held for the participation of the common men, this device, like the 
others mentioned, serves -1116 "function" of keeping the executives within 
popular control. For when competing holders of power come in conflict 
and eventually stall, the ultimate arbiter is the electorate at the next 
election. It is to this arbiter — and, in advance, to "public opinion" — that 
they plead when they are in danger of getting stuck. 

The patterns of strong and competitive personal leadership and weak 
followership, which we have exemplified for politics, permeate the entire 
social structure. In most of -these other fields the popular check on the 
system — that is, the strong electionary system — is much weaker. This gives 
much greater power to leaders. In large sectors of the labor union move- 
ment it is thus a problem of how to avoid complete boss rule and how to 
preserve that minimum of democracy which consists in the leaders' being 
regularly elected and having to report to meetings of the common union 
members. When in recent years the question of industrial unions versus 
craft unions finally was brought before the public, it appeared as a fight 
between William Green and John L. Lewis. Cooperatives, when they 
infrequently managed to get securely established in America, often degen- 
erated into ordinary business partnerships. Universities in America have 
never been controlled by the professors but by their presidents — not elected 
by the professors — and their appointed deans, subject to the control of 



Chapter 33. Leadership and Mass Passivity 719 

boards of trustees who are outside and above the university. In modern 
business corporations in America, shareholders have lost their power to 
directors and other "insiders." 4 Even in small groups— civic committees, 
research projects, or Sunday schools — the same pattern prevails: the leaders 
run the show, the masses are passive except for an occasional election. 

The general public interest in personalities and in short-run develop- 
ments manifests itself in government and business as well as in other phases 
of life. In Washington and in Wall Street, as well as in the other American 
centers of power control, the perspective is predominantly that of actual 
happenings yesterday and tomorrow and of individual persons in the spot- 
light: What effect will this minor event have? What one person is behind 
what other person? What idea has caught whom? 

One earlier observation should be reiterated. The idea and reality of 
leadership is not an object for much reflection in America; indeed, it is 
almost not part of conscious knowledge. There is no popular theory to 
explain it or justify it. It is not a fortified and preached ideology like the 
American Creed." Not only the unsophisticated common citizens but also 
the social scientists have observed these facts without much questioning or 
evaluation. The patterns of leadership and followcrship simply exist as 
things which are a matter of course. They have not yet been detected to be 
important problems. 

In the following chapter we want to present a typology — a schematic but, 
if possible, realistic guide to the leadership traits of America as displayed 
in the Negro community — in the hope that it will be useful both for 
immediate orientation and for framing new research into this important 
aspect of the Negro problem which concerns power and power relations. 

'There is, of course, much emphasis on c.harartcr building, and training for leadership 
in A.mcrica. But it is not recognized openly that there can be only a few leaders and the 
desire for a few trained leaders is not organized into an ideology or popular theory. 



CHAPTER 34 

ACCOMMODATING LEADERSHIP 



i. Leadership and Caste 

The Negro world conforms closely to the general American pattern 
just described. In fact, the caste situation — by holding down participation 
and integration of Negroes — has the effect of exaggerating the pattern. 

We base our typology of Negro leadership upon the two extreme policies 
of behavior on behalf of the Negro as a subordinated caste: accommodation 
and protest. The first attitude is mainly static; the second is mainly dynamic. 
In this chapter we shall ignore almost entirely the dynamic attitude of 
protest and discuss the intercaste relation in terms of social statics. The 
object of study here is thus the role of the accommodating Negro leader. 
Our analysis will approach fuller realism only when we, in later chapters, 
bring in also the protest motive. This reservation should be held in mind 
when reading this chapter. 

Accommodation is undoubtedly stronger than protest, particularly in the 
South where the structure of caste is most pervasive and unyielding. In a 
sense, accommodation is historically the "natural" or the "normal" behavior 
of Negroes and, even at present, the most "realistic" one. But it is practi- 
cally never wholehearted in any American Negro, however well adjusted 
to his situation he seems to be. Every Negro has some feeling of protest 
against caste, and every Negro has some sort of conflict with the white 
world. Some Negroes are primarily driven by the protest motive. Social 
changes which affect Negro attitudes — for example, the development of 
Negro education, caste isolation, class stratification, and the northward 
migration — are all giving the protest motive increasing weight, at the same 
time as the economic, political, judicial, and ideological changes in American 
society tend to give an ever wider scope for Negro protest. Both main 
motives — or any intermediate one composed of a blend of these two — have 
their main origin in, and take their specific character from, the caste 
situation. 

2. The Interest of Southern Whites and Negroes with 
Respect to Negro Leadership 

The white caste has an obvious interest in trying to have accommodating 
Negro leaders to help them control the Negro group. Under no circum- 

720 



Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 721 

stances, in any community where the Negro forms a substantial portion of 
the total population, are the attitudes and behavior of the Negroes a matter 
of no concern to the whites. Negroes may be robbed of suffrage and subdued 
by partiality in justice, by strict segregation rules, by economic dependence, 
and by other caste sanctions; but it makes a great deal of difference to the 
whites how the Negroes — within the narrow margin of their freedom — 
feel, think and act. 

The whites have a material interest in keeping the Negroes in a mood of 
wanting to be faithful and fairly efficient workers. They have an interest 
in seeing to it that the Negroes preserve as decent standards of home- 
making, education, health, and law observance as possible, so that at least 
contagious diseases and crime will not react back upon the whites too much. 
In this particular respect, whites formerly under-estimated the community 
of interest which follows from being neighbors, but they are increasingly 
becoming aware of it. 

Further, as we have seen, the whites in the South have a strong interest 
that Negroes be willing, and not only forced, to observe the complicated 
system of racial etiquette. Southern whites also see a danger in that Negroes 
are becoming influenced by certain social ideas prevalent in the wider 
society. They want to keep them away from "red agitators" and "outside 
meddlers." In most Southern communities the ruling classes of whites want 
to keep Negroes from joining labor unions. Some arc quite frank in want- 
ing to keep Negroes from reading the Constitution or studying social 
subjects. Besides these and other interests of a clearly selfish type, many 
whites feel an altruistic interest in influencing Negroes to gain improved 
standards of knowledge, morals and conduct. 

As the contacts between the two groups are becoming increasingly 
restricted and formalized, whites are more and more compelled to attempt 
to influence the Negro masses indirectly. For this they need liaison agents 
in the persons of Negro "leaders." This need was considerably smaller in 
earlier times when numerous personal and, in a sense, friendly master- 
servant relations were in existence. These personal relations of old times 
are now almost gone." This means that the whites have seen their possibil- 
ities of controlling the Negro masses directly — that is, by acting themselves 
as "Negro leaders" — much diminished. The whites have increasingly to 
resort to leaders in the Negro group. They have, therefore, an interest in 
helping those leaders obtain as much prestige and influence in the Negro 
community as possible — as long as they cooperate with the whites faith- 
fully. 

On the other side of the caste gulf, the Negroes need persons to establish 
contact with the influential people in the white group. They need Negro 
leaders who can talk to, and get things from, the whites. The Negroes in 

* See Chapter 30, Section 2. 



722 Ax American Dilemma 

the South are dependent upon the whites not only for a share in the public 
services, but individually for small favors and personal protection in a 
social order determined nearly exclusively by the whites, usually in an 
arbitrary fashion. The importance of Negro leaders to the masses of 
Negroes — as to the whites — is also increasing as it is becoming more rare 
for Negroes to have individual white friends to appeal to when they are 
in danger or in need of assistance." 

Under these circumstances it is understandable that the individual Negro 
who becomes known to have contact with substantial white people gains 
prestige and influence among Negroes for this very reason. Correspond- 
ingly, an accommodating Negro who is known to be influential in the 
Negro community becomes, because of this, the more useful to the whites. 
The Negro leader in this setting serves a "function" to both castes and his 
influence in both groups is cumulative — prestige in the Negro community 
being an effect as well as a cause of prestige among the whites. Out of this 
peculiar power system, a situation develops where Negro leaders play an 
even more important role than is usual, according to the common American 
pattern. 

3. In the North and on the National Scene 

In the North fewer white people are in a position where they have to 
care much about how the Negroes fare, or what they think and do. The 
Negroes, on their side, have the protection of fairly impartial justice and 
of the anonymity of large cities. They also have the vote and can press 
their needs in the regular fashion of American minority politics. They are, 
therefore, decidedly less dependent on accommodating leaders to court the 
whites. For neither of the two castes does the Negro leader fill such impor- 
tant functions as in the South. 

But the pattern of pleading to the whites through their own leaders, who 
are trusted by the whites, is firmly rooted in the traditions of Southern- 
*>orn Negroes who make up the great majority of adult Negroes in the 
North. Northern Negroes, also, are a poor group and are frequently in 
heed of public assistance and private charity. They are discriminated against 
in various ways, particularly with respect to employment opportunities. 
They live in segregated districts and have few contacts with white people 
in most spheres of life. Though they have the vote, they are everywhere 
in a small minority. For all these reasons many of the Southern attitudes 
and policies in regard to Negro leadership can be observed to continue in 
the North. 

* Factors which are decreasing the importance of accommodating- Negro leaden to the 
Negro masses in the South are, on the other hand: the raised standards of legal culture 
in the region, the increasing professionalism and independence in state and local government 
administration, and particularly the growth of federal assistance and control. (See Parts 
V and VI of this book.) 



Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 723 

Isolation breeds suspicion among Negroes against the majority group. 
And suspicion is, in fact, justified. For isolation bars the growth of feelings 
of mutual identification and of solidarity of interests and ideals in both 
groups. A white man's purposes when stepping down to lead Negroes must 
be scrutinized carefully before he can be trusted. This is a pragmatic truth 
obvious even to the most unsophisticated Negroes, and it has a basis in the 
Negro people's history through centuries. Northern Negroes will thus be 
reluctant to listen to white people with a thorough trustfulness and an 
entirely open mind. Indeed, they are able to give freer play to their suspi- 
cion than Southern Negroes as they are less controlled and dependent. Too, 
the growing race pride exerts its influence in this direction. Northern 
Negroes, therefore, also seek the intermediation of leaders from their own 
group. 

On the white side, those politicians, public officials, philanthropists, 
educators, union leaders, and all other white persons in the North who have 
to maintain contact with and exert influence upon the Negro group must 
sense this suspicion. They usually also find the Negroes strange in many 
ways. Negroes seldom constitute the main interest in their various pursuits. 
They welcome the Negro leader as a great convenience, therefore, as a 
means of dealing with the Negroes indirectly. 1 

The Northern situation, however, is different from the Southern situation 
in two closely coordinated respects: (1) that the white majority is not 
motivated by an interest solidarity against Negroes, reaching practically 
every white individual," and (2) that the Negro minority is not cramped 
by anything like the formidable, all pervasive, Southern system of political, 
judicial and social caste controls. One effect of this difference is that the 
Northern situation gives greater opportunity for the protest motive to come 
out in the open and not only, as in the South, to contribute its queer, 
subdued undertones to the pretended harmony of accommodation.* 

A number of circumstances make the Negro look to the North in his 
national political interest. National power is centered in the North. In 
national politics the South is quite like a minority group itself — a "prob- 
lem" to the nation and to itself — politically, economically and culturally. 
Negroes have the vote in the North. For these reasons the relations between 
whites and Negroes in national affairs tend to conform more to Northern 
than to Southern local patterns. But Negro leaders are needed. The Negro 
people are set apart j they have distinctive problems ; and they are hardly 
represented at all in the policy-forming and policy-deciding private or 
public organs. The federal government and its various agencies, the 
political parties, and the philanthropic organizations have difficulty in 
reaching Negroes through their normal means of public contact. They must 

* See Chapter 2, Section 8. 

* See Chapters 35 «»<• 37- 



724 An American Dilemma 

seek to open up special channels to the Negro people by engaging trusted 
Negroes as observers, advisers and directors of Negro opinion. The Ne- 
groes feel the same need for "contact" persons of their own. 

The individual Negroes who are appealed to in the national power field 
immediately win great prestige in the Negro world. To deal with Negro 
leaders who have great influence among the masses of Negroes is, on the 
other hand, a great asset to the white-dominated national organizations, 
including the federal government. Fundamentally the same causal mech- 
anism, therefore, operates in the national realm of intercaste relations as in 
the Southern or Northern local community. 

4. The "Glass Plate" 

In the sphere of power and influence — in politics proper and outside of 
it, locally and nationally, in the South and in the North — the population 
thus becomes split into a white majority and a Negro minority, and the 
power relations running between these two blocs are concentrated and 
canalized in special liaison agents in the minority bloc. Whites who want to 
deal with the Negro masses do not have to go among them directly as they 
have to go among, say, Episcopalians. But it is, of course, just as difficult, 
and, in fact, more difficult, for Negroes to have direct contacts with the 
white population. Corresponding to the Negro leaders, there are white 
leaders. 

The isolation implied in caste, means thus, in the realm of power and 
influence, that intercaste relations become indirect from both sides. Direct 
contacts are established only between the two groups of leaders, acting on 
behalf of the two blocs. Except for those individuals, the invisible glass 
plate, of which Du Bois spoke," is in operation. Common whites and blacks 
see each other, though usually only as strange stereotypes. But they cannot 
hear each other, except dimly. And they do not understand what they 
dimly hear from the other side of the glass plate. They do not trust and 
believe what they perhaps understand. Like two foreign nations, Negroes 
and whites in America deal with each other through the medium of plen- 
ipotentiaries* 

In a sense the white leaders have, from the Negroes' point of view, a 
similar "function" of acting as liaison agents to the Negro bloc. But there 
is this difference between the two groups of leaders: the white leaders are 
not "accommodating." They are not acting as "protest" leaders, either. The 
entire axis between the two extreme poles of accommodation and protest, 
which sets the orbit of Negro attitudes and behavior, exists only on the 

'Dusk of Davm (1940), pp. 150-131. Quoted in our Chapter 31, Section i, p. 680. 

" There are, of course, the exceptions of master-servant relations, but they are decreasing, 
and they have always been treated as exceptions. There are also the exceptions in the 
academic and artistic worlds, but they are few. (See Chapter 30, Section 3.) 



Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 725 

Negro side. The white leaders' "function" to serve as liaison agents with 
Negroes is only incidental to their power in white society. Unlike the 
Negro leaders they have, in addition, to run the whole society. This is a 
consequence of all the power being held on the white side. The Negroes 
do not, therefore, pick their white agents in the same manner as the whites 
choose their Negro ones. The Negroes cannot confer much power upon 
whites of their choice. In the South they do not partake in the selection of 
even political leaders. The Negroes — through their leaders — have to accept 
the white leadership as it exists, determined exclusively by the whites. They 
have to try to "get in" with the ones who are already on top in white 
society." 

To this a few qualifications must be made. First, in some Southern 
communities white persons, distinguished by birth, education, or wealth, 
who have prestige but do not care to exert active leadership generally, may 
occasionally be induced to step in and use their potential power in favor of 
the Negroes or one individual Negro. When Negroes turn to such a person 
they might be said to pick him as a white leader for their purposes. The 
assumption is, however, that he already has latent power. The Negroes do 
not award him influence by selecting him, as whites do when they pick a 
Negro leader. He has, rather, to be careful not to assist the Negroes too 
often and too much, as this might wear out his prestige. He might even 
become known as a "nigger lover," which would be the end of his useful- 
ness to the Negroes. 

Second, some white persons actually specialize in becoming the fixers 
and pleaders for Negroes while they are not active as white leaders gener- 
ally. They are the white interracialists of the South. In order to have 
protracted influence they require moral and financial backing from North- 
ern philanthropists or, lately, from the federal government. 1 ' They should, 
in addition, preferably have upper class status because of birth, education 
or occupation. Even when they have both Northern backing and Southern 
status their influence in matters affecting Negroes is likely to be uncertain 
and narrow in scope. Acclaim from the Negroes is usually more a result of 
their activity than a basis for the assumption of it. 

In the North, the fact of Negro suffrage means that in the sphere of 
politics proper Negroes participate in selecting the white officeholders (and 
occasionally add some Negro representatives). Support from Negroes, 

* It is true that, according to Southern aristocratic traditions, to have Negro dependents— 
who, in servant fashion, display gratitude and attachment — gives status in white society. 
Negroes are, therefore, in the position to deliver something to the white leader which has 
social significance. But in the Southern caste situation, the Negroes will have to be 
prepared to pay this price to practically any possessor of white power and influence who 
asks for it. 

* See Chapter xi, Section 5. 



7*6 An American Dilemma 

therefore, means something in the North. Their opposition might occa- 
sionally turn an election against a candidate. The actual and the still 
greater potential significance of the Negroes' sharing in the political power 
in the North has been discussed in Chapters 22 and 23. Negroes are, how- 
ever, only a tiny minority everywhere in the North. Even if the difference 
from the South is enormous, Negroes are, most of the time and in most 
respects, dependent on white leaders who do not feel dependent on Negro 
opinion. 

This is, generally speaking, still more true in other power spheres than 
in politics proper; for example, in philanthropy, in educational institutions, 
in professional associations. Poverty and cultural backwardness generally 
prevent Negroes from having practically any primary power over the 
selection of white leaders in these fields. An exception is the labor move- 
ment. In so far as unions are kept open to Negroes, and where unions are 
democratic, Negroes have their due portion of power much according to 
the rules in politics. National power relations are much like those in North- 
ern communities. 

The following discussion will deal only with Negro leaders. It must 
never be forgotten, however, that Negro leaders ordinarily do not deal 
with the white people but only with white leaders. Negro leaders are, in 
fact, even more isolated from the whites in general than are the white 
leaders from the Negroes. We shall find, however, that some of the 
protest leaders actually do try to reach white public opinion. Walter White, 
and the whole set-up of the N.A.A.C.P., is steadily hammering at the 
glass plate, as did James Weldon Johnson and W. E. B. Du Bois before 
him and Frederick Douglass still earlier. Such an effort is effective practi- 
cally only on the national scene. The carefully worded "letters to the 
editor" by Negroes to liberal Southern newspapers, which are sometimes 
printed— reminding the whites of their Constitution, their democratic faith 
and their Christian religion, and respectfully drawing their attention to 
some form of discrimination — represent local attempts in the same 
direction. 

The direct approach by Negroes to the white world stems almost entirely 
from the protest motive. The accommodating Negro leaders generally do 
not even attempt to reach white public opinion directly. On the national 
scene, Booker T. Washington and, after him, Robert R. Moton were 
exceptions. But Moton's errand, when disclosing to the general public 
"what the Negro thinks," was to give vent to a protest, modified by accept- 
able and soothing words, and, in a degree, the same can be said of Washing- 
ton. Washington's main motive, however, was accommodation jor a price. 
This was his message in the Atlanta speech of 1895 and in countless other 
addresses to white audiences in the North and in the South, where he 
promised Negro patience, boosted Negro efforts, begged for money for his 
school and indulgence generally for his poor people. He had become a 



Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 727 

personality with prestige whose voice could pierce the caste wall. And he 
was freely allowed audience since he toned down the Negro protest On 
the local scene the accommodation motive by itself does not usually 
encourage Negro leaders to such adventures of trying to reach behind the 
white leaders to the white people, and there is generally no white public 
which wants to listen to them. 

5. Accommodating Leadership and Class 

Negro leadership — as determined by caste in the way we have sketched — 
stands in an even closer relation to class than does white leadership. In a 
previous part of this book," we saw that Negro classes generally were 
mainly a function of caste. One ramification of this thesis was touched upon 
only lightly and spared for the present discussion of Negro leadership: 
namely, that an individual Negro's relation to white society is of utmost 
importance for his class status in the Negro community. 

It always gives a Negro scientist, physician, or lawyer prestige if he is 
esteemed by his white colleagues. Prestige will bring him not only defer- 
ence but also clients and increased earnings. The Negro press eagerly 
records and plays up the slightest recognition shown a Negro by whites. 
A professional position outside the segregated Negro world, even if unpre- 
tentious, also carries high prestige. Being consulted by whites concerning 
Negro welfare, taking part in mixed conferences or having any persona] 
relation to individual whites confers status. 2 This common view in the 
Negro community is, of course, realistic. White standards are, on the 
average, higher, and an indication that whites recognize a Negro as having 
approached or reached those standards means most of the time that he is 
exceptionally good in his line. More important still, the whites have the 
power, and friendly consideration from whites confers power upon the 
individual Negro participating in such a relation. The belief that whites 
have power has been exaggerated in the Negro community, so that friendly 
relations with certain individual whites confer status upon a Negro even 
when these whites actually have no power. 

The import of this is that leadership conferred upon a Negro by whites 
raises his class status in the Negro community. 9 Correspondingly, it can be 
stated that an upper class position in the Negro community nearly auto- 
matically, with certain exceptions that we shall note later, gives a Negro 
the role of Negro leader. 4 He is expected to act according to this role by 
both whites and Negroes. Because most upper class Negroes are leaders, 
there is an extraordinarily close correlation between leadership and class 
position in the Negro community. On the other hand, there are more lower 
class leaders among Negroes than among whites — partly because a much 
greater proportion of Negroes are lower class and partly because of the 

* See Chapter 32. 



728 An American Dilemma 

tradition of a strong lower class preacher and lodge leader among Negroes. 
Still, we believe that practically all upper class Negroes are leaders, some- 
thing that is not true among whites. In order to understand this, several 
other things must be considered. 

For one thing, the Negro upper class is — because of caste — such a small 
proportion of the total Negro population* that the scarcity value of upper 
class status becomes relatively high. In smaller communities only a handful 
of persons have upper class status; in all communities they are few enough 
to be in close contact with each other. 

The upper class Negro is, furthermore, culturally most like the group 
of whites who have social power. Under a long-range view, the social 
classes represent various degrees of acculturation to dominant American 
culture patterns or gradations of lag in the assimilation process." During 
this process standards of living have been raised, illiteracy and mortality 
rates have declined, the patriarchal type of family organization has made 
its influence felt, and, generally, white American middle class norms and 
standards have been filtering downward in the Negro people. The upper 
class represents the most assimilated group of Negroes. In part, they have 
status in the Negro community for the very reason that they are culturally 
most like upper class whites. It is natural also that upper and middle class 
whites feel most closely akin to this group of Negroes. 

The attitude of whites in the Old South was, on the contrary, that the 
lowly "darky" was the favored and trusted Negro, while the educated, 
socially rising "Negro gentleman" was to be suspected and disliked. When 
a social stratification in the Negro people first appeared during slavery, the 
whole complex of legislation to suppress the free Negroes, to hinder the 
education of slaves, and to check the meetings of Negroes was expressly 
intended to prevent Negro individuals of a higher status from leading the 
Negro masses, and, indeed, to prevent the formation of a Negro upper 
class. The inclinations of white people remained much the same after the 
Civil War.'' The Jim Crow legislation followed a similar tendency." The 
white masses even today are usually most bitter and distrustful toward 
upper class Negroes." This is still often the expressed opinion also of the 
upper class whites who are in control of the political and social power in 
Southern communities/ 

But even in the South it has become more and more unfeasible to trust 

* See Chapter 32, Section 4. 

' k We are referring to assimilation away from patterns in slavery, not patterns in Africa. 
See Hortense Powdernmkei, A jter Freedom (i939)> pp. 354> fatsim. See also Chapter 
43, Section 1, of this bouk. 
*See Chapters 10, 20 and 24. 

* See Chapter i&, Section 4. 
'See Chapter 28, Section 8. 
' See Chapter 30, Section 2. 



Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 729 

the Negro leadership to the lower class "Uncle Toms" of the old type. 
One reason has already been mentioned: the paternalistic personal relations 
in which they developed have decreased in frequency. There are fewer 
"good old darkies" available. Also, as wealth and education have become 
somewhat more attainable to Negroes, those who were favored with these 
things — the slowly growing upper class, who thus came to symbolize Negro 
advancement and race pride— supplanted the "darkies" in prestige in the 
Negro community. Even white backing could not entirely shield the 
"darkies" from ridicule and contempt on the part of the Negroes of supe- 
rior wealth and education. 

In this situation, the upholding of the old-time "darkies" as white- 
appointed Negro leaders would have implied an unyielding refusal to 
recognize the entire rising Negro class structure and the Negro's respect 
for education. It soon became apparent that such a policy would be ineffec- 
tive and unrealistic. The development of a Negro upper class could not be 
checked: as we have pointed out, this class grew partly because of segrega- 
tion itself. A protracted resistance to recognizing the growth of class strati- 
fication in the Negro community would also have run contrary to the 
dominant class pattern within American white society. By analogy a Negro 
class structure seemed the more natural as personal tics to white society 
became broken, and as the Negro group was more definitely set apart. 

Finally, a large portion of the Negro upper class is actually appointed 
by the whites or is dependent for status upon the influential local whites. 
The whites soon learned that they could find as many "Uncle Toms" 
among Negroes of upper class status as among the old-time "darkies," and 
that educated persons often were much more capable of currying out their 
tasks as white-appointed Negro leaders. 

6. Several Qualifications 

Thus the whites accepted and strengthened the ever closer correlation 
between leadership and upper class status. But the correlation is still not 
perfect. Part of the explanation is the carry-over of old slavery attitudes 
among whites. I have observed communities, particularly in the Old South, 
where the leading whites have insisted on giving their ear even in public 
affairs to some old, practically illiterate ex-servant, while cold-shouldering 
the upper class Negroes. In the dependent situation of Southern Negroes, 
the Negro community is then willy-nilly compelled to use those old 
"darkies" as pleaders whenever the influential whites have to be appealed 
to. 

Under such circumstances, a tremendous internal friction in the Negro 
community is likely to develop. The contempt of the upper class Negroes 
for the uneducated white-appointed "leaders" becomes increased by resent- 
ment born of a feeling of extreme humiliation. The "leaders," on their 



730 Aw American Dilemma 

part, feeling the contempt and resentment of the "uppity 3 Negroes, often 
turn into thorough sycophants toward the whites and into "stuck-up" petty 
tyrants toward the Negro community. 8 

For reasons already touched upon, this arrangement is not the kind of 
leadership control of the Negroes which is most effective from the point 
of view of white interests. In the cases of this type I have observed, it 
has been apparent that the influential whites are motivated not only by 
their pride in adhering to traditional paternalistic patterns of the Old 
South, by their fear of ambitious capable Negroes, and by their personal 
liking for their favored "darkies," but also that they actually enjoy 
putting the Negro community in this situation. The humiliation of the 
"uppity" Negroes is, in other words, intentional." 

Such situations are becoming rare. I have observed, however, that an- 
other custom is still widespread everywhere in the South : to use servants, 
ex-servants, and other lower class Negroes as reporters and stool pigeons 
in the Negro community. Even if those spotters are usually not used in 
attempts to influence the Negroes positively, their spy activity and their 
being known "to be in with" white people give them a sort of power 
among their own people. Often they are utilized by the whites to "let it 
be known" in an informal way what the whites want and expect. This is 
a remnant of the old direct caste control. It is declining as employment 
relations are becoming more impersonal and as race solidarity in the Negro 
group is increasing. 

More important reasons for an imperfect correlation in the South between 
leadership and upper class position are, however, certain facts within the 
Negro community itself. Many upper class Negroes do not care for the 
leadership role. It is true that they have superior status only in relation 
to the masses of other Negroes, and that they often depend economically 
on lower class Negroes as clients and customers. But they also may have 
a desire to isolate themselves from the Negro lower classes. 11 Many also 
do not have the easy manners,' the engaging and spirited personality, and 
the ability to speak the language of "the people" necessary to approach 
and influence the Negro masses. Some have made themselves so personally 
unpopular with Negroes or whites that they cannot act as leaders. 6 Many 
are so filled by the protest motive that they feel a personal humiliation 
when this has to be put under cover in taking the role of accommodating 
Negro leaders. They retreat rather into the role of sullen, but personally 
watchful, individualists, nourishing hatred against the whites above them, 

* This is an example of the element of sadism generally so visible in the white Southern- 
en' paternalism. It is also reflected in the standard stories told and retold about Negro 
stupidity and immorality, always with an intense display of pleasure which the outsider 
does not feel. 

k '$M Chapter 32, Section 4. 



Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 731 

contempt for the Negro masses below them, and disgust— sometimes 
mixed with envy — for the accommodating Negro leaders beside them. 
Their "adjustment" is to "mind their own business." 

In practically every Southern Negro community, there is this partial 
voluntary retreat of the Negro upper class from active leadership. Thus 
the common assumption among whites that upper class Negroes in general 
are leaders of their people is not quite true. Upper class Negroes pretend 
that it is true in order to gain prestige. It is also an expectation on the 
part of white community leaders who happen to know about them, observe 
their superiority in education, manners, standards, and wealth, and take 
their influence among the common Negroes for granted. It must always 
be remembered that the whites' actual knowledge about the Negroes in 
their own community nowadays is usually rudimentary. It is not unusual 
to find that a certain Negro has succeeded in impressing the local whites 
with an exaggerated belief in his actual influence among his own people. 

More important than unwillingness or inability on the part of Negro 
upper class persons to play the leadership role is a more or less conscious 
repugnance on the part of the Negro lower classes against following them. 
"Too much" education often meets suspicion among lower class Negroes. 
Many Negro preachers, who usually do not suffer from over-education, 
have nourished this prejudice as they saw education draw people from 
religious faith and, particularly, from respect for themselves. The usual 
class envy between upper and lower class individuals in the Negro com- 
munity is an ever present element in the situation, and is strengthened 
when, as in the case of the accommodating Negro leaders, the Negro 
protest against the whites cannot be invoked as a bond of race loyalty," 

The extreme result of this class conflict is that the Negro masses in 
the South — as well as large parts of the white masses in the same region 
— often become, not only as inactive as is necessary for accepting readily 
the leadership imposed upon them from the outside, but, indeed, so 
utterly passive that they simply do not care very much for anything except 
their animal demands and their personal security. Their economic, social, 
and cultural situation, as we have described it in previous chapters, makes 
this understandable. It is difficult indeed to reach the amorphous Negro 
masses at all, especially in rural districts. 

It is often said that the Negro church and the fraternal and burial 
lodges are the only media by which those masses can be reached. The 
present observer is inclined to consider this statement as exaggerated in 
two directions: first, even the church and the lodges do not have a steady 
and strong influence on the lowest Negro classes; second, the Negro 
school, the Negro press, and the Negro professions are becoming vehicles 
which have considerable influence with the lower strata. 

* See Chapters 35 and 37. 



732 An American Dilemma 

But there is enough truth in the statement to raise it above doubt that 
the Negro preacher — and, to a lesser extent, the lodge official — has more 
influence with the Negro masses than a white lower class preacher or lodge 
leader has with the white masses. The majority of Negro preachers and 
many local lodge leaders are not highly educated and do not belong to 
the upper classes. Particularly is this true of the ministers in the lower 
class churches and of the "jack-leg preachers," who are the ones who 
really reach down to the masses. Their uncouth manners, language, and 
standards in general are assets in retaining a grip over lower class con- 
gregations. Negro ministers who are educated and who have upper class 
status actually often have to affect bad grammer and an accent and to use 
figures of speech taken from the cotton field and the corn patch in order 
to catch the attention of the masses and to exert some real leadership. 7 
The great influence of the Negro preacher is exceptionally well known by 
the whites, and he is usually considered as a force for "good race rela- 
tions," that is, for shepherding his flock into respect and obedience.* 
Such are the barriers to and inhibitions of the Negroes of upper class 
status in becoming effective mass leaders in the Negro community. But 
with these reservations — and keeping in mind that a large portion of the 
Negro masses is amorphous, utterly apathetic, and not "led" much at all, 
but more like Thomas Nelson Page J s vision of a "vast sluggish mass of 
uncooled lava" 8 — it remains true that leadership and upper class status 
are strongly correlated in the South and that the tendency is toward an 
even closer correlation. 

The author also has the impression that Negro leaders, more often 
than whites (among their own people), take on a rather dictatorial 
and paternalistic attitude toward their Negro followers. They seem to 
mimic, in a smaller degree, the role of the upper class white Southerner 
in his relation to his Negro dependents. There is often a considerable 
amount of bossing and ordering around in a Negro group assembled 
for any purpose. The Negro .upper class person in a leadership position 
will often entertain the observer with much the same generalized deroga- 
tory statements about the common run of Negroes as white people use. 
When the Negro preacher in church starts out to elaborate the short- 
comings of "the race," the implication of his being a Negro leader is most 
of the time apparent. The teacher's cadence when addressing children in 
the Negro school sounds more condescending than in white schools. The 
organization of life in Negro colleges seems to be definitely less demo- 
cratic than in white colleges in America, even, and not least, when the 
staff of teachers is mainly Negro. The president in his relations to the 

'The role of the preacher and the church as the pillars of caste observance among 
Negroes, but sometimes also as catalysts for the Negro protest, will be further discussed 
in Chapter 4.0. 



Chapter 34, Accommodating Leadership 733 

professors and they in their relations to the students act more dictatorially 
and more arbitrarily. 

7. Accommodating Leaders in the North 

In the North, there has never been much love for the lowly "darkies" 
on the part of the whites. They have never felt much of an interest or 
inclination to lift poor, uneducated servants as leaders over the Negro 
community. There has been more acclaim of social climbing generally 
than in the South." Almost from the beginning the Negro upper class 
was accepted by the whites, without resistance, as the source of Negro 
leaders. 

On the other hand, probably a somewhat greater proportion of upper 
class Negroes in the North do not care for the responsibilities and rewards 
of being active Negro leaders. On the whole, the Negro masses are 
less passive. The preachers have, perhaps, rather less prominence as 
leaders and are, on the average, somewhat better educated and have a 
higher social status. 

Negro suffrage in the North, however, creates space for a political 
leadership which, in order to be able to deliver the Negro vote to the 
party machines, must be chosen from people who really meet the common 
lower class Negroes. A good many of the petty politicians in Northern 
cities are lower class Negroes. Negroes who enjoy a sort of "upper class" 
status outside the respectable society — big-time gamblers, criminals, and 
so on — are often the machine lieutenants, precinct captains and bosses, or 
the "insiders" in the political game. 

The odor of corruption and the connection with crime and vice which 
often surrounds American city politics, particularly in the slums, deter, 
of course, many upper class Negroes, as well as many upper class whites, 
from taking any active part in political leadership. This does not mean, 
however, that there is not a good deal of honest and devoted political 
leadership among Northern Negroes. It comes often from upper class 
Negroes. But proportionately the upper classes monopolize less of the 
actual leadership in local politics than in other fields. And the labor unions, 
which are stronger in the North, are training a new type of lower or 
middle class Negro leader of particular importance in politics. They can 
there often compete successfully with the upper class leaders. They are 
just as often as honest and as devoted to the Negro cause as are the 
upper class leaders. 9 

On the national scene, upper class status and, particularly, considerable 
education and personal ability are necessary for Negro leaders. 

* See Chapter 28, Section 9. 



734 An American Dilemma 

8. The Glamour Personalities 

One peculiar angle of the relation between Negro leadership and 
social class is high-lighted in the popular glamour and potential power of 
a Negro who has accomplished or achieved something extraordinary, par- 
ticularly in competition with whites. 

Attainments are apparently given a relatively higher rating in the 
Negro than in the white community. The Negro press eagerly publicizes 
"the first" Negro to win this or that degree, to be appointed to one 
position or another, or to succeed in a business or profession formerly 
monopolized by whites. This tendency among a subordinated group liv- 
ing in a society dominated by strong competitive motives is entirely 
natural; it has a close parallel in the women's world. In fact, the entire 
Negro upper class gets peculiar symbolic significance and power in the 
Negro community for the very reason that it consists of persons who 
have acquired white people's education and wealth and who are engaged 
in doing things which are above the traditional "Negro jobs." They have 
broken through the barriers, and their achievements offer every Negro a 
gloating consolation in his lowly status and a ray of hope. 

Under this principle every Negro who rises to national prominence and 
acclaim is a race hero: he has symbolically fought the Negro struggle and 
won. Great singers like Roland Hayes, Marian Anderson, and Paul 
Robeson have their prestige augmented by the eager vibrations of pride 
and hope from the whole Negro people acting as a huge sounding board. 
So have successful Negro authors like Richard Wright and Langston 
Hughes; scientists like George Washington Carver and Ernest E. Just; 
athletes like Joe Louis and Henry Armstrong; entertainers like Bill "Bo- 
jangles" Robinson, the king of tap-dancing, and Duke Ellington, the 
famous jazz band leader. 

Any one of them could, if he chose, exert a considerable power as an 
active Negro leader in a technical sense. Jesse Owens, who at the 1936 
Olympics established himself as the world's fastest runner and one of 
the greatest track athletes in history, was young and inexperienced, in fact 
not yet out of college. But on the basis of his specialized mastery of 
running and the acclaim accorded him in the white and Negro press, 
Owens was considered a valuable political asset and employed by the 
Republican party to attract the Negro vote. 

The situation of the Negro glamour personality is, however — and this 
must be noted if we want to observe true proportions — not different from 
what is ordinary in white America. The popularity of the "first" or the 
"oldest," the "biggest" or the "smallest," the "best" or the "worst," 
the "only" or the "most ordinary" specimen of a type has always given 
its particular color to American conceptions of things and persons. It is 



Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 735 

characteristic of a young culture. Negroes are only following a common 
American pattern, which, as usual, their caste status leads them to exag- 
gerate somewhat. The early history of Charles Lindbergh is a case in 
point. The white public also influences Negroes to expect too much 
from a Negro who achieves something in a particular field. All Negroes 
look alike to many whites, and whoever, by whatever means, comes before 
the public eye becomes regarded as an outstanding Negro and is expected 
to hold a position of unwarranted importance in Negro affairs. 

It must also be noted that Negro celebrities — actually perhaps even 
more carefully than white ones in America — generally show great restraint 
in avoiding the temptation of stepping outside their narrow field of com- 
petence. Marian Anderson is a good example of scrupulous adherence to 
this rule. When Paul Robeson and Richard Wright sometimes discuss 
general aspects of the Negro problem, they do so only after study and 
consideration. These two have deliberately taken up politics as a major 
interest. They act then in the same spirit and the same capacity as, for 
instance, Pearl Buck when she steps out of her role as a writer of novels 
and writes a social and philosophical essay on the women's problem. 
Although the possibilities and the temptations have been so great, glamour 
personalities have usually not exploited Negroes or the Negro problem. 

It may be suggested that in the Negro world, and specifically in 
Northern Negro communities, women. have a somewhat greater oppor- 
tunity to reach active leadership than in white society. Negro women are 
not so often put aside into "women's auxiliaries" as are white women. If 
this hypothesis is correct, it corresponds well with the fact of Negro 
women's relatively greater economic and social independence. 



CHAPTER 25 

THE NEGRO PROTEST 



I. The Slave Revolts 

There has always been another type of Negro leader than the "pussy- 
footing" Uncle Tom. And there has always been another main motive 
than accommodation for practically all Negro leadership: both as part 
of the leaders' own intuitions and as a conditioning demand from their 
Negro followers and from their white supporters. 

The leaders of the numerous local slave insurrections 1 — Gabriel Prosser, 
Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, and many others, known and unknown — 
represented early types of pure protest leaders, "race men" in the modern 
popular Negro terminology. They rose against overwhelming odds and 
succumbed with their followers. Many plots to revolt were prematurely 
revealed to the white masters by Negro stool pigeons who sought to 
curry favor by their betrayal. The chief short-range result of the per- 
sistent series of slave rebellions or attempts at rebellion was an ever closer 
regimentation of free and slave Negroes.' 1 

These race martyrs can be said to have laid the foundations, not only for 
the tradition of Negro protest, but also — because of their regular and 
conspicuous failure — for the "realistic" theory of race relations. This theory 
is favored by Southern white liberals and is accepted by the great majority 
of accommodating Southern Negro leaders j it holds that everything which 
stirs up the resistance of the whites will deteriorate the Negroes' status, 
and that reforms must be pushed quietly and in such ways that the 
whites hardly notice them before they are accomplished facts comfortably 
sunk into a new status quo. b 

American Negroes, in attempting to integrate themselves into American 
society, have had to pay the price of forgetting their historical heroes 
and martyrs. Charles S. Johnson makes the following interesting observa- 
tion: 

. . . Denmark Vcsey, a Negro who resisted slavery and led an insurrection in the 
effort to throw off the oppression, is a type which contradicts the assumption that 

* See Chapter 24, Section 3, and Chapter 18, Section 3. The rise of militant Abolitionism 
in the North was a complementary cause. 
k See Chapter 21, Section 5, and Chapter 38, Section 4. 

736 



Chapter 35. The Negro Protest 737 

Negroes are innately docile as a race an d were content with slavery. In a sense, Vetey 
represents the spint of independence for which the founding fathers of America are 
praised— an insurrection is merely an unsuccessful revolution. But Denmark Vcsey 
is a symbol of a spirit too violent to be acceptable to the white community. There are 
no Negro schools named for him, and it would be extremely poor taste and bad 
judgment for the Negroes to take any pride in his courage and philosophy. There is, 
indeed, little chance for Negro youth to know about him at all. 2 

2. The Negro Abolitionists and Reconstruction Politicians 

The Negro fighters in the Abolitionist movement in the North — Wil- 
liam G. Allen, Dr. James McCune Smith, Martin Delany, William Wells- 
Brown, Sojourner Truth, Robert Purvis, Samuel E. Cornish, Charles 
Lenox Remond, Henry Highland Garnet, David Ruggles, William Still, 
Harriet Tubman, Charles Bennet Ray, John M. Langston, Frederick 
Douglass, and many others — represented a second early crop of Negro 
protest leaders. Unlike the slave insurgents, these leaders set the future 
pattern on which Negroes based their protest. The new pattern consisted 
of nonviolent legal activities in accord with the democratic principles of 
the American Creed and the Christian religion. Frederick Douglass, the 
outstanding Negro leader of this period, in 1852, in his 4th of July oration 
at Rochester, voiced the Negro protest thus: 

What to the American slave is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to 
him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he 
is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an 
unholy licence; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are 
empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your 
shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons 
and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, arc, to him, more 
bombast, fraud, deception, impiety and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes 
which would disgrace a nation of savages. . . . 

You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure 
Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two 
great political parties) is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement 
of three millions of your countrymen. You huil your anathemas at the crown-headed 
tyrants of Russia and Austria and pride yourselves on your democratic institutions, 
while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and body guar J J of the tyrants of 
Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, 
honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute 
them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitive* 
from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot, and kill. You glory in your 
refinement and your universal education ; yet you maintain a system as barbarous ant* 
dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation — a system begun in avarice, support 
in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make 
the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your 
gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against the oppressor; but, h< 



738 Ax American Dilemma 

regard to the ten thousand wrong* of the American slave, yon would enforce the 
strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make 
those wrongs the subject of public discourse! 8 

During the Civil War the Abolitionist leaders had to argue and protest 
for two years before Negroes were given the right and chance to do their 
share of the fighting. When they were finally allowed into the Union 
Army, it was for reasons of military necessity.* The Emancipation Proclama- 
tion was issued mainly for the same reason and in order to win over world 
opinion for the Northern cause. The War was finally won, and freedom 
materialized for the four million slaves. 

The mass of slaves, even the more intelligent ones, and certainly the great group of 
field hands, were in religious and hysterical fervor. This was the coming of the Lord. 
This was the fulfillment of prophecy and legend. It was the Golden Dawn, after 
chains of a thousand years. It was everything miraculous and perfect and promising. 
For the first time in their life, they could travel; they could see; they could change the 
dead level oi their labor; they could talk to friends and sit at sundown and in moon- 
light, listening and imparting wonder-talcs. They could hunt in the swamps, and fish 
in the riven, and above all, they could stand up and assert themselves. They need not 
fear the patrol; they need not even cringe before a white face, and touch their hats. 4 

During Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, P. B. Pinchback, John 
Langston, and others of the Negro Abolitionist tradition constituted the 
center of a much larger group of Republican Negro politicians. As they 
were on the winning side, and as not only emancipation from slavery, but 
suffrage and other civil liberties, had been accorded to the Negroes by 
Congress, not protest but power consolidation and power exploitation be- 
came their main concern. In many minor issues they actually often fol- 
lowed a most accommodating pattern. 

When, however, Restoration of white supremacy violently robbed the 
Negroes of suffrage and civil liberties in the South, the reasons for 
Negro protest again mounted. In the North, however, there was no immedi- 
ate parallel to Southern Restoration and consequently no special incentive 
to protest. Too, the Northern Negroes lost their white co-fighters. A great 
deflation of ideals occurred, as is usual after a successful war. In a spirit of 
opportunistic optimism and ideological defeatism the Northerners wanted to 
get back to normalcy. The Negro was a thorn in their flesh. He stood in 
the way of a return to national solidarity and a development of trade rela- 
tions between the two regions. With some guilt, but probably more relief 
the Northerners found out, when the compromise between the regions was 
a fait accompli, that apparently they did not care much about the Negroes, 
anyhow. A whole series of scientific, historical, and political writings — 

'Lincoln is reported to have said: "Without the Negroes' help, neither the presen) 
nor qny coming administration can save the Union." 



Chapter 35. The Nboro Protest 739 

reaching into the present time— got under way to rationalize the national 
compromise of the i870's.' 

Northerners sought to protect their conscience partly by means of the 
humanitarian work carried on by the reformers and philanthropists among 
Negroes in the South. And with some valid self-righteousness the Yankees 
could point out that in the North the scattered Negro population kept its 
suffrage and civil liberties. But the Negro problem as a national issue was 
dead in the North. In the South the protracted process of legalizing 
political and social discrimination continued its course. There was nothing 
left for the Negro protest but to fight a losing struggle and to go under- 
ground. 

3. The Tuskegee Compromise 

In this great calamity for the Negro cause, Booker T. Washington 
stepped forward and established himself as the national leader of a prag- 
matic and conciliatory school of thought, to which a great number of 
national and local Negro leaders, particularly in the South, adhered. 

It is wrong to characterize Washington as an all-out accommodating 
leader. He never relinquished the right to full equality in all respects as 
the ultimate goal. But for the time being he was prepared to give up 
social and political equality, even to soft-pedal the protest against inequali- 
ties in justice. He was also willing to flatter the Southern whites and be 
harsh toward the Negroes — // the Negroes were only allowed to work un- 
disturbed with their white friends for education and business. But neither 
in education nor in business did he assault the basic inequalities. In both 
fields he accepted the white doctrine of the Negroes' "place." In educa- 
tion he pleaded for vocational training, which — independent of whether 
or not it be judged the most advantageous direction of schooling for the 
Negroes — certainly comforted the whites in their beliefs about what the 
Negroes were good for and where they would be held in the occupational 
hierarchy. 11 Washington did not insist upon the Negroes rights, but he 
wanted a measure of tolerance and some material assistance. Through 
thrift, skill, and industry the Negroes were gradually to improve so much 
that, at a later stage, the discussion again could be taken up concerning his 
rights. This was Washington's philosophy. To quote a typical statement 
of his: 

I believe the past and present teach but one lesson — to the Negro's friends and to 
the Negro himself, — that there is but one way out, that there is but one hope of 
solution; and that is for the Negro in every part of America to resolve from hence- 
forth that he will throw aside every non-essential and cling only to essential, — that 



* See Chapter 20, Sections 6 and 7. 

* See Chapter 4.1, Sections 4 and 5. 



740 An American Dilemma 

hit pillar of fire by night and pillar of cloud by day shall be property, economy, 
education, and Christian character. To us just now these are the wheat, all else the 
chaff. 5 

Kelly Miller gives a characterization of Booker T. Washington in con- 
tradistinction to Frederick Douglass, which sets these two Negro leaders 
in a frame of the two spiritual tendencies of American culture at large: 
the uncompromising spirit of the American Creed and the spirit of busi- 
ness realism: 

The radical and conservative tendencies of the Negro race cannot be better 
described than by comparing, or rather contrasting, the two superlative colored men in 
whom we find their highest embodiment — Frederick Douglass and Booker Wash- 
ington, who were both picked out and exploited by white men as the mouthpiece and 
intermediaries of the black race. The two men are in part products of their times, 
but are also natural antipodes. Douglass lived in the day of moral giants; Washington 
lives in the era of merchant princes. The contemporaries of Douglass emphasized 
the rights of men; those of Washington, his productive capacity. The age of Douglass 
acknowledged the sanction of the Golden Rule; that of Washington worships the 
Rule of Gold. The equality of men was constantly dinned into Douglass's ears; 
Washington hears nothing but the inferiority of the Negro and the dominance of the 
Saxon. Douglass could hardly rccci\e a hearing today; Washington would have been 
hooted off the stage a generation ago. Thus all truly useful men must be, in a 
measure, time servers; for unless they serve their time, they can scarcely serve at all. 
But great as was the diversity of formative influences that shaped these two great 
lives, there is no less opposability in their innate bias of character. Douglass was like 
a lion, bold and fearless; Washington is lamblike, meek and submissive. Douglass 
escaped from persona] bondage, which his soul abhorred; but for Lincoln's proclama- 
tion, Washington would probably have atisen to esteem and favor in the eyes of his 
master as a good and faithful servant. Douglass insisted upon rights; Washington 
insists upon duty. Douglass held up for public scorn the sins of the white man; 
Washington portrays the faults of his own race. Douglass spoke what he thought the 
world should hear; Washington speaks only what he feels it is disposed to listen to. 
Douglass's conduct was actuated, by principle; Washington's by prudence. Douglass 
had no limited, copyrighted programme for his race, but appealed to the Decalogue, 
the Golden Rule, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United 
States; Washington, holding these great principles in the shadowy background, 
presents a practical expedient applicable to present needs. Douglass was a moralist 
insisting upon the application of righteousness to public affairs; Washington is a 
practical opportunist, accepting the best terms which he thinks it possible to secure. 

It is a political axiom that Negroes can never, in any period, hope to 
attain more in the short-term -power bargain than the most benevolent 
white groups are prepared to give them.* This much Washington attained. 
With shrewd insight, Washington took exactly as much off the Negro 
protest — and it had to be a big reduction — as was needed in order to get 

*See Chapter 33, Section i, and Chapter 39, Section 1.1. 



Chapter 35. The Negro Protest 74.1 

the maximum cooperation from the only two white groups in America 
who in this era of ideological reaction cared anything at all about the 
Negroes: the Northern humanitarians and philanthropists and the South- 
ern upper class school of "parallel civilizations." 1 * Both of these liberal 
groups demanded appeasement above all. And so the Southern conserva- 
tives were actually allowed to set the conditions upon which Washington 
and the Southern and Northern liberals could come to terms. 

But this was hardly Washington's fault. It is not proven that he could 
have pressed the bargain he made for the Negro people more in their 
favor. Remembering the grim reaction of the period, it is difficult to 
study his various moves without increasingly feeling that he was truly 
a great politician, probably the greatest one the Negro people have ever 
had. For his time, and for the region where he worked and where then 
nine-tenths of all Negroes lived, his policy of abstaining from talk of 
rights and of "casting down your buckets where you are" was entirely 
realistic. Even today it is still— in local affairs where the short-range 
view must dominate — the only workable Negro policy in the South. Charles 
S. Johnson points out: "Practically all Southern Negroes accept racial segre- 
gation." 7 As we have seen in previous chapters, practically all Southern 
Negroes have actually to accept much more, including disfranchisement 
and gross arbitrariness and laxity in justice. 

It is a different question, however, if under the long-range perspective 
it was true statesmanship or, more specifically, if it was all the statesman- 
ship that was called for by the interests of the Negro people. The only 
reason why this problem needs to be raised is the fact that Washington was 
not only a national Negro leader, but actually held a virtual monopoly 
of national Negro leadership for several decades. Had this not been so, 
it is natural that a division of responsibility would have worked itself out, 
so that different individuals and groups would have taken care of the 
long-range and the short-range interests. The actual course of policy would 
have become the result of discussion and interaction between them. This 
view will be given considerable weight when, in Chapter 39, we come 

* As an example of how far Northern humanitarians had left the Abolitionist tradition 
by 1900, sec the speech of W. H. Baldwin to the American Association of Social Science 
("Present Problems of Nfgro Education," Journal of Social Science [December, 1*99], 
pp. 64-68). See also Chapter zi, Section 5, of this book. 

* See Chapter 28, Section 4 and Section 8. 

"A people, like a class, to advance must either be strong enough to make its way against 
all hostility, or must secure the fricnds-hip of others, particularly of those nearest it. If the 
Negro race in the South proposes, and is powerful enough to overcome the white race, let 
it try this method — it will soon find out its error; if not, it must secure the friendship 
of that race." (Thomas Nelson Page, The Negro: The Sout)ierner>s Problem [1904], 
pp. 306.307.) 



742 An American Dilemma 

to evaluate the different organized forces which are today shaping Negro 
policy. 

4. The Spirit of Niagara and Harper's Ferry 

Among the Negro intellectuals, particularly in the North, Washington 
and the gradually fortified "Tuskegee Machine" met severe criticism. 8 It 
became vocal in 1901 when two Negro intellectuals, Monroe Trotter and 
George Forbes, began the publication of the Boston Guardian? W. E. B. 
Du Bois soon was drawn more and more from his brilliant scientific pur- 
suits, 10 and became the leader of this protest group. In The Souls of Black 
Folk (1903) he gave literary form to a philosophy antagonistic to Wash- 
ington's. Du Bois demanded full social and political equality for Negroes, 
according to the Constitution, and complete cultural assimilation. And 
he offered his demands not as ultimate goals but as a matter of practical 
policy of the day. 

In the summer of 1905, twenty-nine Negro intellectuals met at Niagara 
Falls (on Canadian soil, since they met discrimination in the Buffalo hotel 
at which reservations had been made for the conference). They had high 
hopes of forming a national protest organization with branches in the 
several states to wage a battle against all forms of segregation and dis- 
crimination, and, incidentally, against Washington's gradualist and con- 
ciliatory policy, which, they considered, sold out Negroes' rights for a 
pittance and even broke their courage to protest. A generation later, 
Du Bois, when writing his autobiography, gives the following concen- 
trated expression to this criticism: 

At a time when Negro civil rights called for organized and aggressive defense, he 
[Mr. Washington] broke down that defense by advising acquiescence or at least no 
open agitation. Daring the period when laws disfranchising the Negro were being 
passed in all the Southern states, between 1 890 and 1 909, and when these were being 
supplemented by "Jim Crow" travel laws and other enactments making color caste 
legal, hit public speeches, while, they did not entirely ignore this development tended 
continually to excuse it, to emphasize the short-comings of the Negro, and were 
interpreted widely as putting the chief onus for his condition upon the Negro 
himself. 11 

The Niagara movement held two more meetings— one at Harper's Ferry 
— and issued proclamations. But it never grew to be anything more than 
a feeble junto. It had against it Booker T. Washington and all his Negro 
and white friends, and it was not discreet for ambitious young Negroes to 
belong to this movement. 

The Niagara movement represented the first organized attempt to raise 
the Negro protest against the great reaction after Reconstruction. Its main 
importance was that it brought to open conflict and wide public debate two 
types of Negro strategy, one stressing accommodation and the other rais- 



Chapter 35. The Negro Protest 743 

mg the Negro protest. Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois 
became national symbols for these two main streams of Negro thought. 
Two groups of followers assembled behind them. 

Between these two group-; there were incessant attacks and counter-attacks; the 
former declaring that the latter were visionaries doctrinaires, and incendiaries; the 
latter charging the former with minimizing political and civil rights, with encouraging 
opposition to higher training and higher opportunities for Negro youth, with giving 
sanction to certain prejudiced practices and attitudes toward the Negro, thus yielding 
up in fundamental principles more than could be balanced by any immediate gains 
One not familiar with this phase of Negro life in the twelve — or fouitcen — yeai 
period following 1903 (the year of publication of The Souli of BUk Folk) cannot 
imagine the bitterness of the antagonism between these two wings. 12 

Ray Stannard Baker, writing in 1908, observed: "It has come, indeed, to 
the point where most Negroes of any intelligence at all have taken their 
place on one side or the other." u 

During this period, a pattern of Negro thinking and Negro controversy 
became established. I have found — particularly in the South, where condi- 
tions have changed less than in the North — that this discussion still goes 
on among intellectual and professional Negroes in much the same terms 
as at the beginning of the century." 

The agitation did not, for a long time, seriously encroach upon Booker 
T. Washington's power position. But he had increasingly to concede a 
place before the Negro public to astute critics of his conciliatory policy and 
to proponents of a more militant course of action. And he had to watch 
his own words and deeds carefully. He had, thereafter, to reckon not only 
with reactions from the whites, but also with reactions from the Negroes. 
As he grew older he increasingly took on symbolic dignity in his personal 
appearance. He also became more interested in stressing the principal 
demands of Negroes for ultimate equality. The irritation between the two 
groups remained, but when he died in 1915 he had moved considerably 
toward his opponents. And he knew that he no longer spoke alone for 
the whole Negro people. Robert R. Moton, his successor as head of the 
Tuskegee Institute— and symbolic conservative Negro leader in the eyes 
of the whites — could still less claim to be the sole Negro leader. Also, 
under the influence both of the criticism from the Du Bois group and of 
much changed conditions, he came increasingly to move toward an ideology 
which incorporated and expressed the Negro protest in cautious but no 
uncertain terms. Du Bois, on his side, had become prepared to accept 

' Commenting upon this observation recently, a prominent Negro social scientist, well 
acquainted with Negro education in the South, remarked that the Washington-Du Bois con- 
troversy gives the Negro teacher in Southern high schools and colleges, where he has to 
watch carefully all his words, a protective historical front and an irreproachable excuse 
for discussing Negro policy with his students. 



744 An American Dilemma 

segregation in practice if it meant greater material advantage (or Negroes. 
For example, he accepted segregation in the Army in order to get any 
Negro officers among the fighting forces at all. But the First World War 
and the post-war development fundamentally changed the psychology of 
the Negro people and the basic conditions for both accommodation and 
protest. 

By the year 1909-1910, the Niagara movement had ceased to be an 
effective organization. 14 At this time, however, the stage was already set for 
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which 
we shall consider in Chapter 39, and the Niagara movement merged 
with it. The N.A.A.C.P. has, since its foundation, been the central organ- 
ization of Negro protest, carried on in the spirit of the Abolitionists 
and in collaboration with Northern white liberals. But the protest motive 
has also gone — to a varying degree — into the policy of all the other Negro 
betterment organizations. It has, in fact, become part of the ideology of 
the entire Negro people to an ever increasing extent. 

5. The Protest Is Still Rising 

It cannot be doubted that the spirit of American Negroes in all classes 
is different today from what it was a generation ago. The protest motive 
is still rising. It is bound to change considerably the conditions under which 
Negro leadership functions. 

The main factors in this development toward greater "race conscious- 
ness" and increasing dissatisfaction with the caste position will be dealt 
with in later chapters in so far as they have not already been touched upon. 
The Negro betterment organizations have themselves helped this develop- 
ment even when the Negro protest has not been their central theme. 
When Negroes are brought together to discuss and plan for any purpose, 
this by itself makes them feel a new courage to voice, or at least to 
formulate to themselves, their protest. They cannot avoid reminding each 
other of the actually existing reasons for serious complaints. 

The Negro press, which is reaching ever deeper down into the Negro 
masses, has, as one of its chief aims, to give a national account of the injus- 
tices against Negroes and of the accomplishments and aspirations of Negroes. 
Its existence, its popular spread, and its content are a testimony of Negro 
unrest. Its cumulative effect in spurring race consciousness must be tre- 
mendous. 

Negro churches and lodges often may have served an escape purpose by 
deflecting attention from worldly ills and by diverting social dissatisfaction. 
On a more fundamental plane, however, they are vehicles for a teaching 
which is equalitarian. Christianity is a radical creed, even if its radical 
potentialities are kept suppressed. These institutions also move along with 



Chapter 35. The Negro Protest 745 

their membership. Generally they tend to give respectability to a form of 
life which is bound to strengthen the protest motive. Occasionally they 
are even more active. The school, merely by raising the general educa- 
tional level, tends to influence the Negroes even more strongly in the same 
direction. 

Generally speaking, every agency -working for assimilation of the Negro 
people in the broader American civilization, which is democratic in its funda- 
mental values, is bound to strengthen the Negro protest against caste. 
And so even is every agency that brings Negroes together for any kind of 
political, economic or social discussion. The growing isolation, which we 
commented upon in an earlier chapter,* is itself partly an expression of the 
Negro protest. As caste isolation becomes perfected and as the general 
education of the Negro people makes caste less bearable, sullen race con- 
sciousness and acute dissatisfaction increase. 

6. The Shock of the First World War and the Post-Wau Crisis 

The upheaval in Southern agriculture prior to the First World War, 
the mass migration to cities and to the North, and the War itself, all acted 
as stimulants to the rising unrest of the American Negro people. Urbaniza- 
tion and mobility are inimical to the traditionally peaceful and innocent 
accommodation of rural Southern Negroes. The War, too, made the whites 
place a higher value on democracy as "the American way of life." As part 
of this revival of democratic ideology among the whites, there was a certain 
amount of talk about lack of democracy at home which must be eliminated. 
These developments raised vague hopes among Negroes, or at least tended 
to fix their own attention on their anomalous position in American democ- 
racy. 

The Negroes wanted to fight in that War, too. And they were needed: 
400,000 Negro men were drafted. But they often found themselves segre- 
gated in labor camps or as servants. They met discrimination everywhere 
and derogatory rumors about their behavior as soldiers were spread. 15 
Some 200,000 Negroes went to France to fight, and so got a vision of the 
larger world. Everything that happened was eagerly reported by the 
Negro press and was widely discussed. 

After the War the homecoming Negro soldier met the suspicions and 
fears of the Southern whites. In the North their new footholds in industry 
were contested by anxious white job-seekers in the post-war depression. A 
wave of lynchings swept the South, and even more bloody race riots swept 
the North. Without doubt the .accumulated experiences during and 
immediately after the First World War were a most severe shock to the 
American Negroes and had lasting effects." 

* See Chapter 30, Section a. 



74<S An American Dilemma 

7. The Garvey Movement 

After the end of the First World War, America witnessed the first and, 
as yet, the only real mass movement of Negroes—" The Universal Negro 
Improvement Association — organized by a remarkable West Indian full- 
blooded Negro, Marcus Garvey. Garvey was a prophet and a visionary. 
From his early youth he had consecrated his life to the Negro protest. 
He had made a first unsuccessful attempt to start a Negro protest move- 
ment in America as early as 19 16. In 191 8 he returned to America after 
a visit to Europe. 

Garvey understood how to capitalize upon the growing dissatisfaction 
among American Negroes. 17 He renounced all hopes of any assistance or 
understanding from the American whites. The white Americans might fight 
to save the world for democracy and to protect the rights of oppressed 
minorities in Europe, he told his listeners, but they would continue to 
oppress their own minorities and particularly the Negroes in the South. 
They might condemn Germany for treating an international agreement as 
a scrap of paper, while they bluntly ignored their own Constitution in so 
far as Negroes' rights were concerned. Racial prejudice was so ingrained in 
their whole civilization that it was absolutely futile to appeal to their 
sense of justice and their high-sounding democratic principles. Negroes, 
therefore, had to assert themselves against the whites: 

Being subservient to the will and caprice of progressive races will not prove any- 
thing superior in us. Being satisfied to drink of the dregs from the cup of human 
progress will not demonstrate our fitness as a people to exist alongside of others, but 
when of our own initiative we strike out to build industries, governments, and ulti- 
mately empires, then and only then will we as a race prove to our Creator and to man 
in general that we are fit to survive and capable of shaping our own destiny. 18 

He also denounced practically the whole Negro leadership. They were 
all bent upon cultural assimilation; they were all looking for white support 
in some form or another; and they were all making a compromise between 
accommodation and protest. Within a short time he succeeded in making 
bitter enemies of practically all Negro intellectuals. b Against him were 
mobilized most leaders in the Negro schools, in the Negro churches, the 
Negro organizations and the Negro press. He heartily responded by naming 
them opportunists, liars, thieves, traitors and bastards. 

Over their heads he appealed to the common Negroes, and especially 
to the darker Negroes. He exalted everything black. Black stood foi 
strength and beauty, not for inferiority. He even declared God and Christ 

' There have been other local mass movement) of Negroes, but the Garvey movement 
is the only one that has been on a national scale. 

*A few intellectuals did come over to Garvey — notably Emmett Scott and the Rev. 
Dr. George A. McGuire. (See Claude McKay, Harlem [1940], pp. 152 and 162.) 



Chapter 35. The Negro Protest 747 

black to spare the Negroes the humiliation of worshiping the images of 
white men. He preached the purity of the race and condemned amalgama- 
tion. He gave Africa a grand history and instilled a new pride of ancestry 
among even the downtrodden lower class Negroes in America: 

But when we come to consider the history of man, was not the Negro a power, 
was he not great once? Vcs, honest students of history can recall the day when Egypt, 
Ethiopia and Timbuctoo towered in their civilizations, towered above Europe, 
towered above Asia. When Europe was inhabited by a race of cannibals, a race of 
savages, naked men, heathens and pagans, Africa was peopled with a race of cultured 
black men, who were masters in art, science and literature; men who were cultured 
and refined; men, who, it was said, were like the gods. Even the great poets of old 
sang in beautiful sonnets of the delight it afforded the gods to be in companionship 
with the Ethiopians. Why, then, should we lose hope? Black men, you were once 
great; you shall be great again. Lose not courage, lose not faith, go forward. The 
thing to do is to get organized; keep separated and you will be exploited, you will 
be robbed, you will be killed. Get organized, and you will compel the world to 
respect you. If the world fails to give you consideration, because you are black men, 
because you are Negroes, four hundred millions of you shall, through organization, 
shake the pillars of the universe and bring down creation, even as Samson brought 
down the temple upon his head and upon the heads of the Philistines. 19 

The only hope for American Negroes was to flee this country of oppres- 
sion and return to Africa. In solidarity with all the Negro peoples in the 
world, they should then build up a country of their own. Negroes should 
become a nation and have the opportunity to live under their own leader- 
ship and to develop their own culture. 

Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa' Let us work toward the one glorious end of 
a free, redeemed and mighty nation. Let Africa be a bright star among the con- 
stellation of nations. 20 

He appealed to the League of Nations and took up negotiations with the 
Republic of Liberia. An army would eventually be needed to drive out the 
white usurpers: and so Garvey founded the Universal African Legion, 
The Universal Black Cross Nurses, the Universal African Motor Corps, 
the Juvenile, The Black Eagle Flying Corps— all with uniforms and 
officers. A steamship line also was needed: and so he sponsored the organiza- 
tion of the Black Star Line and put chased ships. 

The Empire of Africa was formally announced in 1921, and Garvey was 
inaugurated President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Asso- 
ciation and provisional President of Africa. He ruled with the assistance of 
one Potentate and one Supreme Deputy Potentate and created a nobility of 
Knights of the Nile, Knights of the Distinguished Service Order of Ethio- 
pia, and Dukes of the Niger and of Uganda. He staged parades and conse- 
crated a flag for his organization: black, red, and green— "black for the 
race," "red for their blood" and "green for their hopes." In the devices of 



749 Am American Dilemma 

ceremony, ritual, and pomp, Garvey only followed the romantic patterns 
of American secret orders, but he certainty made more effective use of them. 
All members of his organizations, even if they were not officers or noble- 
men, were "fellowmen of the Negro race" and collaborators in a world- 
wide struggle to free Negroes and erect again the great African culture. 

Garvey set up his organization with local branches and a number of 
subsidiary organizations. He traveled and agitated. He published the Negro 
World as the official newspaper of the movement. He organized coopera- 
tive enterprises — grocery stores, laundries, restaurants, hotels, printing 
plants. He built a big meeting hall, all under the auspices of the Universal 
Negro Improvement Association. During 19201921 the movement reached 
its peak. It was strong in many parts of the country. In spite of having 
practically all the intellectual and organizational Negro forces working 
desperately against him, he assembled the Negro masses under his banner." 

Eventually his movement collapsed. His various business ventures failed 
or involved him in legal tangles. The counterpropaganda became increas- 
ingly effective. The Universal Negro Improvement Association began to 
decline toward the end of 1921. He was finally imprisoned by federal 
authorities on the charge of using the mails to defraud in connection with 
the sale of stock for his Black Star Line. After a long legal contest during 
which he foolishly insisted on pleading his own case and turning the trial 
into a farce, he was finally sentenced in 1925 and brought to the federal 
prison at Atlanta, Georgia, as a convict. After two years, he was released and 
deported as an undesirable alien. He continued to agitate from the West 
Indies but without any success. In 1940 he died in London, pool and for- 
gotten. 

The law suit marked the end of his organization as an important mass 
movement among American Negroes, even though there are some living 
off-shoots in religious sects'* and also in some less important protest organi- 
zations. There must also remain memories in the Negro community. The 
precise nature of these are not known. "When the curtain dropped on the 
Garvey theatricals, the black man of America was exactly where Garvey 
had found him, though a little bit sadder, perhaps a bit poorer — if not 
wiser," is Ralph Bunche's conclusion. 21 But the thinking and the feeling of 
the Negro masses on this point remains a mystery. 

* "It is impossible to give an accurate estimate of the total membership of Garvey's 
organization at its peak. Garvey gave the probably exaggerated estimate of 6,000,000 
members. William Pickens, on the other hand — one of Garvey's bitter enemies among the 
Negro intellectuals — charged that the organization never enrolled as many as 1,000,000. 
Kelly Miller cited the figure of 4,000,000." (Ralph Bunche, "Programs, Ideologies, Tactics, 
and Achievements of Negro Betterment and Inter-racial Organizations," unpublished 

'See Chapter 40, Section a. 
manuscript prepared for this study [1940], Vol. a, p. 398.) 

* See Chapter 39, Section a. 



Chapter 35. The Nbgro Protest ,49 

Du Bois, Garvey's arch-enemy whom he had solemnly "excluded" from 
the race, has this to say in retrospect: 

It was a grandiose and bombastic scheme, utterly impracticable as a whole, but it 
was sincere and had some practical features; and Garvey proved not only an astonish- 
ing popular leader, but a master of propaganda. Within a few years, news of his move- 
ment, of his promises and plans, reached Europe and Asia, and penetrated every 
corner of Africa. 28 

James Weldon Johnson comments: 

Garvey failed; yet he might have succeeded with more than moderate success. 
He had energy and daring and the Napoleonic personality, the personality that draws 
masses of followers. He stirred the imagination of the Negro masses as no Negro 
ever had. He raised more money in a few years than any other Negro organization 
had ever dreamed of. He had great power and great possibilities within his grasp. 
But his deficiencies as a leader outweighed his abilities. 1 ' 3 

Fascinating as Marcus Garvey was as a political prophet and as a mass 
leader, the response from the Negro masses is even more interesting. Negro 
intellectuals, for understandable reasons, show certain inhibitions in dealing 
with the topic as do the white students of the Negro problem. But it is 
worthy of intensive historical investigation and careful reflection. For one 
thing, it proves that it is possible to reach the Negro masses if they arc 
appealed to in an effective way. It testifies to the basic unrest in the Negrc 
community. It tells of a dissatisfaction so deep that it mounts to hopeless- 
ness of ever gaining a full life in America. It suggests that the effective 
method of lining up the American Negroes into a mass movement is a 
strongly emotional race-chauvinistic protest appeal. Considering the caste 
conditions under which Negroes live, this is not surprising. 

On the other hand, the Garvey movement illustrates — as the slave insur- 
rections did a century earlier — that a Negro movement in America is 
doomed to ultimate dissolution and collapse if it cannot gain white support. 
This is a real dilemma. For white support will be denied to emotional 
Negro chauvinism when it takes organizational and political form. This 
problem will be taken up for further discussion at the end of Chapter 39. 

8. Post- War Radicalism among Negro Intellectuals 

While the Garvey movement had its spectacular rise and fall, many 
other things happened on the intellectual Negro front which did not have 
much immediate effect upon the Negro masses but did set the patterns for 
Negro intellectuals until the present time. 

After 19 1 7 an attempt was made to organize and release the Negre 
protest into a political movement allied to radical white labor. Such young 
Negro socialists as Chandler Owen and A. Philip Randolph started left- 
wing organs, the principal of which were the Messenger, the Emancipator ', 



750 An American Dilemma 

the Challenge and the Crusader. They preached labor solidarity across the 
race line/ The Communists, to the left of this group, later appealed to the 
Negroes as an oppressed people under imperialist exploitation and promised 
"self determination for the Negro in the Black Belt," to be realized by the 
setting up of an independent black republic. The new republic should com- 
prise those more or less contiguous areas in the South in which the Negro 
population is a majority. 24 This fanciful construction failed utterly to strike 
the imagination of the Negro masses and is probably part of the reason why 
the Communist party did not catch more Negro intellectuals. b 

More to the right of the Messenger group was "the New Negro move- 
ment," a somewhat undefined term to describe an outburst of intellectual 
and artistic activity and a tendency to glorify things Negro in a creative way. 
Although it was somewhat chauvinistically Negro and although it was 
nurtured by Negro intellectual leaders — especially by Du Bois, as editor of 
The Crisis, Charles Johnson, as editor of Opportunity, and Alain Locke, 
editor of the representative volume, The New Negro (1925) — it was 
primarily a white-sponsored movement. For a number of reasons — partly 
connected with the northward migration and partly with post-war escapism 
— Northern city whites suddenly became fascinated by the "exotic" African 
in their midst. The hiring of the Negro to furnish amusement — in literature 
and art as well as in jazz bands and burlesque shows — was characteristic 
of the "whoopee" period of the 1920's. The movement had its serious side 
also, since outstanding artists used the African motif in their work. It was 
serious from the side of the producers, but not from the side of the con- 
sumers. 

This white patronage — which brought money and fame (and notoriety) 
to a relatively small number of Negroes — gave the Negro masses the 
beginnings of respect for their potentialities and their heritage. Although 
Northern white opinion of the Negro was probably permanently raised by 
the movement, it was primarily a fad to most whites. It crashed with the 
stock market in 1929, although it has left permanent effects on the artistic 
tastes and entertainment interests of whites in the North and throughout 
the world. With the decline of white support, the movement largely 
broke up among Negroes, but its nucleus — an implicit understanding 
between Negro artists and intellectuals — has remained in a modified form 
until the present day. 

9. Negro History and Culture 

The 'twenties and 'thirties also saw the rapid growth of a movement to 
discover a cultural tradition for American Negroes. When Garvey exalted 

'This important theory will be discussed in Chapter 38, Sections 5, 6 and 7. 

* See Chapter 13, Section 2. 

* More specific effects of the New Negro movement are discussed in Chapter 44, Section f. 



Chapter 35. The Negro Protest 751 

the historical background of the Negro people, he stole weapons from his 
enemies, the Negro intellectuals. 

For a long time, even before the Civil War, diligent work had been 
going on to provide the Negro people with a respectable past. In a sense the 
numerous slave biographies— the most important of which was Narrative 
of the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass** — served such a purpose. 
Any Negro who emerges to prominence has usually had a remarkable life, 
and autobiographies have always played an important role among Negro 
writings.* Still more directly the searching of historical sources to unveil 
the deeds of Negroes in the American Revolution and in other American 
wars is part of this movement. So is also the eager attempt to reveal partial 
Negro ancestry of prominent individuals all over the world (Pushkin, 
Dumas, Alexander Hamilton and others). 

Much of all this is zealous dilettantism, sometimes of a quite fantastic 
nature. 26 But increasingly it is coming under the control of historical 
methods of research. White historians have usually been biased by their 
preconceptions about the Negroes' inherent inferiority and by the specific 
rationalization needs these preconceptions have been serving. 1 * Even apart 
from this, they have not had much interest in the Negroes except as objects 
of white exploitation and contests. The Negro people have, in their hands, 
become more a part of the natural resources or the scenery of the country. 
Negro historians see tasks both in rectifying wrong notions of the white 
historians and in concentrating upon the neglected aspects of the Negroes' 
history.' This movement was given impetus in 19 15 by the organization 
of The Association for the Study of Nfgro Life ami History and its chief 
publication, The Journal of Negro History. The moving spirit behind the 
organization, and the editor of the Journal, is Dr. Carter G. Woodson." 

* These Negro autobiographies have sometimes ranked among the clastic American 
autobiographies. Besides Douglass' Autobiography, there is Booker T. Washington's Uf 
From Slavery; James Weldon Johnson's Along This Way (his famous Autobtografhy of 
an Ex-Coloured Man is fictional); James D. Corrother's In Sfite of the Handicaf; 
Claude McKay's A Long Way from Home; Langston Hughes' The Big Sea; Du Bois* 
Dusk of Dawn (and, in a sense, several earlier books, including the tremendously influ- 
ential The Souls of Black Folk) . 

"See footnote 32 to Chapter 20. 

'An excellent illustration of the "protest" nature of Negro history is given by the 
fact that one of the popular books of this type has the title T/ie Negro, Too, in American 
History (by Merl R. Eppse [1939]). 

" Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune is the present president, and there are other officers and 
directors. 

Dr. Woodson is also the leader of the whole modern Negro History movement. Lawrence 
Reddick puts it: ". . . the history of Negro historiography falls into two divisions, 
before Woodson and after Woodson." ("A New Interpretation for Negro History," Tk* 
Journal of Negro History [January, 1937], P *«•) 



752 An American Dilemma 

The articles in the Journal meet all standards of historical scholarship, at 
least as much as in other historical journals. 

In spite of all scholarly pretenses and accomplishments, this movement 
is basically an expression of the Negro protest. 27 Its avowed purpose is to 
enhance self-respect and race-respect among Negroes by substituting a belief 
in race achievements for the traditional belief in race inferiority. As Red- 
dick puts it, ". . . Negro History is quite different from the study of the 
Negro. Frankly, the former differs from the latter in that Negro History 
has a purpose which is built upon a faith? n * Propagandists activities go on 
side by side with the scholarly ones. Various devices are used to bring the 
findings of historical research before the Negro public. Since 1937, the 
Association has been publishing the Negro History Bulletin which is for a 
wider audience than the scholarly Journal of Negro History. Summaries 
of articles from both journals in popular style are furnished Negro news- 
papers. Popular pamphlets and books are sold by house-to-house agents in 
the Negro community. 29 Displays are prepared for various types of Negro 
gatherings. Contact is made with certain types of Negro clubs. Perhaps the 
most successful single device is "Negro History Week," 30 during which the 
written and spoken word is applied with concentrated effort, especially to 
Negro school children. If the teacher is Negro and at all aware of the 
historical research, the Negro school child gets this new angle on the history 
of the Negro throughout the year, but during Negro History Week, the 
Association makes a special effort to reach all Negro children. 

Just as the white American school child is taught American history from the 
point of view of the American chauvinist, the Negro school child is to see it from 
the point of view of the black racialist. 31 

When we call the activities of the Negro History movement "propa- 
ganda," we do not mean to imply that there is any distortion in the facts 
presented. Excellent historical research has accompanied the efforts to 
publicize it. But there has been a definite distortion in the emphasis and the 
perspective given the facts: mediocrities have been expanded into "great 
men"; cultural achievements which are no better — and no worse — than any 
others are placed on a pinnacle ; minor historical events are magnified into 
crises. This seems entirely excusable, however, in view of the greater dis- 
tortion and falsification of the facts in the writings of white historians. As 
propaganda, "Negro history" serves the same purpose for historical periods 
as the Negro newspapers serve for contemporary life: they both serve as a 
counterpoison to the false and belittling treatment of the Negro in news- 
papers and books written by whites. 

In one phase of their activities, Negro historians have the support of 
some white scientists. This is in the field of African culture, for which 
anthropologists have recently manifested a new interest and a new apprecia- 



Chapter 35. The Negro Protest 753 

tion. It was a basic means of satisfying white men's needs to justify slavery 
and white superiority that the "dark continent" be regarded as a place of 
cultureless savagery. This tradition of African inferiority has continued in 
the white world long after the American Indian, the Polynesian, and the 
Stone Age man were given applause for high cultural achievement. Only 
recently have even the anthropologists realized that African Negroes have 
surpassed most other pre-literate groups in at least the fields of govern- 
ment, law and technology. The general white public still does not realize 
this, but during the New Negro movement of the 1920's there developed 
something of an appreciation for modified African music and art. One 
white anthropologist, Melville J. Herskovits, has recently rendered yeo- 
man service to the Negro History propagandists. He has not only made 
excellent field studies of certain African and West Indian Negro groups, 
but has written a general book to glorify African culture generally and to 
show how it has survived in the American Negro community. He has 
avowedly done this to give the Negro confidence in himself and to give the 
white man less "reason" to have race prejudice. 

To give the Negro an appreciation of his past is to endow him with the con- 
fidence in his own position in this country and in the world which he must have, 
and which he can best attain when he has available a foundation of scientific fact 
concerning the ancestral cultures of Africa and the survivals of Africanisms in the 
New World. And it must again be emphasized that when such a body of fact, solidly 
grounded, is established, a ferment must follow which, when this information is 
diffused over the population as a whole, will influence opinion in general concerning 
Negro abilities and potentialities, and thus contribute to a lessening of interracial 
tensions. 82 

Aside from the question of admiring their past achievements, Negroes 
are faced with the question of whether they should attempt to build morale 
by glorifying their present achievements or attempt to raise standards by 
criticizing the present low ones. Almost all Negroes, at least among the 
youth, are agreed that some of the traits for which they are praised by 
Southern whites (loyalty, tractability, happy-go-luckiness) are not the traits 
of which they should be primarily proud. 33 But there are other alleged 
Negro traits that white men praise which present more of a dilemma to 
Negroes. These are the so-called special Negro aptitudes for music, art, 
poetry and the dance. Not only have jazz, the blues, and tap-dancing cap- 
tured the popular entertainment world, but spirituals have been adjudged 
"America's only folk music," and a few Negro actors, singers and poets 
have been counted among the best. In certain branches of sports, too, 
Negroes have come out on top. Because of white applause, Negroes can 
take heart in these achievements and can use them to protest against 
discrimination. 



754 An American Dilemma 

But some Negroes have doubts about some of these things. They feel 
that it is unwise for Negroes to specialize in so few fields, but rather that 
they should put more effort into breaking into new fields. They feel that 
there is something of a "double standard" when the white man applauds— 
that some lesser Negro poets and actors are getting applause because they 
are Negroes rather than because they have outranked the whites in free 
competition. They know that achievements in some of these fields merely 
strengthen the harmful stereotypes, that Negroes are innately more emo- 
tional and unrestrained and animal-like. They believe that the spirituals 
are a "badge of slavery" and retain the memories of slavery in both whites 
and Negroes, and that emphasis on things African is emphasis on the prim- 
itive background of Negroes. Finally, they are afraid of the "parallel 
civilizations" theory held by some whites: that Negroes should retain "their 
own" cultural heritage and not lose it for the general American culture." 
All these things — feels this small group of Negroes, mainly intellectuals — 
will not redound to the ultimate advantage of Negroes but will tie them 
more strongly into a subordinate position. But even they, like the rest of the 
Negroes, take vicarious satisfaction in the present-day achievements of 
individual Negroes, and in so doing express their protest against their 
subordinate caste position." 

iO. The Great Depression and the Second World War 

The Great Depression struck the Negroes even harder than it did the 
whites. Not only did they lose jobs in the cities in greater numbers than did 
whites, but many of those who retained employment — especially in agri- 
culture^ — were driven down to starvation wages. Movements like the Black 
Shirts were organized to deprive Negroes of what jobs they had. Unem- 
ployed Negroes, unlike many unemployed whites, had no savings upon 
which they could fall back in the crisis. Also stinging in its effects was the 
collapse of the "New Negro" movement in the arts and entertainment field j 
this had been giving many Negroes long-range hope for a raised status. 
Between 1930 and 1933 there was utter distress and pessimism among 
Negroes; practically the only ones with hope were the few who turned to 
communism. 

Negroes were frankly skeptical of the new President, Franklin D. 
Roosevelt, because he was a Democrat, and because rumors were spread 
that he was ill and his death would see the elevation of John N. Garner, 
the Vice-President from the South, to the Presidency. In Chicago, typical 
of Northern cities where Negroes voted, only about 23 per cent of the 

* For a discussion of the "parallel civilizations" theory from the viewpoint of the \ 'bite 
proponents, see Chapter 2S, Sections 4 and 8. 

b These achievements also encourage some Negroes and help build up a "tradition of 
success," the lack of which has helped to keep Negroes down in the past. 



Chapter 35. The Negro Protest 755 

Negro vote went to Roosevelt in the 1932 election. Yet they swung rapidly 
around and became the strongest supporters of his politics. 4 With their 
new admiration for the New Deal, Negroes experienced a lift in their 
hopes for themselves. Unemployment relief removed much of the eco- 
nomic suffering, at least in the North. The United States Housing projects, 
Farm Security work, and other federal activities helped some Negroes to 
reorganize themselves. Politically, the Negroes were stimulated by their 
release from the Republican party and by the presence of Negroes in advi- 
sory positions in many government agencies. Above all, they were thrilled 
by Roosevelt's appeal to the underdog and by the obvious friendliness 
toward Negroes on the part of the President and Mrs. Roosevelt. There 
had been no race riots for several years; lynchings reached a new low; 
Southern liberalism — with federal government support — seemed to be 
growing. All these things made the late logo's a period of somewhat less 
despair and pessimism for Negroes than the early 1930's. But there was 
little long-range hope: Negroes had relief, but no jobs; and there was no 
significant improvement in their position on any other front. 

When the United States entered the Second World War in December, 
1 941, Negroes were not optimistic as to what its significance for them 
would be. They knew that the democratic war aims were not meant for 
them. The memories of the riots that followed the First World War 
rankled in their minds. Their difficulties in getting into the armed forces 
and into war industry in the period of preparation for war convinced them 
that an increase of activities would only mean that there were more fields 
in which Negroes would be discriminated against. But there was more 
reason and more opportunity to protest. The democratic ideology stimu- 
lated by the War and the heroic example of the colored peoples of China, 
the Philippine Islands, and elsewhere, outweighed the emphasis upon 
"wartime unity and harmony," and gave the Negro protest an car among 
the whites, at least in the North. These same things made the Negro want 
to protest more. 

We shall have more to say on the influence of the present War upon 
Negro attitudes in the last chapter. We shall find that the Negro protest 
has risen higher than ever. It is possible that at a later stage of the War, 
when the white unemployment reserve is worked off, the Negroes will see 
their employment opportunity rise. It is also possible that the white liberals 
will be able to open the doors somewhat more in the armed forces. It is 
possible that some more specific promises of measures against discrimination, 
not only in the economic field, but also in justice, politics, education, and 
other public services will be given to meet the low morale of the Negroe9 
and to allay the uneasy feeling of many whites when faced before the 
world with the inconsistency between their democratic faith and their 

* See Chapter 13, footnote 8. 



756 An American Dilemma 

treatment of Negroes. It is even possible that some real start will be made 
toward fulfilling the promises. Whether any promises to the Negro are 
fulfilled or not, it can be predicted with a fairly high degree of certainty 
that this War, when and if it is won, and its sour aftermath will act like the 
First World War did — «f a great shock to the Negro feofle and as a stimu- 
lant to their -protest. 



CHAPTER 36 

THE PROTEST MOTIVE AND NEGRO PERSONALITY 



1. A Mental Reservation 

The Negro protest is shut in by caste. Most of it is doomed to be intro- 
verted and self-consuming. An uproar like the Garvey movement is likely 
only to make the Negro protest appear intrinsically the more hopeless 
afterward. 

Negroes are only a tenth of the American nation. As an effect of the 
perfected caste controls, described in earlier parts of the book, their political 
and social power is much less than a tenth. Therefore, Negroes can never 
cherish the healthy hope of coming into power. A Negro movement can 
never expect to grow into a democratic majority in politics or in any other 
sphere of American life. And to escape from America is a fantastic dream 
from which Negroes always awake and find that they do not even want it 
to happen. There is a sense of hopelessness in the Negro cause. Meanwhile 
the individual Negro has to find his path through life as it is. 

But there is no wholehearted acceptance of the present situation. Deep 
down in the most dependent and destitute classes of Negroes in the rural 
South, the individual Negro of the masses ordinarily keeps a recess in his 
mind where he harbors the Negro protest. In the lower classes, and 
wherever the caste controls are severe, it is usually framed in the Christian 
ideals of human brotherhood and all men's fundamental equality before 
God. Church and religion is a much needed front to give respectability and 
acceptability to the suppressed Negro protest. The world can safely be 
claimed to be wrong in the light of Christian ideals. The rich and mighty 
white people are the possessors of this unrighteous world. Sometime, some- 
how, the wrongs are going to be corrected and "the last shall be first and 
the first shall be last." There is not only consolation and escape in this 
religious teaching, but it also serves as a means of guarding the democratic 
faith in the minds of downtrodden black people. It gives a supreme sanction 
to ideas from the American Creed, ideas which are unrealistic and fantastic 
in the light of the actual situation. This is the Negro protest in its most 
concealed form. In the upper strata, and generally in the North, the Negro 
protest is much more clearly thought out and overtly expressed in social, 
economic and political terms. 

757 



758 An American Dilemma 

On a high intellectual level one way of preserving human dignity in the 
face of outward humiliation is to follow the well-known formula of James 
Weldon Johnson: 

The pledge to myself which 1 have endeavored to keep through the greater part 
of my life it: 

I will not allow one prejudiced person or one million or one hundred million to 
blight my life. I will not let prejudice or any of its attendant humiliations and 
injustices bear me down to spiritual defeat. My inner life is mine, and I shall defend 
and maintain its integrity against all the powers of hell. 1 

2. The Struggle Against Defeatism 

This attitude is not so uncommon as one would think, even among 
Negroes of humble status. But with the individual Negro there is always 
a tendency for the protest to become bent into defeatism. Negroes on all 
class levels give vent to this spirit of defeatism in expressions such as 
"niggers ain't for nothing," "niggers ain't got a thing," "we're the under- 
dogs," "Negroes can't win," "there is just no hope for Negroes," "why 
bother?" 

This cannot be said publicly, though. The protest motive does not allow 
it. No Negro leader could ever preach it. No Negro newspaper could print 
it. It must be denied eagerly and persistently. But privately it can be said, 
and it is said. 

Sometimes — and this also in all classes — the blame will be put on Negro 
inferiority: "niggers are no good," "niggers have no guts," "Negroes lack 
courage," "Negroes are lazy," "Negroes have no foresight and persistency," 
"Negroes can't work for themselves," "black is evil." This agrees with 
what most white people believe and want to believe. To Negroes it repre- 
sents the old caste accommodation pattern. It kills ambition and makes low 
standards of morals and accomplishments seem natural for Negroes." It is 
a convenient philosophy and may, in a sense, be necessary for a balanced 
personality. 

But Negro inferiority cannot be admitted publicly. It has been the result 
of the rising Negro protest that there is, in nearly the entire Negro popula- 
tion, a theoretical belief that Negroes are just as highly endowed with 
inherent capabilities and propensities as are white people. An emphatic 
assertion of equality of the Negro people's potentialities is a central theme 
in the propagation of Negro race consciousness and race pride. "The Negro 
is behind the white man because he has not had the same chance, and not 
from any inherent difference in his nature and desires," 2 has been a thesis 
which for decades every Negro leader has found it necessary to assert. Not 
only Negro leaders and educators but all whites who address Negroes in a 

* See Chapter 9, Section 2, and Chapter 30, Section 1. 



Chapter 36. Protest Motive and Negro Personality 759 

spirit other than the oppressive one find it always of greatest importance to 
combat what has come to be known as the Negro "inferiority complex." 
As we have shown, science has supported the Negro position of equal 
average endowment, and even prejudiced whites, with any sense of respon- 
sibility, no longer fublkly state that Negroes are inherently inferior.* 

To admit Negro inferiority is thus treason to the race. But the lives of 
Negroes are filled with disappointments. Equality in endowment is not 
visibly demonstrated in accomplishment, except rarely. Even Negroes who 
are articulately race conscious have their moments of tiredness when they 
slip back into the inferiority doctrine, in the same way as religious persons 
have their moments of doubt about the existence of a divine providence. 
The inferiority doctrine remains, therefore, as an ever present undercurrent 
in Negro consciousness which must constantly be suppressed. It creeps up 
in conversation, and it flavors the jokes, particularly when Negroes are 
among themselves. It provides the terms of abuse and insult in intra-Ncgro 
quarrels. It plays an important role in the relations between the classes in 
the Negro community. It is no longer— and this is a result of the Negro 
protest — an attitude of carefree complacency, but a complacency tainted 
with much bitterness. 

3. The Struggle for Balance 

The standard explanation of Negro failures, and the only one publicly 
accepted, is to place the responsibility upon the caste system and the whites 
who uphold it: "the whites are mean to Negroes," "white people won't 
give the Negro a chance," "the whites are keeping Negroes down," "the 
American caste system degrades Negroes to half-men," "all odds are 
against us," "Negroes meet unfairness everywhere." As the Negro protest 
is rising and is becoming popularized, the view becomes more and more 
widespread that white oppression and the caste deprivations are to be 
blamed and not Negro inferiority. 

In a way, this theory is an attempt at a rational explanation of the low 
status of Negroes. It preserves self-respect and does not necessarily damage 
ambition. Many Negroes who strive hard to keep up and improve their 
status actually succeed in holding to this theory without mental conflict. 
They place themselves and their group in a true perspective. They measure 
their failures and accomplishments in realistic terms: of their own abilities, 
of the caste deprivations, and of the factor of pure chance (which is always 
of major importance in the individual case but is balanced out for the 
group). Such persons thus keep a balanced personality, but in a way that is 
more pretentious and less demoralizing, because less complacent, than the 
old caste accommodation. It may be said to be the goal of all Negro educa- 

■ See Chapter 6. 



760 An American Dilemma 

tion to adjust Negro youth to this balanced state of realistic conception of 
one's self and the world and of accommodation under frotest. 

The temptations are great, however, to lose this precious balance, either 
by falling into the bitter complacency of the inferiority doctrine referred to 
above or by overdoing the equality doctrine and trying to build up a 
strained case that black is superior to white. 1 A third temptation is to exag- 
gerate the accusation against the whites and so use the caste disabilities to 
cover all personal failures. The growing isolation makes such a self-decep- 
tion the more easy to accomplish and, indeed, difficult to avoid. The whites' 
race prejudice and the general fact of belonging to a group that is discrim- 
inated against provide a ready excuse for sub-standard performance and 
for beliefs which are just as effective as the old inferiority doctrine and 
personally less unflattering. 

The effects, however, are even more thoroughly demoralizing. There is 
not only complacency but more comforting self-pity. There is also at times 
a cynical disregard for "the rules of the game" when dealing with white 
people in such extraordinary circumstances where they cannot, or are not 
inclined to, hit back and put the screws on. b This is an angle of the general 
problem of the double standard to which we shall return. 6 It has a Negro 
side — in so far as Negroes accept the easy escape, with or without acceptance 
of the inferiority doctrine also — and is thus not caused only by white for- 
bearance and paternalism. 

The caste pressures thus make it exceedingly difficult for an American 
Negro to preserve a true perspective of himself and his own group in rela- 
tion to the larger white society. The increasing abstract knowledge of the 
world outside — of its opportunities, its rewards, its different norms of 
competition and cooperation — which results from the proceeding accultu- 
ration at the same time as there is increasing group isolation, only increases 
the tensions. When once off balance in one direction or the other, it is easy 
to lose stability and to slide to and fro among various contradictory atti- 
tudes. There is irritation and resentment involved in each of them, except 
in the old naive and easy-going inferiority belief, which hardly exists any 
more because of the Negro protest. Normal individuals do not like to find 
irritation and resentment in themselves. It thus becomes opportune and, 
indeed, highly practical to try not to think too much about it. For "what 
is the use?" 

"See Chapter 35, Sections 7 and 9; Chapter 38, Section 12 j and Chapter 39, Section 2. 

' I once heard a white official of a philanthropic agency, who had discovered some 
financial double-dealing of a Negro research worker, comment upon his decision just 
to forget about it in somewhat the following words: "We must remember that these 
people are held down in a subordinate class. When we lift up one of them and deal with 
him as one of us, how can we assume that he should deal with us as a gentleman?" 

' See Section 5 of this chapter. 



Chapter 36. Protest Motive and Negro Personality 761 

4. Negro Sensitiveness 

The upper classes are in many ways better protected, but they feel humil- 
iations more intensively. It requires hard and continuous struggle to over- 
come the effects of the deprivations and humiliations. The intensity of this 
struggle is suggested by the fact that often a small personal incident has 
the power suddenly to infuriate even those Negroes who pretend that they 
are not "race men." They feel overwhelmed by the discriminations and 
the prejudice. This is what is called Negro "sensitiveness." 8 

Referring to the South, Charles S. Johnson gives the following interest- 
ing analysis of why upper class Negroes are more sensitive: 

The greater sensitivity of the upper-class Negro to racial discrimination is attribut- 
able to two factors: (1) his greater familiarity with political and social thought, and 
(2) the contradiction between his personal achievements and his social position. The 
upper-class Negro is more aware of the regional variations in racial prejudice. He 
sees the race system of the South as a local phenomenon, while the less educated Negro 
is apt to regard white domination as part of the order of the universe. The upper- 
class Negro also feels himself entitled by training and ability to achieve a high social 
position in the community — a position denied by reason of race alone.* 

Much of the Negro sensitiveness is centered around the word "Negro" 
and its several synonyms. Even the lower class Negro in the rural South 
feels insulted when he is called a "nigger" by a white man. The word is 
hated because it symbolizes what prejudiced white people think of Negroes. 
It is often used, however, between Negroes of all classes not only as an 
insult but often in friendly joking. But it is insulting if it is used by a white 
person. In Chapter 29 we have discussed other names and modes of address 
to which Negroes are sensitive. All these words suggest to Negroes that the 
white man who uses them regards Negroes as inferior, and in the South 
white men who use them usually do have this attitude and express it inten- 
tionally in the words. The large number of these words and special ways 
of addressing Negroes indicate why Negroes have much to be "sensitive" 
about. 

Indeed, the entire racial "etiquette" and system of segregation in the 
South are taken as insults by the Negro. At every hand the Southern white 
man has given the Negro much to be sensitive about. The mere assumption 
by the Southerner that his deprecation of the Negro is not taken as an 
insult helps to make the Negro sensitive. Ray Stannard Baker tells of the 
following occurrence: 

I was lunching with several fine Southern men, and they talked, as usual, with the 
greatest freedom in the full hearing of the Negro waiters. Somehow, 1 could not help 
watching to see if the Negroes took any notice of what was said. I wondered if 
.thev were sensitive. Finally, I put the question to one of my friends: "Oh." he said. 



762 An American Dilemma 

"we never mind them; they don't care." One of the waiters instantly spoke up: "No, 
don't mind me; I'm only a block of wood." 8 

The constant insulting in the South has developed the trait of sensitive- 
ness in some Negroes to an unusually high degree. There is much cause for 
sensitiveness in the North also, but sometimes certain actions of Northern 
whites are taken as insults by Negroes when no insult is intended. This is 
understandable, of course, in view of the mutual ignorance of the two races 
in the North, but it nevertheless makes for mental unhealthiness on the 
part of some Negroes. 

In the lower classes the protest motive is weaker and the equality doctrine 
not practical. The desire to maintain personal dignity and the social pres- 
sure to keep up respectability are not so strong. It is possible to take a more 
cynical, and even exploitative, attitude toward white people's pretenses of 
superiority. Frazier tells us how lower class parents in Washington "cau- 
tion their children to avoid conflicts, to ignore insults, and to adopt tech- 
niques for 'getting by.' These techniques include 'acting like a monkey,' 
'jibbering,' flattery, and plain lying." 8 One Negro youth expressed himself 
thus: 

I'm always being told I can't do something because I'm a "nigger." I don't feel 
badly about it all. I know being a "nigger" there are things I can't do, places I can't 
go, but I feel that where some tell me something I can't do, somebody will tell me 
I can do something I want to do. So 1 don't mind trying and if you know how to 
flatter and "jive" white people, you can get farther than they expect "niggers" to 
go. I usually make a big joke of it and act the part of a clown. I generally get just 
what I'm after. After all, I think that's all white people want anyway. They just 
want "niggers," to recognize them as superior, and I'm the man to play their game. 
1 don't care what he says or docs as long as he kicks in. One thing sure, he wouldn't 
call me "nigger" down on Delaware Avenue. Then, too, I usually remember even 
if he lets you do things, he really doesn't want you to, and you're still a "nigger" to 
him. I don't feel badly about being told I can't do something because if he lets me 
hang around long enough, I'll get something out of him. T 

Another Negro boy who gave about the same account confessed however: 
"I hate myself, every time I say 'boss' or 'coat-tail' a peckerwood." 8 

Frazier brings this attitude into relation with the fact that so many of 
the lower class families were born in the South, and Davis and Dollard, 
studying Southern Negro youth, inform us that li the role of entertainer 
and clown is a familiar one to lower-class people." Without doubt it is less 
common in the Northern cities, and it is becoming less common every- 
where. The pattern that is becoming generally approved is an attempt at 
voluntary withdrawal. This pattern has become perfected in the upper 
classes; it is spreading into the lower classes.* In the unavoidable contacts 

. * Bee Chapter 30, Section a. 



Chapter 36. Protest Motive and Negro Personality 763 

with whites, however, their prejudices, and in the South the racial etiquette, 
must be accepted with good grace in order to avoid trouble and to get along. 

5. Negro Aggression 

But some Negroes will openly tell the interviewer that: "I just get mad 
when I think about it all." Some really "get mad" occasionally and hit at 
the whites in the fury of frustration. 

In the growing generation of Negroes, there are a good many individuals 
like Bigger Thomas, the hero of Richard Wright's popular novel, Native 
Son. They car. be seen walking the streets unemployed; standing around 
on the corners; or laughing, playing, and fighting in the joints and pool- 
rooms everywhere in the Negro slums of American cities. They have a 
bearing of their whole body, a way of carrying their hats, a way of looking 
cheeky and talking coolly, and a general recklessness about their own and 
others' personal security and property, which gives one a feeling that care- 
lessness, asociality, and fear have reached their zenith. In some cities they 
are known in the Negro community by the appropriate epithet "cats." 

Some few Negroes even outside the world of the "cats" consciously 
think out their aggression against the white caste, at least as a temporary 
flight of the imagination to relieve inner tension. Ralph Bunche testifies: 

There are Negroes too, who, fed up with frustration of their life here, sec no hope 
and express an angry desire to "shoot their way out of it." 1 have on many occasions 
heard Negroes exclaim: "Just give us machine guns and we'll blow the lid off the 
whole damn business." Sterling Brown's "Ballad for Joe Meek" is no mere fantasy 
and the humble Negro turned "bad" is not confined to the pages of fiction) granted 
that he is the exception. The worm does turn and a cornered rat will fight. 10 

But physical attack upon the whites is suicidal. Aggression has to be kept 
suppressed and normally is suppressed. It creeps up, however, in thousands 
of ways. The whites do not get as wholehearted a response from their 
Negroes as they would if the latter were well satisfied with the necessity 
of accommodation. Not only occasional acts of violence but much laziness, 
carelessness, unreliability, petty stealing and lying are undoubtedly to be 
explained as concealed aggression. 11 The shielding of Negro criminals and 
suspects, the dislike of testifying against another Negro, and generally the 
defensive solidarity in the protective Negro community has a definite taint 
of hostility. 

The truth is that Negroes generally do not feel they have unqualified 
moral obligations to white people. This is an observation which a stranger 
visiting around in the Negro communities cannot help making time and 
again. The voluntary withdrawal which has intensified the isolation between 
the two castes is also an expression of the Negro protest under cover. 

A less dangerous outlet for aggression is to deflect it from the white 



764 An American Dilemma 

caste and direct it upon other Negroes. 12 This means that the caste protest 
turns inward upon the Negro community. The lack of police protection in 
the Negro community and the leniency toward Negro offenders if they 
restrict their activity to other Negroes makes this outlet for aggression 
even more inviting.* There are no reasons to assume that Negroes are 
endowed with a greater innate propensity to violence than other people. 1 ' 
The excess of physical assaults — and of altercations — within the Negro 
community is rather to be explained as a misplaced aggression of a severely 
frustrated subordinate caste. 18 

This outlet is, however, prohibited in the Negro middle and upper 
classes where respectability is a supreme norm and fighting and squabbling 
are severely censored. Hindered by caste, prudence, and respectability from 
taking it out on either the whites or on other Negroes in blows and scold- 
ings, they have to store up their aggression. This is probably another cause 
of their greater sensitivity. Some few find an outlet in organizational 
activity for the Negro cause. 

6. Upper Class Reactions 

Caste solidarity is founded upon the entirely negative principle that all 
Negroes find themselves enclosed together behind the same caste bar and 
bruise their heads against it. Caste does not allow any Negro, when he has 
raised himself above the rest — and even if he then hates them — to leave the 
group. This is a background against which the relation between the different 
classes in the Negro community should be viewed. It is convenient to dis- 
tinguish these relations, as seen by the minute upper class, from the 
conception held by the Negro masses. 

As has already been indicated, there are many upper class Negroes who 
try to escape from race and caste. 14 They have arranged a little isolated 
world for themselves and want to hear as little as possible about their 
being Negroes or the existence of a Negro problem. They make it a point 
not to read Negro papers or Negro books; they keep themselves and their 
children apart from "common Negroes." They try to share the conservative 
political opinions of the whites of similar class status; they often over-do 
this considerably. They despise lower class Negroes, and they balance the 
account by despising lower class whites too. 

In a sense this is a type of accommodation. It relinquishes the Negro 
protest but it does not accept the inferiority doctrine, at least not in so far 
as it applies to themselves. When people who hold this attitude play up 
class, it is instrumental in allowing them to play down caste. To preserve 
their attitude they keep as far as possible from interracial situations where 
the reality of caste would become acute. But, since whites of their class do 

■ See Part VI. 
" See Chapter 6. 



Chapter 36. Protest Motive and Negro Personality j'6$ 

not accept them, they are doomed to loneliness together with some few like- 
minded and like-classed Negroes. 

The students at Negro colleges enjoy a particularly protected life for 
some years, and it will be found that often the entire campus, or at least the 
majority cliques, arrange their life according to this pattern of isolation 
from the whites and from the Negro masses. They ordinarily meet difficul- 
ties in keeping it up in later life when they have left college. But many will 
try. The observer finds in Negro communities everywhere individual fam- 
ilies or clusterings of families of this sort} in the bigger cities they form 
small exclusive societies. By their escape into class they have, however, 
only succeeded in isolating themselves from the Negroes, but have not 
succeeded in integrating themselves into the wider world, either socially 
and economically or ideologically. Their personality situation is usually 
more cramped than that of ordinary members of the Negro caste. While 
making it a policy to overlook caste humiliations, some small incident may, 
as we pointed out, cause them to flare up in accumulated resentment. 

Most upper class Negroes cannot sustain and cannot afford for economic 
reasons even to attempt the isolation from the Negro caste which this type 
of escape presupposes. They must identify themselves with "the race." But 
their class is also important to them. They often then try to take the whole 
"race" along in an imaginary escape into class. Many Negroes who by 
individual ability, hard work, or luck have succeeded in climbing the social 
ladder in the Negro community — often thanks to social monopolies created 
by the segregation and discrimination they protest against — feel satisfied 
with their own exceptional success only to the degree that they generalize 
it and think of it as applicable to the whole race. They are then inclined to 
minimize the handicaps the Negro caste labors under. There is a consider- 
able amount of accommodation in this attitude. I have often met Negro 
upper class persons who have idealized their own life history and, on this 
ground, come to entertain totally exaggerated notions about Negro progress 
in recent time and Negro opportunities for the future.* 

This attitude seems to be quite common among individualistic business- 
men and professionals. They borrow the spirit of the ordinary local Amer- 
ican chamber of commerce, boast of their accomplishments and opportuni- 
ties, and assume that they apply to the whole Negro people. Successful 
Negro preachers and educators, and some white friends of the Negro, join 
in the choir as it serves the good purpose of encouraging the Negro people 
to clamp down on the Negro protest somewhat, and to make a less resentful, 
more positive attitude toward life possible for the young and the rising. 
But there is little basis in reality for this attitude. It also is an escape. The 
boaster often reveals that he, himself, is not unaware of the self-deception 

' Then are perfect parallels in the white world among "self-made men" who have 
risen from poverty. 



j66 An American Dilemma 

lie ha? made into a "race philosophy" by showing in one way or another 
that he actually considers himself as a great exception while common 
Negroes are classed as inferior. 

This last view is more consistently displayed by many upper class 
Negroes in the South who studiously build up their careers by pleasing 
white people and acquiring their patronage. In private they are often as 
overbearing to common Negroes as they are weak and unassertive to the 
whites. But they, too, usually cannot stand absolute loneliness, and they, 
too, usually need the Negro masses as a basis for their economy. As trusted 
"white men's niggers" they also need Negro followers to earn the patron- 
age of their white "angels." For these reasons they, too, will have to keep 
their superiority feelings somewhat camouflaged. 

Between this last type, the "white man's nigger," and the next to the 
last, the Negro boaster, fall most of the balanced and well-adjusted upper 
class Negroes. The types are not rigidly demarcated: most individuals 
move, to a certain extent, from one type to another according to the situa- 
tion and to their own mood at the moment. 

7. The "Function of Racial Solidarity" 

All upper class Negroes, except the first type, who tries to escape "the. 
race," have their status defined in relation to the Negro masses, and prac- 
tically all depend upon the lower classes of Negroes for their economy and 
their social position. The Negro masses are the only people they can influ- 
ence, and to many upper class Negroes this is important not only in itself 
but also as a basis for influence with white people. 

Upper class Negroes, further, share some of the disabilities of Negroes 
in general since many of the caste controls do not spare them. They un- 
doubtedly feel the humiliation of caste more strongly, even if they suffer 
less from specific deprivations. Their formula for being accepted as 
"belonging" to the Negro caste is the appeal to "race." In order to gain 
their purpose, this appeal has to be invested with a certain amount of 
protest. It becomes an appeal to race solidarity. 

The feeling of racial solidarity and the work for Negro betterment fiJl 
many of them with an altruistic urge. They experience the joy and consola- 
tion of identification with a wider goal than that of self-elevation. Many 
thus succeed in building up a balanced personality in striving unselfishly 
for the Negro group. But there should be no reason for surprise that in this 
narrow shut-in world, to which they are doomed, much envy and personal 
strife enters into all collaboration with their fellow Negroes. There is much 
mutual suspicion of one another's motives and reliability. 

The Negro lower classes are, of course, likely to view the superior status 
and opportunities of upper class Negroes and their pretensions with envy. 
It is 'quite natural that the Negro upper class gets the brunt of the antago- 



Chapter 36. Protest Motive and Negro Personality 767 

nism from the lower classes which arises out of the Utters' poverty and 
dependence and which rightly should partly be directed against the caste 
system and the whites. 15 As the Negro protest becomes more articulate also 
among lower class Negroes, there is likely to be, however, a partial redi- 
rection of their antagonism in this latter direction and a mitigation of the 
class protest against the Negro upper class. Upper class Negroes find it 
necessary to instigate a protest against caste on the part of the Negro masses 
as a means of averting lower class opposition against themselves and to steer 
it instead against the white caste. For them the preaching of race solidarity 
is an instrument to assert Negro leadership. 10 It is also desirable in order 
to strengthen their economic monopolies behind the segregation wall. 

The protest motive allows, on the other side of the bargain, the lower 
class Negroes to take vicarious satisfaction in the attainments of the upper 
class Negroes. It gives basis to the symbolic significance of upper class status 
which we mentioned earlier." As we have repeatedly pointed out, the com- 
mon Negroes need the Negro upper class as liaison agents to the whites. 

In this way, both upper class and lower class Negroes are likely to swing 
between, on the one side, desire for intense isolation and resentment against 
other Negro social classes and, on the other side, race solidarity based on 
the caste protest against white society. For few individuals in any one of the 
various classes is the state of his feelings toward the rest of the Negro com- 
munity a stable one. For all Negroes, the Negro protest fills a "function" 
of allowing a higher degree of caste solidarity. 

* See Chapter 34, Sections 5 and 8. 



CHAPTER 37 

COMPROMISE LEADERSHIP 



i. The Daily Compromise 

In discussing the accommodating Negro leader in Chapter 34, we 
assumed for the purposes of abstract analysis that the protest motive was 
absent. This assumption, however, has some real truth in it, as we shall 
show in the present chapter. The accommodation motive has predominant 
importance in the daily life of American Negroes. But it is true that the 
protest motive is ever present. In some degree it has reached practically 
all American Negroes. To many individuals it is a major interest. And the 
Negro protest is bound to rise even higher. But the influence of the protest 
motive is limited mainly to the propagation of certain ideas about how 
things should be. In any case but few Negro individuals are in a position 
to do anything practical about it. Everyone, however, has to get on with 
his own life from day to day, now and here. Even when the individual 
plans for future employment, for business, or for schooling, he has to 
reckon with the world as it is. He has to accommodate. 

The Negro protest is thus mainly suppressed and turned inward. But it 
has effects upon Negro personality, upon the relations between the classes 
in the Negro community, and also upon caste relations. The whites, on 
their side, are accustomed to a certain amount of Negro unreliability, 
dishonesty, laziness, secretiveness, and even insolence and impudence. 
They shut their eyes to its explanation in Negro dissatisfaction and the 
other results of the caste system. The average white man, in the South, 
actually gets enjoyment out of observing and joking about Negro ineffi- 
ciency and slyness. He knows that he gets the services of Negroes for a 
cheap price, and so he can afford to joke about this. But, apparently, he 
also wants to convince himself that the Negroes are well satisfied. 1 Now 
and then, however, he reveals to the observer, more or less incidentally, 
that he knows about and understands the Negro protest. 

The Southerner keeps watching all the time for germs of unrest and 
dissatisfaction in the Negro community. He preserves the machinery of 
caste controls in a state of perpetual preparedness and applies it occasionally 
as an exercise or a demonstration. In this system, the Negroes have to 
accommodate individually and as a group. This is the situation in the South. 
As we shall observe later, the Northern situation is considerably different. 

7*8 



Chapter 37. Compromise Leadership 769 

2. The Vulnerability of the Negro Leader 

In the protective Negro community much goes on which the white man 
does not know about. The reality of this reserve is well known to Negroes, 
and it is coming to effective use in the Negro church, the Negro school and 
the Negro press. But the Negro leader has stepped out of the anonymity, 
and the eyes of influential white people are focused on him. He has to watch 
his moves carefully in order not to fall out with them. This would end his 
usefulness to the Negro community as a go-between. And it would spell 
his own ruin, as the whites have a close control on his income and his status. 

In the South practically all Negro teachers — from the lonely teacher in 
a dilapidated one-room school house isolated off somewhere in a rural 
county, to the president of a Negro college — are appointed by white leaders 
and they hold their position under the threat of being dismissed if they 
become troublesome." The Negro church is often claimed to be the one 
independent Negro institution founded entirely upon the organizational 
efforts and the economic contributions of the Negro people themselves. 
But the observer finds that to an amazing extent there are ties of small 
mortgage loans and petty contributions from whites which restrict the 
freedom of the preachers. Negro professionals and Negro businessmen, 
operating in the tight areas behind the caste wall, are also dependent on 
the good-will, the indulgence, and sometimes the assistance of whites. The 
same is even more true of the successful Negro landowner, who in most 
Southern areas meets the envy of poor whites, and so needs the protection 
of the substantial white people in the community. And for all local Negro 
leaders, it is perhaps not the economic sanction that is most important, 
but the sanction of physical punishment, destruction of property and 
banishment. 

In a sense, every ambitious and successful Negro is more dependent 
upon the whites than is his caste fellow in the lower class. He is more 
conspicuous. He has more to lose and he has more to gain. If he becomes 
aggressive, he is adding to all the odds he labors under, the risk of losing 
the good-will and protection of the influential whites. The Southern whites 
have many ways of keeping this prospect constantly before his mind. He 
knows he has to "go slow." 

3. Impersonal Motives 

This should not be construed to imply that there is a crude self-seeking 
opportunism on the part of Negro leaders or a cynical despotism on the 
part of the whites. The power situation is conducive to the creation of both, 
and the standards of power morals are low. But even the most right-minded 
ambitious Negro would be foolish not to realize that he has to keep in line 

'See Chapter 41. Section 1. 



770 An American Dilemma 

if he wants to do something for his own people. Accommodation on his 
part can be, and often is, altruistically motivated. He can view it as a 
sacrifice of personal dignity and conviction which he undergoes to further, 
not only his own aspirations, but also those of his whole group. He can 
point out, rightly, that reckless opposition on his part might endanger 
Negro welfare. 

There is much bitterness among Southern Negro leaders because they 
are criticized for being "Uncle Toms," especially by Northern Negro 
intellectuals. They will tell the observer that it takes little courage to stay 
in the safety of the North and to keep on protesting against Negro suffer* 
iilgs in the South. "They should come down here and feel the fears, uncer- 
tainties, and utter dependence of one of us in their own bones," said one 
prominent Negro banker in the Upper South. And he added: "If they 
then continued their outbursts, we would know that they are crazy, and we 
would have to try to get rid of them as a public danger. But, sure, they 
would come along. They would be cautious and pussy-footing as we are." 2 
On the white side, the motives are usually neither base nor crude. Often 
a Southern school board will try to appoint the best Negro they can get 
for teacher, school principal or college president. When they look for a 
"cautious," "sane," "sober," "safe," "restrained," and "temperate" Negro, 
they have in view a person who they honestly think will be good for "racial 
harmony." The same is true when they help a Negro preacher whom they 
consider a well-intentioned person. Mortgage loans and contributions to 
Negro churches are most of the time not given with the conscious intent 
to fabricate caste controls but to help religious work among Negroes by 
ministers who have their respect. But they operate within the framework 
of the Southern white philosophy of race relations. 

According to this philosophy, the whites should "look after their Ne- 
groes." Negroes should not protest but accommodate. They should not 
demand their rights but beg for help and assistance. Everything then 
works out for the good of both groups. When they dismiss a "radical" 
professor from a Southern Negro college or put the screws on an incautious 
preacher, doctor, or businessman or do not listen to his requests any longer, 
they act "in the best interest of the Negro group." Even whites who per- 
sonally would prefer to be more broad-minded, even Northern philan- 
thropists who would help the South, have to take into account "the public 
opinion among whites," what "people will stand for down here." 

The selection and the behavior of Negro leaders in the South is an out- 
come of this fact, that practically all the economic and political powers are 
concentrated in the white caste while the small amount of influence, status, 
and wealth th&t there is in the Negro community is derivative and depend- 
ent. The Negro masses are well aware of this situation. They need Negro 
leaders who can get things from the whites. They know that a Negro leader 



Chapter 37. Compromise Leadership 771 

who starts to act aggressively is not only losing his own power and often 
his livelihood but might endanger the welfare of the whole Negro com- 
munity. 

In Southern Negro communities there is apparently much suspicion 
against "radical," "hot-headed" and "outspoken" Negroes. Negroes do not 
want to be observed associating with such persons, because they might "get 
in trouble." A barricade will often be thrown up around them by a com- 
mon consent that they are "queer." The Negro community itself will thus 
often, before there is any white interference, advise individual Negroes 
who show signs of aggression that they had better trim their sails. 

4. The Protest Motive 

Nevertheless, the protest motive is not without influence on Negro lead- 
ership in the South. For one thing, some protest is almost a necessary 
ingredient in the leadership appeal to Negroes. The furthering of race 
pride and racial solidarity is the means of diminishing internal strivings 
in the Negro community and of lining up the community into a working 
unity. Whites sometimes understand this, and there is, therefore, also a 
certain amount of "tolerated impudence" which a trusted and influential 
Negro leader can get away with even in the presence of whites. If the 
Negro community feels sure that he, nevertheless, retains the ear of whites, 
such a guarded outspokenness will increase his prestige. Negro leaders are 
often keenly aware of just how far they can go with white people — just 
what they can afford to say, how they should say it, and when they should 
say it. Often a protest will be produced under the cover of a joke, or in a 
similar form, so that the whites do not quite get the full meaning or, 
anyhow, can pretend that they have not got it. There is a whole technique 
for how to "tell it right in the face of the whites" without being caught. 
The stories about such successful protests under cover form a mythology 
around a Negro leader who has the admiration and allegiance of his 
community. 

But much more generally the Negro community enjoys the demon- 
stration of the Negro protest — as long as it does not become too dangerous 
for racial harmony. The vicarious satisfaction taken in the victories of 
Negro athletes who have beaten white competitors has long been ob- 
served. 8 The esteem in the Negro community for the "bad nigger" is 
another point. The "bad nigger" is one who will deliberately run the risks 
involved in ignoring the caste etiquette, behaving impudently and threaten- 
ingly toward whites and actually committing crimes of violence against 
them. Because he often creates fear in the white community, and because he 
sometimes acts the role of "Robin Hood" for lesser Negroes in trouble 
with whites, he is accorded a fearful respect by other Negroes. 4 He cer- 
tainly does not become a Negro "leader." But, particularly in the lower 



77* An American Dilemma 

classes, he is a race hero and will be protected by them by means of 
pretended ignorance as to his doings and whereabouts. 

Whenever a Negro leader can afford — without endangering his own 
status or the peace of the Negro community — to speak up against, or 
behave slightingly toward, members of the superior caste, this will increase 
his prestige.* 

5. The Double Role 

More generally, the presence of the protest motive in the Negro com- 
munity tends to induce the Negro leader to take on two different appear- 
ances: one toward the whites and another toward the Negro followership. 
Toward the Negroes he will pretend that he has dared to say things and 
to take positions much in exaggeration of what actually has happened. The 
present author, when comparing notes from interviews in the Negro com- 
munity with what the white community leaders have told him about their 
"good Negroes," has frequently observed this discrepancy. 6 

A dual standard of behavior is not unnatural for a Southern Negro. It 
is rather to be expected of anybody in the lower layer of the Southern caste 
system. But the Negro leaders especially are pressed into such a pattern as 
they are more regularly, and in a sense professionally, in contact with 
whites and have a more considerable stake in the game. 

They play two roles and must wear two fronts. . . . The adjustments and adapta- 
tions of the Negro leader are apt to be more pronounced and in bolder relief than 
those of the common Negro for the reason that the Negro leader clearly has much 
more to lose. He has two worlds to please and to seek his status in. 6 

There is a limit, though, to what an accommodating Negro leader can 
pretend in the Negro community of what he has been bold enough to say 
or do. What he says to the Negroes, if it is really startling, will most of the 
time be reported by servants and other stool pigeons to the whites, and 
might make them suspicious of him. 

The Negro community gets a revenge against the whites not only out of 
the Negro leaders' cautious aggressions but also out of the whites' being 

*A Negro school principal in one of the larger cities in the Deep South once took 
me around and showed me various aspects of Negro life m the community. All the time 
and even when we were alone he displayed towards me the usual cumbersome caste etiquette 
of the region. In the evening he had called together a meeting of some twenty leading 
Negro citizens for a conference with me, for which he acted as chairman. He now developed 
an entirely new personal relation to me and became bossy, careless, and even impudent, 
but under a general cover of exaggerated friendliness and great familiarity. The next 
day when we continued our explorations of the condition in the city he had again 
returned to his ordinary caste role of unobtrusive and overpolite Southern Negro. I even 
sensed a sort of excuse for the previous evening. My tentative explanation was that he 
had put on the show of superiority at the meeting to impress his Negro friends, after he 
had carefully surveyed me and, rightly, found that there was no risk involved. 



Chapter 37. Compromise Leadership 773 

^fSt S!f bn t tn SOmc member of the com ™^Y *» suc- 
ceeded in pulling the w>ol» over the eyes oi trusting wh\te men is appar- 

ent. It deception is achieved, the Negroes seem to enjoy their \eaders' 

spreading the flattery thick, -when approaching the whites. This is the most 

concealed, the almost perverted, form of the Negro protest. 

6. Negro Leadership Techniques 

This situation is likely to make the Negro leader sophisticated and 
"wise." He becomes intensely conscious of all his moves. One Southern 
Negro leader outlined the most effective technique to use, when approach- 
ing influential white people to get them to do something for the Negro 
community, in the following words: 

Don't emphasize the Negro's "right" . . . don't press for anything . . . make him 
feel he's a big man, get to other white men to make him want to avoid seeming small, 
and you can make him jump through the barrel. You can make him a friend or a 
rattlesnake, depending on your approach. 7 

Another Negro leader told us: 

I'm a respectable citizen, but when I try to get my rights I do so in a way that 
will not be obnoxious, and not in a radical way. 1 don't believe in radicalism. We ask 
for things, but never demand. When I'm in Rome, I burn Roman candles . . . but 
I don't "Uncle Tom." 8 

A Negro editor in another Southern city explained: 

If a Negro goes so far as to make an enemy of the white man who has the power 
he is foolish. You can't hit a man in the mouth and expect him to loan you money. 
By all means keep in with the man who hires and pays you. A man wouldn't be head 
of a big concern if he weren't a smart man, and a smart man will always react to facts. 
My approach is to the fellow on top because he is going to have to take care of me 
and I must work with him — he has the stick. 

The successful Negro leader becomes a consummate manipulator. Get- 
ting the white man to do what he wants becomes a fine art. This is what is 
called "playing 'possum." The Negro leader gets satisfaction out of his 
performance and feels pride in his skill in flattering, beguiling, and out- 
witting the white man. The South is full of folklore and legend on this 
aspect of Negro leadership. 10 And the stories are told among whites too, 
just as are stories about clever children or animals. 

Every person in this game has a double standard of understanding and 
behavior. The white leaders know that they are supposed to be outwitted 
by the subservient but sly Negro leaders. In the Southern aristocratic tradi- 
tion they are supposed not only to permit and to enjoy the flattery of the 
Negro leaders but also to let them get away with something for themselves 
and for their group. It is the price due the Negro leaders for their adaptive 



774 Ah American Dilemma 

skills and for their tactful abstention from raising the Negro protest The 
Negro leaders also know their double role. 

The Negro community is thus, on the one hand, filled by the Negro 
protest and it demands to be appealed to in terms of Negro solidarity. It 
also wants to feel that the protest is getting over to the whites. On the 
other hand, the Negro community knows the caste situation, is afraid of 
radical leaders and trouble-makers, and wants its go-betweens to be able 
to make some real deliveries. 

7. Moral Consequences 

This situation is pregnant with all sorts of double-dealing, cynicism and 
low morals in the Negro community. The leaders are under constant 
suspicion from the Negro community that they are dishonest, venal and 
self-seeking. One observing Negro citizen expressed a common view when 
he told us: "You give a few Negroes a break, hand them a job, and all 
problems are solved." 11 The complaints about "bad leadership" — ^incom- 
petent," "selfish," "treacherous," "corrupt" — were raised in every single 
Negro community the present author has visited. These complaints may, 
indeed, be said to constitute one of the unifying popular theories in the 
Negro world, a point upon which everybody can agree. "There are few 
Negro leaders," Ralph Bundle confirms, "who are not suspect immediately 
they attain any eminence. The racial situation has created a vicious circle 
in Negro reasoning on leadership, and the Negro leader is caught in it." 12 

The Negro community in the South cannot expect — and docs not want — 
its leaders to act out the protest the common Negroes actually feel. There 
is, indeed, little reason to believe that the leaders are less militant than the 
community seriously wants them to be. But the common Negroes do feel 
humiliated and frustrated. And they can afford to take it out on their 
leaders by defaming them for their "kowtowing," "pussy-footing," and 
"Uncle Tomming"} by calling them "handkerchief heads" and "hats in 
hand"; and particularly by suspecting them for being prepared to barter 
away their own honor and the interests of the group for a job or a hand-out. 
The Negro hates the Negro role in American society , and the Negro leader, 
who acts out this role in fublic life, becomes the symbol of what the Negro 
hates. 

The Southern Negro leader — not being allowed to state and follow a 
clear ideological line but doomed to opportunism, having constantly to 
compromise with his pride and dignity, and never being allowed to speak 
upon the authority of the strength of an organized group behind him but 
appearing as an individual person trusted by the adversary group before 
him — does not have the sanctions ordinarily operating to preserve the 
honor and loyalty of a representative leader. The temptation to sell out the 
group and to look out for his own petty interest is great. He thus easily 



Chapter 37. Compromise Leadership 775 

comes to justify the common suspicions around him by becoming a self- 
seeker and opportunist. The anger in the Negro community against un- 
scrupulous leaders is often directed against the fact that they do not get more 
for themselves out of their unscrupulousness in sacrificing the common 
interest: 

That [leadership] which can be bought ... is usually purchaseable for "peanut 
money." The scorn for the practice among Negroes, frequently expressed is often less 
due to the fact that Negro leaders "sell out" than because they do so so cheaply. 13 

8. Leadership Rivalry 

Since power and prestige are scarce commodities in the Negro commu- 
nity, the struggle for leadership often becomes ruthless. Such is the situation 
even in those fields where there is little white interference. 1 * White influ- 
ence is likely to increase bitter personal rivalry, as the leader comes to 
operate as a single individual, trusted by the whites but generally without 
any organized backing or control in the Negro community and without 
a cause or an issue. 

For the same reasons this rivalry does not provide a check on dishonesty. 
It rather loosens still more the loyalty of the Negro community. It also 
provides the influential whites with increased possibilities to "divide and 
rule." And it defiles still more the atmosphere around Negro leadership. 
The rivalry, the envy, and the disunity in the Negro community, and the 
destructive effects, are felt by even the poorest Negro, who will every- 
where tell the inquirer that "Negroes just can't stick together." "Lambast- 
ing our leaders is quite a popular pastime," observes James Weldon John- 
son. 16 Under those circumstances the attainment of Negro leadership also 
tends to "do something" to the individual Negro: 

For when a value is scarce its possession tends to inflate the possessor. The Negro 
leader often quickly puffs up when given power. He "struts" and puts up a big 
front, or puts on "airs," often indulges in exhibitionism. It is often truly said that 
the Negro leader "can't stand power." Actually, there is a sort of ambivalence which 
characterizes the attitudes of Negro leaders. The leader will pay lip-service to the 
concepts of democracy for he understands their significance and appeal to the Negro 
as a group. But in his personal views and relationship the Negro leader is ordinarily 
very allergic to democracy — he prefers to play the role of the aristocrat, or the dictator 
or tyrant. For leadership itself is a form of escafe}* 

9. Qualifications 

It should be observed that these detrimental effects upon public confi- 
dence and morals in the Negro community are derivative from the basic 
lack of democracy inherent in the Southern caste situation, and, further, 
that they become increased by the rising Negro protest as long as it is 
denied free outlet. They have close parallels in all other subordinate groups. 



Jj6 . An American Dilemma 

In this situation it is understandable why so many well-equipped upper 
class Negroes in the South withdraw voluntarily from attempting to play 
a leadership role. Bad odor around the whole activity is an additional reason 
for such withdrawal besides the ones mentioned in an earlier section.* But 
many cannot afford to withdraw entirely. So many of the vocations and 
positions which mean an economic and social career in the Negro commu- 
nity are under white control, directly or indirectly. And the influential 
whites reckon on their Negro college presidents, their Negro high school 
principals, their favored Negro ministers, farmers and businessmen to 
shepherd the Negro community. 

This may, indeed, be a blessing to the Negro community as so many of 
the most devoted and capable Negro leaders in the South actually are 
persons who would prefer to stay away and mind their own business, if their 
position, and, especially, white expectations, did not draw them out as 
Negro leaders. It must never be forgotten — in spite of what many Negro 
interlocutors in their dismay and pessimism tell the interviewer to the 
contrary — that there are in the South many honest and diligent Negro 
leaders who unselfishly forward Negro interests by a slow, patient, but 
determined, plodding along against odds and difficulties. And an important 
aspect oi the changing South is that — as the general educational level is 
raised, racial liberalism progresses, and federal agencies become important 
— they are the Negro leaders to become increasingly trusted by the whites 
in fower. 

10. In Southern Cities 

In the rural South only accommodating Negro leadership is yet possible. 
In Southern cities — except in the smaller ones — the observer finds single 
individuals and small groups of followers around them who use the pro- 
tection of the greater anonymity of the segregated urban Negro community 
to raise cautiously the banner of Negro protest. 

They usually try to get the Negroes to attempt to register as voters. 
Upper class Negroes seldom become active protest leaders, as they would 
have too much to lose. Teachers or preachers are practically never active 
protest leaders. Such leaders seldom have conspicuous success, as the ordi- 
nary community leaders usually keep aloof, and as the Negro masses are 
apathetic. 

The N.A.A.C.P., a national protest organization, has branches in most 
of the larger Southern cities. With exceptions, those branches are not active 
for a protracted period and they cannot be active, since the margin of free- 
dom for the Negro protest is narrow. They have a social function and, in 
addition, the symbolic function of keeping the flame of protest burning in 
the community, and of collecting the contributions to be sent to the National 

* See Chapter 36, Settion 6. 



Chapter 37. Compromise Leadership 777 

Office in New York in order to make it possible for its staff to attack prob- 
lems on the national front.* 

The present writer once interviewed the president of the NA.A.CP. 
branch in one of the smaller capitals of the Deep South. He was a distin- 
guished, elderly gentleman, a postal clerk who for many decades, upon the 
basis of his economic independence as a federal employee, had led a 
cautious fight for Negro interests in his community. During our conversa- 
tion I asked him whether they had any other similar organizations in the 
city, and the following conversation ensued: 

"Yes, there is the League for Civic Improvement." 

"Why do you bother to have two organizations with the same purpose of trying to 
improve the position of Negroes? " 

"Sir, that is easily explainable. The N.A.A.C.P. stands firm on its principles and 
demands our rights as American citizens. But it accomplishes little or nothing in this 
town, and it arouses a good deal of anger in the whites. On the other hand, the 
League for Civic Improvement is humble and 'pussy-footing.' It begs for many favors 
from the whites, and succeeds quite often. The N.A.A.C.P. cannot be compromised in 
all the tricks that Negroes have to perform down here. But we pay our dues to it 
to keep it up as an organization. The League for Civic Improvement does all the 
dirty work," 

"Would you please tell me who is president of this League for Civic Improve- 
ment? I should like to meet him." 

"I am. We are all the same people in both organizations." 

This story revealed much of the political shrewdness by which the difficul- 
ties are sometimes met. 

In a few places in the South there are appearing a few Negro labor 
leaders in new mixed unions, primarily in Birmingham and Baltimore and 
in other areas where Negroes are in mining and building construction. These 
Negro leaders usually keep faithfully and cautiously to their specialty. 
Toward the white union leaders they ordinarily act out the traditional 
accommodating Negro leader's role, though with considerably more back- 
bone since they have an organized body of Negro workers behind them. 
The future of the Negro labor leader in the South, as well as the answer 
to the question whether he will have influence in broader spheres of 
politics and culture, remains uncertain. 

11. In the North 

In the North the protest motive has a much freer scope and can come 
out into the open. Negro power in politics and in trade unions is more 
substantial. White people are not united, as in the South, in a systematic 
effort to keep the Negroes suppressed. The Negro community, therefore, 
demands a display of actual opposition from its leaders. 
'See Chapter 39. 



778 An American Dilemma 

The Negro leaders are also much freer in their actions. They do not fear 
violence, intimidation and banishment. Even the controls over their eco- 
nomic prospects are much less tight. But white protection and assistance 
mean much in the North also. Negro preachers in the North get hand-outs, 
too. Negro teachers and other public employees are mostly appointed by 
whites in the North, too. But since the jobs are actually considered as 
concessions to Negro power and protest, the jobholders are not appointed 
entirely without consideration of the desires of the Negro community. 
And the civil service regulations are usually more effective in the North 
in protecting the independence of jobholders. 

It is, thus, surprising that one meets in Northern Negro communities the 
same complaints about the great incompetence and venality of Negro lead- 
ers. One observes also much of the same keen and destructive personal 
rivalry of leaders. Part of this may be explained as a cultural heritage from 
the Southern situation. The greater freedom requires a radical reeducation 
which is far from finished among Southern-born Negroes in the North and 
among their children. Another part may be due to the fact that the Negro 
protest is not only much freer in the North but is also more widespread and 
more intensely felt. As the constructive outlets for this more intensive 
Negro protest are not too wide in the North either, it turns back on the 
Negro community and results in internal suspicion and vicious competition. 

But more important in explaining dissatisfaction with leaders is the fact 
that the share in power which the Negroes hold in the North creates a much 
greater stimulus for various white interests to buy the Negro leaders. As 
the Negro people are poor and inexperienced in holding power, the 
temptations seem strong. Political parties have a reason in the North, which 
they do not have in the South, to bribe Negro newspaper' editors, preachers, 
and other community leaders before elections. Employers occasionally feel 
inclined to do the same in order to keep Negro workers hostile to the 
trade unions. And even other white interests in the North, where it is less 
possible than in the South to frighten the Negro community in the direction 
wanted, will instead buy off its leaders. 

It is possible — and, judging from the many sorry stories told to the 
present author, even probable — that there is just as much or more outright 
corruption in the Northern Negro leadership as in the Southern. And even 
in the absence of corruption, the Northern leaders, like the Southern ones, 
are apparently often interested in their own advancement more than in the 
cause they pretend to serve. Nevertheless, the Negro community also gets 
something — and indeed comparatively much — out of the greater freedom 
and out of its share in power. And the Northern situation is conducive to 
a gradual education of the Negro people to the opportunities and the duties 
of free citizenship. The masses can demand that their leaders be struggling 
protest leaders, clarifying and defining the Negro demands, and making 



Chapter 37. Compromise Leadership 779 

the necessary compromises in the full light of publicity. In the North the 
recognition of full democracy in principle and unhampered rights to fight 
for its gradual realization in practice give Negroes a basis for hope. 

12. On the National Scene 

The conspicuousness of Negro leadership on the national plane and the 
severe demands on competence and devotion have a cleansing effect. 

It is the writer's impression that national Negro leadership is no more 
corrupt nor more ridden with personal envy and rivalry than other national 
leadership. Indeed, it compares favorably in these respects with, for in- 
stance, national white labor leadership. The actual power situation will 
often induce national Negro leaders to be compromising and even accom- 
modating. Considerations of personal advancement will sometimes make 
Negro advisors in government agencies and Negro aspirants for such jobs 
more interested in calming down the Negro protest than in giving it force 
and expression. But they are persistently watched by the Negro press and 
by the national Negro protest and betterment organizations. In politics and 
all other power fields the national Negro leaders, in conspiracy with their 
white allies, rather succeed in squeezing out more consideration for the 
Negro cause than corresponds to the actual strength of their organized 
backing — though, of course, far less than its potential future strength. 

On the national scene — and also in the larger Northern cities — one often 
observes a phenomenon which has an exact parallel in the women's world, 
namely, that it is felt appropriate to have "one Negro" on boards, on 
committees, on petitions, and so on. Ralph Bunche comments: 

Not infrequently, Negroes are shoved into positions of leadership by white leaden 
for purely strategic reasons. It is common practice in numerous organizations and 
movements today, especially those of the liberal variety, to say "we must have a Negro 
on this." This attitude has even found reflection in the purely academic and scholarly 
organizations where it has been deemed necessary to project a Negro now and then 
into some position of prominence in order to demonstrate the liberality and tolerance 
of the group. 17 

The Negro appointed in this manner — for no other reason than that he is 
a Negro — often does not have the personal qualifications for holding a 
prominent position. This is an angle of the much broader problem of the 
"double standard" which we discussed in a previous chapter.' The caste 
situation generally works to the detriment of Negroes, but there are indi- 
vidual Negroes who are given recognition and advantages which they 
would not get if the measures were objective under a casteless system. 

This sketch of Negro leadership is frankly impressionistic and partly 
speculative, as no intensive research on this topic has been made. It has been 

* See Chapter 35, Section 9. 



780 An American Dilemma 

needed as a background for the account to follow on Negro ideologies and 
on Negro organizations and concerted action. In Appendix 9 we present 
a number of problems for research and a few methodological points, in- 
tended as a guide for future investigations. 



CHAPTER 38 

NEGRO POPULAR THEORIES* 



1. Instability 

Negro thinking is thinking under the pressure and conflicts to which the 
Negro is subjected. Du Bois pointed out: 

It is doubtful if there is another group of twelve million people in the midst of 
a modern cultured land who are so widely inhibited and mentally confined as the 
American Negro. Within the colored race the philosophy of salvation has by the 
pressure of caste been curiously twisted and distorted. Shall they use the torch and 
dynamite? Shall they go North, or fight it out in the South? Shall they segregate 
themselves even more than they are now, in states, towns, cities or sections? Shall they 
leave the country? Are they Americans or foreigners? Shall they stand and sing "My 
Country 'Tis of Thee"? Shall they marry and rear children and save and buy homes, 
or deliberately commit race suicide? 1 



Frustration and defeatism, forced accommodation under concealed protest, 
vicious competition modified by caste solidarity, form the main texture into 
which the patterns of Negro political and social thinking are woven. Upon 
the personality basis we have sketched in Chapter 36, these patterns cannot 
possibly become consistent and stable. And Negro political and social 
thinking does not have much connection with broader American and world 
problems. To an American Negro, there is little point in having definite 
opinions about the world. 

To an extent this is true of the little fellow everywhere in a big world. 

* Throughout this book, and especially in this chapter, wc use the term "popular 
theories" to refer to a consciously thought-out, though not necessarily logical or accurate, 
system of ideas held by a large group of people concerning something that is important 
or interesting to them. Popular theories may be attempts at abstract explanation or 
attempts at practical solution of problems which bother these people. They include not 
only beliefs concerning facts but also valuations, and they are usually complex in that 
they contain many beliefs and valuations and in that they have far-reaching implications. 
Some writers have used the term "ideologies" in .the same way that we use the term 
"popular beliefs," but there is no unanimity among those who use the term as to its 
definition, and the term is almost completely foreign to the man in the street. Other 
writers have used the terms "popular beliefs" and "mass beliefs" in somewhat the same 
way a* we use the term "popular theories," but in this book we have restricted the term 
"belief" to a simple comprehension of facts, as distinguished from valuations. 

781 



782 An American Dilemma 

Everyone who is not on top has to work out his compromise between 
accommodation and protest. But the average white American has a better 
chance to do this constructively. He can feel himself in power by identify- 
ing himself with the American nation of which he is a full-fledged citizen, 
and by aligning himself with a group that can struggle with hope of coming 
into power sometime in the future. Corresponding to these affiliations with 
the nation, with a political party, and with various opinion and interest 
groups, popular theories are being developed about how society is and how 
it should be conserved or changed. The feeling of bclongingness and 
integration gives white men some stability and self-assurance. It is true that 
even the white masses in America show a relatively low degree of partici- 
pation in, and responsibility for, the larger society." Moreover, public 
opinion is relatively unstable in America, and propaganda an important 
factor. Even the ordinary white man in America has a less well-organized 
system of opinions on general matters than he would have in a social order 
with more democratic participation. But the difference between whites and 
Negroes is tremendous. 

Negroes are denied identification with the nation or with national groups 
to a much larger degree. To them social speculation, therefore, moves in 
a sphere of unreality and futility. Instead of organized popular theories or 
ideas, the observer finds in the Negro world, for the most part, only a fluid 
and amorphous mass of all sorts of embryos of thoughts. Negroes seem to 
be held in a state of eternal preparedness for a great number of contradic- 
tory opinions — ready to accept one type or another depending upon how 
they are driven by pressures or where they see an opportunity. Under 
certain circumstances, the masses of American Negroes might, for example, 
rally around a violently anti-American, anti-Western, anti-white, black 
chauvinism of the Garvey type, centered around the idea of Africa as the 
mother country. But they might just as likely, if only a slight change of 
stimulus is provided, join in an all-out effort to fight for their native 
country, the United States of America, for the Western civilization to 
which they belong, and for the tenets of democracy in the entire world, 
which form their cherished political faith. Or they might develop a passive 
cynicism toward it all. Negro intellectuals usually do not have such a tre- 
mendous instability of opinion as the masses. But compared with white 
intellectuals they show the same difference as Negro masses compared with 
the white masses. 

This is what white Americans perceive when they tell the observer that 
Negroes are "emotional" or "unstable." In a sense this judgment is correct. 
And this trait can be observed not only in Negroes' popular theories, or 
lack of theories, about the larger society, but also in the type of religious 

'Sen Chapter 33. 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 783 

experience they seek, the news they read, the art they create, and in the 
disorganization and rivalry manifested in their families and social gather- 
ings." Most American whites believe that emotionalism and lack of ration- 
ality are inborn in the Negro race. But scientific studies have made such 
inherent temperamental differences between Negroes and whites seem 
improbable. b The present author is inclined, for these reasons, to view this 
characteristic of Negro thinking as a result of caste exclusion from partici- 
pation in the larger American society. 

2. Negro Provincialism 

Another observable characteristic of the Negroes' thinking about social 
and political matters is its provincialism. 

Here also we note an effect of caste exclusion, and not a racial trait. Pro- 
vincialism in social and political thinking is not restricted to Negroes. 
Everybody is inclined to consider national and international issues from 
the point of view of personal, group, class or regional interests. The range 
of vision stands apparently in a close correspondence to the degree of 
participation in the larger society. And again, when comparing American 
whites and Negroes, we note a quantitative difference in both cause and 
effect that is so great as to become qualitative. 

Negroes have so many odds directed against them and suffer so many 
injustices — and the dominant American Creed which provides the com- 
mon floor for all social and political thinking in the country is so uncom- 
promisingly democratic — that it is only natural that when Negroes come 
to think at all about social and political problems they think nearly exclu- 
sively about their own problems. The Negro protest defines the ills of the 
Negro group ever more sharply in their minds and emotionalizes narrow- 
ness. Race consciousness and race pride give it a glorification and a systema- 
tization. As the Negro frotest and race consciousness are steadily rising, 
Negro provincialism may even increase in the short run, in sfite of the better 
educational facilities and a greater acculturation. 

The Negroes are so destitute of power in American society that it would, 
indeed, be unrealistic for them to try a flight into a wider range of prob- 
lems. It seems functional and rational that they restrict their efforts to 
what is nearest home. They are not expected to have a worth-while judg- 
ment on national and international affairs, except in so far as Negro inter- 
ests are concerned. To most groups of white Americans it would be pre- 
posterous and impudent, or at least peculiar, if Negroes started to discuss 
general problems as ordinary Americans and human beings. They are 
allowed — in various degrees — to protest j or it is, at any rate, taken for 
granted that they should protest. But they are neither expected nor allowed 

' See Chapters 41, 4.3 and 44. 
'See Chapter 6. 



784 An American Dilemma 

to participate. So the Negro protest and the white expectation harmonize 
and accumulate in their effects to narrow the range of Negro thinking. 

This vicious circle of caste operates upon the finest brains in the Negro 
people and gives even to the writings of a Du Bois a queer touch of un- 
reality as soon as he leaves his problem, which is the American Negro 
problem, and makes a frustrated effort to view it in a wider setting as an 
ordinary American and as a human being. A corresponding and comple- 
mentary feeling of queerness is felt by the foreign observer when he turns 
over the leaves of the hundreds of recent books and articles by white 
Americans on American democracy and its implications. In this literature 
the subject of the Negro is a void or is taken care of by some awkward, 
mostly un-informed and helpless, excuses. This is, of course, seen clearly 
by the Negro intellectual. Ralph Bunche remarks: 

. . . consciously or unconsciously, America has contrived an artful technique of 
avoidance and evasion. For example, American newspaper editorials carry glowing 
praise for the tenets of liberty and equality upon which the society is founded, but 
ignore completely the inconsistent Negro status. One author has recently written a 
book entitled American Problems of Today, and yet barely mentions the Negro in one 
or two incidental passages. 2 

The tragedy of caste is that it does not sfare the integrity of the soul 
either of the Negro or of the white man. But the difference in degree of 
distortion of world view is just as great as the difference in size between 
the American Negro community and the rest of the world. 

Negro thinking is almost completely determined by white opinions — 
negatively and positively. It develops as an answer to the popular theories 
prevalent among whites by which they rationalize their upholding of 
caste. In this sense it is a derivative, or secondary, thinking. The Negroes 
do not formulate the issues to be debated j these are set for them by the 
dominant group. Negro thinking develops upon the presuppositions of 
white thinking. In its purest protest form it is a blunt denial and a refu- 
tation of white opinions. Accommodation may Dend the denial toward 
qualified denial or even qualified agreement. But JNegro thinking seldom 
moves outside the orbit fixed by the whites' conceptions about the Negroes 
and about caste. 

Restricted and focused in this way, the problem of housing becomes to 
Negroes a problem of residential segregation and their share in public 
housing projects. Education becomes Negro education. Politics concerns 
Negro disfranchisement and what the Negroes will get out of the 
kaleidoscopic and unintelligible chance play of strange national and world 
events. The fight between the C.I.O. and the A.F. of L. is a question 
of whether Negroes will be allowed into the labor unions. World trends 
in agricultural economics and American agricultural policy are seen only 
in terms of cotton and the Negro sharecropper. 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 785 

The national budget and its short-range and long-range balancing, the 
principles of taxation, monetary policy, and banking, have no sensible 
meaning in the Negro world, except perhaps in terms of unemployment 
relief. The World War becomes translated into the administrative details 
concerning the extent to which Negroes will be kept from working in 
defense industries and from service in the armed forces. Being denied 
full fellowship by white America, the identification with the nation is 
somewhat uncertain and blurred by a constant reminder of color. Africa 
gets the American Negroes' loyalty to nation, besides the United States. 
Thus the Negroes ". . . must perpetually discuss the 'Negro Problem,' 
— must live, move, and have their being in it, and interpret all else in 
its light or darkness," Du Bois complains. 3 And Ralph Bunche observes: 

. . . when the Negro views any matter of broad governmental policy, he ordinarily 
weight it not as an American citizen, but as a Negro American. His first queries will 
always be: "How will it effect 'Negroes'? " "Will it be so administered as to embrace 
Negroes fairly?" "What safeguards are taken to insure equal Negro participation in 
its benefits? " In other words, the Negro has learned from bitter experience that he 
must constantly be on the alert to hold his own in the society. . . . Thus there is a 
constant conflict between the Negro's . . . desire to be a full-fledged American citizen 
. . . and the necessity forced upon him by tradition and sentiment in the country, 
to "think Negro" first * 

The American caste situation being what it is, there should be nothing 
astonishing in the provincialism of the Negroes in their thinking or in 
their fixation on white opinions. The Negroes can even be said to act in 
a practical and rational way when they concentrate their efforts on their 
own worries and press their own local and national interests. It is also — from 
their point of view — only a matter of prudence if they feel inclined to 
view the white Americans' international ambitions and allegiances with 
skepticism and reserve. The Negro caste is, in a sense, "a nation within a 
nation," and an oppressed and exploited nation at that. It prays to become 
assimilated, but this is not permitted. It is thus understandable and, in 
some respects and some degree, even necessary that the Negroes fortify 
their souls with a dose of black chauvinism. 

But all this does not make a half-truth into a truth. It does not wipe 
out the distorting effects of huge gaps in knowledge and interests. Negro 
provincialism damages the efficiency of the Negroes' own struggle for a 
larger share. But it cannot be helped, since it is rooted in caste. A balanced 
and integrated world view is denied American Negroes, together with 
many other good things in our social life. They will not be able to emerge 
completely from instability, provincialism, and distortion of opinions until 
that time in the future when American society itself is eventually delivered 
from caste. 



786 An American Dilemma 

3. The Thinking on the Negro Problem 

Negro thinking in social and political terms is thus exclusively a think- 
ing about the Negro problem. The formation of popular theories among 
Negroes concerning the Negro problem also does not result in articulate, 
systematized and stable opinions. Particularly in the lower classes, and 
in the Southern rural districts, the ideological structure of Negro think- 
ing; — even in its own narrow, caste-restricted realm — is loose, chaotic 
and rambling. This is understandable since the major determinants in the 
Negro problem are outside the Negroes' control and usually outside their 
vision. 

Some main elements, and particularly the doctrine of Negro equality, 
have, however, been fixed by the Negro protest, as far as public expres- 
sions go, even if it is a hard struggle for the individual Negro to keep 
up this badge of Negro solidarity.* But for the other elements, the popular 
Negro theories on their own problem have not only been developed and 
formulated by the small fraction of articulate upper class professionals and 
intellectuals but they have been reaching down to the Negro masses 
only slowly. In this process they have become blurred and simplified: 

. . . there is little evidence that these articulated conceptions have filtered down into 
the inert Negro mass, whose intellectual muscles are lax. It is this "elite" group 
which alone indulges in vivacious theorizing on the "problem." 5 

The popular theories on Negro strategy all try to solve the fundamental 
problem of how to make a compromise between accommodation and pro- 
test. Any workable policy has also to engender support from white groups. 
One axis, convenient for our purpose of reaching a useful typology of 
Negro ideologies, concerns what social class or group among the whites 
is chosen as a frosfectvue ally. 

4. Courting the "Best People among the Whites" 

The traditional alignment in the South, following a pattern inherited 
from slavery and white paternalism, is for the Negroes to seek support 
from the white upper class. 

Both the lower class Negroes and the upper class Negro leaders feel that 
the "quality folks," the "best people among the whites" are the friends of 
the Negroes. They are held to be "too big" for prejudice. They are 
secure and out of competition. The lower class whites, on the other hand, 
have been considered as the Negroes' natural enemies. There is, as we 
have seen, a portion of truth in this view.* 

The Negroes have therefore looked to those whites who have secure 



'See Chapter $6, Section 2. 

* See" Chapter 17, Section 6, and Chapter 18, 



Section 3. 



Chapter 38, Negro Popular Theories 787 

social and ecoitomic positions to give them assistance and backing. On the 
labor market Negroes have usually trusted the employers and have ex- 
pected them to give them jobs and to protect them from the antagonism 
of white workers. Negroes have seen the necessity of being tractable 
toward the employing class and of working for lower pay and keeping 
down demands in order to hold their jobs. Formerly Negroes gained 
entrance to jobs as labor scabs and strike-breakers. In education and busi- 
ness, too, and in interracial relations generally, their hopes have been 
focused on the better class of white people. 

Booker T. Washington developed and utilized successfully this phi- 
losophy as a short-range strategy. He gave it an optimistic slant — and 
made a reservation for the Negro protest — by developing the idea that 
progress was possible if a strong Negro middle class could be founded 
upon white help and upon individual thrift and energy. If the Negro 
could become a good producer, his products would call forth a good 
price in return. 

Nothing else so soon brings about right relations between the two races in the 
south as the commercial progress of the Negro. Friction between the races will pass 
away as the black man, by reason of his skill, intelligence, and character, can produce 
something that the white man wants or respects in the commercial world. 6 

The results would be not only gradually higher standards of efficiency, 
earnings, and consumption, but also a growing respect from the whites 
who would finally give Negroes suffrage, equal justice and, if not "social 
equality," at least equal public services. 7 

This philosophy has been taken over without substantial change by the 
Negro leaders and organizations pursuing a policy of conciliation, ex- 
pediency, gradualism and realism. It still forms part of upper and middle 
class, and even lower class, Negro thinking which is not too absorbed 
with protest. It was, naturally, never conducive to broadening the hori- 
zon for Negro opinions on general issues. It rather tied Negro thought 
to what was narrowly opportune for "getting along with white folks." By 
allying the Negro cause so exclusively with upper class white interests, it 
even kept Negroes, for a long time, from considering labor solidarity across 
the caste line. Booker T. Washington did much to raise the feeling for 
the dignity of labor so utterly destroyed by the institution of slavery. But 
he had no good words to say for labor unionism or labor solidarity between 
white and Negro workers. It should be remembered, though, that labor 
unions were nearly absent from the South in Booker T. Washington's time 
and very weak in the North and, further, that they did not usually show 
much friendliness toward Negroes." Until after the First World War 
labor unions were looked upon as the natural enemies of Negroes. 

* See Appendix 6. 



788 An American Dilemma 

The trends of change in American society have made*this optimistic, 
gradualist philosophy increasingly unrealistic even as a short-range 
strategy. For one thing, the outlook for Negro progress along economic 
lines can no longer be presented as so bright. The Negro's economic 
position is deteriorating, while his legal, political, and social position 
is improving. In any case, much success cannot be hoped for along the 
directions Washington pursued. The whole middle class ideology of 
Washington turns out to be a blind alley. The best prospect for an aver- 
age graduate of Tuskegee, or of any of the other schools like it, is to 
become a teacher, not a "doer," in business, crafts or agriculture. 

The common Negroes, who cannot aspire to exploit the petty monopolies 
behind the segregation wall, as teachers, preachers, professionals or busi- 
nessmen, have to compete for unskilled jobs and for the opportunity to 
advance to semi-skilled and skilled jobs in industry. Unemployment, mean- 
while, has taken on proportions in America greater than ever before in 
history, which is serious for an unpopular labor group like the Negroes. 
The power over employment is increasingly held not by employers, but by 
labor unions. Many cities where Negroes live in tens of thousands or hun- 
dreds of thousands are now "union towns." 

The functions of the philanthropic organizations — to which Booker T. 
Washington and his many successors pleaded and from which they so often 
got a helping hand — are in the process of being taken over by the states 
and the federal government. The federal government, particularly, is 
becoming a decisive factor as far as Negro interests as workers or unem- 
ployed workers are concerned. Even Negro education is becoming depend- 
ent upon the federal government. And the government is becoming less 
dependent upon the white upper classes. It depends upon the general elec- 
torate and, in labor issues, increasingly upon organized labor. 

This new configuration was hardly visible before the First World War 
and is to a great extent the result of the Great Depression during the 
'thirties and of the New Deal. , 

5. The Doctrine of Labor Solidarity 

The wave of socialistic thought after the First World War, to which we 
have referred in Chapter 35, brought to the fore the demand for labor 
solidarity across the caste line. 8 But the American labor movement passed 
through a period of infirmity during the 'twenties and it was not until the 
New Deal that labor solidarity became a realistic basis for Negro policy. 

The younger generation of Negro intellectuals, with few exceptions, 
supported by a gradually growing number of Negro trade unionists, have 
since 1930 preached labor solidarity as the cure-all of Negro ills. White 
labor is explained to be the Negroes' "natural" allyj the old alignment 
with the white upper class was a "bourgeois illusion." 9 Whether or not 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 789 

white labor is the Negroes' natural ally will be discussed presently. Be- 
fore embarking upon this task it should, however, be remarked that, even 
if a reliance upon the white upper class today would be an "illusion," this 
does not prove that it was so in Booker T. Washington's time, fifty years 
ago, when, as we have pointed out, the power situation in America was a 
very different one. 

Ralph Bunche, who, with reservations, is in fundamental agreement with 
the view that the Negroes' main hope lies in an alignment with white labor, 
explains this new view: 

This conception [that of class consciousness and class unity] . . . postulates the 
identity of interests of the working masses of the two races, and that these interests 
can be protected only by unity of action by both groups, against the employers and 
the capitalistic structure which dictate their exploitation. 

. . . This conception of the problem finds its immediate roots in the economic com- 
petition institutionalized by the capitalistic system. Under this system all workers are 
equally exploited, and division in the ranks of the working class is a fatal weakness. 
The employing class exploits the traditional hostility between black and white workers, 
deriving from the days of slavery, by playing black against white, keeping the two 
groups divided through fanning the flames of race hatred, and thus providing a 
mutual threat. Thus the Negro is often used as a scab and strike-breaker. This divi- 
sion decimates the strength of labor unions and reduces the collective bargaining 
power of all workers. The strength of the working class is in its unity and its ability 
to present a unified front to the bosses. Therefore, white and Negro workers must 
cast aside their traditional prejudices, in their own welfare; they must lock trma 
and march shoulder to shoulder in the struggle for the liberation of the oppressed 
working masses. The overwhelming majority of Negroes are working class, and most 
of these are unskilled. Thus, practically the entire Negro race would be included in 
the scope of this ideology. The black and white masses, once united, could employ the 
terrifying power of their numbers to wring concessions from the employers and 
from the government itself. Some visualize the formation of a powerful labor party 
in which all workers, of whatever race, color or creed, would work together for the 
exertion of that political influence, to which their numbers entitle them, on behalf of 
the masses of the people. Economic interest was thus to override conventional group 
prejudice, and the Negro worker would be accepted as a brother and equal. The basis 
of race conflict is economic competition, it is said, and as soon as the economic struc- 
ture undergoes such alterations as are necessary in order to guarantee economic security 
to the working masses, the dynamic causes of race conflict will have been liquidated. 10 

The Negroes are advised to think less about race and more about class — 
not upper class, but working class. In this attitude there is evidently a tend- 
ency to explain away caste as far as possible. The caste disabilities are said 
to be due to the poverty and economic dependence of Negroes and not to 
their color. "The Negro sharecroppers suffer not because of their black 
face but because of exploitation, just like the white sharecroppers," is a 
thesis I have often heard developed by Negro intellectuals. They criticize 



790 An American Dilemma 

Negro "racialism," and particularly the fight carried on by the NA.A.GP. 
for suffrage and civil rights. It is said that the vote and the abolition of 
social segregation might have both a practical and still more a prestige value 
to the tiny Negro "elite," but these things have little significance for 
Negroes. Ralph Bunche explains the view: 

... it is not at all established that the Negro sharecroppers and the day laborer in 
the rural South, or the unskilled worker in Birmingham, is more exercised about being 
deprived of his right to vote, or being Jim Crowed on a street car, than he is about 
his inability to earn enough to make ends meet. These Negroes might well say that 
the poor white man of the South hasn't been able to do very much for himself with 
the ballot in all the years that he has had it. 

There is a tendency toward creating excessive illusions in this sort of thinking 
[along the line of civil liberties]. The inherent fallacy in the political militancy thus 
outlined is found in the failure to recognize that the instrumentalities of the State, 
—Constitution, government and laws, — can do no more than reflect the political, 
social and economic ideology of the dominant population, and that the political arm 
of the State cannot be divorced from the prevailing economic structure. Civil liberties 
are circumscribed by the dominant mores of the society. 11 

Speaking particularly about the redemption of the Negro masses in the 
South, Bunche stresses: 

This will never be accomplished at the Southern polls, not at least until labor, farm 
and industrial, black and white, has become so strongly organized and so bold as to 
present a forceful challenge to the authority of the entrenched interests. In other 
words the South must be subjected to a new agrarian and industrial revolution before 
any significant changes in the fundamental relationships — political, economic or 
racial — will occur. 12 

To this critical view of the fight for civil liberties we shall return in Chapter 
39 when we come to analyze the activity of the N.A.A.C.P. 18 

6. Some Critical Observations 

The assumption that race prejudice and caste conflict have their roots in 
economic competition and that the whole caste problem is "basically" eco- 
nomic has come to be widespread and is now accepted by practically all 
Negro and most white writers on the Negro problem." It is always possible 
to point out numerous instances where economic competition or fear of 
competition have instigated or aggravated caste conflicts. Some employers 
have intentionally played off the two groups against each other in order 
to rule by division. And the white upper classes — even if their interests 
are not made conscious in this blunt way — have probably to a large extent 
been dominated by a fear that lower class whites and blacks might come to 

"This statement, as fax as the Negroes are concerned, is true for the 1930*8. It has 
become slightly less true ai the war spirit has rekindled a belief in values other than 
economic and has stimulated a new growth of variegated ideal*. 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 791 

terms and unite against them.* This motive is sometimes visible, for exam- 
ple, in the fight about the poll tax or the labor unions in the South. 

Nevertheless, this hypothesis and, indeed, the very idea that one factor 
or another is "basic" or "primary" to the caste system, is erroneous. In the 
cumulative causation of interrelated social factors none of them is so unim- 
portant that it should be neglected. Each factor can be made the object of 
induced change, and this will move the whole system—including the 
economic factors, whether they are the ones originally changed or not— 
in one direction or the other . b From a practical point of view, this reveals 
the fallacy of criticizing activities to improve Negro status because they do 
not attack the "basic" cause. 

The further hypothesis that there exists a "natural" identity of interests 
between Negro and white workers is about as meaningful or meaningless 
a statement as the one that all mankind wants peace. It depends. The term 
"interest" when applied to a group of people is crude and ambiguous unless 
it is ascertained how the bonds of psychological identification are fixed. 
When it is said that all Negro and white workers have a "common interest," 
the assumption must be that they actually care about each other's welfare, 
that they all feel as a group. 

In economic discussion oi group interests it seems often to be forgotten that such a 
conception has its ground in a purely psychological assumption of an actual experi- 
ence of collect) vistic feelings, which in reality may be absent or present in various 
degrees of intensity. When, for instance, it is argued that a special group of workers 
in the labor market, distinguished and visible on account oi sex, age, color, culture, 
or what not, has common interests with other workers against the employers and not 
with the employers against the other workers, and that the other idea is an illusion, 
the truth of the statement is entirely dependent on the subjective factor: whether 
there is, in fact, a sentiment of solidarity in the entire labor group or not. The term 
"interest" is thus subjectively determined in two dimensions: first, of course, as 
to individual utility, as economic analysis has always assumed, and, second, as to the 
degree of factual emotional solidarity ties. Particularly in the weighing of remote 
contra immediate interests is this second factor of importance. 14 

If white and black workers do not feel united as a group, there is, of course, 
no "common interest." "Labor solidarity" is not a thing by itself; it exists, 
or does not exist, only in the feelings of the workers for each other. 
If white workers feel a group unity among themselves, from which they 
exclude Negroes, they are likely to try to push Negroes out of employ- 
ment. If in such a situation white employers—for whatever reasons — are 
inclined to accept Negro workers, the interest solidarity actually ties the 
Negro workers to the white employers instead of to the white workers. 

'See Chapter 17, Section 4, and Appendix 6. Compare Arthur Raper, "Race and Class 
Pressures," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), passim. 
"See Chapter 3, Section 7, and Appendix 3. 



792 An American Dilemma 

It is argued, however, that., from an interest viewpoint, white workers 
"should" feel an identity with Negro workers, and that they are working 
against their own interests by wanting to discriminate against Negroes. Such 
a split prevents the formation of strong labor unions; if white workers want 
effective union power, they will have to try to align Negro workers with 
them. This is true in those fields of employment where Negroes are already 
entrenched, and where they cannot be pushed out by the whites. It is true, 
for instance, in longshore work and coal mining. 1 But it is not so true in the 
greater number of industries where Negroes are at present effectively 
excluded or safely segregated in "Negro jobs." In those latter fields this 
reason for labor solidarity with Negro workers will become even less signifi- 
cant for white workers to the degree that they come to control employment 
by their unions. 

A feeling of "common interest" can be promoted, however, by the 
actual spread of the ideology of class solidarity. Of this there is as yet 
comparatively little in America. It is true that both the A.F. of L. and the 
C.I.O. are, in principle, committed to nondiscrimination. So is the whole 
American nation. Actually the record has been worse on the union front than 
in many other fields of American culture. We have reviewed these facts and 
discussed the relations between the American trade union movement and 
Negro workers. 11 Our tentative conclusion was that the future development 
of those relations is important for the welfare of the Negro people but also 
uncertain. The outcome will probably depend upon political decisions by 
governments and legislatures, which, in their turn, depend upon electorates 
in which labor is an important element but not the only one. For the out- 
come, the strength of the American Creed as a social force will be important. 
The civil rights and the votes which American Negroes will be able to hold 
are going to be important in this struggle to open further the labor unions 
to them. 

7. The Pragmatic "Truth" of the Labor Solidarity Doctrine 

The eager intent to explain away race prejudice and caste in the simple 
terms of economic competition, and the exaggerated notions about the 
relative unimportance of caste, is an attempt to escape from caste into class. 
As such, it is closely similar to the tendency of certain Negro upper class 
persons, already described, who also want to forget about caste and want to 
align themselves with the white upper class." The differences are, however, 

* See Appendix 6. It is true also in Southern agriculture, since all Negro sharecroppers 
can never be pushed out, even though many of them have been. There will always be 
enough Negro sharecroppers who can be used by the plantation owners to destroy an 
all-white union which excludes the Negroes. 

"See Chapter 18, Section 3. 

*&e» Chapter 36, Section 6. 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 793 

significant. In the theory of labor solidarity the identification would include 
the whole Negro people. The aim of this theory is to unify the whole 
Negro people, not with the white upper class, but with the white working 
class. And the underlying ideology stems from Marxist proletarian radi- 
calism instead of from American middle class conservatism. 

The theory of labor solidarity has been taken up as a last "solution" of 
the Negro problem, and as such is escapist in nature; its escape character 
becomes painfully obvious to every member of the school as soon as he 
leaves abstract reasoning and goes down to the labor market, because there 
he meets caste and has to talk race and even racial solidarity. The theory is, 
however, increasingly becoming "realistic" and even pragmatically "true" 
as a Negro strategy, in the same sense that Booker T. Washington's theory 
was realistic and true in his time. With the power over employment oppor- 
tunities increasingly held by the labor unions, the Negroes simply have to 
try to get into them in order not to be left out of employment. The Negro 
leaders have to try to educate the Negro masses to be less suspicious of 
unions. And they have to plead labor solidarity to white workers as the 
most important clement of the American Creed. 

It is also visible how not only the N.A.A.C.P., but also such conservative 
agencies for Negro collective action as the Negro church and the Urban 
League, in recent years have been becoming friendly to unions — provided 
they let the Negroes in. In practically the whole Negro world the observer 
finds that the C.I.O. is looked upon as a great Negro hope because it has 
followed a more equalitarian policy than the A.F. of L. Practically all artic- 
ulate voices among Negroes are coming out in favor of unionism — with 
this one condition that they do not discriminate against Negroes. 

This new policy preserves much more of the Negro protest but attempts 
to merge it with a class protest as far as possible. This attempt requires 
much accommodation and even humiliation. Many unions are as closed to 
Negro workers as the "quality folks" were to the Negro upper classes. 
Ralph Bunche faces this situation with a square realism which can well 
match what the old master politician, Booker T. Washington, must often 
have thought about the upper class Southerners he had to deal with, 
although he carefully avoided saying it in so many words: 

Negotiations with the poor whites on a national level is admittedly not eaiy, 
but the Negro has long exploited his humility, his ability to "take low," to bow and 
scrape, in his relations with the white employer and the white philanthropist. If he 
must, he can employ these artifices to much better advantage for himself in nudging 
into the good graces of organized labor. This is no time for picayunishness and dis- 
plays of petty pride. 16 

If the dream should ever come true and if— under the influence of a 
({rowing labor solidarity and considerable government pressure — the Negro 



794 An American Dilemma 

workers should become widely and wholeheartedly accepted in the American 
labor movement, be given fair chances for employment and advancement, 
and have a voice in affairs of the unions, one of the consequences of this 
tremendous break of the caste order would be the widening of the horizon 
of Negro social and political thinking. The Negro intellectuals and labor 
leaders, having the goal of aligning the Negroes to the labor movement, 
usually have concentrated their thinking on the practical question of how 
to get the Negroes into the unions. If this were once accomplished and an 
identification reached with the white laboring masses, it would mean the 
beginning of a liberation of the Negro soul. James Weldon Johnson wrote: 

Organized labor holds the main gate of our industrial and economic corral ; and on 
the day that it throws open that gate . . . there will be a crack in the wall of racial 
discrimination that will be heard round the world. 16 

Granted that attempts toward an understanding with the white working 
class are of paramount importance, other sectors should not be forgotten. 
The Negroes' status in America is so precarious that they simply have to get 
the support of all possible allies in the white camp. In addition to the labor 
unionists, Negroes must seek the support of the civil liberties group in the 
North, the Southern liberals and interracialists in the South, and even the 
Southern aristocratic conservatives where they are prepared to give a help- 
ing hand. Furthermore, the vicious circle keeping Negroes down is so 
perfected by such interlocking caste controls that the Negroes must attempt 
to move the whole system by attacking as many points as possible. 

Negro strategy would build on an illusion if it set all its hope on a blitz- 
krieg directed toward a "basic" factor. In the nature of things it must work 
on the broadest possible front. There is a place for both the radical and the 
conservative Negro leaders, for social workers and labor organizers, for 
organizations that can speak to the employers and those that can approach 
the workers, and for organizations that can lead the Negroes in politics. 
The practical conclusions from this eclectic principle will be drawn in the 
following chapter. 

8. "The Advantages of the Disadvantages" 

Repeatedly we have pointed out the fundamental dilemma of the Negro 
upper classes. On the one hand, upper class Negroes are the ones who feel 
most intensely the humiliations of segregation and discrimination. They are 
also in a position where they, more than the masses, can see the limits set 
by the caste system to their personal ambitions. They need to appeal to 
racial solidarity against caste if only to avert the aggression against them- 
selves from the lower classes and to direct it upon the whites. On the other 
hand, segregation and discrimination create an economic shelter for them. 
In the main, they enjoy their economic and social status thanks to the petty 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 795 

monopolies behind the caste bar. This applies to ministers, teachers, and 
practically all other professionals, as well as to most Negro businessmen. 
Caste is their opportunity. They are exploiting "the advantages of the dis- 
advantages."* 

When we remember, further, that the upper class Negroes, even more 
than other upper class American groups, are responsible for the thinking 
on their group's problem, the question must be raised as to how this situa- 
tion influences popular theories on the Negro problem. This is a viewpoint 
somewhat different from the viewpoint we have followed until now, when 
we have asked with what white group Negroes have sought allegiance. Here 
a crucial matter is the attitude toward segregation. It is the upper class 
Negroes who have felt and expressed most clearly and persistently the 
Negro protest against segregation. They have manned the chief organization 
to defend the civil rights of Negroes, the N.A.A.C.P.; they have developed 
the doctrine that all segregation is wrong and that full democratic partici- 
pation and integration is right and is the ultimate goal to be fought for. 
The observer often finds them complaining that lower class Negroes do not 
resent strongly enough the Jim Crow restrictions. 

The sincerity of the upper class Negroes' opposition to segregation cannot 
be doubted. The fact that they themselves thrive in its shelter is seldom 
discussed openly and publicly. b When occasionally it is brought up, the 
intellectual dilemma is projected into a distant future by the recognition that 
segregation will not be abolished soon, and by the reflection that such a 
change will lose opportunities for them in the Negro market but gain 
opportunities for them in the wider American market. 

Nevertheless, the opposition against segregation in upper class circles 
is directed primarily against those sectors of the caste system where it 
functions least as a shelter to themselves. The protest is thus outspoken 
and unanimous in regard to exclusion from hotels, restaurants, theaters, 
concerts, and segregation in transportation facilities. It is ordinarily less 
unanimous with respect to segregation in education. Negro schools provide 
employment for Negro teachers who, with present prejudice, would most 
of the time have less chance in a nonsegregated school system. If there is 
a segregated school system, the main interest becomes to improve the Negro 
schools and to guarantee the Negro teachers equal salaries. 

In regard to segregation in hospitals the observer finds the same ambiva- 
lence. As soon as separate Negro set-ups are provided at all, the Negro pro- 
test shows a tendency to become directed toward demanding better facilities 
in these set-ups and, particularly, toward the monopolizing of the jobs as 

' This term was popularized by H. B. Frisaell, the second principal of Hampton 
Institute. 

* Except, of course, by the critics among- the radical Negro intellectuals and bv the 
social scientists. 



796 An American Dilemma 

doctors and nurses for Negroes. This, by the way, is a demand which is 
the more reasonable as Negro doctors and nurses are excluded practically 
everywhere from white hospitals, even where there are Negro wards. But 
the Negro protest has here accepted the segregation policy. "I was heart and 
soul ... in [the] fight against segregation and yet I knew that for a hun- 
dred years in this America of ours it was going to be at least partially in 
vain," comments Du Bois with reference to a particular incident during his 
work with the N.A.A.C.P. and continues: 

. . . what Negroes need is hospital treatment now; and what Negro physicians need 
is hospital practice; and to meet their present need, poor hospitals are better than none; 
segregated hospitals are better than those where the Negro patients are neglected or 
relegated to the cellar. ... I am certain that for many generations American Negroes 
in the United States have got to accept separate medical institutions. They may dis- 
like it; they may and ought to protest against it; nevertheless it will remain for a long 
time their only path to health, to education, to economic survival. 17 

Ordinarily this policy is not expressed so bluntly, at least not publicly, 
but it is the guiding theory for most practical Negro policy on the local 
scene. It runs through the whole gamut of Negro professions and businesses. 
It was definitely part of Booker T. Washington's strategy: 

Let us in future spend less time talking about the part of the city that we cannot 
live in, and more time in making that part of the city that we live in beautiful and 
attractive. 18 

In judging this opportunistic policy it should be held in mind that, in the 
main, the economic and social interests of the articulate Negro upper class 
groups run parallel to obvious interests of the whole Negro people, as there 
is usually little prospect that segregation and discrimination will be stamped 
out in the near future. Excluded from, or separated and discriminated 
against, in all sorts of public and private institutions and facilities, Negroes 
need more and improved schopls, parks, playgrounds, hospitals, Y.M.C.A.'s, 
funeral homes, taxi companies and all sorts of Negro professional and 
business activities. 

The N.A.A.C.P. is by necessity caught in the same ideological com- 
promise.* In principle the Association fights all segregation. As a long-range 
solution it demands that all color bars be torn down. Often its practical 
task, however, will be to defend the Negroes' interests that a reasonable 
equality is observed within the existing system of segregation: 

The NAACP from the beginning faced this bogey. It was not, never had been, 
and never could be an organization that took an absolute stand against race segregation 
of any sort under all circumstances. This would be a stupid stand in the face of clear 
and uncontrovertible facts. When the NAACP was formed, the great mass of Negro 

' See Chapter 39, Section 8. 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 797 

children were being trained in Negro schools; the great man of Negro churchgoer* 
were member* of Negro churches; the great mass of Negro citizens lived in Negro 
neighborhoods; the great mass of Negro voters voted with the same political party; 
and the mass of Negroes joined with Negroes and co-operated with Negroes in order 
to fight the extension of this segregation and to move toward better conditions. What 
was true in JQIO was still true in 1940 and will be true in 1970. But with this vast 
difference: that the segregated Negro institutions are better organized, more intelli- 
gently planned and more efficiently conducted, and today form in themselves the best 
and most compelling argument for the ultimate abolition of the color line. 

To have started out in this organization with a slogan "no segregation," would have 
been impossible. What we did say was no increase in segregation ; but even that stand 
we were unable to maintain. Whenever we found that an increase of segregation was 
in the interest of the Negro race, naturally we had to advocate it. We had to advocate 
better teachers for Negro schools and larger appropriation of funds. Wc had to advo- 
cate a segregated camp for the training of Negro officers in the World War. We had 
to advocate group action of Negro voters in elections. We had to advocate all sorts 
of organized movement among Negroes to fight oppression and in the long run end 
segregation. 19 

Du Bois wrote this several years after he had left the N.A.A.C.P. as a 
result of a controversy with the Association mainly fought on this issue. 
He would not have said it in so many words fifteen years earlier, and the 
present leadership of the Association would probably not want to do it 
even today. But it is substantially a true characterization. Outside its impor- 
tant activity of defending full equality and democratic participation in 
politics, justice, and breadwinning, and besides its equally important long- 
range propaganda against all forms of segregation,* the Association finds 
itself, today as earlier, working for a more just administration of segregated 
set-ups. 

As Negro institutions are improved and increasingly manned exclusively 
by Negro professionals, segregation itself is undoubtedly becoming fortified 
in America. And it should not be concealed either that powerful Negro 
vested interests in segregation are created. The trend is also in line with 
the rise of the Negro protest, which, on the one hand, means intensified 
"race pride" and, on the other hand, voluntary withdrawal and increasing 
isolation of Negroes from the larger American scene. b The Negro protest, 
primarily caused by and directed against segregation, thus comes to build 
up a new spiritual basis for segregation. 

9. Condoning Segregation 

"Whether self-segregation for his protection, for inner development 
and growth in intelligence and social efficiency, will increase his accepta- 
bility to white Americans or not, that growth must go on," 80 writes Du 

* See Chapter 39, Sections 5 to 9. 
See Chapter jo, Section z. 



798 An American Dilemma 

Bois in his old age when he has become pessimistic about erasing the color 
bar in a reasonable future. Instead he urges the building up of a cooperative 
black economy for defense and mutual aid: 

To a degree, bat not completely, this is a program of segregation. The consumer 
group is in important aspects a self-segregated gronp. We are now segregated largely 
without reason. Let us put reason and power beneath this segregation. 21 

A few important reservations must now be stressed. One is that few 
upper class Negroes arc prepared to follow Du Bois into this open endorse- 
ment of segregation. A second is that Du Bois — like Booker T. Washington 
before him and practically all other Negro pleaders for a positive utilization 
of segregation— does not accept segregation as an ultimate solution but 
rather expects that the policy recommended will favor its earlier break- 
down. Speaking particularly about segregated housing and rural settlement 
projects, he explains: 

Rail if you will against the race segregation here involved and condoned, but tate 
advantage of it by planting secure centers of Negro co-operative effort and particularly 
of economic power to make us spiritually free for initiative and creation in other and 
wider fields, and for eventually breaking down all segregation based on color or 
cur] o{ hair." 

A third reservation is even more important, though it can only by implica- 
tion be inferred from what is said or written. Neither Du Bois nor any 
other Negro leader will be found prepared to urge the full utilization of 
segregation, which would be advantageous if segregation were accepted as 
an ultimate solution of the Negro problem. 

A Negro leader, who really accepted segregation and stopped criticizing 
it, could face the dominant whites with a number of far-reaching demands. 
If, thus, Negroes accepted as final their disfranchisement in the South and 
condoned the exclusion of Negroes from politics, they could reasonably 
ask for a wide amount of self-government for Negroes. They could demand 
the right to elect their own school boards and governing bodies for their 
own hospitals and other public institutions. They could ask for Negro 
policemen to protect the Negro communities and perhaps even for separate 
lower Negro courts to settle civil and criminal cases between Negroes. 
Certain problems of fiscal clearing and white supervision would have to be 
settled, but with some legal ingenuity they could be solved. It would even 
be reasonable to ask for separate state and national representations of the 
disfranchised Southern Negroes. Even if such a representative body should 
have only the right to discuss and petition regarding legislation which 

' W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn (1940), p. 115. The present writer does not 
•hare the optimism contained in the last part of this statement. Better utilization of 
segregation by Negroes will give the caste system a certain moral sanction and, probably 
even mote important, will- fortify it by Negro vested interest*, 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 799 

concerned Negro interests, it would not be without great importance to 
the Negro people. 

If Negroes accepted residential segregation, they could reasonably 
demand that it be developed into a rationally planned policy, so that space 
is set aside for Negro sections. Residential segregation without such a 
positive policy is more cruel than it need be and than it is usually meant 
to be. Likewise, if Negroes accepted widespread economic discrimination, 
they could demand that at least certain "Negro jobs" be set aside and also 
be defended against white intruders. The present situation of one-sided 
competition and exploitation, where Negroes are excluded by the whites, 
but where the whites are free to squeeze Negroes out of even their tradi- 
tional jobs, easily results in a concentration of unemployment among the 
Negro people and their gradual relegation to relief as a normal "occupa- 
tion." 

The outside observer of the irrational, inefficient, and cruel American 
caste system cannot help making such reflections. He finds, however, that 
an intelligent discussion along those lines is almost entirely absent from 
America. This absence reveals certain moral taboos of greatest importance. 
I have taken interest in discussing these matters with many American 
* Negroes. Few of them have failed to see the sense of the proposals raised. 
But none has expressed approval of them. And they are never touched 
upon in Negro literature and in public discussion; they have never been 
thought through. The explanation is this: Negroes feel that they cannot 
afford to sell out the rights they have under the Constitution and the 
American Creed, even when these rights have not materialized and even 
when there is no immediate prospect of making them a reality. At the same 
time Negroes show, by taking this position, that they have not lost their 
belief that ultimately the American Creed will come out on top. Referring 
merely to the proposal of an isolated black economy, and not to the more 
general problem of complete segregation in all fields, which is never men- 
tioned by Negroes, James Weldon Johnson once said: 

Clear thinking reveals that the outcome of voluntary isolation would be a permanent 
secondary status, so acknowledged by the race. Such a status would, it is true, solve 
some phases of the race question. It would smooth away a good part of the friction 
and bring about a certain protection and security. The status of slavery carried somt 
advantages of that sort. But 1 do not believe we shall ever be willing to pay such a 
price for security and peace. 22 

More surprising, perhaps, is the fact that white writers— who usually 
implicitly condone segregation and who therefore might be expected to 
want to improve the present very wasteful caste system 23 — never say a 
word on this problem, which, from their point of view, should be so para- 



800 An American Dilemma 

mount.* Again the explanation of this lack of intellectual clarity and per- 
sistence cannot be given simply in terms of the relatively undeveloped 
state of scientific social engineering in America. For in most other fields at 
least attempts at rational practical thinking and social planning are present. 
The explanation will have to be sought in moral taboos. The whites also 
are inhibited by the American Creed from thinking constructively along 
segregation lines. They may observe and analyze scientifically the segrega- 
tion system as it works; they may condone it implicitly or explicitly as 
advantageous or inevitable under the circumstances; they may do it with 
eyes open to the sufferings and inefficiencies in the system as it is. But they 
cannot permit themselves to think through carefully and in any detail how 
a segregation system could be rationally organized. For this would imply 
an open break with the principles of equality and liberty. 

The extraordinary thing is how the national ethos works, in the short 
run, as a bar against clear and constructive thinking toward mitigating the 
inequalities which, contrary to the American Creed, are inflicted upon a 
weak group. In the long run, this same Creed might come to save, not only, 
as now, America's face, but perhaps also its soul. b 

10. Boosting Negro Business 

The idea that the development of a Negro middle class of landowners, 
businessmen, and professionals would have importance in the fight for 
equality and opportunity is old with the Negro people. It was pronounced 
before the Civil War. It played an important role in Booker T. Washing- 
ton's philosophy: 

. . . wherever I have seen a black man who was succeeding in his business, who was a 
taxpayer and who possessed intelligence and high character, that individual was treated 
with the highest respect by the members of the white race. In proportion at we can 
multiply these examples, North and South, will our problem be solved. 24 

In 1900 he founded the National Negro Business League, which is still 
functioning. The resolution drawn up by the business section at the first 
meeting of the National Negro Congress, in 1936, made it equally clear 
that Negro business is much more than "business": 

The development of sound and thriving Negro business is most indispensable to the 
general elevation of the Negro's social and economic security ... all Negroes con- 
sider it their inescapable duty to support Negro business by their patronage. 2 " 

The same advice has been given the Negro people by their white friends 
through generations. Upon this theory Negro education, particularly along 

' Southern white writers are no real exception. It is true — as we have shown in earliei 
parts of this inquiry — that they often in general terms plead for certain alleviations of 
jinnecessary suffering inflicted upon the Negroes at the same time as they hold to the 
gKcessity of the caste system. But there their thinking stops. 

"See Chapter 1. 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 801 

Tuskegee lines, has been aided and directed. Sir Harry Johnston, review- 
ing the Negro problem in the beginning of this century, pointed to the 
Jews and drew this lesson: 

Money solves all human difficulties. It will buy you love and respect, power and 
social standing. With money you can create armies and build navies, you can control 
the votes of your fellow-citizens, found and shape their educational institutes, con- 
duct a Press, overcome disease, make actual the charity of early Christianity, achieve 
all purposes that are noble, and check the Devil at every turn ; whether he crop up in 
the forms of alcoholism, disease, intestinal worms, religious intolerance, political 
oppression, waste of the earth's natural resources, or the misuse of corrugated iron. 
If you are rich you can roof your dwellings with tiles of the most beautiful, or stone 
slabs, or wooden shingles, marble terraces or leaden sheets; if you are poor you must 
content yourself with corrugated iron and know that your dwelling is a blot on the 
landscape. 

The one undoubted solution of the Negro's difficulties throughout the world is for 
him to turn his strong arms and strong legs, his fine sight, subtle hearing, deft fingers, 
and rapidly-developed brain to making of Money . . , 26 

And through the decades, Negroes have been told by white people and by 
their own leaders that in business they have fair chances. Moton stated it 
thus: 

It is in business, perhaps, that the Negro gets more honest consideration and a 
fairer deal than in any other of his contacts with the white men, not even excepting 
religion. 27 

Business will stimulate the Negro's initiative, give him valuable training 
and experience, increase his self-confidence, increase his wealth, create a 
relatively secure middle and upper class, give employment to Negroes in 
the lower classes, and provide a reservoir of resources which can be used in 
competition with the whites. "Business" in this popular theory includes all 
free professions. The scant success in building up a substantial Negro 
business and professional class and the explanations of this have been 
reviewed in Chapter 14. But the ideology is more alive than ever. Practi- 
cally all Negro businessmen and professionals met in the course of this 
study have this theory. It is preached in church and taught in school. 

Its popularity is understandable. Negro professionals and business men 
— except those to whom caste gives an absolute monopoly, as it does to 
most teachers in Negro schools and colleges, preachers, morticians, beau- 
ticians — have to compete with whites and have to seek to build up a relative 
monopoly by appealing to racial solidarity. Their standards are often lower 
than those of their white competitors. And they meet suspicion from the 
Negro customers. The last phenomenon, observed by all students, is well 
stated by Bundle: 



802 An American Dilemma 

Tib placid acceptance of Negro inferiority is the refrain of the professional 
Negro's plaint. Negro doctors and lawyers, Negro businessmen, and even Negro 
teachers claim to suffer from the lack of confidence in the ability of Negroes typical 
of so many of the group. It is alleged that many Negroes go oat of their way and even 
suffer humiliations from whites, in order to avoid going to the Negro doctor or 
hospital. A Negro lawyer will charge that the local Negro doctors, who themselves 
lose much of their potential Negro clientele to white doctors, will yet engage only 
white lawyers when they require legal service ; and vice versa. Negro students at Negro 
private schools under white control, have, occasionally, when polled, indicated a pref- 
erence for white teachers, though this is a sentiment that is fast changing. Negro 
businessmen allege that Negroes prefer to go downtown to white stores which do not 
want their trade, and often suffer insults, rather than trade in a Negro store. And 
even when, by circumstance, Negroes are compelled to turn to the Negro professional 
man, they not infrequently do so without confidence. I was seated in the outer office 
of a prominent Negro dentist in Richmond not long ago, when a Negro woman came 
in with an infected tooth. She informed the dentist that the "white lady" she works 
for had told her to come. After careful examination the dentist informed her that the 
tooth would have to be extracted. She became firm on hearing this and promptly 
informed him that he was quite wrong, as her "lady" had assured her that the tooth 
would not need to come out. The dentist could not convince her of the correctness 
of his trained judgment over that of her white "lady," so she stalked out angrily. 2 * 

Against this, Negro business and professional men have to appeal to their 
prospective clientele by developing race pride. They promise the advance 
of the whole race if Negroes only learn to stick together and to patronize 
race business. 

In more recent times two new ideological arguments have been added. 
One is the program of a cooperative Negro economy set forth recently by 
Du Bois: 29 

We believe that the labor force and intelligence of twelve million people is more 
than sufficient to supply their own wants and make their advancement secure. There- 
fore, we believe that, if carefully and intelligently planned, a co-operative Negro 
industrial system in America can* be established in the midst of and in conjunction 
with the surrounding national industrial organization and in intelligent accord with 
that reconstruction of the economic basis of the nation which must sooner or later 
be accomplished.* 

Du Bois* blueprint of "... a racial attempt to use the power of the Negro 
as a consumer not only for his economic uplift but in addition to that, for 
his economic education," 31 has remained in the realm of beautiful dreams 
and is likely to stay there. Americans in general have been weak in their 
cooperative endeavors, and there is little chance that the Negroes could 
take a lead in this field. The development of chain businesses in America 
has actually substituted for one of the chief accomplishments of consumers' 
cooperation in other countries to rationalize retail trade and lower con- 
sumers' costs, and at the same time, has made the prospect for consumers' 



Chapter 38. Negro Popuiar Theories 803 

cooperation in America, at this late stage, extremely unfavorable. But it 
should not be denied that even discussion among Negroes or Du Bois' 
proposal would mean an advance in economic education of the Negro 
people. 

The second new idea is the use of the weapons of the boycott and picket- 
ing against white stores and other businesses in Negro districts which 
refuse to employ Negro workers. In numerous movements all over the 
country — sometimes with support from the local branches of the N.A.A.C.P. 
and the Urban League but usually directed by ad hoc organizations — the 
slogan "don't buy where you can't work" has been raised." An unusual 
degree of militancy and tenacity has often been shown, and in some in- 
stances signal success has been won. 

This last movement has, of course, limited possibilities. At most, it can 
increase the employment of a few more white collar workers in the segre- 
gated Negro districts. It turns on a petty middle class racial basis and might 
even have great dangers. The Negro masses must seek employment in the 
general labor market, and their hope is in nondiscrimination, not in appor- 
tioning jobs according to race. Speaking about this utilization of the boycott 
weapon, James Weldon Johnson remarks: 

In our case it might prove a boomerang ; on the very argument for the employment 
of Negroes where we spend our money, Negro employees may be let oat where we 
spend no money. 3 " 

11. Criticism of Negro Business Chauvinism 

The weaknesses of Negro business chauvinism are apparent from a con- 
sideration of the facts about existing Negro business. 11 In so far as Negro- 
owned business is inefficient compared to white-owned business, it cannot 
exist for a long time. James Weldon Johnson makes the following pointed 
observation: 

It is a common practice among as to go into business relying on "race pride." Now, 
"race pride" may be a pretty good business slogan, but it is a mighty shaky business 
foundation. A Negro American in business must give as excellent quality, as low a 
price, and as prompt and courteous service as any competitor, otherwise he runs a 
tremendous risk in counting on the patronage even of members of his own race. 
"Race pride" may induce them once or twice to buy ... a pair of shoes that cost 
more and wear out quicker, but it won't keep them doing it. The Negro business 
men who have succeeded have been those who have maintained as high quality, as 
low prices, and as good service as their competitors. 33 

* See Chapter 14, Section 2. For a description of the movement in New York City, see 
Claude McKay, Harlem (1940), pp. 184-196. Another slogan of the movement is 
"double duty dollar" — referring to -the fact that the dollar both buys good and helps the 
Negro. 

See Chapter 14, Section 2. 



804 An American Dilemma 

Aside from its capacity for maintaining itself, Negro business has been 
thought of as a means of improving the whole Negro people. As can be 
expected, the advocates of interracialr labor solidarity are critical of this 
aspect of the ideology. Ralph Bunche develops the views of this school 
in criticizing Negro business ideology: 

It would seem clear . . . that this hope for the salvation of the Negro within the 
existing ideological and physical framework, by the erection of a black business 
structure within the walls of white capitalism, is doomed to futility. In the first 
place, it would affect beneficially only a relative handful of Negroes, and these would 
mainly be those who have sufficient capital to become entrepreneurs. The advocates 
of Negro business have little to say about the welfare of Negro workers engaged in 
such business, except to suggest that they do not suffer from a discriminatory policy 
of employment. No one argues, however, that their wages and hours would be better, 
their working conditions improved, or their work less hard. What evidence there is 
points in quite the opposite direction. The apologists for the self-sufficiency ideology 
are in pursuit of a policy of pure expediency and opportunism through exploitation 
of the segregation incident to the racial dualism of America. They refuse to believe 
that it is impossible to wring much wealth out of the already poverty-stricken Negro 
ghettoes of the nation. Moreover, it should be clear that Negro enterprise exists only 
on the sufferance of that dominant white business world which completely controls 
credit, basic industry and the state. "Big" Negro business is an economic will-o'-the- 
wisp. Negro business strikes its appeal for support on a racial note, viz: the race can 
progress only through economic unity. But the small, individually-owned Negro 
businesses have little chance to meet successfully the price competition of the large- 
capital, more efficient and often nation-wide white business. The very poverty of the 
Negro consumer dictates that he must buy where buying is cheapest; and he can ill 
afford to invest in racial good-will while he has far too little for food. In this sense, 
Negro business looms as a parasitical growth on the Negro society, in that it exploits 
the "race problem." It demands for itself special privilege and parades under the 
chauvinistic protection of "race loyalty," thus further exploiting an already down- 
trodden group. It represents the welfare only of the pitifully small Negro middle- 
class group, though demanding support for its ideology from the race conscious 
Negro masses. Negro business may offer a measure of relief from racial and economic 
disadvantage to a handful of the more able or the more fortunate members of the 
race. But it is much more certain that the vast majority of Negroes in America will 
continue to till the soil and to toil in the industries of white America. 84 

This is sound reasoning. But when all this is said — when it is granted 
that there is no prospect that Negro business will ever develop to great 
importance and that, in any case, even if the business class is benefited, no 
great gains are assured to the mass of the Negro people — there are, never- 
theless, some credit items which should not be ignored. The chief advantage 
is the tiny Negro business and professional class itself, which lives by ■provid- 
ing goods and services to Negroes. It is this class which has the education 
jind leisure necessary to articulate the Negro protest and to take up success- 
ful collective bargaining with white society. 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 805 

In the long run, this class can be depended upon to voice the interests of 
the broad masses of Negroes, simply because its own interests are convergent 
with those of the masses of Negroes. The Negro preacher, doctor, lawyer, 
journalist, real estate dealer, insurance man, banker, mortician, and retail 
merchant has his business founded upon Negro purchasing power. If he 
serves only the upper strata, his interests are, nevertheless, indirectly tied 
to the interests of the masses, as the majority of his customers live off the 
common Negroes. He might sometimes exploit the masses mercilessly. But 
fundamentally he must want the Negroes to get employment and good pay 
or, if employment shrinks, he must want them to get public relief, because 
otherwise he will fail himself. 

He must want the common Negroes to have the vote, because otherwise 
he will be less protected himself. He must want justice, because a prejudiced 
police and court system is a danger to him too. And when he fights against 
the humiliations of the Jim Crow system, which hurt him more than the 
Negro masses, even this is in the long run to the advantage of all Negroes. 
That there are exceptions and conflicts of interest is not denied. But neither 
should it be concealed that, in the main, the Negro masses can rely upon 
their upper class people to wage a fight that is in their interest. 

12. "Back to Africa" 

The idea of sending American Negroes back to Africa or to some other 
place outside the United States has, in the main, been confined to the 
whites. As Bunche observes: "The real significance of the colonization 
schemes is to be found in the conception of the Negro as an evil that had 
to be done away with." 35 This is true also in the case of such humanitarians 
and liberals as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln when they showed 
interest in such projects. 

The American Colonization Society was thus organized in 18 17 to rid 
America of the free Negroes who were considered a danger to slavery in 
the Southern states. Its work proceeded parallel to the measures taken to 
regiment the slaves, to discourage manumission, to hinder slave and free 
Negroes from being taught to read, and generally to suppress the free 
Negro population. 8 There were individual sponsors who had a different 
view, but in general the Society took a pro-slavery attitude. 

In spite of great efforts, the colonization scheme was a failure, owing to inade- 
quate capital, the unwillingness of the free Negroes to emigrate, and the inability of 
those of them who did go to Liberia to develop any kind of prosperous community in 
that equatorial region — their failure, of course, being taken as conclusive evidence of 
the Negro's incapacity for self-government. The chief result of the Colonization 
Society's crusade was the passage of laws in the southern states prohibiting the education 
of Negroes, whether slave or free, under penalty of fine and imprisonment. 36 

* See Chapter to, Section +. 



8o6 An American Dilemma 

Most of the Abolitionists prior to the Civil War were critical of the move- 
ment, and Garrison pointed out that in the zenith of its activity a great 
many more slaves were brought illegally from Africa every year than the 
Society had ever sent there during all the years of its existence. After the 
Civil War and Emancipation the movement gradually vanished. 

Most of the Negroes who went to Africa under the Society's auspices did 
so as part of a bargain with their masters in return for their freedom." But 
there were some free Negroes who considered that colonization would be 
preferable to their anomalous and hopeless position in America. Since then 
there has always been some discussion among Negroes about the advisa- 
bility of colonization. 87 The Garvey movement, referred to in Chapter 35, 
shows that the Negro masses are not immune to the idea. There have 
always been individual whites who have propagandized for it. Recently 
Senator Bilbo of Mississippi has made himself the white spokesman for it. 
He claims that more than two million Negroes signed a petition to the 
President endorsing his proposal, but this is probably a great exaggeration. 
In an interview with the present writer, he explained that he will wait for 
an increase of Negro support and for favorable circumstances, but when the 
question has so matured, he will take it up for more effective political 
pressure. Negro intellectuals are practically united against the back-to- 
Africa proposal. And this is understandable. They are entirely American 
in their culture j they want to stay in America and fight it out here. 

The issue is dead at present but it might rise again. Should America 
enter into a period of protracted unemployment after the present War, and 
should this unemployment become more concentrated upon the Negro 
people — prospects which are not unlikely — then the Negro, who has tradi- 
tionally been looked upon by the whites as cheap labor, might increas- 
ingly come to be looked upon as a relief burden. It is not beyond possibility 
that a large proportion of Southern whites might under certain circum- 
stances come to demand the sending away of Negroes from America. And 
we know that if the pressure is hard, there will be considerable response in 
the Negro masses to Negro leaders who promise to take them back to 
Africa. 88 

However, under the perspective of present trends, there is also a more 
positive aspect of Negro colonization in Africa. Under the moral pressure 
of the present War, American and British statesmen are now making 
declarations that equality and liberty will be established in the whole world. 
The Atlantic Charter is only one example of a whole trend of public com- 
mitments to the freedom of suppressed peoples.. Applied to Africa, these 
vague promises can have no other import than that the imperialistic 
exploitation of the Black Continent shall come to an end after the present 
War and that the century-old dreams of a true colonization of Africa wili 

* See Chapter 8, Section a, especially footnote 4. 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 807 

finally be realized. This cannot occur, however, until Africa is not a chess- 
board divided among European powers but is ruled in the interests of 
humanity and its own native population and with the goal that its various 
peoples will be independent as soon as possible, and until capital is invested 
in health and education and in the development of its natural resources. 
Lord Hailey, an Englishman, has already done some of the necessary 
spade work 88 of scientific inquiry for such practical work} a committee 
under his chairmanship is now preparing further plans. The problem is also 
being discussed in America. A committee of prominent white and Negro 
Americans under the chairmanship of Anson Phelps Stokes — The Commit- 
tee on Africa, the War, and Peace Aims — has recently (1942) published 
a report, The Atlantic Charter and Africa from an American Standfoint, 
containing constructive proposals for a new African policy. 

There are several factors which make it more probable, perhaps, that 
something positive will materialize out of the vague promises. One is that 
America has not taken any part in the African skin game. Another one is 
the fact that Russia and China are bound to play an important role in the 
peace. If anything in line with the promises would be carried out, it would 
be natural that American Negroes would take both a great interest in the 
adventure and an active part in its staging. Many Negroes in America feel 
an emotional attachment to Africa and its population. And because of their 
color they would, with greater ease, gain the confidence of the African 
Negroes. Until now there have been few such thoughts in the American 
Negro world. But Du Bois, who has become the most catholic of all Negro 
thinkers, with room for nearly every idea, remarks: 

. . . my plan would not decline frankly to face the possibility of eventual emigra- 
tion from America of some considerable part of the Negro population, in case they 
could find a chance for free and favorable development unmolested and unthreatcned, 
and in case the race prejudice in America persisted to such an extent that it would 
not permit the full development of the capacities and aspirations of the Negro race. 40 

The post-war development might perhaps come to realize not only the 
second but also the first of these two conditions. 

13. Miscellaneous Ideologies 

The white colonization schemes have practically never— even in the 
period when large regions of this country were unexploited — considered 
the possibility of settling the Negroes separately on the North American 
continent. Neither has there been much of a drive among Negroes to 
attempt to establish segregated Negro regions. The advocates of a Negro 
"Forty-Ninth State" have never found much of an audience. As we men- 
tioned,* the Communist phantasmagoria of a liberated, Negro-governed 
Black Belt fell flat among the American Negroes. 

* See Chapter 35, Section 8. 



808 An American Dilemma 

The account of Negro ideologies in this chapter is only selective. There 
are a great number of other loose ideas rambling around in the Negro 
world, on how to solve the Negro problem; some of them are referred to 
in other chapters of this part. Amalgamation and passing are sometimes 
referred to vaguely as an "ultimate solution." There arc popular chauvin- 
istic theories connected with religious ideas in the various churches and 
sects. Racialism of the Garvey type is harbored among the masses and, as 
Bunche observes, "there are, in the Negro universities, a good many 'aca- 
demic Garvcyites'." 41 Under this racial perspective the world may assume 
queer proportions: 

Thus many Negroes hold to a conception of the Negro problem that can be 
described only as an "optimistic fatalism." The burdens oi the present are lightened in 
the conviction of the inevitability of the "black man's day" when all will be 
reversed. Whereas the Lothrop Stoddards bombard the white man with warning that 
the dark tide is rising, the black man considers this an augury of that future day 
when the world will see the "bottom rail on top," when black men will rule and 
their past will be vindicated. The heroic struggle of the British Indians for inde- 
pendence is acclaimed: Japan's rise to power in the East — even her invasion of China 
-—is regarded as a source of great encouragement; every instance of rebellion in 
Africa, the Dutch East Indies, the West Indies, is hailed as a victory. Ethiopia was 
championed against Italy, and Liberia is a source of great pride. Every outbreak in 
Europe is considered of utmost importance to the dark races of the world. The 
internecine conflicts, the conflagrations in the white world are all regarded as certain 
signs of the ultimate decline and fall from dominance of the white races, upon which 
the dark peoples will invest the chancellories of the world. It is pointed out that 
the dark people greatly outnumber the whites in the population of the world. That 
all this will transpire is never doubted; it is not a product of reason or cold calcula- 
tion, but is based upon blind faith. It is foretold in the stars, the scriptures, by the 
prophets; it is written and must come to pass. 4 * 

Even the most superb political brains of the Negro people, constantly 
holding themselves with intentional effort to positive thinking, must some- 
times feel tired and pessimistic when facing the difficulties of getting a 
hearing from the dominant whites. Confesses James Weldon Johnson : 

There is in us all a stronger tendency toward isolation than we may be aware of. 
There come times when the most persistent intcgrationist becomes an isolationist, 
when he curses the white world and consigns it to hell. This tendency toward isola- 
tion is strong because it springs from a deep-seated, natural desire — a desire for respite 
from the unremitting, gruelling struggle ; for a place in which refuge might be taken. 
We are again and again confronted by this question. It is ever present, though often 
dormant. 48 

What holds Negro thinking in a fairly consistent scheme and directs it 
most of the time upon positive goals is, in the final analysis, the determina- 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 809 

tion to hold to the American Creed. Bowen summarizes a study of Negro 
opinion thus: 

But admitting the division of public opinion among Negroes, this survey found that 
on some matters Negro opinion is more united than white opinion is upon almost any- 
thing. It found for instance, that Negro opinion is, so to speak, completely united 
on the proposition that, given the necessary technical qualifications, Negroes should 
be equally eligible with whites for any job in the United States. It found Negro 
opinion united on the proposition that skin color should not be penalized in any 
way whatsoever. It found division of opinion as to how this can be brought about, 
but the division is as to ways and means, not as to objective. In other words, the 
color line itself is unjust and tyrannical. 44 

It is true that all Negroes down to the poorest Southern sharecropper are 
attached to Uncle Sam and expect more justice from Washington than from 
the state capitol, and more from the state capitol than from the county 
courthouse. The Negro people have a clear and unanimous view on the 
problem of "state rights versus federal rights." They are for centralization. 
"They feel themselves as Americans and want to be nothing else," observes 
Schrieke: 

But there is the real problem : they arc American and Negro. As Negroes they see 
themselves constantly through American eyes. That unreconciled double-consciousness 
is their greatest trouble. 45 

This dual pull is the correspondence in the Negro world to what we for 
the white world have called the American Dilemma. Du Bois has expressed 
the tragedy of it: 

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at 
one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world 
that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness — an American, 
a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals 
in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. 4 ® 



CHAPTER 39 

NEGRO IMPROVEMENT AND PROTEST ORGANIZATIONS 



i. A General American Pattern 

A rich vegetation of associations and organizations for worth-while 
causes is an American characteristic. Americans are great "joiners," and 
they enjoy "campaigns" and "drives" for membership or contributions. 
Social clubs are plentiful, and even they are taken with a seriousness difficult 
for a stranger to understand. Enthusiasm is invested in committee work of 
small importance in churches, lodges, clubs and civic organizations of all 
kinds. 

Undoubtedly, this cultural trait is partly to be explained as an outflow 
of the idealism and moralism of the American people. Americans generally 
are eager to improve their society.* They also have a kindly spirit of neigh- 
borliness. They like to meet each other and to feel tied together for a 
common cause. For these things they are prepared to sacrifice freely of 
their time and their money. It is natural for the ordinary American, when 
he sees something that is wrong, to feel not only that "there should be a 
law against it," b but also that an organization should "be founded to com- 
bat it. 

More fundamentally, this trait is an indication of political frustration. 
Americans are a politically minded people, and the traditions of democracy 
are strong. But they do not have much of an outlet for their public interests 
within their political system, as it has come to develop in practice. We have 
observed in a previous chapter that the degree of participation on the part 
of the common citizen in the daily duties and responsibilities of government 
is low in America — that is, between the recurrent elections and except for 
his part in forming the nebulous but powerful "public opinion." This 
frustration is accentuated because the political parties are not built around 
broad ideals and common interests. The lack of political goals often goes 
to the extreme when parties become what the Americans call political 
"machines." Only to an unusually low degree can the ordinary American 
feel the political party to be a medium for his aspirations in the field of 

1 See Chapter i, Section 12. 
'See Chapter 1, Sections 8 and 9. 
'See Chapter 33, Section 3. 

810 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 811 

social ideals. In so far as party politics is corrupt, it becomes the more 
understandable why the American wants to keep his efforts for worthy 
causes "outside party politics."* The huge amount of organizational activity 
is thus partly a sort of substitute satisfaction for the Americans' lively 
political interests which they find so thwarted in the American practice of 
government. 

The lack of people's movements with broad well-integrated goals is part 
of this American setting. b The improvement and reform organizations 
usually have specialized aims, and an American who is using them to define 
himself with regard to his political leanings will have to — and often does — 
belong to a great number of them. In addition to such splits on issues, there 
is also a large overlapping of, and consequently competition between, organ- 
izations. Belonging to these organizations is, further, predominantly an 
upper and middle class pattern. The lower classes do not join organizations 
to the same extent. The organizations they do join are more likely to be 
merely social or religious. 

No improvement or reform organization has ever developed a mass 
following for any length of time. If an organization should be able to build 
up a real mass following and keep it for any length of time, this would, of 
course, mean the formation of a new type of political party. 1 If this hap- 
pened to a significant number of reform groups at the same time and if they 
came to join together in broader formations, it would effect a change in the 
political system. Natural outlets would be created for people's public inter- 
ests, and most of the betterment organizations would have lost their excuse 
for existence. But the actual situation has never been thus. 

In this setting the organizations actually have more of a "function" for 
the citizens' viewpoint than they would have in a system of democratic 
politics with more popular participation. Organizations are, in a sense, the 
salt of American politics. As there is so little idealism and, indeed, so few 
issues in ordinary party politics in America and, instead, often so much 
corruption, the ideals have to be pressed upon government from the out- 
side. "Pressure groups" belong to this political system, where ideals and 
broad interests are so unsatisfactorily integrated into the democratic process. 

This general American pattern will have to be kept in mind when we 
survey the Negro protest and improvement organizations. We shall find 
that, as usual, the Negro culture follows closely the American pattern with 
some differences in details, explainable in terms of the singular circum- 
stances in which the Negro people live. As in other instances, those dif- 
ferences are of a type to make the Negro appear as an exaggerated Ameri- 
can. 

On the one hand, the Negroes must feel more frustrated in the American 

* See Chapter i, Section 10. 
l See Chapter 33. 



8 12 An American Dilemma 

political system than the whites. The majority of Negroes live in the South 
and are disfranchised. In the North they live in big cities where machine 
rule is usual. Nationally as well as locally, the political parties give only 
scant attention to the Negroes' ideals and interests. Their extraordinary 
caste status gives Negroes tremendous grievances against society around 
which to rally. The Negro cause is conspicuously defined by the conflict 
between caste and the American Creed. On the other hand, there are certain 
factors which decrease interest in public affairs among Negroes. A greater 
proportion of the Negro people belong to the lower classes, and those 
classes among the Negroes are, on the average, poorer, less educated, more 
apathetic than in comparable white groups. There is more defeatism in all 
social classes of Negroes, and in the South there is even sheer fear of 
expressing an opinion. For these reasons, we might expect that the Negroes 
have plenty of organizations expressing the Negro protest, or some com- 
promise between protest and accommodation j but we cannot expect much 
of a mass following. 

We shall devote the major part of this chapter to a discussion of the 
three most important organizations for Negro protest and betterment: the 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.- 
C.P.), the Urban League, and the Commission on Interracial Relations. 
But we shall first mention the other organizations active in the field,* as 
they stood at the outbreak of the Second World War. Later we shall con- 
sider the development during the War. The value premises for our 
analysis are accounted for in a concluding section on Negro strategy. 

2. Nationalist Movements 

There are still some remnants of the Garvey nationalist movement, 
officially entitled The Universal Negro Improvement Association? A West 

* In this chapter we shall not deal at all with certain white-dominated organizations. 
A number of left-wing organizations — the Communist party, the Socialist party, the 
American Civil Liberties Union, the International Labor Defense, the League for Industrial 
Democracy, the Workers Alliance of America, the American League tor Peace and 
Democracy, the Independent Labor League of America, and others — have shown a more 
or less special interest in the Negro. (Sc: Ralph Bundle, "The Programs, Ideologies, Tactics, 
and Achievements of Negro Betterment and Interracial Organizations," unpublished 
manuscript prepared for this study [1940 J, Vol. 4, pp. 675 S.) Some movements— usually 
more to the right — have concentrated on the South, as the Southern Conference for Human 
Welfare (see Chapter 21, Section 5), the Southern Committee for Peoples' Rights of North 
Carolina, the Citizens' Fact Finding Movement in Georgia, the Committee on Economic 
and Racial Justice (with headquarters in New Vork) (see idem). 

Finally, we shall not deal with the anti-Negro organizations — such as the Ku Klux 

Klan, the Women of the Ku Klux Klan, The Alabama Women's League for White 

Supremacy, The Alabama Women's Democratic Club, The National Association for the 

Preservation of the White Race, The White America Society. (For an analysis of these, 

.see ibid., Vol. 4, pp. 736 ff.) 

*8ee Chapter 35, Section 7. 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 813 

Indian Negro doctor, heading the New York division, which had estab- 
lished itself as an independent organization, explained its present-day 
(January, 1940) position to an interviewer for this study: 

We don't advocate going back to Africa. That will come in time. The main 
problem of the Negro is economic and that is what we must face. It's the Negro's 
problem and he must solve it by himself. ... I say, if wc can solve oar economic 
problem, then to hell with the white man and that is exactly what we propose to 
do . . . 

Sir, the Negro must learn to keep his business to himself. He must be wise as 
a serpent and appear to be harmless as a dove. He must strike at the right moment. 
Let the European war start. Some Negroes are crying for peace. Peace, hell! Let 
them kill each other as long as they want to. The longer they do that, the better off the 
Negroes will be. 2 

This leader claimed for his own organization a membership of some 700 
and referred to other small groups which carried on the original Garvey 
movement. 3 

The Peace Movement oj Ethiopia is a back-to-Africa movement of a 
very different temper. It was founded at a meeting in Chicago at the end 
of 1932 and has been working in support of the "repatriation" bill of 
Senator Bilbo." It is claimed that, within eight months, 400,000 names were 
obtained on a petition directed to the President of the United States request- 
ing that he use relief funds to settle Negroes in Africa instead of supporting 
them as unemployed here. It is also claimed that a supplementary petition 
contains around 2,000,000 names from all states in the Union. The leaders 
of the movement are obscure. 4 The belief is strong in many quarters that 
they are the agents of Senator Bilbo. 

In the memorial presented to the President at the end of 1933, the 
petitioners explained, among other things: 

We are simple minded, sincere, lowly, law-abiding workers who have maintained 
traditions of simple honesty, industry and frugality as much from choice as from 
necessity. Few of us have education, but we have learned not to heed the blandish- 
ments of self-seeking politicians, imposters, and the unworthy and undesirable 
products of the hectic civilization that is foreign to our nature. , , . Given an oppor- 
tunity in our ancestral Africa, the knowledge of farming and of simple farm 
machinery and implements, which we have acquired here, would enable us to carve 
a frugal but decent livelihood out of the virgin soil and favorable climate of Liberia. 
. . . We are a liability now, and any cost of this project, no matter how great, would 
still, we sincerely believe, be a sound investment for the American people. . . . We, 
the subjoined and accompanying signatories, merely ask respectfully that we be 
eliminated from an over-crowded labor market and given a helping hand in estab- 
lishing such social and economic independence as we are fitted for — establishing it 
where it will give no offense and where it may serve as an object lesson to tempt 
those who remain. 5 
* See Chapter 38, Section la. 



8 14 An American Dilemma 

This sounds much more like the wishful dreaming of a kindly conservative 
Southern white man than an expression of thoughts and desires of Amer- 
ican Negroes. In fact, I have nowhere seen any traces of this organization 
in the Negro communities I have visited. When the President found it 
impracticable to act favorably upon the petition, the memorialists turned to 
the General Assembly of Virginia, since Virginia had taken the initiative in 
acquiring the territory which is now Liberia. This legislative body resolved 
to recommend the proposal.* 

The National Union for People of African Descent is another paper 
organization of American Negroes. It is extremely chauvinistic in the 
Garvey tradition. The aim of the organization is to create a sort of extra- 
territorial independence for the Negro people: 

... to obtain a nation, a flag, an army and navy exclusively of the black people, and 
through these media to ultimately throw off the yoke of white domination, white cul- 
ture, and white mores. 7 

It has been helped by Negro unrest but does not seem to have made much 
headway. 

The National Movement for the Establishment of the Forty-Ninth 
State wants to establish a territorial state in some less populated part of 
America: 

. . . not an isolated uncivilized hostile colony around which to build a figurative wall 
of China shutting out the possibilities of travel and growth from within and without; 
not a separate nation, but an interdependent commonwealth like any other of the 
present 48 states. 8 

In the Garvey tradition, this movement holds a fatalistic and pessimistic 
view of the Negroes' future in white America. White people do not consider 
giving Negroes justice and, therefore, Negroes will not get any unless they 
get off by themselves. Like all other organizations of this type — except the 
Garvey movement itself — it has never amounted to much. 

During the present war crisis there have been rumors about various 
"fifth column" groups among American Negroes. For several years there 
have been attempts to disseminate Japanese propaganda to Negroes, but 
with minor success. Individual Negroes of the type who have been active 
in the small groups which are the remnants of the Garvey movement have 
given response, but their influence on Negro opinion is small. To our 
knowledge, only a few dozen Negroes have been arrested for advocating 
the cause of Japan.* There is undoubtedly a small group of Negroes who 
are in some degree friendly to Japan. A larger number take a vicarious 
satisfaction in imagining a Japanese (or German) invasion of the Southern 

* In addition, some members of the Islamic cults have been arrested for failing to 
register for the draft. (PM [September 15, 1942 and September 22, 1942].) Two of the 
jpenont attempting to win Negroes to the cause of Japan were white. One was a follower 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 815 

states.* But on the whole, while Negroes are dissatisfied, their protest has 
not turned in a treasonable direction. In fact, it may be said that their pro- 
democratic, anti-fascist ideology is at least as strong as that of most white 
groups in the United States.* 

3. Business and Professional Organizations 

The National Negro Business League, founded by Booker T. Washing- 
ton in 1900, has its purpose defined in the preamble to its constitution: 

That through the promotion of commercial achievement the race could be led to a 
position of influence in American life and thus pave the way to economic independ- 
ence. 10 

The League functions as the national center for local business leagues, 
Negro chambers of commerce, and similar organizations of Negro business 
and professional men and women. Annually it conducts a three-day conven- 
tion. Bunche reports about these conventions: 

The proceedings of these meetings consist mainly of informal business 'life 
histories" given by the members, in which they trace the origin, development and 
present status o£ the business with which they are identified. This is in furtherance 
of the League's policy of stimulating and promoting business. 11 

It publishes a journal, Negro Business, and other propaganda material. 13 
In 1929 the Business League launched The Colored Merchants' Association 
(C.M.A.) stores. This was a cooperative endeavor. The idea was to reduce 
costs and prices by cooperative buying and group advertising. But few 
Negro businesses were attracted, and the Negro consumers were generally 
not willing to accept the untested brands sold by the C.M.A. stores instead 
of the nationally advertised, standard brands offered by the white chain 
stores. The project failed during the depression. 

We have discussed and criticized the ideology behind this movement in 
the preceding chapter. 1 " Nothing the present writer has observed in Negro 
communities in various parts of America contradicts Bunche's evaluation : 

In terms of its influence on economic betterment of the Negro, the National Negro 
Business League has been inconsequential. As a factor in shaping the psychology and 
thinking of Negroes, however, it has been vastly important. ... It has pursued the 
narrowest type of racial chauvinism, for it has organized, not business, but Negro 

of the professional Fascist, Joe McWilliams. (PM [September 15, 1942].) The other 
owned the "Negro News Syndicate" and was supported by the Japanese. (Time magazine, 
[September 14, 194.2], p. 46.) 

* This is mainly an impression, but it has some substantiation in the various confidential 
polls of public opinion now being carried on, and in such small studies as that of Delhert 
C. Miller, "Effect of the War Declaration on the National Morale of American College 
Students," The American Sociological Review (October, 1942), pp. 631-644. 

"See Chapter 38, Section to. 



8i6 An American Dilemma 

business and ha* employed the racial situation as its main stock in trade in bidding for 
the support of Negro patronage. 18 

In 1918 Du Bois made an effort to create a national organization for 
consumers' cooperation. Upon his call, there met in the Crisis office "twelve 
colored men from seven different states" and they established The Negro 
Co-operative Guild. 1 * Some abortive attempts to open cooperative stores in 
various cities were made, but nothing came out of it. Du Bois comments in 
1940: 

The whole movement needed more careful preliminary spade work, with popular 
education both of consumers and managers; and for lack of this, it temporarily failed. 
It must and will be revived. 18 

We have touched upon the spontaneous movement, "don't buy where 
you can't work." There is no national organization behind this movement, 
but there are, or have been, several organizations with this purpose in many 
cities, as, for instance, The Colored Clerks' Circle in St. Louis and The 
New Negro Alliance in Washington. 16 The movement is a logical corollary 
of the Negro business philosophy. It is doomed to be rather inconsequential 
and even has potentialities damaging to Negro interests." 

Similar to the National Negro Business League are: The National Negro 
Bankers' Association The National Negro Insurance Association, The 
National Medical Association, The National Teachers' Association, and The 
National Bar Association" These organizations exist largely as substitutes 
for the ordinary professional organizations which to a large extent — and in 
the South regularly — exclude Negroes. b Also the Negro fraternities and 
sororities belong to this group of professional organizations. All of them 
are "race organizations" in the sense that they have as one of their purposes 
the improvement not only of their particular group's status but also that of 
the Negro people as a whole. Many of them do a considerable amount of 
lobbying and petitioning. In fact, even the churches, the lodges, and the 
social clubs are to a degree organizations for race defense. This tendency 
became intensified during the war crisis. 

Special mention must be given to the National Council of Negro Women 
even though we cannot describe or evaluate it. It is under the presidency 
of Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune, the outstanding Negro woman "race 
leader," president of Bethune-Cookman College in Florida, Negro advisor 
to the National Youth Administration and long head of the "Black Cab- 
inet" in Washington.' 

It is possible to view all the Negro organizations mentioned in this 
section as rather futile and inconsequential. This is the attitude prevailing 

* See Chapter 14., Section a, and Chapter 38, Section 11. 

* §ee Chapter 19, Section 6. 

* The "Black Cabinet" was discussed in Chapter aa, Section J. 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 817 

among the younger Negro intellectuals. When they are studied one by one 
and measured by their rather limited accomplishments, this view seems to 
be justified. Taken together, however, they mean that Negroes have 
increasingly become organized in natural social groups for concerted action, 
have become trained in orderly cooperation, and have become accustomed 
to plan and work together. All of them give an institutional sanction to 
protests against various kinds of discrimination. When seen in perspective, 
they represent bases for attempts at broader organizations. 

To this category of Negro organizations belong Negro trade unions, but 
we have considered them in Chapter 38 and in Appendix 6. 

4. The National Negro Congress Movement 

The Joint Committee on National Recovery was formed in the early 
days of the New Deal to watch out for Negro rights in the policy-making 
at Washington. Under the chairmanship of George Haynes, and with 
John P. Davis as executive secretary, it protested against wage differentials 
in industry and discriminatory administration of the agricultural programs, 
and it upheld the interests of Negroes in the code hearings under the 
N.R.A. It was supported financially by some twenty-two independent 
Negro organizations, though its major support came from the N.A.A.C.P. 18 

The National Negro Congress grew out of a conference in the spring of 
1935 held at Howard University under the joint auspices of its Division 
of Social Sciences and of the Joint Committee on National Recovery. The 
idea was born that a national Negro agency, embracing all the existing 
Negro trade unions, religious, fraternal, and civic bodies, could give more 
strength and unity to all those organizations and, particularly, help awaken 
a response from the Negro masses. Stress was laid upon economic and social 
betterment as well as upon justice and citizens' rights. 19 For a time the 
National Negro Congress, which emerged out of these deliberations, actu- 
ally showed prospects of becoming a strong Negro movement, though it 
finally failed. 

The first National Negro Congress met in Chicago in February, 1936, 
for a three-day session. It was attended by 817 delegates, representing s&S 
organizations from 28 states and the District of Columbia. In a great 
number of resolutions, the Congress expressed the Negroes' dissatisfaction 
and protest and made practical proposals for change. Heading the list of 
resolutions was the general one to the effect that the Congress was not, 
and would never be, affiliated or dominated by any political faction or 
party. 20 A. Philip Randolph— the head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping 
Car Porters, who is not only the most prominent Negro trade unionist but 
one of the wisest Negro statesmen in the present generation — undertook 
the presidency and John P. Davis, who had been the secretary of the Joint 
Committee on National Recovery, became the executive secretary of the 



8x8 An American Dilemma 

new organization. Local councils were established in many cities and 
seemed, in the beginning, to have been quite active. As late as 1939 and 
1940, when the present writer traveled around in this country, the local 
councils of the National Negro Congress were the most important Negro 
organizations in some Western cities. 

In October, 1937, the second National Negro Congress was held in 
Philadelphia. The delegates formed a total of 1,149 persons. Nothing 
important happened. Account was given of the progress in building up the 
organization. It is apparent that a chief difficulty was to get it on a sound 
financial basis. The third — and so far, the last — Congress meeting was held 
in Washington, D.C., in April, 1940. There were around 900 Negro and 
400 white delegates representing organizations from all parts of the 
country. At this meeting the Congress sealed its doom by becoming simply 
a front organization for the Communist party. 21 Randolph was ushered 
from the presidency, and the Congress sank to unimportance, from which 
it will probably never rise again/" 8 

The failure of the National Negro Congress seems due mainly to the 
following factors: lack of political training and understanding on the part 
of the rank and file of the Negro representatives for the various local 
Negro organizations; inability to raise even modest funds for the work of 
the organization} the skill, determination, and resources of the Commu- 
nists, and their success in getting some of their group into the leadership of 
the Congress. Since 1940 the Congress has been kept up by the Communist 
party as a paper organization with some scattered local following, but it 
has largely lost its support from the other Negro organizations which 
originally furnished its basis. 

The March on Washington Committee, led by A. Philip Randolph and 
created to voice the Negro protest in the war emergency, is in a sense a 
continuation of the nonpartisan general Negro movement represented by 
the Congress in its first year.- We shall consider this Committee later. 

The Southern Negro Youth Congress 23 was organized in Richmond, 
Virginia, in 1937, as a federation of Southern youth organizations. A yearly 
congress is held, the last one in April, 1942, at Tuskegee Institute. 2 * Local 
councils are organized to conduct youth forums, work for crime reduction 
programs, health projects, vocational guidance campaigns, and similar 
activities in the interest of Negro youth. Owing to the "special problems" 
which face Negroes in the South, the local organizations have usually not 
been militant on questions of Negroes' rights. In spite of this, the author 
found that upper class Negroes in the South often considered the move- 
ment "radical" and dangerous for interracial peace. 80 Bunche gives, in 
1940, this summary evaluation: 

The Southern Negro Youth Congress is a flame that flickers only feebly in a few 
Southern cities today. It started with promise but, lacking competent leadership, it 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 8r9 

failed to catch the imagination of the young Negro of the South. Its program has 
been diffuse and recently, at least, seems to take its cue in the major essentials from 
the "line" laid down by the American Communist Parry. . . . Moreover, no serious 
effort has been made to reach the lower class Negro youth of the South who are in 
dire need of guidance and encouragement. In its present form the Negro Youth 
Congress is run by and for a select group of Negro school boys and girls who are 
themselves terribly confused and often frustrated. It can contribute but little toward 
the progressive development of the Negro. 28 

This might be true enough, yet it should be recalled that any organization, 
even if its immediate accomplishments are small, represents a coming 
together of Negroes for concerted action, which gives training and vision. 

5. The National Association for the Advancement of 
Colored People 

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peofle is 
without question the most important agency for the Negroes in their 
struggle against caste. At several points in our inquiry, we have seen how 
it functions. It is an interracial movement. As a matter of fact, it was 
started on white people's initiative. In the summer of 1908 there had 
occurred a severe race riot in Springfield, Illinois, the home of Abraham 
Lincoln. Scores of Negroes had been killed or wounded and many had 
been driven out of the city. Wide publicity was given the affair in the press 
and one writer, William English Walling, threw a challenge to the nation : 
there was a need for a revival of the spirit of the Abolitionists to win 
liberty and justice for the Negro in America. The appeal was answered 
by Mary White Ovington. In January, 1909, Miss Ovington met with Mr. 
Walling and Dr. Henry Moskowitz in New York, and the plans were laid 
for the organization that was to become the N.A.A.C.P. Of these three. 
Miss Ovington is still active on the board of the N.A.A.C.P. a 

Oswald Garrison Villard was asked to draft a call for a conference on 
February 12, 1909, the one hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's 
birth. Signed by many prominent white and Negro liberals, the document 
pointed in ringing phrases to the injustices inflicted upon the Negro against 
the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, and called upon 

... all believers in democracy to join in a national conference for the discussion of 
present evils, the voicing of protests, and the renewal of the struggle for civil and 
political liberty. 27 

* Mary White Ovington, How the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 
Peofle Began (1914), cited by Bunche, of. ««., Vol. 1, p. a+. The following account of 
the N.A.A.C.P. has drawn heavily, from Bundle's memorandum, compared with critical 
comments and information given by Walter White, the Secretary of the N.A.A.CJP., and 
Roy Wilkins, the Assistant Secretary of the N.A.A.C.P. and Editor of The Crisis. See 
also Paul E. Baker, Negro-White Adjustment (1934), pp. 43 ft". 



8ao An American Dilemma 

At this first conference a committee of forty was formed to carry on the 
work. Mass meetings were held, pamphlets distributed, and memberships 
solicited. The following year, at a second conference, a merger was consum- 
mated of the forces of the Negro liberals of the Niagara Movement and 
of the white liberals of Abolitionist traditions. Out of these two groups the 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was formed. 
Moorfield Storey of Boston was elected the first president. He and all 
other officers of the new organization were white, except Du Bois, who was 
to become the salaried Director of Publicity and Research. The platform 
adopted was practically identical with that of the Niagara Movement. It 
was at the time considered extremely radical. 28 "Thus," comments Bunche, 
"the N.A.A.C.P., propelled by dominant white hands, embarked upon the 
civil liberties course that the Negro-inspired Niagara Movement had 
futilely tried to navigate." 28 From the beginning Du Bois gave the tone to 
the new organization's activity. By 1914 there were thirteen Negro mem- 
bers on the Board of Directors, most of whom were veterans of the Niagara 
Movement. In 1910 the publication of the organization's journal, The 
Crisis, began and it soon became popular. 

The long-run objective of the organization has always been to win full 
equality for the Negro as an American citizen. The specific objectives can 
best be presented by the following citation from its program as announced 
in 1940: 

1. Anti-lynching legislation. 

2. Legislation to end peonage and debt slavery among the sharecroppers and tenant 
farmers of the South. 

3. Enfranchisement of the Negro in the South. 

4. Abolition of injustices in legal procedure, particularly criminal procedure, based 
solely upon color or race. 

5. Equitable distribution of funds for public education. 

6. Abolition of segregation, discrimination, insult, and humiliation based on race or 
color. 

7. Equality of opportunity to work in all fields with equal pay for equal work, 

8. Abolition of discrimination against Negroes in the right to collective bargaining 
through membership in organized labor unions. 30 

The N.A.A.C.P. works through the National Office in New York City 
and through branches or local associations in cities everywhere in the 
country. 81 The National Office determines the policy of the organization 
and supervises the work of the branches. 32 The National Office, including 
The Crisis, employs 13 salaried executive officers and 17 other paid em- 
ployees. All are Negroes. The president of the Association has always 
beeJa a white man; at present he is Arthur B. Spingarn, who succeeded his 
brother, the late Joel E. Spingarn. The Board of Directors has mem- 

*See Chapter 35, Section 4. 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 821 

bers of both races j at present it is composed of 30 Negroes and 17 
whites. There are 13 vice-presidents, 4 of whom are Negroes. 38 The 
main executive officer and the responsible head of the Association is the 
secretary! This office is now held by Walter White. Few branch officers are 
white, although some whites serve on executive committees of branches. 
It is estimated that about 10 per cent of the total membership of the Asso- 
ciation is white. The Association is interracial only at the top, but practically 
all Negro at the base. 

The war crisis is giving increasing importance to the Association and 
during the last few years there has been a remarkable increase in the num- 
ber of local branches and in membership rolls. Currently there are 481 
branches of the Association and, in addition, 77 youth councils 3 * and 22 
college chapters. The total membership of the Association is approximately 
85,000. The Crisis has a circulation of about 17,500 copies. Since 1940 the 
Association has published a monthly paper, the N.A.A.C.P. Bulletin, which 
goes to all members. The National Office operates on a budget of around 
$85,000. Much the larger part of the budget is derived from membership 
fees, but a smaller part is raised by contributions from individuals and from 
a few foundations, most often given for specific purposes. 36 

The branches — and consequently the National Association — have no- 
where been able to build up a real mass following among Negroes. The 
membership is still largely confined to the upper classes. It should be 
remembered, though, that lack of mass participation is not peculiar to the 
N.A.A.C.P. or even to the Negro world but is a characteristic of American 
public life as a whole. Few similar organizations have reached the organ- 
izational stability and the membership* size of the N.A.A.C.P. It should also 
be stressed that, while the lack of mass following is a weakness, the high 
intellectual quality of the membership of the N.A.A.C.P. is an asset. Few 
organizations in the entire country compare with the N.A.A.C.P. in respect 
to the education and mental alertness of the persons attracted to it. In a 
study of 5,512 Negro college graduates from all areas and of all ages, 
Charles S. Johnson found that 25 per cent of them were members of the 
N.A.A.C.P. 30 No other organization for Negroes approached this percent- 
age. The quality of the membership is reflected in the National Office. The 
national leaders of Negroes have generally been intellectuals, 37 and the 
N.A.A.C.P. represents the highest manifestation of this general tendency. 
In most branches Negro professionals and businessmen constitute almost 
exclusively the officers, boards and executive committees. 

More fundamentally, however, this structure of the Association is a 
weakness. The Association should have a much larger popular support in 
order to be able to fight with greatest success. The national leaders of the 
movement, and also most of the local branch officers I have come in contact 
with, are aware of the fact that the Association, if it wants to grow, must 



8a2 Am American Dilemma 

gain more members in the lower and middle classes of the Negro people. 
In the present war crisis the Association is making great strides forward, 
and it is reported that Negro workers are increasingly coming to join the 
Association. 88 There is also in recent years a visible tendency to try to get 
workers, and, particularly, trade union officials, on the boards of the 
branches. It is not improbable that as a result of the rigors and exigencies 
of the War, the N.A.A.C.P. will come out as an organization much 
stronger in membership and with much more of a following among the 
masses. 

6. The N.A.A.C.P. Branches 

The activity of the Association depends largely upon the effective organi- 
zation of its branches. They provide it with membership, the larger part of 
its financial support, and information from and contacts with its field of 
work. The branches are the lifeline of the Association, and the National 
Office is constantly struggling to maintain them in vigor and to found new 
branches, especially in recent years. 80 

It is a heavy task the Association demands from the branches. We quote 
from a summary made by Bunche from the instructions given by the 
National Office: 

The branches are to assume responsibility for the general welfare of the Negro 
population of the particular locality. In carrying out the broad program enunciated 
by the National Office, they are local vigilante groups covering all of the ramifications 
of Negro life in a prejudice ridden milieu. The branches are to check on "biased 
and discriminatory legislation, biased and discriminatory administration of the law, 
and injustice in the courts." They arc to combat attempts at racial discrimination in 
civil rights, parks, museums, theaters, conveyances and other public places, and in 
charitable and public agencies. They are expected to bring test cases on the rights of 
Negro citizens before the courts, where great injustice is done because of race or 
color prejudice. Instances of police brutality against Negroes are to be fought, and 
Northern branches are admonished to be on the alert for cases of extradition involving 
Negroes who have sought refuge in the North against Southern injustice. Branches are 
to seek to secure new laws and ordinances to protect the welfare of Negro citizens 
and to prevent race discrimination. . . . The branches are expected to assume respon- 
sibility for stimulating school attendance of Negro children, and encouraging Negro 
youth to attend high school and college, and also to see to it "that careful technical 
training in some branch of modern industry is furnished all colored children." The 
branches must oppose all forms of educational discrimination, and demand equal 
educational accommodations and facilities for Negro youth; direct educational 
segregation, and the subtle zoning of educational districts so as to segregate Negro 
children indirectly, should be fought, and the branches should cooperate in the 
current fight to equalize teachers' salaries in Southern schools, and to eliminate the 
Negro-white differentials in educational appropriations. Similarly the branches are 
to 'look after the health needs of the Negro communities; tax supported hospitals 
excluding Negro patients should be attacked, and efforts put forth to place Negro 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 813 

none* and internes in municipal hospitals. The branches are to strive for wider 
employment opportunities and better wages for Negroes; discrimination in Civil 
Service employments should be opposed. The branches should cooperate with all 
community efforts touching the welfare of Negro citizens, and should combat 
unfavorable treatment of the Negro in the local press. They should cultivate cordial 
relations between the races in the community. Negroes should be encouraged to 
qualify for voting and to vote ; all possible influence should be brought to bear toward 
the adoption and enforcement of civil rights laws; discriminatory practices in the 
administration of relief and on government work projects should be exposed and 
protested; and better housing for Negroes should be striven for. 40 

As suggested in this statement, the National Office advises its branches on 
tactics as well as aims. The branches are advised "that injury to one Negro 
on racial grounds affects the status of the whole group, and hence, the 
health and happiness of our American civilization." 41 The present War, 
with the many problems it raises or aggravates for Negroes, has, of course, 
increased the demands upon the branches. 

When these things are considered: the immensity of the tasks set for the 
branches; the high demands made upon the time, interest, intelligence, and 
tact of the branch officers; the fact that those officers are not salaried but 
work on a voluntary basis in their free time; the inherent difficulties of 
minority tactics and, particularly, the power situation in the South ; the fact 
that few white people outside the national center of the organization are 
prepared to give assistance or even sympathy to the work; while poverty, 
ignorance, and defeatism are widespread among the Negro masses — when 
all these adverse factors are considered, it should not be a surprise that 
hardly any branch even approaches the realization of the ideals envisaged 
for its active working. 42 If we consider the handicaps under which the 
branches work, we should classify them, before the War, as a few energetic 
branches, some dormant branches, and the majority of branches somewhere 
between. 43 As is natural, branches in the South had small membership rolls 
and showed little activity. They often seemed to run through a sort of 
irregular vitality cycle. 

(1) The normal condition is local inactivity but with maintenance of a basic mem- 
bership roll and more or less regular meetings, where the stress is usually given 
to the general goals of the Association more than to the specific problems of the 
locality. There are always social and educational entertainments. Belonging to 
the Association and paying dues is, in the upper classes, considered a minimum 
duty of a "race man" and a sign of community spirit and social respectability. 
"In the main," states a president of a local association in the Upper South, "we 
are concerned with collecting the dollar to aid the national group financially — 
you see we have so many organizations here to take up people's time." 44 
Another head of a branch in the Deep South, whose policy is one of caution 
because he fears greater repression by local whites, explains it this way: "Our 



824 An American Dilemma 

ta«k is to supply the material and the money; the folks up North hare got to 
stick their necks out for us." 48 

(2) Now and then, ordinarily not for a period of many years, the local association 
flares up to importance in the community on account of a particularly self- 
sacrificing and energetic leader or group of leaders. Some actions are taken: In 
the North, these may be anything within the scope of the organization's aims. 
In the South they are usually restricted to the following things: a drive to get 
Negroes to register and vote; the organization of Negro voters to defeat a bond 
issue when Negro interests are flagrantly neglected; a representation to the 
authorities for more adequate schools or hospital facilities, for improved housing 
conditions, parks, and playgrounds, for the hiring of Negro policemen or fire- 
men to serve in Negro districts, for the equalization of salaries of Negro 
teachers, against occasional police brutality; the instigation of a law suit to save 
a victim from the injustice of the region. No Southern branch could ever have 
the resources — or the boldness — to raise more than one or two such issues at a 
time. By its activity it receives publicity, and a membership drive will tempo- 
rarily raise the enrollment considerably. 

(3) After some time the activity falls again, either because the leaders move away 
or get disillusioned, or because of developing factionalism and internal strife and 
jealousy. Sometimes the cause is that influential white people in the community 
scare the leaders, or at least some of them, by telling them that they have to 
slow down. In either case the branch returns to its normal condition of relative 
ineffectiveness with maintenance and watchfulness. In extreme cases the branch 
can be totally destroyed. 

In many Southern communities conservative or dependent upper and 
middle class Negroes shared the common white opinion in the region that 
the N.A.A.C.P. is a "foreign" or "radical" organization, that its policy is 
"tactless" and "tends to stir up undue hostility between the races." They 
stayed away from it entirely or made a compromise by paying dues but 
never attending meetings and by generally advising the organization to 
abstain from taking any action. 1 often heard the complaint that teachers 
are timid about identifying themselves with the Association for fear of 
jeopardizing their jobs, and that preachers are reluctant to join since their 
churches are often mortgaged by white people. In other communities, 
teachers and preachers were important in the local associations, but they 
did not usually urge action. Most other upper class Negroes also are 
dependent on the whites and have to proceed carefully. One prominent 
Negro leader in a city in the Deep South, which has a bad history of 
intimidation of Negroes, commented to us upon a recent unsuccessful effort 
to get a branch started again: 

They went about it wrong. The best way to get an organization like that started 
here is to go talk to the white man first. 46 

Thjs attitude should not be criticized in levity but must be understood 
against the background of the Southern caste situation. 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 825 

Another difficulty of the typical N.A.A.C.P. branch is the competition 
for interest, time, and money from churches, lodges and social clubs of all 
sorts. Particularly as the N.A.A.C.P. cannot promise much in immediate 
returns for the individual, this competition is serious. Other competition 
comes from independent local civic organizations, often with the same local 
program. 47 There are hundreds of such organizations, often several in one 
city. The explanation of this is partly the same as of the great number of 
splits in sects and churches." The local organizations sometimes thrive upon 
the spread of suspicion and even hostility against the N.A.A.C.P. as 
"foreign," "outside" or "meddling by a clique of New Yorkers." But 
more often the motives for the split are even more superficial and petty. 
Undoubtedly, it would mean a great increase in strength for the N.A.A.C.P. 
— and an equally great asset for the Negroes' organizational activity as a 
whole — if these organizations could be integrated as branches of the Asso- 
ciation. 

Sometimes, however, there are more objective reasons for organizational 
duplication. In an earlier chapter we have given an illustration from a city 
in the Lower South where a League for Civic Improvement was maintained 
to do the pussy-footing with which the N.A.A.C.P. could not be com- 
promised. 11 In a city in the Upper South there is a powerful Committee on 
Negro Affairs with a membership of around a thousand, carrying on most 
of the Negro politics in the community. The N.A.A.C.P. branch has only 
about a hundred members. According to the president, the main function 
of the branch now seems to be one of patient waiting — it will step into the 
breach if the Committee fails or if the backing of the National Office is 
needed. 48 The leaders of the Committee on Negro Affairs, on the other 
hand, point out that the N.A.A.C.P. "helps us because the white man will 
do things for us to keep the N.A.A.C.P. out." A prominent Negro leader 
in one of the largest cities of the Deep South, who, himself, regards the 
N.A.A.C.P. as "radical," explains: 

The South doesn't like the N.A.A.C.P. and regards it as an alien force; but though 
whites won't give to the radical group what it demands, the conservative group can 
come behind and capitalize on the situation created by the "radicals." Therefore, 
both radical and conservative Negro groups are necessary — the radicals do the block- 
ing and tackling and the conservatives "carry the ball." 49 

If all the difficulties under which a Negro protest movement has to 
work in the South are remembered, it is rather remarkable, in the final 
analysis, that the N.A.A.C.P. has been able to keep up and slowly build 
out its network of branches ip the region, and that several of the Southern 
branches have been so relatively active. A strength of the organization is 

* See Chapter 40. 

* See Chapter 37, Section jo. 



826 Ah American Dilemma 

that, even if the formal membership is small, the great majority of Negroes 
in all classes in the South, as well as in the North, back its program. 

The N.A.A.CP. branches in the Northern cities usually have larger 
membership rolls than those in Southern cities, not only because there are 
many more Negroes in the average Northern Negro community, but also 
because most of the specific difficulties under which the Southern branches 
labor are absent. They are free to carry out campaigns and to take cases 
into court. The Negro vote gives them a backing for their demands. Con- 
sidering the much more favorable conditions under which the Northern 
branches work, it should be no surprise that they are generally stronger 
and more active than Southern branches. The surprising thing is that they 
are not stronger and more active than they actually are. 

7. The N.A.A.C.P. National Office 

The major part of the work carried on by the Association is performed 
by its National Office, which strikes the observer as unusually effective in 
its work. Owing to the National Office, the Association exerts — locally and 
nationally — an influence out of proportion to its small membership. The 
33-year life span of the Association and the constant publicity it has re- 
ceived over the years give it prestige, stability, and respect, which the 
national officers know how to capitalize upon. 

Generally, the National Office acts as a "watchdog" over Negro rights. 
When anything important develops on the national or on some local scene 
which is adverse to Negro interest, the Association promptly intervenes. A 
usual measure is that its secretary directs a telegram or letter to the respon- 
sible officials, which is made public through the press service of the Associa- 
tion. Of special importance is its watch on national legislation. The National 
Office tries to get hearings before Congressional committees and other 
investigating bodies and places on record its information and its demands 
on behalf of the Negroes. .In the same way the Association fights for 
remedial legislation and for the adoption of changes in administrative 
practice. It is prepared to associate itself with other white or Negro organi- 
zations in cases touching Negro rights and interests. 

Systematic lobbying, primarily in Washington, but also in state capitals, 
is kept up. Much of this work falls upon the shoulders of the secretary, 
Walter White. The Association tries to get on public record the opinions 
in crucial problems of federal administrators, congressmen, governors, 
other state officials, and important personalities in organizations and in 
business. 

It loses no opportunity to place each and every elected or appointed official on 
record regarding specific cases affecting Negroes, such as lynching, riots, civil service 
discrimination, segregation, the right to vote, public works, unemployment relief, 
slander of the Negro race, etc. Where an official is derelict in his duty or openly 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 827 

prejudiced against Negroes, the National Office rallies the Branches to political 
action against him. In this way it has defeated for re-election many politicians guilty 
of race bias." 

The Association has successfully fought the appointment or election to 
public office of persons known to be prejudiced against Negroes. 61 

The Association puts its trust in publicity. A large part of the activity 
of the National Office is in the nature of educational propaganda. It not 
only publishes The Crisis and the N.A.A.C.P. Bulletin, but also a great 
many pamphlets, brochures and books on various aspects of the Negro 
problem. The officers of the National Office strive to present their case to 
the white public also through articles in outstanding national periodicals. 
The National Office provides data for research work on the Negro problem 
and for political work even when it is carried on outside the Association. 
From its staff or from a circle of active sympathizers, it furnishes speakers 
for important meetings. The officers of the Association travel widely on 
lecture tours all over the country. Most of the officers have traveled and 
lectured abroad, displaying the* American Negro case to a world audience. 
Du Bois represented the Association as a lobbyist at the Versailles Peace 
Conference "in order to interpret to the Peace delegates the interests of the 
Negro peoples of the world." 62 The National Office has its own press serv- 
ice, which is used by the Negro press* and, occasionally, also by liberal 
white magazines and newspapers. In its publicity the National Office has a 
militant and challenging tone but is ordinarily — as far as the present 
author has been able to check during the course of this study — scrupulously 
correct in statements of fact. 

In a broader sense, all the work of the Association is centered around 
creating favorable publicity for the Negro people and winning a hearing 
for their grievances from the general American public. Publicity is, there- 
fore, an important aspect of all its moves. It succeeds rather well in reach- 
ing the alert strata of the Negro people — mainly through Negro news- 
papers — but it attempts also to reach the white public. There it is less suc- 
cessful, but more successful than any other agency. Its unceasing efforts are 
based upon the typical American democratic trust in the righteousness of 
the common man: 

... we must win the American public to want this right for us. They are a just 
people and if we could by education get them to see how silly and needlessly cruel 
it is to deny a person food and shelter, they would help enforce the law. ss 

In its lobbying the National Office pretends with grace to represent the 
Negro people and is not afraid of making threats by referring to the Negro 
vote. When we consider the weakness of its local branches and the general 
rivalry and apathy in the Negro communities, this appears to be largely 

'See Chapter 42. 



828 An American Dilemma 

bluffing, and it is often successful bluffing. This is said not in criticism but 
in sincere admiration.* 

From the very beginning, the Association has laid stress on its legal 
redress work, and this has always been a most important and, certainly, 
the most spectacular part of its activity. 54 The Association takes its stand on 
the legal equality of all the citizens of the country stipulated in the Con- 
stitution, b and in most of the laws of the several states of the South and the 
North. It brings selected cases of discrimination and segregation to the test 
of law suits. 

In hundreds of cases, the lawyers of the N.A.A.C.P. have been instru- 
mental in saving Negroes from unequal treatment by the courts, sometimes 
getting them acquitted when they were sentenced or in danger of being 
sentenced on flimsy evidence) sometimes getting death penalties or other 
severe penalties reduced. 5 * The frequently successful fights to prevent 
the extradition of Negroes from Northern to Southern communities, when 
the likelihood of obtaining a fair trial for the Negroes sought could be 
shown to be questionable, has proved time 2nd again an especially effective 
means of focusing national attention upon the low standards of legal cul- 
ture in the South. 66 In numerous cases the exclusion of Negroes from grand 
and petit juries has been challenged, and the Association shares in establish- 
ing precedents by which the principle is now firmly established that the 
exclusion of Negroes from jury service is a denial of the equal protection 
of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitu- 

* Roy Wilkins comments on this point : " . . the issues on which the N.A.A.C.P. uses 
the threat of reprisal by voters are carefully selected out of our long experience with 
items we know colored voters will resent at the polls, regardless of party affiliations or 
other distracting factors. But it must be remembered that we labor under no illusions 
•o far as marshalling a complete bloc of Negro voters as such against any particular 
candidate or proposal. We know that party affiliation comes first with many colored 
people, just as it does with other racial groups. They are loyal, Democratic workers, for 
instance, first of all. We know that job-holding, or the hope of winning jobs will influence 
the Vote more than consideration for racial ideals. We know that some communities will 
vote for segregated Negro schools on the excuse that only through those schools can they 
get jobs for their daughters as teachers. In other words, there is no such thing as a purely 
Negro vote. Nevertheless, on some broad questions, grievously aggravated in some com- 
munity or by some politician, it is possible to swing a goodly section of the Negro vote 
in the way it should go, despite other factors operating." (Memorandum [August u, 

" There is an interesting story from the First World War told by James Weldon Johnson. 
Du Bois, who was then editor of The Crisis, had been to the front in France and had a 
good deal to say about the treatment of the Negro soldier: 

"The utterances of Dr. Du Bois in The Crisis, the organ of the association, brought a 
visit to the office from agents of the Department of Justice; in reply to the query: 'Just 
what is this organization fighting for?' Dr. Du Bois said: 'We are fighting for th° 
enforcement of the Constitution of the United States.' This was an ultimate condensation 
of {he program of the, association." (Black Manhattan, p. 247.) 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 829 

tion. 57 Police brutality, third degree methods in forcing confessions, and 
peonage have been fought. 

The Association has likewise been continuously active in defending the 
Negroes' right to vote." In 19 15 it succeeded in having the "grandfather 
clauses" of Southern state constitutions declared unconstitutional. It has 
fought several other cases connected with the white primary and other 
means of disfranchising Negroes. As we know, it has not succeeded in hin- 
dering the wholesale disfranchisement of the Southern Negro population. 
But it has put a stop to Southern legislatures enacting the most bluntly 
discriminatory provisions against the suffrage of Negroes and has thus 
achieved a strategic situation where the white South increasingly bases dis- 
franchisement upon extra-legal measures." In the very year of the founda- 
tion of the Association a movement started to legalize residential segrega- 
tion by city ordinance.*" Challenging the constitutionality of this type of 
legislation was one of the main efforts of the Association during its first 
decade. In the famous Louisville Segregation Case, a decisive victory was 
won. The Association has been constantly vigilant, though with consider- 
able caution, against the Jim Crow laws and, particularly, against inferior 
facilities for Negroes in segregated set-ups of various sorts. In recent years 
it has concentrated its attack on the barriers against Negro students 88 and 
on the unequal salaries of Negro teachers." 

The fights in court must not be viewed in isolation from the attempts to 
influence legislatures and administrators. Both types of effort are part of a 
grand strategy to win legal equality for the Negro people. The Association 
has spared no pains in pushing any and all Congressional action in favor of 
the Negro people, or in opposing measures having an actual or potential 
detrimental effect. Foremost among these efforts to influence legislation is 
the long fight for a federal anti-lynching law. 59 In this it has not suc- 
ceeded as yet, but the important effect has been to keep the national con- 
science awake to lynching as a public scandal. In 1922, when the anti-lynch- 
ing bill was first seriously considered in Congress, the number of lynch- 
ings dropped spectacularly. 6 The Association — which has employed a 
"watcher" in each branch of Congress and now has a bureau in Washing- 
ton — has been able to stop much discriminatory legislation, including bills 
against intermarriage, Jim Crow bills, and residential segregation bills for 
the District of Columbia. 80 It has fought for increased federal aid to edu- 
cation, for an equal distribution of federal funds for education ; against dis 
criminatory provisions in the Wages and Hours Act 5 against discrimination 

*See Chapter 22, Section 2. 
The importance of this is discussed in Chapter 23, Section 4. 

* See Chapter 29, Section 4. 
"See Chapter 14, Section 4. 

* See Chapter 27, Section 4. 



830 An American Dilemma 

in C.W.A., P.W.A., W.P.A. projects j against administrational discrimina- 
tion in the T.V.A., local relief, and public utilities; and for many other 
things. 61 

8. The Strategy of the N.A.A.C.P. 

Both for strategic and for financial reasons the Association cannot afford 
to be a legal aid society for Negroes. The cases pursued are selected because 
of their general importance. The N.A.A.C.P. does not, therefore, substi- 
tute for institutions to enforce the laws and to aid poor people which we 
suggested were needed." This need is becoming less and less met by the 
Association, as it has shifted its emphasis from legal defense to legal 
offense. 02 

The author has found that some conservative Negroes and most con- 
servative and liberal whites in the South accuse the N.A.A.C.P. of being 
"reckless" in striking in all directions against the caste order of the region 
without any thought whatever as to what can possibly be attained. When, 
with this criticism in mind, I have studied the actions of the N.A.A.C.P. 
over the decades, I have, on the contrary, come to the conclusion that the 
Association is working according to a quite clearly conceived tactical plan, 
which is only more far-seeing than is customary in America, particularly 
in the South." The Association has wisely avoided launching a wholesale 
legal campaign against the Southern segregation system, as this would 
have provoked a general reaction. It has selected its points of attack with 
care and has pushed the front with caution; sometimes it has preferred 
only to preserve a favorable defense position. On the other hand, when 
the N.A.A.C.P. is striking — for instance, for a federal anti-lynching law or 
for improved educational facilities for Negroes as in the Gaines Case — the 
effect is not, as it is often asserted, an intensified reaction in the South, but, 
on the contrary, a definite movement towards adjustment with the national 
norms. 

In this sense, the tactics of the N.A.A.C.P. are "opportunistic" — though 
within the framework of a long-range policy to reach full equality for 
Negroes. The Association has often accepted segregation, and in fact, has 
sometimes had to promote further segregation, while it has been pressing 
for increased opportunity and equality within the segregated system. The 
principle of opportunism, but also the integration of opportunism into the 
long-range aims, is a conscious tactic: 

In cases where race discrimination is too strongly entrenched to be attacked at 
present, it [the branch] should secure at least equal rights and accommodations for 
colored citizens. 03 



"See Chapter 26, Section 4. 
*See Chapter 33, Section 1. 
'See Chapter 38, Section 9. 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 831 

and it is: 

. . . convinced of the futility of any program to produce separate but equal educa- 
tional opportunities for education for onc-tcnth of America's population, so they 
work for the day when the same and not equal opportunities are open to all. But on 
the way to the goal, the campaign to get those opportunities for all in states having 
laws requiring separate systems of education must be waged. Equal buildings, equal 
equipment in the buildings, equal salaries, equal length of school term, equal trans- 
portation facilities, equal per capita expenditure — all these are steps toward our goal. a * 

The N.AA.C.P. has also been accused of being "radical." This crit- 
icism has been excellently evaluated by Bunche: 

The leadership and membership of the N.A.A.C.P., both Negro and white, is not 
recruited from the ranks of radicals. The program and tactics of the organization 
remain well within the bounds of respectability. It has, of course, been branded as 
radical by those who resent its militant demands for Negro equality and rights. But 
never, in the history of the organization, has there been aught but acceptance of the 
fundaments of the "American way" of life; the only demands for change have been 
directed toward Negro status. Its membership and its hold upon the black masses have 
never been strong enough to permit it to utter serious threats, nor to invoke mass 
pressure. Thus its tactics have had to conform to the dictates of expediency and 
opportunism; good strategy and the need for cultivating the prestige of the organ- 
ization and the decree that demands shall be made and cases fought only when 
circumstances are of such favorable nature as to afford good chance of victory." 1 

9. Critique of the N.A.A.C.P. 

The N.A.A.C.P. has been criticized by the most diverse groups for its 
concentration on publicity, suffrage and civil liberties. To the Northern 
sociologist with laissez-faire (do nothing) leanings, the N.A.A.GP. and all 
the other organizations represent a superficial and inconsequential quack- 
doctoring of symptoms instead of a scientific treatment of causes. The "fun- 
damental causes" are conflicts of "interests" which are not supposed to be 
touched by propaganda or law suits. 00 To the Southern liberal of a more 
contemplative temper, the struggle of the N.A.A.C.P. is a Don Quixotian 
battle against the unshakable "folkways and mores" of his unhappy 
region. 07 To the younger school of more or less Marxian-influenced Negro 
intellectuals, the N.A.A.C.P.'s policy is in the main only an evasion of the 
central problem, which is the economic one. 08 Different as these critical 
judgments are in motivation, they all express the fundamental defeatism 
in regard to the upholding of law and order which has become so wide- 
spread among American intellectuals of all colors and political creeds.* 

This pessimism is exaggerated and, consequently, the criticism against 
the N.A.A.C.P. is largely unjustified. In our inquiry we started out by 
stressing the faltering systems of law and order in America. The low legal 

'See Chapter 1, Sections 11 and iz. 



832 An American Dilemma 

culture, particularly in the South, was thereafter given great importance 
in nearly every specific aspect of our study. But we have also observed the 
definite trend toward a more equitable administration of the law in the 
South, and we have found that this trend is not unrelated to efforts of the 
type here discussed. With specific reference to the N.A A..C.P., the present 
writer is inclined to agree with James Weldon Johnson who was once sec- 
retary of the organization: 

There is a school that holds that these legal victories are empty. They are not. At 
the very least, they provide the ground upon which wc may make a stand for our 
rights. 69 

Very rightly Johnson points to the legal status of the Negro when the 
N.A.A.C.P. began to fight its battle, and the danger in the trend then under 
way, as the only basis for evaluating the organization: 

When the N.A.A.C.P. was founded, the great danger facing us was that we should 
lose the vestiges of our rights by default. The organization checked that danger. It 
acted as a watchman on the wall, sounding the alarms that called us to defense. Its 
work would be of value if only for the reason that without it our status would be 
worse than it is. 70 

Another Negro writer, Bertram W. Doyle, though of the "accommoda 
tion" schooJ, testifies to the same effect: 

The significance of the agitation for rights and equality, as exemplified in, say, 
Mr. Du Bois, formerly a guiding spirit in tiie National Association for the Advance- 
ment of Colored People, was that under his scheme the races were not to be allowed 
to come to terms, and race relations were not again to be fixed in custom and formu- 
lated in codes before the Negro had fully experienced his freedom. Resistance to 
compromise has, then, helped to keep the racial situation in a state of flux and his 
tended to serve notice on the white man that weaker peoples expect him to live up 
to the principle established in his laws— those laws to which he proclaims loyalty. 71 

Thus, an evaluation of the N.A.A.C.P. requires us to examine the cases 
won by it and to note the effects of these victories. In the field of residential 
segregation, while the N.A.A.C.P. has not succeeded in getting the courts 
to outlaw private restrictive covenants, it has succeeded in having all laws 
to enforce residential segregation declared unconstitutional. This has meant 
that the Negroes are not completely ghettoized, and that they can expand 
in a city, though with much difficulty." More important, the legal fight still 
goes on, and it is not improbable that the Supreme Court will soon come 
to reverse its stand on the constitutionality of even the private restrictive 
covenants. Similarly, in regard to suffrage: it is true that the Southern 
states have so far succeeded in evading the Supreme Court decisions on the 

*$ee Chapter 29, Sections 3 and 4.. 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 833 

unconstitutionality of the white primary by having the primaries arranged 
as private party affairs.* But the fight is continuing, and even this barricade 
may fall as the "grandfather clauses" fell earlier. Perhaps the poll tax 
stipulations also will be declared unconstitutional if Congress does not make 
them illegal first. Likewise, though the decision in the Gaines Case will 
probably not open the Southern universities to Negroes in the near future, 
it is already forcing the Southern states to take action to improve the edu- 
cation situation for Negroes. Generally speaking, the fight against injustice 
and discrimination in the South and the keeping of national attention on 
the matter are social forces working for change which it seems unrealistic 
not to take into account. 

The young Negro intellectuals who are critical of the N.A.A.C.P. have, 
however, a more positive point in mind." On second thought they will 
usually concede the importance of the legal fight and also agree that it has 
crystallized the Negro protest. But they insist that the N.A.A.C.P. has not 
attacked the fundamental economic problems. 11 They want the N.A.A.C.P. 
to come out with a radical economic program. They understand that this 
would alienate from the organizations many of their white and Negro 
supporters, 72 but apparently they do not care about this or about the loss in 
effectiveness of the present activity which would be a consequence. 

This criticism is not new. Early in the history of the Association, the 
Socialists clamored against the narrow racial program of the N.A.A.C.P. 
They wanted it to attack the economic system, to embrace the economic 
and political philosophy of socialism. In later years, the Communist party 
has likewise been insisting that any Negro organization which does not 
devote itself to the revolutionary cause is futile. As an aftermath of this 
discussion, the young Negro intellectuals today — who are not Communists 

* See Chapter 22, Section 2. 

* We shall exemplify this widespread criticism of the N.A.A.C.P., as well as the other 
Negro betterment organizations, by statements made by Bunche in the work which has been 
basic to the description and analysis presented in this chapter. Even if we differ from 
Bunche on fundamental points, we want to stress that we have chosen to use his presentation 
as an object for criticism, not because it is weak, but, on the contrary, because it is the 
most clearly argued and ablest presentation of a view which we cannot share. 

'"The N.A.A.C.P. unquestionably deserves full credit for setting a new pattern of 
thought among Negroes with respect to their problems. The vigor with which the Associa- 
tion, from the date of its inception, fought for the rights of Negroes before the couru 
opened the eyes of the Negro to an entirely new vista." (Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 1, p. 1+1.) 

*". . . it [the N.A.A.C.P.] has ignored the fundamental conditions giving rise to the 
race problem. It has understood well enough that the Negro suffers from race prejudice, 
but has failed to concern itself with the root causes of race prejudice." (Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 
1+2 j compare ibid., Vol. t, pp. 145, fatsim.) 

". . . the South must be subjected to a new agrarian and industrial revolution before 
any significant changes in the fundamental relationship — political, economic or racial — 
will occur. This is what the N.A.A.C.P. apparently lacks the understanding and courage 
to face." (Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 147.) 



$34 An American Dilemma 

and often not even Socialists — deprecate the N.A.A.C.P. as "bourgeois" 
and "middle class." 

To this criticism the N.A.A.C.P. answers that it considers its work in the 
civil liberties sphere important enough not to be lightheartedly jeopardized 
by radical adventures in other directions. It has machinery set up for this 
work, and three decades' experience has gone into perfecting it. This is a 
form of capital working for the Negro people which should not be squan- 
dered. It has "good-will" and a public "respectability" which might appear 
only as an object of ridicule to the radical intellectual but which, in the 
daily fight of the organization, is an asset. For a Negro protest or better- 
ment organization to adopt a revolutionary program would be suicidal for 
the organization and damaging to the Negro cause." 

To the outside observer the reasons are strongly on the side of the 
N.A.A.C.P. against its critics. The American Constitution and the entire 
legal system of the land give the Negro a strategic strength in his fight 
against caste which it would be senseless not to utilize to the utmost. As it 
is possible to get the support of the Northern liberals — and of an increas- 
ing number of the Southern liberals, too— in the Negroes' fight for justice, 
this should be taken advantage of. A more or less radical economic program 
would not only jeopardize this support, but from a technical viewpoint, it is 
also impracticable to over-burden an agency with such divergent tasks. 

Leaving aside their assumption that the economic factors are "basic,"" 
the critics are, of course, right in urging that there be organized efforts to 
tackle the Negroes' difficulties in breadwinning and, particularly, in gain- 
ing entrance into the labor unions. The question is, however, whether or 

' "I feel very strongly that critics of the Association are not being- reasonable where 
they maintain? in the light of the known American public opinion, and the known shackled 
condition of the Negro in the country, that an organization for his improvement should 
embark upon a political and economic revolutionary program. 

"These organizations, if you will, must be somewhat opportunistic in their operation. 
The identification of the Negro's cause prominently and predominantly with a political 
and economic revolutionary program would be suicidal. The dangers inherent in such a 
procedure are but demonstrated by the fact that no racial group in America has adopted 
such a program. 

"Indeed, it may be questioned whether the white masses have accepted such a philosophy 
as the way out of their obvious difficulties. Only an infinitesimal minority of persons in 
this country subscribes openly to and works actively in such a program. To ask the Negro, 
the most vulnerable, the poorest, the one most at mercy of the majority, to embark upon 
this is asking more than is practicable or sensible." (Roy Wilkins, in memorandum of 
March iz, 1941.) 

"The white masses of America are not radical, to say nothing of the black masses. They 
are radical only with respect to the status of the Negro; on all other matters they are 
ai conservative as the average American." (Roy Wilkins in memorandum of August 
ii,* 194a.) 

*See Chapter 3, Section 5, and Chapter 38, Section 6. 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 835 

not this is the proper task for the N.A.A.C.P. To an extent it is, undoubt- 
edly, and the Association has, during the New Deal, become increasingly 
active in fighting discrimination in public welfare policy and in the labor 
market. Outside such questions of discriminatory legislation and adminis- 
tration as the Association is particularly competent to handle, it leaves 
most of these problems to the Urban League, and the two organizations 
even have a gentleman's agreement of long standing to observe such a divi- 
sion of responsibility. The Urban League has, however, even stronger rea- 
sons for not embarking upon broad and fundamental economic reform pro- 
grams, as we shall see shortly. 

There is thus, unquestionably, room for more concerted action on the 
side of the Negro people. Particularly there is need of an agency attempt- 
ing to integrate Negro labor into the trade union movement. 11 But the real- 
ization of this need should not be turned into criticism of the existing 
agencies serving other functions. Instead, the critics should go ahead and 
form the organizations they see the need of — soliciting advice and aid 
in their work from the experienced and established organizations. These 
critics — like most people who discuss the Negro protest and betterment 
organizations — assume without question that there should be just one unified 
Negro movement. We shall take up this important problem of Negro 
strategy later. Our conclusion will be that a suppressed minority group like 
the Negro people is best served by several organizations dividing the field 
and maximizing the support that can be gained from different groups of 
whites. 

In this light should also be judged the criticism against the N.A.A.C.P. 
that it has "not become an important factor in the national political 
scene." 73 In our discussion of the Negro in politics, we have observed the 
need for organizing, locally and nationally, a collective bargaining agency 
for the Negro people to deal with the political parties. 1 * But again there is 
a question whether the N.A.A.C.P. can undertake to carry out this task 
to a greater degree than it already does — which involves taking a stand in 
local and national political conflicts and supporting one party or the other 
— without losing in effectiveness in its primary function of fighting for legal 
equality for the Negro. Again it is a question of whether this task should not 
be given to another agency. 

An indisputable weakness of the N.A.A.C.P. is its lack of mass support. 

"See Chapter 18, Section 3. 
See Chapter 23, Sections 1 and 2. 

c ". . . the N.A.A.C.P. does not have a mass basis. It has never assumed the proportions 
of a crusade, nor has it ever, in any Binglc instance, attracted the masses of people to its 
banner. It is not impressed upon the mass consciousness, and it is a bald truth that the 
average Negro in the street has never heard of the Association nor of any of its leader?. 
It has shown a pitiful lack of knowledge of mass technique and of how to pitrh an appeal 



836 An American Dilemma 

This is, as we pointed out, admitted by the leaders of the Association.* When 
passing judgment on this problem of tactics, it should, in fairness, be recalled 
that we are actually asking why a severely disadvantaged group has not 
accomplished something which only rarely and imperfectly has been done 
among the whites in America. It should be borne in mind that the easiest 
means of rallying the American Negroes into a mass movement are such 
that they would destroy the organization. The Garvey movement demon- 
strated that the Negro masses can best be stirred into unity by an irrational 
and intensively racial, emotional appeal, the very thing which both the 
Association and its critics rightly shun. It is also questionable whether — as 
some of the critics of the Association hold — a greater stress on economic 
reform by itself has any more appeal than the fight against lynching and 
injustice. Poor and uneducated people all over the world are not particu- 
larly interested in economic revolution or even economic reform but must 
be educated to have such an interest. 

When all this is said, it nevertheless stands out as a most pressing need 
for the organization to broaden its membership basis and to strengthen the 
activity of its branches. 74 There are, however, no easy panaceas available. 
It is the author's judgment that important steps are: (1) to have more 
working class members on the local boards} (2) to intensify propaganda in 
the schools and among the youth j (3) to stress adult education by organiz- 
ing "study circles" and forums j (4) to get out more pamphlets and books 
on living issues and more printed directions both for individual studies and 
for adult education. More important, however, is the actual fighting done 
for the Negro. At present the war crisis is helping the Association win 
increasing support from the Negro people. Also in the somewhat longer 
perspective, the future seems promising for the Association. As the Negro 
masses are becoming educated and more articulatp, and as the Negro protest 
is rising, this courageous organization with its experienced and cautious 
tactics will be able to count on increasing support. 



so as to reach the ears of the masses. Were it able to stir the people, it could establish itself 
on a sound and independent financial basis; it could develop a feeling of solidarity among 
Negroes j and it could then employ an expanded paid professional leadership which would 
make possible the execution of an effective national program." (Bunche, op. tit., Vol. i, 
p. 151; compare ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 142 ff.) 

* "There are weaknesses in our branch structure and we have not yet found the formula 
for selling to the public the nature, the extent, the details, and the significance of the 
Association's program. Some have suggested that we might follow the example of Marcus 
Garvey and others in the utilization of fancy titles and robes. The Association, however, 
has felt that reverting to some of these methods of attracting the masses would do more 
harm in the long run to the organization, than good." (Walter White, in letter, March 

"I believe that we recognize our lack of skill at mass appeal, and I believe we are on 
the way to doing something about it." (Roy Wilkins, in memorandum, March 1a, 1941-) 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 837 

10. The Urban League 

Much of what has been said of the N.A.A.C.P. applies also to the Urban 
League. Like the N.A.A.C.P., the Urban League is an interracial move- 
ment. Both organizations were started on white initiative. In 1906 a group 
of whites and Negroes formed The Committee for Improving the Indus- 
trial Conditions of Negroes in New York City. About the same time, 
another interracial group in New York formed The League for Protection 
of Colored Women. In 19 10 a third interracial group held a conference 
which constituted itself into The Committee on Urban Conditions Among 
Negroes. The following year these three organizations decided to merge 
into one: The National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes. The 
philanthropists, social workers, and professionals who made up the nucleus 
of the new organization "held that the Negro needed not alms but oppor- 
tunity — opportunity to work at the job for which the Negro was best fitted, 
with equal pay for equal work, and equal opportunity for advancement." 711 
The late professor, Edwin R. A. Seligman, became the first president of the 
organization. 

The National Urban League is the parent organization. It has its central 
office in New York. In order to expand the work of the League in Southern 
communities, it has a Southern Field Branch Office in Atlanta, Georgia. 
The National Urban League is governed by an Executive Board of fifteen 
persons of whom seven are Negroes and eight whites. The president of the 
organization was for many years L. Hollingsworth Wood, and the execu- 
tive secretary was Eugene Kinckle Jones, both of whom had been with the 
League since its beginning. They are now both retiring and are being 
replaced by William H. Baldwin and Lester B. Granger, respectively." 
Besides the executive secretary there is a staff of eight executive officers and 
ten office workers. One of the officers is white but all the other employees 
of the National League arc Negroes. The League publishes Opportunity 
and The Secretariat, the one directed to the general public, the other serving 
as house organ for the organization. The National League operates at 
present upon a budget of approximately $60,000 (including Opportunity). 
It is raised by contributions from foundations and from individuals. 78 

Local branches of the League are established in 46 cities. Of these, 12 are 
in the South, including the Border states, 1 are on the Pacific Coast, 1 2 are 
in the Northeast, and the remainder are in the Middle West. These figures 
reflect the history of the organization. It came into being to assist the 
unadjusted groups of Negroes migrating to Northern urban and industrial 
areas, but it has spread out to the Southern and West Coast cities which 
have similar needs. 

The local Urban Leagues are governed by interracial boards. Sometime;! 

* Mr. Jones retains the office of General Secretary but is on leave from his duties. 



83 S An American Dilemma 

there are other committees, usually interracial in composition. Many local 
Leagues, for example, have a committee on industrial relations. Each local 
office is staffed by a trained secretary, who is the responsible head of the 
work, and by specialized social workers and office workers, of a number 
determined by the financial resources of the local League. Thirty-nine of 
the forty-six local Urban Leagues are members of city-wide Community 
Chests, and most of these receive the greater part and often all of their 
financial resources from this source. Most local Leagues have incomes from 
individual contributions; some receive membership dues. For much of their 
work the local Leagues are able to solicit voluntary services from ministers, 
teachers, doctors, and other public spirited citizens in the Negro com- 
munity. The National Office estimates that the combined budget of the 
local branches at present approximates half a million dollars annually.* 

The activity of the local Urban Leagues is as wide in scope as modern 
social work when applied to the variegated needs of the poverty-stricken 
Negro communities. The outside observer cannot help but be impressed, 
not only by the urge to keep abreast of the latest developments in the 
broader social work field, but also with the attempts to find new solutions 
for the specialized problems of the Negro ghetto. It is apparent, however, 
that, particularly in the South, the Leagues work under tremendous handi- 
caps on account of indifference and even hostility from most white people 
and halfheartedness on the part of even white sponsors and friends. It is 
also apparent that, all over the country, the efficiency of the work is kept 
<down by inadequate financial resources. 

Any detailed description of the activities' of the local Leagues in attempt- 
ing to get even the smallest economic openings for Negro workers and, 
generally, to heal the wounds of caste and mass poverty is out of the ques- 
tion in this book. They touch problems of education, home and neighbor- 
hood, problems of youth, recreation, vocational guidance and training, 
welfare work, housing, health, morals and manners. The Leagues carry on 
day nurseries, sometimes with baby clinics, child placement agencies, and, 
occasionally, schools for Negro girls who have become pregnant; they 
organize clubs for boys, girls, mothers, neighborhood and other groups; 
training schools for janitors or domestics; parent-teacher associations; study 
groups in trade unionism ; health weeks, and so on. To mitigate delinquency 
among Negroes they offer to cooperate with the law-enforcement agencies 
and to perform such tasks as furnishing supplementary parole supervisors, 
safeguarding the interest of girls appearing in court, and, in some cases, 
finding homes for them. Fights are waged against commercialized prostitu- 

* The ttatemenu in this and the following paragraphs are founded upon Bundle, op. 
tit*. Vol. 2, pp. 220 £., upon information supplied by L. Hollingsworth Wood, Eugene 
Kinckle Jones, and Lester B. Granger of the National Urban League, and upon the 
writer's own observations. 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 839 

tion in the vicinity of Negro homes, schools and churches. Much of this 
welfare work involves considerable "case work." Though not desiring to 
duplicate the work of the regular welfare agencies, the Leagues, neverthe- 
less, Snd themselves involved in individual problems such as illness, old age, 
delinquency, unemployment, mental disorders, legal entanglement, drug 
addiction, illegitimacy and dependency. 

None of the local Leagues can afford to become active in all these fields, 
but a primary task of all Leagues is to find jobs, more jobs, and better jobs 
for Negroes. They all function as employment agencies. The attempt is to 
run these agencies in an active way, opening up new jobs and preventing 
loss of jobs already held by Negroes. They have to get into contact with 
employers and trade union officers and try to "sell" Negro labor — impress- 
ing upon the employers that Negro labor is efficient and satisfactory, and 
upon the unionists that the Negro is a good and faithful fellow worker. 
A careful check-up has to be made on references, and a reputation 
must be gained and defended for the type of labor offered. The possibilities 
of vocational training have to be kept open to Negro youth, and the youths 
themselves have to be encouraged to be ambitious. The civil service boards 
have to be watched so that they do not discriminate against Negroes, and 
Negroes must be encouraged to take civil service examinations. 

Not only in job placement activity, but also in attempting to get play- 
grounds, housing projects, schools, and other public facilities, the local 
Leagues work as pressure groups — with a tactic moderated by local cir- 
cumstances and by their financial dependence on the white community. They 
engage in educational propaganda among whites as well as among Negroes. 
Sometimes regular campaigns are staged. Some Leagues have — openly or 
under cover — sponsored boycotts on the formula, "Don't buy where you 
can't work." 

The National Urban League is the general staff for all this work. It 
directs and inspires it, coordinates and evaluates the experiments made in 
one place or another. It conducts community surveys and other research 
work. It educates and sometimes agitates: among the Negroes to improve 
themselves and among the whites to reduce prejudices and to give the 
Negroes a fair chance. Sometimes it concentrates on a pressure campaign 
to reach a particular goal. It uses its own publication, Opportunity, pam- 
phlets and books, the radio, the pulpit and the lecture platform. It initiates 
conferences and investigations and furnishes government agencies with 
expert advice. 

What the Urban League means to the Negro community can best be 
understood by observing the dire need of its activity in cities where there is 
no local branch. The League fills such an unquestionable and eminently use- 
ful community need that— were it not for the peculiar American danger 
of corruption and undue influence when something becomes "political" 



840 An American Dilemma 

—-it is obvious that the activity should be financed, and financed much more 
generously, from the public purse: by the city, the state and the federal 
government. The League's activity among maladjusted Negroes in the 
industrial cities of America has national importance. It is concerned with the 
effects of such nation-wide American phenomena as the migration from rural 
areas — partly caused by national agricultural policy — and the almost univer- 
sal economic discrimination against Negroes by whites.* 

There are few informed persons in America, among either whites or 
Negroes, who do not appreciate the social service work done by the League. 
In many communities, however, white people often look upon the League 
as "dangerous," "radical" and too "friendly to labor." Among the younger 
Negro intellectuals, on the contrary, the League is commonly accused of 
being too "timid." The League has "made no serious effort to define its 
program in any fundamental way," it is said. 77 Because of its dependence 
upon white philanthropy, it advocates "a policy of racial expediency and 
conciliation, which is characterized by extreme opportunism." 78 

Against these charges the League retorts that "it is a social service organi- 
zation attempting to perform a helpful task in a limited field." 70 Indeed: 

. . . the League could not be considered as a Negro movement, but an organization 
of American citizens who are convinced that an important development in our 
democratic institutions is that of according to the large Negro minority in America 
their economic rights. . . . 

The League is truly an interracial movement and cooperatively interracial at that. 
It would be expected, therefore, that the League should advocate conciliation in its 
highest sense. Any movement of this character whiph advocates understanding through 
conference and discussion must necessarily refrain from advocating mass action of one 
race calculated to force the other group to make concessions. 80 

The dispute has come to center about the League's attitude toward trade 
unionism. The National Urban League stated long ago that its official 
policy is in favor of collective bargaining and against strike-breaking, pro- 
vided the unions are kept open to Negro workers. 81 There have been some 
incidents in which the League is alleged to have condoned strike-breaking. 82 
More important is the general accusation that the League has not whole- 
heartedly worked to integrate Negro workers into the labor movement. 83 
I have found: (1) that almost everywhere the functionaries of the local 
Leagues are definitely in favor of trade unionism; (2) that in many cities, 
particularly in the South, local opinion — as represented by the Community 
Chests and the boards of the leagues — hinders them from taking the action 
they would like to take to integrate Negro workers into labor unions; 
(3) that in still more cities, including many Northern cities, the unions do 
not take a very responsive attitude but are even more difficult to court than 
'See Part IV, especially Chapter 1a. 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 84.1 

are local employers; (4) that a League which might organize actual strike- 
breaking against a union open to Negroes — if it has ever occurred — is now 
out of the question everywhere; (5) that such an action, even against a 
union that openly discriminates against Negroes, is extremely unlikely in 
most cities and is not likely to occur except as a last resort. Generally speak- 
ing, local Urban Leagues change with the community, and, in most cities, 
change as much in advance of the community as is fossible while maintain- 
ing community good-will and financial support for their -program. Much 
the same is true about the National Urban League. As the trade union 
movement and collective bargaining are gradually becoming normal and 
appreciated factors in American society, the Urban League is increasingly 
holding the lead as a pro-union force working among the Negro people. 

This does not mean that it is likely that the League will ever become 
the agency needed in order to fight the Negroes' way into the labor unions. 
This should not be turned into a criticism of the League but into positive 
thinking and action on the part of interested Negro experts and leaders to 
form such an agency, utilizing the experience, the advice, and the good- 
will from the League as well as from the N.A.A.C.P. The Negro leaders 
who see the need for a Negro movement with a broader and more radical 
economic program should not — from their own point of view — spend their 
fire in criticizing this useful social service agency, which has been able to 
solicit so much help from the whites and to soothe so much suffering among 
the Negro people. They should, instead, appreciate what is obvious to any 
impartial observer: namely, that this organization, even though its tasks 
have been lowly, has been able to maintain a fighting spirit. It has been, and 
is now more than ever, pressing and fighting, intervening and proposing, 
educating and propagating for ideas and measures which — even from the 
point of view of its critics — are headed in the right direction even though 
they are not drastic enough in their opinion." Again we observe that the 
critics of the Negro organizations are making the tactical blunder of assum- 

* After reading this section, E. Franklin Frazier writes (letter, September 2, 194.2): 
"Although you have shown why the Urban League has not reached Negro workers as 
some critics have charged, I still feel that this is a defect in their program which is not 
attributable solely to lack of resources but rather to the general outlook of the leaders. I 
agree with you that much educational work must be done to secure the cooperation of 
Negro workers. In fact education of the upper layer of the Negro working class should 
have been and is still an important function of the Urban League. But still I feel that their 
general outlook and the class position of its leaders have been responsible to a large extent 
for their failure to carry on such an educational program. For example, I recall that in 
one city where they attempted to organize a Workers' Council they invited only professional 
people and neglected the more intelligent and more articulate members of the working 
class. As I was invited to the meetings I pointed out this defect but still the leaders insisted 
upon getting the professional class or educated people. I do not think that the Workers' 
Councils which the Urban League has formed have had much influence upon the Negro 
working class." 



842 An American Dilemma 

ing as self-evident that there should be only one unified Negro move- 
ment. 8 * 

11. The Commission on Interracial Cooperation* 

The Commission on Interracial Cooperation, or the Interracial Commis- 
sion, as it is commonly known, like the N.A.A.C.P. and the Urban League, 
is not a Negro movement proper but a joint effort by whites and Negroes. b 
While the two former organizations have a national scope and their central 
offices are in New York, the Interracial Commission works in the South only 
and has its center in Atlanta, which is also the headquarters of the Ku Klux 
Klan and the capital of Georgia, one of the most backward states in the 
Union. 

This is indicative of much. The N.A.A.C.P. as a militant protest organiza- 
tion needs to work in an atmosphere where it can speak and act freely. The 
Urban League as a social service institution for unadjusted Negroes in 
industrial cities needs to be near the main concentrations of urban Negroes 
as well as near the chief centers of white philanthropy. But the Interracial 
Commission has set itself the much more difficult task of working from 
within to improve race relations in the region they are worst. The other 
two organizations can be "national." The Interracial Commission needs to 
be recognized as "Southern." It can receive grants from Northern phi- 
lanthropy, which is an established Southern pattern, but, in order not to 
have its work appear as "outside meddling," the Commission must have 
its seat in the South, its leaders and officers must be Southerners, and they 
must lay stress on regional pride and patriotism. 

There are more differences which should be understood in the same light. 
In the other two organizations, Negroes played an important role almost 
from the start and soon took over almost the entire political work. They 
gradually became predominantly Negro organizations. The Interracial 
Commission, on the other hand, has been much more exclusively the out- 

* In our analysis of the interracial movement we choose to concentrate on the Commission 
for Interracial Cooperation and its local affiliates. It should not be inferred that we under- 
estimate the other agencies for interracial work even if we do not give any specific account 
of them. Much of what we have to say on the Atlanta Commission has bearing on some of 
the other agencies as well. Other agencies like the Commission on Race Relations of the 
Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America and the Interracial Departments of 
the Y. M. C. A, and Y. W. C. A. have different purposes, methods and sponsorship. (For 
analyses of these agencies, see Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 3, pp. 498 ff., and Paul E. Baker, 
of. at., pp. 24 ff.) 

'The following short analysis of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation is based 
upon the writer's own observations and upon Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 3, pp. 444. ff., Paul E. 
Baker, pp. cit., pp. 17 ff., various publications of the Commission, information given by 
Howard W. Odum, Will W. Alexander, R. B. Eleazer. Jessie Daniel Ames, Emily H. 
day of the Commission, and Arthur F. Raper, formerly the Research Secretary of the 
Commission. 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 843 

come of white people's activity. The Commission can employ Negro field 
workers, but it cannot, without endangering its good-will, have a single 
Negro employee working in its office. 85 The N.A.A.C.P. tries, at least, to 
get mass support and the Urban League works, of course, mostly with poor 
Negroes. The Interracial Commission, on the contrary, has had to direct 
its main effort on "the best elements of the two races." The two other 
organizations are, in a measure, opportunistic, as must be all minority 
organizations for concerted action. The Interracial Commission has to go 
much further in compromise in its practical work. These differences are all 
explained by differences in the tasks approached and the political conditions 
under which the organizations are working. No one who has read earlier 
parts of this inquiry will lightheartedly turn them into criticism against the 
Southern interracial movement. 

Like Southern liberalism itself,* of which the interacial movement is an 
operative part, the attempt to bring representatives of the two groups 
together in constructive efforts to improve race relations in the South has a 
long history. Thomas Nelson Page wrote in 1904: 

A possible step in reaching the solution of the question might be for a reasonably 
limited number of representative Southern men to meet in conference a reasonable 
number of those colored men of the South who are more familiar with actual condi- 
tions there, and thus are representative of the most enlightened and experienced 
portion of that race. These, in a spirit of kindness and of justice, might confer 
together and try to find some common ground on which both shall stand, and formu- 
late some common measures as to which both sides shall agree and which both shall 
advocate. 88 

Booker T. Washington and his white supporters in the South had the same 
vision. It is related that after the Atlanta riot in 1906, Washington boarded 
the first train for the city and interested the leading white people in con- 
ferring with a limited number of prominent Negroes in the local com- 
munity. 87 Ray Stannard Baker said that "this was the first important occa- 
sion in the South upon which an attempt was made to get the two races 
together for any serious consideration of their differences." 88 There had, 
however, previously been some conferences on Southern education spon- 
sored by Northern philanthropists. Too, many churches and other religious 
institutions had earlier sponsored interracial work, and they are still active 
in it. 

Nevertheless, the Commission on Interracial Cooperation represented a 
new and courageous start. It was organized in 1919 as an effort to meet the 
great uncertainty and strain in the relations between whites and Negroes 
after the First World War. 8 * The leading spirit of the movement and, later, 
the director of the work was W. W. Alexander. The purpose of the new 
organization was: 

* See Chapter si, Section 5. 



844 An American Dilemma 

... to quench, if possible, the fires of racial antagonism which were flaming at that 
time with rach deadly menace in all sections of the country. 90 

Local interracial committees were started, and a series of ten-day schools 
for whites and Negroes, respectively, were held for the purpose of training 
leaders of both races to promote the interracial work. The schools con- 
centrated upon community readjustment and care for the returning troops. 91 
Started for the purpose of meeting a temporary emergency, the Commis- 
sion's work was so successful and was deemed so important that it was 
decided to transform it into a permanent institution. 

In the beginning the Commission sought to build up a network of local 
interracial committees. At one time there were state committees in every 
Southern state and local committees in more than eight hundred counties. 
A staff of salaried officers organized and directed great numbers of volunteer 
workers. During this early period a main emphasis in the Commission's 
program was placed on the correction of specific wrongs in the local com- 
munities. During the 'thirties the Commission encountered financial dif- 
ficulties in keeping up its field staff. There was also some disappointment 
over the work in the local branches. The emphasis was then shifted to the 
educational approach and to the work of the Atlanta office. In 1938 only 
three of the Southern state commissions were even formally functioning. 03 
At that time the Commission changed policy and started again to reorganize 
and revitalize state and local committees. 88 This reorganization work is still 
going on. 

The center of the activity is the Atlanta office, which employs three 
white officers and four white office workers. The Executive Director is Will 
W. Alexander, and the Associate Director is C. H. Tobias j Alexander is 
white, Tobias is a Negro. Neither of these is actively engaged in the actual 
work of the Commission at the present time. The President is a prominent 
Southern white liberal, Howard W. Odum. The work is directed by a main 
governing Commission of 104 whites and 53 Negroes, representing the 
whole South." The Commission meets annually. Abstaining from laying 
down any fixed constitution, 94 the main Commission and the Atlanta office 
carry on their own activity and assist in steering the activity of the state 
and local committees. 98 The Commission works on a yearly budget of around 
$70,000. 98 It is estimated that approximately 85 per cent of the financial 
support of the Commission comes from foundation grants. 97 

The Commission on Interracial Cooperation is the organization of South- 
ern liberalism in its activity on the Negro issue. In its publications it 
demands a fair opportunity for the Negro as a breadwinner j equal partici- 
pation in government welfare programs j equal justice under the law} suf- 

«* "Although the membership is composed of more white people than Negroes, our 
meetings are usually, attended by a larger number of Negroes." (Emily H. Clay in letter, 
August 14, 1941.) 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 845 

frage and other civil liberties. It does not attack segregation but stands up 
against discrimination. 11 The South is far from having achieved the Com- 
mission's aims, and the liberal forces of the region are weak. The Commis- 
sion is, therefore, compelled to adopt in practice a gradualistic approach. 
"Sometimes asking for all you want is the best way to get nothing." R. B. 
Eleazer, the Educational Director of the Commission, has explained these 
tactics in the following words: 

The philosophy of the movement is not that of "seeking to solve the race problem," 
but simply that of taking the next practical step in the direction of interracial justice 
and good will. 88 

The chief political means of approaching the-goal set up by the Commission 
are conciliation, moral persuasion and education. Its practical task is formu- 
lated as the attempt to promote: 

. . . the creation of a better spirit, the correction of grievances, and the promotion 
of interracial understanding and sympathy. 1 ' 

* "The Commission has taken positive and public stands in its monthly paper The 
Southern Frontier, in its county forums, and at annual state conventions, on questions 
involving political and economic equality and extension of equal participation in all 
social and public welfare benefits. These include elimination of the white primary, 
abolition of the poll tax as a qualification for voting, Negro policemen, equal pay for 
equal work, including equalization of teachers' salaries, equal training in skilled and semi- 
skilled work, opening of tax-supported hospitals to Negro doctors, and equal provision of 
recreational centers for Negroes. Legislatively, the Commission, in cooperation with state 
committees, has worked to secure appropriations for graduate and professional training for 
Negroes and for the creation of training schools for Negro girls; in fact, the Commission's 
program, through its state and local committees, has included every field of public service 
supported wholly or in part with tax funds." (Memorandum by Jessie Daniel Ames, 
August, 1940.) 

11 A Practical Approach to the Race Problem, pamphlet issued by the Commission on 
Interracial Cooperation (1939); cited by Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 3, p. 456. 

The difference in tactics between the Commission and other organizations such as the 
N.A.A.C.P., as viewed by the Commission itself, is expressed in a lecer.t report from the 
Commission's Negro field secretary, Dr. C. H. Bynum, communicated to me by Emily H. 
Clay (in a letter of August 24, 1942). Bynum says: 

"In my opinion there is no fundamental difference in the programs of the Commission 
and other more vocal groups. The differences are in the approaches to the problem of race 
relations. We break down the general objective and others use the general compounded 
objective. We consolidate gains; others attempt 'blitz splits in the lines.' We use educational 
agencies; others seek greater concentration of governmental control. We balance permanent 
gains against probable imposed ruptures; others fight for violent ruptures predicated upon 
revolutionary changes. 

"My personal predictions are without value, but history indicates that we may suffer 
heartbreaking reversals in race relations when peace comes. Southern culture patterns may 
bend, but they will not break. Who knows what will be the outcome of continued 'invasion 
of states rights'? No pessimist am I, but I prefer the surety of acceptance to the resentment 
of imposition. Acceptance may become a part of the general culture; imposition will 



846 An American Dilemma 

In this spirit the Commission has sponsored and carried out important 
researches on various phases of the Negro problem, such as cotton tenancy 
and lynching.* It publishes monthly The Southern Frontier* and a great 
number of pamphlets and educational material. It tries to influence the 
white press to give more favorable publicity to Negroes and to suppress such 
material as is likely to inflame white opinion. For this purpose it maintains 
a press service which goes to both the white and the Negro press. The 
Commission arranges interracial meetings for students and churchgoers. 
The Commission carries its message to conventions, conferences, and synods, 
and through the church press. The Commission has encouraged the intro- 
duction of courses on race relations in hundreds of colleges and high schools 
throughout the South. It has succeeded in getting pledges from 750 college 
professors, representing 400 white colleges of the South, to give rational 
discussions of race relations and of Negro capacity and achievement." It 
attempts to influence strategic persons in state and local governments to give 
the Negroes more consideration. Sometimes the Commission enters legal 
redress work in selected cases which have broader applications. The Com- 
mission has thus recently, by following a peonage case to the Supreme 
Court, succeeded in getting Georgia's labor contract law pronounced uncon- 
stitutional, 100 and is at present carrying another case to the Supreme Court 
involving a young Negro accused of rape, whose guilt is very doubtful. 101 

From the beginning a main interest of the Commission was that of stamp- 
ing out lynching. It has carried its attack through all the publicity agencies 
which could be used and especially directed it to women, officers of the law 
and of the courts, and to the church. In 1931 the Commission organized the 
Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, headed 
by Jessie Daniel Ames, the Director of Field Work in the Atlanta Office. 
This organization has succeeded in aligning more than 40,000 women, who 
have pledged themselves to take certain active steps to help eliminate this 
blight on the South. Besides the prevention of lynching, the educational 
activity of the Commission covers health protection, sanitation, housing, 
relief, tenancy, agricultural adjustment, resettlement, and so on. The Com- 
mission has been active in securing Negro representation on boards and 
committees on government programs. 

The Commission has a large share in the achievement of the dramatic 

engender smoldering feelings which may at any hour leap into a blazing flame of 
madness." 

'"The Commission's research program was abandoned in 1939 and no research 
work has been carried on since that time, a large number of our members being of the 
opinion that the greater results could be obtained by directing our efforts to activities in 
the field." (Memorandum by Emily H. Clay, August, 1942.) 

k The circulation of The Southern Frontier, which began in January, 1940, has now 
reached 3,300. (Emily U. Clay, letter, August 14, 1942.) 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 847 

decrease in lynching, and generally, in the greater enforcement of law in the 
South during the last two decades. The Commission was able largely to 
nullify the influence of the fascistic Black Shirt movement that grew up 
during the 1930's to eliminate Negroes from all jobs while there was any 
unemployment of whites. Few other organizations could have made the 
effective appeal to Southern whites which the situation called for. The 
Commission's surveys — for instance, of the tenancy problem — have been 
of great importance in the national discussion and for national policy. The 
work of the Farm Security Administration," which for a long period was 
headed by W. W. Alexander, the Director of the Commission, is much in 
line with the efforts of the Commission and has set in effect many plans 
propagated and partly prepared by the Commission. The Commission has 
had its important part in the development of a friendlier attitude toward 
the Negro on the part of the white press in the South. The local interracial 
committees have also gotten much for the Negroes: 

. . . scores of Negroes have been extended legal aid in cases in which they were 
subjected to persecution, intimidation or exploitation; sewers, street paving, water, 
lights, library facilities, rest rooms, and other civic advantages, such as parks, play- 
grounds, pools and other recreation facilities, have been obtained for Negro com- 
munities; community chests have been induced to include Negro welfare agencies in 
their budgets; day nurseries and social centers have been conducted, and the appoint- 
ment of colored probation officers has been secured. 102 

The fact that in most of these" and other respects the Negro is still dis- 
criminated against in the South should not be allowed to conceal the fact 
that many small changes here and there have occurred, due to the activity 
of the interracial movement. 

The Commission has not escaped criticism from conservative Southerners. 
The President of the Commission, Howard W. Odum, tells us: 

It [the Commission] has been investigated by the Ku Klux and by the Talmadge 
regime, and many efforts have been made "to get it." In recent years I have had very 
critical letters from some of the "best" people protesting against the radical view- 
point which the Commission has taken within the last few years. 108 

But, as we have pointed out earlier in this inquiry, one of the most impor- 
tant accomplishments of the Commission — which has a far-reaching cumula- 
tive effect — is to have rendered interracial work socially respectable in the 
conservative South. Liberal white Southerners, on their part, have usually 
backed the Commission. Whites in the North, outside the philanthropists, 
seldom know or care much about this work. 

Negroes, on the other hand, tend to be critical of the Commission — even 
the older and more conservative Negro leaders. Few Negroes in the South 
have wholeheartedly praised its work. Several of the Negroes who have 

'See Chapter 12, Section 11. 



848 An American Dilemma 

taken part in the local interracial committees or in the Atlanta Commission 
have privately made acid comments on the interracial movement. They 
complain that the white participants are not sincere enough, and that there 
is too much of the old paternalism in the whole approach. The Commission 
is frequently called a "face saving" device, a "gesture organization." But 
these observations were made in the years 1938-1939, when the activity in 
the local committees was at a low ebb and when the activity also of the main 
Commission was not as vigorous as earlier. The revitalization which the 
Commission has since gone through may have changed the attitudes of 
conservative Negro leaders. 

By the younger Negro intellectuals the Commission is condemned for 
the "naive assumption that when the two races know and understand 
each other better, the principal incidents of the race problem will then 
disappear." 1 " 4 The Commission is accused of having a "defeatist attitude, 
since it accepts the existing racial patterns while asking favors and exceptions 
with them." 11 The Commission is criticized for using "influence" instead of 
"pressure." They point out that the Commission does not reach, and has not 
even attempted to reach, the lower classes of whites and Negroes between 
whom the friction is most acute. 105 

This criticism seems too strong. It overlooks the power situation in the 
South. A movement which sets out to change public opinion and social 
institutions in the South and which wants to reap some fruit in the near 
future must make opportunism its tactical principle. It must develop an 
indirect approach instead of a direct attack. And it is no "naive assumption" 
that ignorance fortifies race prejudice, injustice and discrimination in the 
South. Education and cooperation will, therefore, have their effects even if 
they are slow to develop liberal political power which can force great 
reforms. The Commission is a useful agency. This, of course, should not 
exclude other and more radical efforts at the same time. Also it does not 
exclude a criticism that the Commission could work more effectively. But its 

'Bundle, of. tit., Vol. 4, pp. 557 ft. 

"In the very nature of race relations in this country, the white members of the interracial 
groups must take upon themselves the responsibility for fixing the measures of values in 
inter-group relationships. It is not merely a question of Itotu much the Negro is to ask 
for or to expect, but also hovo he is to ask for it, or indeed, whether he should ask for it at 
all, since it may often be more 'strategic' to permit his sympathetic white friends to act 
on his behalf. It is the whites alone who are in a position to advise the Negro that it is 
better for him to ask for little and to anticipate something than to ask for too much and 
gain nothing. It is the white, also, who can lean on realism an'd inform the Negro that 
if he goes before responsible officials in the community and demands or asks for benefits, 
Hi appeals are apt to be ignored. Whereas, if his white friends appear in his behalf, he 
has a better chance to receive the favor. That this half-a-loaf approach of the inter- 
racialist has won local benefits of various kinds for Negroes in particular communities is 
not denied j but this is no storming of the bastions of racial prejudice nor does it even 
aim toward them." (Ibid., Vol. 4, pp. 5 5 9-5 60.) 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 849 

main tactics must be condoned. These tactics are radical in the South, and 
among white people they can secure the backing of only the small group of 
Southern liberals. 

If this is agreed, the question remains, however, whether the Commis- 
sion could not be made into a more efficient organ for Southern liberalism. 
While liberalism generally has been on the advance, the interracial move- 
ment seems to have been losing out during the 'thirties. The Commission 
has not fulfilled the promises it once gave. The South has been changing" 
and there have been many new possibilities which the movement has not 
utilized. When the writer traveled in the South in 193 8- 1939 and observed 
the great needs and weak efforts, he felt strongly that there was room for 
more courage and vision in the work of the Commission. The respectability 
the Commission has built up for interracial work in the South is a form of 
capital, but as such it is of no use at all if it is not invested, and even risked^ 
in new ventures. What is called for is, indeed, something of the spirit of 
the young W. W. Alexander when he first led the movement and before 
he was drawn into other important activities — that spirit, expanded and 
adjusted to the new situation. The post-war crisis in the South will not be 
minor. Already there are signs of unusual restlessness among both whites 
and Negroes in the South. A revitalized Interracial Commission will be 
much needed. 

From this viewpoint the reestablish ment of state and local committees, 
which has been started, seems to be an important move in the right direc- 
tion. So as to be more influential in the political development of the region, 
a broader appeal must be attempted, in order to reach directly even the 
middle and lower classes of whites. Until recently the Commission has been 
working mainly with the "intelligent leadership" of the South and it admits 
that "the mass mind is still largely untouched." 100 The reservation should 
be made, however, that through the press, the churches, and the schools 
the Commission has already been influencing even the "mass mind." The 
new labor unions offer an opportunity for far-reaching work with the 
industrial workers. 

The efforts to tie larger groups of the Southern people to the Commis- 
sion's work are important also in order to lay a firmer financial basis for its 
work. It is demoralizing for the South to rely nearly exclusively on North- 
ern philanthropy. The movement is working for interests which are vital 
for the future of the South. The liberals in the region should be made to 
feel that they are accomplishing something by their own sacrifices. There are 
people in the South with substantial incomes, and, while it is true that most 
of them are conservative and inclined to look upon any sort of activity in 
the field of race with apprehension, some are liberal and might be made to 
see their responsibility. But even apart from such gifts, ordinary people 

* See Chapter ai, Section 4. 



850 An American Dilemma 

with moderate means can afford to pay membership dues. 107 If the Com- 
mission could raise its budget, this would greatly increase the possibilities of 
building up local organizations and of intensifying its work in all directions. 
The present War and the peace crisis to follow it will severely test the 
whole work of the Commission. It is attempting to meet this test by 
increased activity. 

12. The Negro Organizations' During the War 

A War fought in the name of "the four freedoms" is a great opportunity 
for Negro organizations. The exclusion of Negroes from defense jobs, the 
limited opportunities and maltreatment of Negro soldiers, the restrictions 
in the Army and Navy, bring home to every Negro individual the cause 
for which the Negro organizations are fighting. 

In the First World War, Du Bois, then the leader of the N.A.A.C.P., 
wrote his famous article in The Crisis, "Close the Ranks," in which he 
virtually postponed the settlement of Negro grievances until the end of the 
War: 

We o£ the colored race have no ordinary interest in the outcome. That which the 
German power represents spells death to the aspirations of Negroes and all dark 
races for equality, freedom, and democracy. Let us not hesitate. Let us, while the 
war lasts, forget our special grievances and close ranks shoulder to shoulder with our 
white fellow-citizens and the allied tuitions that are fighting for democracy. We 
make no ordinary sacrifice, but we make it gladly and willingly with our eyes lifted 
to the hills. 108 

With few exceptions, Negro leaders in the Second World War have taken 
a different stand. They stress, of course, the loyalty of the Negro, but they 
do it more to inflate racial pride and to lay a basis for the accusations against 
the dominant whites who do not allow the Negro to make his full contri- 
bution to the war effort. They keep on emphasizing that Negro morale is 
low because of injustices and humiliations. They demand full civic, politi- 
cal and economic equality more strongly than ever. Walter White, in a 
statement issued a few days after the Pearl Harbor catastrophe, is typical 
of this Negro policy: 

Memories of all Negroes except those of the very young are bitter-green regarding 
the last World War. ... I urge [Negroes] to remember that the declarations of war 
do not lessen the obligation to preserve and extend civil liberties here while the fight 
is being made to restore freedom from dictatorship abroad. . . . 

We Negroes are faced with a Hobson's choice. But there is a choice. If Hitler 
wins, «rery single right we now possess and for which we have struggled here in 
America for three centuries will be instantaneously wiped out by Hitler triumphs. If 
the Allies win, we shall at least have the right to continue fighting for a share of 
democracy for ourselves. 109 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 8;x 

For the Negro organizations, the War has provided more issues of 
immediate importance to attack. The organizations have increased in 
importance to the Negro people. Membership rolls have increased, par- 
ticularly for the N.A.A.C.P. A new impetus to organizational cooperation 
has set in. Churches and fraternal organizations have increasingly been 
drawn into this cooperation. National conferences of organizational leaders 
are held from time to time, sometimes on governmental initiative, but 
usually without it. The N.A.A.C.P. has, on the whole, been in the lead in 
this activity." 

One of the most interesting effects of the War is the emergence of a new 
Negro organization: The March-on-Washington Committee. A. Philip 
Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, in January, 
1 94 1, invited to a conference representatives of most of the Negro organi- 
zations. He proposed that a committee be formed to organize a march on 
the nation's capital to express the Negro protest against discrimination and 
to impress on the Administration the necessity of doing something about it. 
The Committee was formed, and preparation for the March made, when, 
on the initiative of Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, conferences were held 
between the President and members of the Administration, on the one 
hand, and members of the Committee, on the other hand. 110 The President 
issued an Executive Order intended to abolish all discrimination (on account 
of race, color, creed, or national origin) in employment in defense industries 
and government agencies, and appointed the Committee on Fair Employ- 
ment Practice to implement his order . b Randolph, on his side, called off the 
March for the time being. 

The March-on-Washington Committee, which, of course, gained a tre- 
mendous prestige among Negroes on account of its conspicuous success, did 
not dissolve. It did not even relinquish its idea of a March. The March-on- 
Washington movement remains a popular organization in many parts of the 
country. It is headed by a committee of national Negro leaders and has 
the backing of the major Negro organizations. It also has local affiliates. 
Its chief way of reaching the people is through mass meetings. The move- 
ment restricts its membership to Negroes. Randolph gives the reason for 
this: 

Just as the Jews hare the Zionist Movement fighting on their specific problem*} 
the workers have trade anions dealing with their specific problems; women have 
their movements handling their special problems, so the Negro needs an all-Negro 
movement to fight to solve his specific problems. . . . Nor does this all-Negro move- 
ment idea imply that interracial movements are not necessary, valuable and sound. 

* At a conference, in January, 1 942, of National Organizations on Problems of Negroef 
in a World at War, the N.A.A.C.P. was accepted as the clearing house for a number ol 
committees appointed to make recommendations on various problems. 

"See Chapter 19, Section 3. 



852 An American Dilemma 

It means that interracial movements need to be supplemented by specific religions 
groups of Jews and Catholics and Protestants. For no Negro is secure from intolerance 
and race prejudice so long as one Jew is a victim of anti-semitism or a Catholic is 
victimized as Governor Alfred E. Smith was by religious bigotry during the 
Presidential campaign against Herbert Hoover, or a trade unionist is harassed by a 
tory open-shopper. 111 

The March-on-Washington movement is interesting for several reasons. 
It is, on the one hand, something of a mass movement with the main back- 
ing from Negro workers, but has at the same time the backing of the 
established Negro organizations. Though a mass movement, it is disci- 
plined and has not used racial emotionalism as an appeal. It demonstrates 
the strategy and tactics of orderly trade unionism. For the Negro cause it 
is prepared to use pressure even against the President. But it knows just 
how far it can go with the support that it has. Randolph, the leader of the 
movement, has so far (August, 1942) steered its course with admirable 
force and restraint. 

The outside observer may be allowed to express the opinion that the 
Negro strategy during the war crisis has been skillful. The Negro leaders 
know full well that they have immense possibilities of putting pressure 
upon the American nation during this War for democracy. The plight of 
the Negro people is so great that they cannot afford not to make use of 
these possibilities. But they are wise enough to adjust the tactics to the 
terrain in various issues and regions of the country, and are careful not to 
lose the sympathy of the liberal forces among the whites. I have the feeling 
that, during the struggle for Negro rights, the Negro organizations— 
principally the N.A.A.C.P., the Urban League, and the trade unions- 
have trained a small group of devoted and accomplished politicians much 
superior to the average run of white politicians. It is a great pity, and a Joss 
to the public life of the American nation, that these Negro leaders are 
limited to the Negro struggle alone and cannot get an outlet for their 
ability in tasks of more general importance. 

13. Negro Strategy 

Certain general observations and conclusions on Negro strategy should 
now be brought together. Before we do this, the value premises, which 
have been applied in the foregoing sections, should be made explicit. They 
are only an adaptation of the valuations contained in the American Creed 
which have been defined in the introductions to Parts III to VIII of this 
book. We are assuming that: 

1. It is neither practical nor desirable for American citizens of Negro 
descent to be deported from this country. The problem is how to adjust 
race relations in America. 

?. All concerted action by, or on behalf of, American Negroes should 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 853 

be judged by the criterion of its efficacy in contributing to the ultimate 
extermination of caste in America. The interests of the Negro feople in 
winning unabridged citizenship in American society are taken for granted 
in the American Creed. We are further assuming, as an evident matter of 
fact, that the power situation is such in America that Negroes can never 
hope to break down the caste wall except with the assistance of white people. 
Indeed, the actual power situation makes it an obvious Negro interest and, 
consequently, a general American interest to engage as many white groups 
as possible as allies in the struggle against caste. 

It is a peculiar trait of much of the discussion of Negro concerted action 
in America that it usually proceeds upon the assumption that one unified 
Negro movement is the desideratum. 112 This assumption is unrealistic and 
impractical for several reasons. For one thing, a unified Negro movement 
would not appeal to the Negro masses except by an emotional, race- 
chauvinistic protest appeal. Such a movement, even if it were staged 
differently from the Garvey movement, would probably estrange the 
greater part not only of the Negro intellectuals, but also of the rest of the 
Negro upper class. It would definitely estrange practically all white groups. 
By this we do not mean that the racial appeal should not be used at all. 
It has to be used, but with caution. Still less do we mean that the Negro 
masses should not be appealed to. They should, but by movements with 
specific and limited practical aims. If, because of these reservations, the 
Negro masses are not reached within the near future to the same extent as 
would be possible in a race-chauvinistic, unified Negro movement, that is a 
price which will have to be paid. 

When we look over the field of Negro protest and betterment organiza- 
tions, we find that only when Negroes have collaborated with whites have 
organizations been built up which have had any strength and which have 
been able to do something practical. Except for the March-on-Washington 
movement — which has a temporary and limited purpose and which, in 
addition, is backed by the regular organizations — all purely Negro organ- 
izations have been disappointments. There are several explanations for 
this. One is that Negroes on the whole are poor. The completely Negro 
organizations have usually not had the sort of financial backing which has 
been available to interracial organizations. Another explanation is the lack 
of political culture in the traditions of the Negro people, because they have 
been subdued for generations. Political culture is one of the last accomplish- 
ments of any civilization, and there is not too much of it in this great and 
heterogeneous country as a whole, particularly on the state and municipal 
levels where Negroes have most of their political contacts. A third explana- 
tion is the existence of the interracial organizations. They have naturally 
drawn to themselves much of the individual talent for political leadership 
in the Negro people. A fourth, and basic, explanation is the obvious fact in 



854 An American Dilemma 

die power situation, that it is advantageous and, indeed, necessary to have 
white allies in order to accomplish anything. 

Leaving aside the interpretation of the history of concerted action for 
Negro interests and facing the problem as a question of political strategy, it 
will be apparent that both the interest in keeping as allies as many white 
groups as possible and the interest in maintaining a high effectiveness in the 
work being done, speak for having, not one Negro organization, but a 
whole set of organizations specializing on different tasks and applying a dif- 
ferent degree of opportunism or radicalism. This means that none of the 
existing organizations should be criticized by applying the norm of an 
imaginary unified Negro movement, which would be expected to do all 
that the critics want done for the Negroes. 

There is thus need for a militant organization like the N.A.A.C.P. to 
uphold the great Abolitionist tradition, taking its stand on the American 
Constitution and fighting for equality in justice and for suffrage, keeping 
alive the unabridged ideals of the American Creed, but having enough 
opportunism to take advantage of the possibilities of even minor improve- 
ments within the segregated setup if that can be done without violating the 
grand strategy aimed at exterminating segregation in the future. Such an 
organization will always have its influential white adherents. There is also 
need for a social service organization like the Urban League, doing its 
work among the victims of caste, educating and protecting Negroes, and 
exerting its pressure against the dominant white society from the welfare 
point of view. In America there will always be white supporters for such 
work, and they will be drawn from wider circles than the liberals of Aboli- 
tionist traditions who will come out for the N.A.A.C.P. In addition, there 
is in the South a pressing need for an interracial movement — indeed a need 
for a much more efficient agency than the present Commission on Inter- 
racial Cooperation — to exploit regional pride and the will to interracial 
understanding among white Southerners. Everything churches and other 
groups can do to increase the number of white people in the South and the 
North who are willing to do something for Negroes is a clear gain for the 
Negro cause. 

There is little "overlapping" or "duplication" among the various existing 
Negro organizations. In so far as there is duplication, it is useful. It means 
that different white groups are being engaged for the same ultimate end 
who could not agree as to the immediate ends. Another important observa- 
tion is that there is actually little friction and rivalry among the three main 
organizations. The N.A.A.C.P. and the Urban League have been able, 
most of the time, to work out both a division of responsibility and — in 
certain respects — a collaboration. Even in relation to the Interracial Com- 
mission, there has been surprisingly little rivalry and destructive compe- 
tition. 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 855 

Instead of unification there seems to be need for further specialization. 
It is a pressing need that concerted action be taken to integrate Negro 
workers into the labor movement." It is a task of educating white and Negro 
workers and of fighting those labor organizations that discriminate against 
Negroes. This work cannot very well be done by any of the existing organ- 
izations without their becoming less efficient in the tasks they now perform 
and without their becoming weakened by losing some of their present 
white — and Negro — support. The Negro labor movement, which we thus 
propose, should also be interracial in order to be optimally strong and 
efficient. The chief difficulty in the way of its realization at present is the 
split in the American labor movement. Negro workers as a national group 
cannot afford to cast their entire lot in with the C.I.O., the A.F. of L., or 
with the John L. Lewis insurgents. Meanwhile, the local and occupational 
centers of a Negro labor movement that already exist are outposts, the 
importance of which should not be underestimated, nor should the services 
rendered for these groups by the N.A.A.C.P. and the Urban League. 

Negroes also need an agency to carry on — locally and nationally — a 
political collective bargaining with the political parties. 1 * This organization 
is the most difficult one to effectuate, since — unlike the others — it should 
preferably be a pure Negro organization. In order to work effectively it 
should be narrowly specialized to play the political game. It should, fur- 
ther, be manned by the most intelligent, the freest and the most respected 
Negro leaders. It should not be affiliated with any of the political parties. 
The National Negro Congress, in its short history, has shown how this task 
should not be approached. 

There is also need for a legal aid agency concentrating its work on im- 
proving the law enforcement of the South. The N.A.A.C.P. cannot function 
as such. To the degree that it does, this weakens it by drawing too heavily 
on its financial and personnel resources. Such an agency should preferably 
not be set up separately for Negroes, but should be an agency to defend the 
rights of all poor and disadvantaged people. It should not assist in the 
prosecution of strategic cases only, but of all cases where there has been 
injustice and illegality.* 

Some of the wisest Negro thinkers have understood that the Negro 

'See Chapter 18, Section 3; Chapter 38, Sections 6 and 7. Similar proposals are made 
by Horace R. Cayton and George S. Mitchell, The Black Workers and the Neva Unions 
( I 939)» especially pp. 4*5-434$ and W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn (1940), p. 107. 

'See Chapter 23, Sections t and 2. 

' See Chapter 26, Section 4. 

'The Civil Liberties Union does this sort of work, but its activity is not concentrated 
in the South and it restricts its work to defense of civil liberties rather than to all legal 
aid. The Union has some political ideals, which restrict its ability to get money. The 
organization we propose should be completely nonpolitical. 



856 An American Dilemma 

movement should split on several fronts and that it should make the most 
of possible allies among the whites. Kelly Miller has this to say: 

The progress of all peoples is marked by alterations of combat and contention on 
the one hand, and compromise and concession on the other, and progress is the result 
of the play and counterplay of these forces. Colored men should have a larger toler- 
ance for the widest latitude of opinion and method. Too frequently what passes as 
"an irrepressible conflict" is merely difference in point of view. 118 

James Weldon Johnson wrote: 

We should establish and cultivate friendly interracial relations whenever we can 
do so without loss of self-respect. 1 do not put this on the grounds of brotherly love 
or any of the other humanitarian shibboleths; I put it squarely on the grounds of 
necessity and common sense. Here we are, caught in a trap of circumstances, a minor- 
ity in the midst of a majority numbering a hundred and ten millions; and we have 
got to escape from the trap, and escape depends largely on our ability to command 
and win the fair will, at least, and the good will, if possible, of that great majority. . . . 

It seems to me that the present stage of our situation requires diversified leadership. 
I am certain that there are two elements which are necessary. We need an element of 
radicalism and an element of conservatism; radicalism to keep us from becoming 
satisfied and conservatism to give us balance; to the end that the main body will be 
steady, but alive, alert, and progressive. We should guard against being stagnant, on 
the one hand, or wild-eyed on the other. 11 * 

Negroes should attempt to develop that type of political culture which 
is ideal in any democratic nation. There must be radicals, liberals and 
conservatives. Viewed as a going system of collective action all three factions 
and many others have their "functions" in the concert. The intelligent 
citizen should be able to see this. It is required of him, of course, to take 
his own stand and to fight by his individual opinion, but, nevertheless, to 
be able, not only to "see the viewpoint of the other fellow," but actually to 
understand and appreciate his "function" in the system. When this mutual 
understanding is reached in a nation — which is a high stage of political 
culture — the radical or the conservative will find that it does not decrease 
in the least his efficiency in fighting for his own opinions. On the contrary, 
he can strike harder and better — at the same time as he becomes a little 
more careful about where he hits. 

An American Negro should, in the same way, select the front where he 
wants to take his stand. But he should keep his eyes wide open to the 
desirability that other Negroes have other stands. The Negro labor organ- 
izer should be grateful that there are others who fight for his civil liberties 
and still others who do the welfare work for his potential members. The 
militant Negro should be able to see the usefulness — in some situations— 
of some Negro leaders who understand how to do the "pussy-footing," and 
contrariwise. The present writer has found many individual Negro leaders, 
most of them active in the organizations discussed in this chapter, who see 



Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 857 

this fundamental principle of democratic politics more clearly than is com- 
mon among white Americans discussing national politics. 

The fact that Negroes will have to seek a maximum number of white 
allies should not, however, be a reason for neglecting the organization of 
the masses of Negroes. All efforts of their own are required for the Ne- 
groes' advancement. A. Philip Randolph, speaking vainly to the National 
Negro Congress when it went down, rightly observed: 

The only rational conclusion, then, seems to be that the Negro and the other 
darker races must look to themselves for freedom. Salvation for a race, nation, or 
class, must come from within. Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never 
given, it is exacted. Freedom and justice must be struggled for by the oppressed of 
all lands and races, and the struggle must be continuous, for freedom is never a final 
fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, 
economic, political and religious relationships. 115 

By this Randolph did not mean isolation in a black movement: 

But Negroes must not fight for their liberation alone. They must join sound, 
broad, liberal, social movements that seek to preserve American democracy and 
advance the cause of social and religious freedom. 116 

A word must be added on the moral aspect of Negro leadership. To the 
outside observer, one of the most discouraging facts in present-day America 
is the great indifference shown by the average white citizen toward corrup- 
tion in politics, particularly in the states and municipalities where Negro 
concerted action will have to do most of its work. In the shut-in Negro 
world, there are, as we have observed," so many special reasons for cynicism 
and amorality that dishonest leadership — except on the national level — is 
not unusual. 

To the Negro people dishonest leadership is a most important cause of 
weakness in concerted action. It should be preached against and fought 
against. It should be a main topic in the teaching at Negro universities, in 
the Negro journals, in Negro adult education. If a generation of young 
Negroes could be brought up to understand how scrupulous honesty could 
tremendously strengthen the Negro cause — and, incidentally, in the long 
run advance them individually much more than the petty handouts by 
which they are now tempted— this would mean a great deal for Negro 
progress. 

'See Chapter 36. 



CHAPTER 40 

THE NEGRO CHURCH 



1. Nonpolitical Agencies for Negro Concerted Action 

The primary functions of the Negro church, school, and press, which 
will be dealt with in this and the following two chapters, are not, of course, 
to be agencies of power for the Negro caste. Nevertheless, they are of 
importance to the power relations within the Negro community and 
between Negroes and whites. They bring Negroes together for a common 
cause. They train them for concerted action. They provide an organized 
followership for Negro leaders. In these institutions, theories of accommo- 
dation and protest become formulated and spread. These institutions some- 
times take action themselves in the power field, attempting to improve the 
Negro's lot or voicing the Negro protest. Even more often they provide 
the means by which Negro leaders and organizations, which are more 
directly concerned with power problems, can reach the Negro people. 

The Negro churches and the press are manned exclusively by Negroes. 

They are not interracial institutions as are the successful Negro protest and 

improvement organizations we analyzed in the preceding chapter. The 

school — when it is a "Negro school," that is, when it is segregated — is also 

almost always Negro-staffed, except for a few colleges. None of these 

organizations is, however, outside the control of the whites. The Negro 

press is the freest among -these Negro agencies} the Negro school is the 

most tightly controlled. But in all these institutions Negroes are among 

sA***s*2ws. They are usually away from the presence of whites, and this 

Creates a feeling of freedom, in smaller matters even if not in major 

policies. 

The very existence of these Negro institutions is, of course, due to caste. 
Without caste there would be no need in America for a specialized Negro 
press, for segregated schools or for separate churches. Under the caste 
system they all take on a defensive function for the Negroes, and some- 
times they take on an offensive function. Generally speaking, the Negro 
press is, in this sense, more radical than the other nonpolitical agencies. 
Besides its primary function of replacing the old "grapevine telegraph" 
in thejJEOtective Negro community and of providing Negro news, it is one 
Hkeans for the Negro protest. The other agencies are generally 

858 



Chapter 40. The Negro Church 859 

more accommodating. We have already expressed our conviction that all 
these agencies, however, in the long run tend to build up the Negro 
protest." 

Our treatment of these nonpolitical Negro institutions will be restricted 
mainly by the viewpoint of power and power relations followed throughout 
this part of our inquiry, and even in this respect it will not be so intensive 
as their importance warrants. The religious, educational, and cultural 
aspects of their activity will be almost entirely neglected. Some further 
considerations as to their role in the Negro community and as to what they 
indicate of Negro culture will be given in the next part of the book. 

2. Some Historical Notes* 

With few exceptions the Negro slaves brought to America had not been 
converted to Christianity. 1 For nearly a century many slaveholders felt 
reluctant to let the Negro slaves receive religious instruction as there was 
a belief that a baptized Christian could not be held as a slave. But when 
theologians, legislatures, and courts declared, around the year 1700, that 
conversion to Christianity was not incompatible with the worldly status 
of a slave, slaveholders went out of their way to provide a religious teaching 
and a place of worship for their slaves, or at least did nothing to hinder 
missionary work among them. Their primary motive undoubtedly was that 
the Christian religion, as it was expounded, suited their interests in keeping 
the slaves humble, meek and obedient. But the Christian duty to spread 
the gospel was probably also taken seriously, perhaps particularly so in 
order to compensate for many other deprivations to which the Negroes 
were subjected. 

On many plantations the slaves were allowed to attend the same churches 
as did the whites, being seated sometimes in a gallery especially provided, 
sometimes in a separate section of the main floor. The service was then 
nearly always conducted by a white minister. But there were also Negro 
ministers, usually attending to the religious needs of only their own people, 
and separate worship soon became common. After the rebellion in 1831 
Jed by Nat Turner, a Negro preacher, the fear of slave revolts and upris- 
ings made masters endeavor to check the separate religious meetings of 
their slaves. But there was no complete stoppage of religion among Ne- 
groes. The idea of free worship and the advantages of having a slave work 
off his frustration in religion were too strong. Slaves were allowed into most 
white churches and could even meet by themselves if a white minister led 
them or if any white man observed them. Practically the only religious 

*See Chapter 35. 

* Mow of the factual data for this section have been taken from Guion G. Johnson and 
Guy B. Johnson, •The Church and the Race Problem in the United States," unpublished 
manuscript prepared for this study (194-0), Vol. 1. 



860 An American Dilemma 

meetings completely free of whites, however, were secret ones. Free 
Negroes, of course, continued to have their own churches, but a strong 
effort was made to separate them completely from the slaves. Some whites 
felt that only white ministers should be allowed to preach to Negroes, but 
on the whole, as long as the Negro preacher kept to the subjects of God 
and the other-world, and as long as he implanted a spirit of obedience to the 
existing order and the white master, there was little attempt to replace 
him. Undoubtedly the great bulk of the Southern Negro preachers advo- 
cated complete acceptance of slave status. 

Still, the church service was one of the few occasions when slaves were 
allowed to congregate, when they could feel a spiritual union with other 
Negroes, when they could feei that they were equal to the white man — in 
the eyes of God — and when they could see one of their own number, the 
preacher, rise above the dead level of slavehood and even occasionally be 
admired by white people. The slaves on a plantation could regard the 
Negro preacher as their leader— one who could go to the white master 
and beg for trivial favors. 

In the North, the few Negro churches before the Civil War served 
much the same functions as they do today. Many of them — like some white 
churches — were "stations" in the "underground railroad," at which an 
escaping slave could get means either to become established in the North 
or to go to Canada. The Northern Negro church was also a center of Negro 
Abolitionist activities. The slavery issue in national politics of these times 
actually gave the Negro church in the North as great an interest and stake 
in worldly affairs as it has today. 

At the time of Emancipation probably only a minority of the Negro 
slaves were nominal Christians." At the end of the Civil War, there was, 
on the one hand, an almost complete and permanent expulsion of Negroes 
from the white churches of the South and, on the other hand, a general 
movement among the Negroes themselves to build up their own denom- 
inations. This period witnessed another wave of conversion to Christianity 
of the Negroes and the firm establishment of the independent Negro 
church. Southern Negro religious leaders were helped much by white and 
Negro missionaries from the North. Observing the church situation in the 
'seventies, Sir George Campbell gives the following picture of this religious 
activity: 

Every man and woman likes to be himself or herself an active member of the 
Church. And though their preachers are in a great degree their leaden, these 
preachers are chosen by the people from the people, under a system for the most 
part congregational, and are rather preachers because they are leaders than leaders 
because they are preachers. In this matter of religion the negroes have utterly eman- 

'". . . only one adult in six was a nominal Christian." (W. E. B. Du Bois, The 
Negro [1915], p. »*7-) 



Chapter 40. The Negro Church 861 

cipated themselves from all white guidance — they have their own churches and their 
own preachers, all coloured men — and the share they take in the self-government of 
their churches really is a very important education. The preachers to our eyes may 
seem peculiar. American orators somewhat exaggerate and emphasize our style, and 
the black preachers somewhat exaggerate the American style ; but on the whole I felt 
considerably edified by them. They come to the point in a way that is refreshing 
after some sermons that one has heard. 2 

Many Negro political leaders during Reconstruction were recruited from 
the preachers. After Reconstruction many of them returned to the pulpit. 
Under the pressure of political reaction, the Negro church in the South 
came to have much the same role as it did before the Civil War. Negro 
frustration was sublimated into emotionalism, and Negro hopes were fixed 
on the after-world. Negro preachers even cautioned their flocks to obey 
all the caste rules. But there was a new factor, which increased the possi- 
bility of the Negro church to serve as a power agency for Negroes; the 
white preachers and the white observer in the Negro church disappeared. 
There remained, however, the Negro stool pigeon who reported to the 
whites on the activities of Negroes in church and elsewhere. 

In practically all rural areas, and in many of the urban ones, the preacher 
stood out as the acknowledged local leader of the Negroes. His function 
became to transmit the whites' wishes to the Negroes and to beg the whites 
for favors for his people. He became — in our terminology — the typical 
accommodating Negro leader." To this degree the Negro church perpet- 
uated the traditions of slavery. 

In the actual power situation after Restoration of white supremacy, this 
was a realistic and, in a sense, necessary policy. If it becomes known that a 
Negro preacher in the South criticizes the caste system — except in very 
general terms — he is usually threatened and may be punished physically 
or exiled. His church is also in danger. If, on the other hand, he keeps in 
the good graces of the influential whites, he can reckon with their backing 
and support. To get money for his church and other advantages for himself 
and his group, the Negro preacher has to emphasize the patriarchal rela- 
tionship — pointing out how "good" the Negro church isj that is, how the 
church keeps Negroes from going against the caste system. 8 Negro sermons 
in the South no longer contain any appeal to accept a slave status. They 
even seldom contain, directly at least, admonitions to accept caste subordi- 
nation. But this advice is implied when the Negroes' attention is turned 
away from worldly ills. 

The Negro church came to serve a vital role linked intimately with the status of 
the race. The doctrine of otherworldliness provided an essential escape from the 
tedium and tribulations, first of slavery and later of economic serfdom. . . . The 

' See Chapter 34. 



862 An American Dilemma 

indifference of the Negro church to current social imes and its emphasis on the 
value* of a future life lent indirect but vital rapport to the race pattern* of the early 
pott-slavery period. 4 

Accepting this role, the Negro church in the South has earned consider- 
able good-will among the whites. Church and religion have a tremendous 
moral prestige in America, and the Negro church shares— on a lower level 
— in this appreciation. The white Southerner of today will often praise the 
Negroes for their "old time religion." Negroes are assumed to be endowed 
with particularly strong religious feelings. Religion is assumed to be" a force 
for good in all respects and, particularly, for race relations. It is also taken 
for granted that the Negroes should be left a considerable freedom to 
develop their religious life as they want to, without interference. The 
Negro churches are, therefore, not closely controlled. The Negro preacher 
is trusted. 

Thus the Negro church in the South did not become an institution that 
led the opposition to the caste system. Yet as an institution that received the 
sanction of Southern whites, the Negro church was able in some cases to 
modify the harshness of the system, and it has helped to maintain the 
solidarity of Negroes in their cautious pressure to ameliorate their position. 
In many cases, the churches helped to support schools, and education was 
one of the main ways that Negroes, individually and collectively, could 
rise in the world. 

In the North the Negro church has, of course, remained far more inde- 
pendent. The ministers have been free to preach what they please without 
fearing intervention from the whites." They have taken stands in local 
politics and in labor strife — though perhaps, more often than not, serving 
white benefactors primarily instead of the Negro cause. In not a few cases 
the Negro church became a center for social work in the Negro community. 

' In more recent times there have developed some very minor sects which are openly 
anti-white, but since they take no overt action other than to prohibit whites from attending 
their services, few whites even know of their existence. Notable among the anti-white 
sects are the various "Islamic" cults. They claim to adhere to Mohammedanism instead 
of Christianity and look to the brown peoples of Asia Minor and North Africa to save 
them from the whites. One of these cults in Chicago, known as the Moors, is not only a 
religious group but an economic unit and a harem as well. Some 200 Negroes, mostly 
women, live together in a few ramshackle buildings in the Near North Side slum area. 

Another anti-white group, the African Orthodox Church, is of somewhat greater 
numerical importance and has branches in many cities, but it has mollified its anti-white 
position somewhat in recent years. This church stemmed from the Garvey movement of 
the early 1920*8 (see Chapter 35, Section 7) and has affiliated itself with the Greek 
Orthodox Church. Its anti-white position was that of the whole Garvey movement, but 
recently it has permitted whites to attend service, although it still prohibits whites from 
becoming church leaders and emphasizes "segregated but equal." (J. G. St. Clair Drake, 
"The Negro Church and Associations in Chicago-" unpublished manuscript prepared for 
this study [1940], pp. 288-290.) 



Chapter 40. The Negro Church 863 

Some ministers have taken the lead in expressing to the world the Negroes' 
needs and protest.' But on the whole even the Northern Negro church has 
remained a conservative institution with its interests directed upon other- 
worldly matters and has largely ignored the practical problems of the 
Negroes' fate in this world. b 

3. The Negro Church and the General American Pattern of 
Religious Activity 

To the outsider the main observation about Negro churches and Negro 
religious life is that they adhere so closely to the common American pattern. 
There are differences, and they are important j but more important are the 
similarities. Again we shall see how the caste system forces the Negro to 
become an "exaggerated American." 

Americans generally are a religious people ; Southerners are more reli- 
gious than the rest of the nation, and the Negroes, perhaps, still a little more 
religious than the white Southerners. Negroes, on the whole, attend 
church probably in greater numbers than do whites although not in greater 
numbers than certain white groups like the Catholics. Among Negroes, as 
among whites, females attend more than males, the middle-aged and old 
attend more than the youth, the uneducated attend more than the educated, 
the lower and middle classes more than the upper classes. 6 

Particularly significant among these differentials is that between youth 
and age, since the tendency for Negro youth to abandon the church is 
perhaps even greater than among most white youth, with the exception of 
the Jews. This is explainable not only because of the general trend caused 
by increasing education and sophistication, but also by the very "backward- 
ness" of the Negro church manifested in its emotionalism and puritanism. 
Still, as in white America, church membership confers respectability, and 
when young people marry and want to settle down, they are likely to join 
a church — though often one somewhat less attached to emotionalism and 
puritanism than the one attended by their parents. There is a trend toward 
a more intellectual and formal church service in the Negro as in the white 

'An outstanding case is that of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in the Harlem section 
of New York City. It had 8,000 members in 1939) which made it by far the largest Negro 
church in the city. It claims many more thousands today. The young, popular, and 
ambitious minister, Rev. A. Clayton Powell, has not only taken a lead in sponsoring com- 
munity welfare work, but has helped the workers' side in several strikes, has succeeded in 
getting jobs for Negroes, and has become a publisher of a Negro newspaper and a 
member of the New York City Council. 

In Chicago, to take another exceptional case, the Good Shepherd Church sponsors a 
community center, which is directed by a Negro sociologist, Horace Cayton, and which 
ranks among the best of its kind. In several other instances upper class and educated 
Negroes have focused their efforts to improve the Negro community upon the large urban 
churches. 

* See Section 5 of this chapter, especially the study by Mays and Nicholson cited there. 



864 An American Dilemma 

community. The difference is mainly that Negroes — together with some 
poor, isolated groups of whites — are lagging about half a century behind." 

Today it is probable that a greater proportion of Negroes than of whites 
belong to churches as formal church members. According to the United 
States Census of Religious Bodies, which is very inaccurate but has the best 
data available for the country as a whole, Negro churches claimed 5,660,618 
members in 1936 and white churches 50,146,748.° Even if we make all the 
assumptions that work in the direction of under-enumerating Negro church 
membership, the Negroes still have a larger membership: 44.0 per cent of 
the Negro population are members of Negro churches, as compared to 42.4 
per cent of the white population in white churches. 7 Actually the discrep- 
ancy is much greater, since we have neglected the significant number of 
Negroes who are members of white churches. The census overlooks many 
of the small denominations to which Negroes adhere more than whites ; 
we have not subtracted Orientals and Indians from church figures but have 
done so for our population base; we have ignored the fact that whites 
belong, in greater proportion, to those churches that count membership 
from birth rather than from confirmation (for example, the Roman Catholic 
Church) ; we have neglected the fact that the Jewish churches report as 
members all persons living in communities in which local congregations 
are situated. 

America as a whole is still predominantly Protestant in spite of the "new" 
immigration; Southern whites and Negroes are even more Protestant. In 
American Protestantism various low church denominations with less formal- 
ized ritual have always been predominant. The great majority of Negroes 
belong to the Baptist and Methodist churches or to small sects which have 
branched out from them, and the ritual of these churches tends to have 
little elaborateness or formality. 1 * As in the white American population, 

*See Chapter 43, Section 3., 

" The only comprehensive statistics of religious affiliation for the United States are those 
of the Census of Religious Bodies, 1936. (U. S. Bureau of the Census L1941].) This census 
reports that the various Negro Baptist bodies claimed 68. go per cent of all members of 
Negro churches and the Methodist bodies 24.65 per cent. Next in size, according to this 
report, was the Roman Catholic Church -with 2.43 per cent. The Protestant Episcopal 
Church, the Congregational churches, the Presbyterian churches, the Lutheran Church, and 
the Christian Science Church together claimed only 1.30 per cent. All the rest of the 
churches reported only 2. S3 per cent of the church membership. Obviously there is something 
seriously wrong with these figures: many of the smaller sects are missing altogether; the 
African Orthodox Church certainly has more than 1,952 members, and the Holiness 
Church has more than 7,379 members. {Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 850-853.) 

We guess that the actual percentage distribution of membership in Negro churches 
would show the Baptist proportion smaller, the Catholic proportion larger and the mis- 
cellaneous group's proportion larger. It should be remembered that the census figures 
rerer to Negro churches only and do not include Negro members of white churches. 
According to The Negro Handbook there were 298,998 Negro Catholics in the United 



Chapter 40. The Negro Church 865 

among the Negroes the small upper class tends, more than the lower classes, 
to belong to the Episcopalian, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches." 
Protestant religion in America has always had relatively more emotionalism 
than in other countries: revival meetings and evangelists have played a 
greater role, and the regular church services have exhibited more emotional 
traits. The South is somewhat extreme in this respect, too, and the Negroes 

TABLE 1 
Neoro Membership in Harlem Churches by Denomination: 19.10 



Denomination 


Number 
»7.948 


Per Cent 


Baptist 


4' 


Methodist 


«3.740 


30 


Protestant Episcopal 


7.IJI 


II 


Roman Catholic* 


4.99° 


7 


Presbyterian 


1,805 


3 


Adventist 


1,000 


1 


Congregationalist 


950 


I 


Moravian and Lutheran 


900 


1 


Other 


9,139 


14 


Total 


67,623 


100 



Source: The Greater New York Federation of Churches, The Negro Churches in Manhattan (1930), pp. 
17-18. 

» Includes 5 churches having both Negro and white parishioners. 

still more so. b As in the white population there is a class differential as well 
as a geographical one in regard to degree of emotionalism in religious 
service. Upper and middle class Negroes are likely to frown upon the old 
practices which still prevail in the lower classes. 

States as of January 1, 194.0. It was estimated that about one-third of them were in 
mixed churches. The 1936 Census of Religious Bodies reported only 137,684 Catholics 
in Negro churches. (Florence Murray [editor], The Negro Handbook [1942], p. iosj 
these figures were taken from John Thomas Gillard, Colored Catholics in t/te United 
States Li94']-) 

* The geographical distribution of Negro denominations is fairly even, on the whole, 
but there are significant exceptions that must be noted. In the South, Negroes have roughly 
the same denominational distribution as lower and middle class whites: they are mainly 
Baptist or Methodist with a concentration of Roman Catholic in southern Louisiana. In 
the North there is a much greater diversity: not only have Negroes gone into the estab- 
lished churches dominant in the North — the Episcopalian, Catholic, Presbyterian — but have 
started scores of new sects. Table 1 shows the distribution of Negro church membership 
in the Harlem section of New York City in 1930. Since 1930 we may guess that the 
Episcopal, Catholic and "Other" churches — "Other" being predominantly the new Negro 
sects but also some of the white-dominated churches such as the Christian Science 
Church — have increased their membership, partly at the expense of the Baptist and 
Methodist churches. The Father Divine Peace Mission has developed since 1932 — mainly 
in New York but also in other Northern and Western cities — and it symbolizes the rapid 
growth of new Negro sects. 
Sec Chapter 43, Section 3. 



866 An American Dilemma 

In other respects than its emotionalism, the Negro church is quite like 
any lower class white Protestant church. Negro churches have made no 
innovations in theology or in the general character of the church service. 1 
Some of the Negro cults — notably the one led by Father Divine — are 
exceptions, but for a long time there have been similar phenomena in the 
white world. The visitor to an average Negro church will see much the 
same type of service — with choir singing, hymns by the congregation, organ 
music (in the larger churches), prayer, sermon, collection — and hear the 
same theological terms that he does in the average white Protestant church. 
Except for a slight slant in the direction of "race," 9 there is nothing in the 
formal content of the sermon to indicate that the church is a Negro church. 

God and the angels are ordinarily white to Negroes, as they are to 
white churchgoers. 10 There is spiritual singing in Negro churches — espe- 
cially in the rural Southern and the smaller Northern churches — and the 
spirituals are different from anything that can be found in the white 
churches." But the ordinary hymns of the various Protestant churches are 
also in common use. The appeals used by the preacher, his way of handling 
his voice and the movements of his body, and the responses given by the 
audience in Negro churches also are different, but less so if the comparison 
is made with lower class white churches in isolated regions. Negro churches 
have, in addition to regular services, Sunday schools and various voluntary 
associations, and they provide some entertainment 11 and engage in an 
amount of educational and missionary work, just as most white churches do. 

Americans are divided into a great number of denominations. In addition, 
each denomination often has several churches even in fairly small-sized 
communities. For these reasons individual congregations are, on the aver- 
age, small in America. The split into miniature congregations is driven 
nearly to its limit in the Negro world. b With a relatively small congrega- 

* See Chapter 44., Section 5. 

'According to statistics, the 1936 Census of Religious Bodies {Religious Bodies: 1936, 
pp. 86, 850-851), the number of members per church were: 

Total churches Urban Rural 
Negro 148 219 109 

Non-Negro 311 616 139 

Since the census figures on churches are usually not very accurate, we may cite three sample 
studies on the number of members in the average Negro church. 

In 185 rural churches studied by Mays and Nicholson (Benjamin E. Mays and J. W. 
Nicholson, The Negro's Church L1933], p. 15), the average membership was 145 persons, 
of whom 50 per cent were actually contributing to the support of the churches. Compared 
to these figures, 609 urban churches had an average membership of 586 persons, of 
whom 43 per cent were contributing financial support. But in considering the size of the 
urban church, a sharp division must be made between the churches with edifices or halls 
and the "storefront" or residence churches. 

In Harlem, for example, out of 163 Negro churches, 12a were meeting in residence; 
or stores in 1930. These 122 churches claimed a total membership of 14,913, or 122 apiece 



Chapter 40. The Negro Church 867 

tion, and with no support from public funds, the individual minister in 
America is dependent on his church membership. The soliciting of contri- 
butions thus becomes an important part of the life of an American church. 
In the Negro church the collection of money becomes of pathetic impor- 
tance, and a good portion of the time during an average church service is 
taken up by it. 

For the same reasons the American church becomes forcefully stimulated 
to make itself as indispensable as possible to the people, and it undertakes 
many functions of a social nature in order to "sell" itself to the public. 
The church in the segregated Negro ghetto tends to take on even more 
functions of a nonreligious type than does the white church. 

The church has been, and continues to be, the outstanding social institution in the 
Negro community. It has a far wider function than to bring spiritual inspiration to 
its communicants. Among rural Negroes the church is still the only institution which 
provides an effective organization of the group, an approved and tolerated place for 
social activities, a forum for expression on many issues, an outlet for emotional 
repressions, and a plan for social living. It is a complex institution meeting a wide 
variety of needs. 12 

The Negro church was, from the beginning, the logical center for com- 
munity life. It is thus much more than a place of worship. 

It is a social center, it is a club, it is an arena for the exercise of one's capabilities 
and powers, a world in which one may achieve self-realization and preferment. Of 
course, a church means something of the same sort to all groups; but with the Negro 
all those attributes are magnified because of the fact that they arc so curtailed for 
him in the world at large. . . . Aside from any spiritual benefits derived, going to 
church means being dressed in one's best clothes, forgetting for the time about work, 
having the chance to acquit oneself with credit before one's fellows, and having the 
opportunity of meeting, talking and laughing with friends and of casting an apprais- 
ing and approving eye upon the opposite sex. Going to church is an outlet for the 
Negro's religious emotions; but not the least reason why he is willing to support so 
many churches is that they furnish so many agreeable activities and so much real 
enjoyment. He is willing to support them because he has not yet, and will not have 
until there is far greater economic and intellectual development and social organ- 
ization, any other agencies that can fill their place. 18 

The stronger dependence of the church and the minister on the active 
church members involves, of course, a fundamental democratization of 
organized religious life in America. American churches have had to come 

on the average, and this was probably an over-statement. The other 41 churches had 
regular edifices or halls and claimed 51,220 members, or 1,250 apiece on the average. 
(See The Greater New York Federation of Churches, The Negro Chvrchet in Manhattan 
['93o]> pp. 11 and 17.) 

In Chicago, a more careful study of 266 storefront churches in 1938 showed that they 
averaged only about 30 members apiece. (Crake, of. cit. t pp. 308-309.) 



868 An American Dilemma 

down to the people. In a veritable struggle for life they have had to go into 
competition with all other demands on peoples' money and time — and 
into competition with each other. Occasionally this is dangerous for the 
minister's integrity. He has to be a diplomat and a businessman and may 
have to compromise his ideals. The Negro churches are forced in the same 
direction as are white churches, but much more so. 

In one particular respect the great split into denominations and individ- 
ual congregations in America is anti-democratic in its results. It makes for 
a greater manifestation of social class distinction than there would be if 
most people belonged to the same state-supported church. 14 Belonging to 
one church or another serves in America as a means of class identification, 
just like membership in clubs. Even in this respect Negroes conform to the 
American pattern, but they exaggerate it slightly as high social status is 
rarer and respectability more precious in the lower caste. 

4. A Segregated Church 

Both the strength and the weakness of the Negro church as a power 
agency for the Negro people is related to the facts that the Negro church 
is a segregated church and that there is astonishingly little interracial 
cooperation between white and Negro churches. In both respects the South 
is extreme, but the situation in the North is not very different. 

This virtual isolation between institutionalized religious life in the two 
castes is somewhat more easily explainable when we remember that 
churches in America have come to have significance for the social class the 
individual church member belongs to or aspires to belong to. Nevertheless, 
church segregation is a great moral dilemma to many earnest Christians 
among the whites. Embrce explains to us: 

Segregation in Christian churches is an embarrjssment. In a religion whose centra] 
teaching is brotherly love 'and the golden rule, preachers have to do a great deal of 
rationalizing as they expound their own gospel.' 5 

Among Negroes all over the country this point is constantly made to prove 
the insincerity of white people. 

Southern whites usually succeed in keeping the Christian challenge of 
religious brotherhood off their minds. The observer feels that the very 
incompatibility between the uncompromising Christian creed, on the one 
hand, and the actual caste relations, on the other hand, is a reason why 
white ministers in the South keep so aloof from the race problem and why 
the white church in the South has generally played so inconsequential a 
part in changing race relations. It is also a reason why the white minister 
s has been closely watched by his congregation so that he does not start to 
draw practical -conclusions from Christian doctrine that would favor the 
improvement of race relations. Bailey complained a generation ago: 



Chapter 40. The Negro Church 869 

Even in religion does the black blight of unfreedom appear. . . . Let a preacher 
in a Southern pulpit begin to plead for the negroes, and he at once endangers hia 
popularity if not his support. Preachers do thus plead, on occasion, and are generously 
called "courageous" by some of their friends. Why should a minister of the church 
be "courageous" when he reminds his parishioners of the fundamental principle of 
Christianity, the priceless value of every human soul? And yet I should personally 
advise nine out of ten clergymen to leave this negro question severely alone. ... If 
a special student of the negro question must submit to being called "brave" because 
he gently insinuates that, according to Christianity, negroes have immortal souls and 
that Christ died for those souls, although he has prefaced his remarks with a stiff 
statement of his adhesion to "Southern" principles, is it surprising that the people 
should want their ministers to keep clear of a subject which they ordinarily have not 
studied? On the other hand, I have heard esteemed and godly ministers make heart- 
less remarks about negroes, remarks so cruelly harsh and unsympathetic that they 
aroused my indignation that alleged ambassadors of the Most High should speak so 
slightingly of any of God's children. . . . When men must use certain thought molds 
in politics, and must fear the effects of disturbing a bristling racial orthodoxy, it is 
natural that they should not be free in religion. 16 

The visitor to the South today finds Bailey's analysis of the moral di- 
lemma oi SoutHcrn ministers and church people still to the point. Things 
have changed, it is true, but not much. There are today more white ministers 
who dare to take an interest in their Negro neighbors, but the great majority 
of them keep astonishingly aloof — so much so that Moton could observe: 
"As a class, white ministers appear to have fewer contacts with Negroes 
than any group of their race." 17 Meetings of religious denominations for 
larger districts have acquired, under the influence of the interracial move- 
ment, the custom of "going on record" against lynching and for improved 
race relations. But the effects of this in the local community, where the 
minister faces the congregation which pays his salary, is usually slight. 

As far as casual observations give a basis of judgment, sermons in South- 
ern white churches are more "theological," less concerned with the citizen's 
daily problems, than in the North. 18 The average Southern white man, for 
natural reasons, can only be grateful not to have his stand on race relations 
exposed to the teachings of Christianity. It is commonly observed that the 
fundamentalism of the region is not unrelated to the moral difficulty of 
holding to Southern traditions in dealing with Negroes at the same time as 
being a Christian. Southern white church people have spent millions for 
foreign missions as against very small amounts for home mission work 
among their poor Negro neighbors. 19 

The moral situation is not altogether different in the North. It is true 
that the Northern whites since the Civil War have been generously sup- 
porting missionary work among Negroes in the South and denominational 
Negro schools and colleges. This is actually one of the great educational 
deeds of modern times. It is also true that many white churches in the 



870 An American Dilemma 

North have a few Negro members, and that they rarely would turn away 
Negro visitors who came to a service. But usually they cannot afford to let 
the Negro membership grow too large. Baker observed that he "found 
strange things in Boston": some Episcopal churches had had increased 
Negro attendance, and this created a serious problem. A prominent white 
church leader explained the matter to him in the following words: 

What shall we do with these Negroes! 1 for one would like to have them stay. 
I believe it is in accordance with the doctrine of Christ, but the proportion is growing 
so large that white people are drifting away from us. Strangers avoid us. Our organ- 
ization is expensive to keep up and the Negroes are able to contribute very little in 
proportion to their numbers. Think about it yourself: What shall we do? If we 
allow the Negroes to attend freely it means that eventually all the white people will 
leave and we shall have a Negro church whether we want it or not. 20 

Similar situations and attitudes can be observed today everywhere in 
Northern cities with a heavy Negro population. 

If this moral problem of organized American Christianity has not become 
more conspicuous and troublesome for white people's conscience, the 
explanation is that probably most Negroes — the caste situation being what 
it is — prefer to worship in Negro churches, even if they are against church 
segregation in principle. In the South they have no other choice anyway, 
and the question is not very practical. Even in the North Negroes usually 
feel more comfortable by themselves. And Negro preachers have a vested 
interest in segregated churches. It can be observed that Negro preachers 
suspect many of the projects looking toward interracial cooperation in 
church activities as attempts to deprive them of influence. They feel, often 
with some justification, that interracial religious activity would mean hav- 
ing white men as church leaders for Negroes but not Negroes as church 
leaders for whites. 21 Negro preachers have resented it when white denom- 
inations have sent white missionaries to convert Negroes. 82 

We find also that the white-dominated churches, which have been trying 
to keep their doors more open to Negroes and have sometimes made special 
efforts to convert Negroes, have not been too successful. The Roman 
Catholic Church belongs to this group. Although the Catholic Church can 
claim a greater proportion of Northern Negroes today than fifteen years 
ago, the proportion of all Northern Negroes with religious affiliations who 
were members of Catholic churches is probably still below 5 per cent. 23 
On the whole, the Roman Catholic Church prefers to have Negroes attend 
all-Negro churches, on the basis of residential segregation and of attempts 
to dissuade them from attending white churches." 

* Gillard estimates that in 1940 about one-third of the Negro Catholics in the United 
States were in mixed churches. (Cited in The Negro Handbook, p. 102.) 

In the South, especially in southern Louisiana where the French and Creole traditions 
•re dominant, the Soman Catholic Church is the only one where Negroes are allowed 



Chapter 40. The Negro Church 871 

Of the Protestant churches, the Congregationalists and Quaker churches 
have probably been most nearly equalitarian, 84 but they have made little 
headway among Negroes. The Episcopalian and Christian Science churches 
have in the North much the same policy toward Negroes as does the 
Roman Catholic Church. A small but increasing proportion of upper and 
middle class Negroes have joined these churches and have some contact 
with the upper class whites who dominate them." 

The great majority of white churches, in the North as well as in the 
South, thus do not want to have a substantial Negro membership. The 
great majority of Negroes do not seem to want to join white churches, even 
if they are allowed. As usual the caste separation has been fortified by its 
own effects. 

There is also astonishingly little interracial cooperation between the 
white and Negro churches of the same denomination. In the South there is 
practically no contact at all between Negroes and whites for religious pur- 

to attend white churches. But even here, the dominant tendency is to keep Negroes in their 
own churches, to prevent Negroes from joining in intcrchurch Catholic meetings or 
celebrations, and to provide a separate set of white priests — who seldom mingle with 
the other priests — for the Negroes. (See Allison Davis, "The Negro Church and Associa- 
tions in the Lower South," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study [1940], p. 15, 
fassim.) The Catholic Negro churches have — with rare exceptions — white priests. Accord- 
ing to Gillard, there were only 23 Negro priests in the Roman Catholic Church in 194.1, 
and 6 of these were on foreign missions. (Cited in The Negro Handbook, pp. 102-103.) 

* The Holiness Church, while predominantly white, has occasionally bi-racial congre- 
gations. It has not been attracting many new members lately. 

The small Bahai Church is in America dominated by upper class Northern whites who 
have an explicit policy in favor of interracialism and internationalism. A small number 
of upper class Negroes have joined. It is the only white-dominated church in which there 
may be said to be absolutely no segregation or discrimination. 

Similar to the Bahai Church in its principle against any form of racial discrimination, 
but quite different in that it is Negro-dominated and in that it is patterned after the emotional 
lower class type of Negro church, is the Father Divine Peace Mission movement. Estimates 
of the total membership of this bizarre sect, which has attracted members in significant 
numbers only since 1932, range up to 2 million (John Hoshor, Cod in a Rolls Royee [1936], 
p. xi), but there is good reason to believe that it was less than 15,000 in 1940 (Edward 
Nelson Palmer, "Father Divine Peace Mission," unpublished manuscript prepared for this 
study [1940], Appendix C of Guion G. Johnson and Guy B. Johnson, op. tit., p. 6.) Over 
half the members are concentrated in New York City, and practically all the rest are in 
other Northern and Western cities) there are practically no adherents in the South. Most 
estimates have it that about 10 per cent of the members are white (idem), and one of the 
strongest injunctions of the sect is against recognition of color differences. The relation 
between the members is particularly intimate since they are enjoined to trade at "peace" 
stores and many of the members live together in the several "Heavens" which Father Divine 
has established in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. While racial differences are not 
to be noticed, it must, of course, be important to his followers that God in the person of 
Father Divine, is a Negro. 



872 An American Dilemma 

poses,* except for some outcast white who can occasionally be seen attending 
Negro churches, the formal and restricted interracial work between minis- 
ters which is sometimes arranged for 1 ' and the white man who attends a 
Negro church for amusement or study. In the North there are more 
interracial contacts'' but not enough to modify the basic fact of church sepa- 
ration. What little there is probably tends to improve race relations, to 
bring the Negro church closer to white norms of religious behavior, and 
to get money from the whites for the Negro church. 25 

5. Its Weakness 

The Negro church is the oldest and — in membership — by far the strong- 
est of all Negro organizations. Like the lodges, burial societies, and the 
great number of social clubs, the Negro church by its very existence in- 
volves a certain power consolidation. Meetings of the church officials in a 
denomination and church papers — read at least by most of the ministers — 
provide for an ideological cohesion, not only in religious matters but, to 
an extent, also in the common race interests. It also has some significance 
when, for instance, it is pointed out about Mr. Mordecai Johnson, the 

'The Catholic Church in the region around New Orleans is an exception (see footnote 
a few pages back). Also, in the South occasionally a white preacher will visit a Negro 
Spiritualist Church to conduct a service (Davis, of. tit., p. 20.) 

* Once a year some Southern churches participate in "Interracial Sunday" sponsored by 
the Commission on Race Relations of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. 
Negro singers appear in white churches, occasionally a leading Negro will make a 
speech, and the white minister will devote his sermon to race relations. (Paul E. Baker, 
Negro-White Adjustment [1934], pp. 226-228.) 

" The following five points of interracial contact in the North are taken, with slight 
modifications, from Drake, of, tit., p. 221. Drake made his summary on the basis of inter- 
views with Negro pastors and other church officials in Chicago. The description is fairly 
representative for all large Northern cities: 

1. There is occasionally an exchange of pulpits or choirs between Negro and white 
ministers on "Interracial Sunday" and a few other ceremonial occasions. In 1940, 
there were 45 exchanges in Chicago on Interracial Sunday. Only Negroes from large, 
well-established churches participate, and the white ministers are usually from 
small churches, 
a. Young people's groups have "interracial programs," "good will activities," and 
so on. These are infrequent and informal except among the Congregationalism 
and Catholics (the Catholic Youth Organizations are particularly significant). 

3. Where Negro churches belong to predominantly white denominations, there are 
the usual conferences, and similar meetings (especially in Holiness, Congregational, 
Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches). 

4. Infrequent visits are made by white persons to Negro churches for special pro- 
grams, money-raising events, or for political purposes. 

5. Visits oecur by both Negro and white persons to "unorthodox" or exotic churches. 
It might be said that only the curious and the maladjusted go (especially Holiness, 
Spiritualise and the smaller sects). 



Chapter 40. The Negro Church 873 

President of Howard University, that he is a Baptist minister and has the 
backing of the Negro Baptist world. 

Potentially, the Negro church is undoubtedly a power institution. It has 
the Negro masses organized and, if the church bodies decided to do so, 
they could line up the Negroes behind a program. Actually, the Negro 
church is, on the whole, passive in the field of intercaste power relations. 
It generally provides meeting halls and encourages church members to 
attend when other organizations want to influence the Negroes. But viewed 
as an instrument of collective action to improve the Negroes' position in 
American society, the church has been relatively inefficient and uninfluential. 
In the South it has not taken a lead in attacking the caste system or even in 
bringing about minor reforms; in the North it has only occasionally been 
a strong force for social action. 

This might be deemed deplorable, but it should not be surprising. 
Christian churches generally have, for the most part, conformed to the 
power situation of the time and the locality. They have favored a passive 
acceptance of one's worldly condition and, indeed, have seen their main 
function in providing escape and consolation to the sufferers. If there is 
any relation at all between the interest of a Negro church in social issues 
and the social status of its membership, the relation is that a church tends 
to be the more other-worldly the poorer its members are and the more they 
are in need of concerted efforts to improve their lot in this life. The 
churches where the poor white people in the South worship are similar to 
the common Negro churches. 26 

Even in this respect the Negro church is an ordinary American church 
with certain traits exaggerated because of caste. Of 100 sermons delivered 
in urban Negro churches and analyzed by Mays and Nicholson, only 26 
touched upon practical problems." The rural Negro church makes an even 
poorer showing in this respect. 1 * Too, the Negro church is out of touch with 

* Fifty-four others were classified as dealing -with "other-worldly" topics, and the 
remaining 20 were doctrinal or theological. (Of. cit., pp. 59 and 70.) Mays and Nicholson 
also reported, as have other students of the Negro church, that the sermons were character- 
ized by poor logic, poor grammar and pronunciation, and an excessive display of oratorical 
tricks. 

" Not only the sermons, but practically all the prayers, spirituals, and Church school litera- 
ture of the three major Negro denominations support traditional, compensatory patterns, 
according to Mays. (B. E. Mays, The Negro's God [i9j8j> P- *45-) Mays describes these 
patterns thus: "Though recognizing notable exceptions, they are compensatory and 
traditional in character because they are neither developed nor interpreted in terms of 
social rehabilitation. They are conducive to developing in the Negro a complacent, laissez- 
faire attitude toward life. They support the view that God in His good time and in His 
own way will bring about the conditions that will lead to the fulfillment of social needs. 
They encourage Negroes to feel that God will see to it that things work out all right; if 
not in this world, certainly in the world to come. They make God influential chiefly in the 
beyond, in preparing a home for the faithful— ai home where His suffering servants will 
be free of the trials and tribulations which beset them on the earth." (Idem.) 



874 An American Dilemma 

current social life in the field of morals; the preaching of traditional 
puritanical morals has little effect on the bulk of the Negro population, and 
the real moral problems of the people are seldom considered in the church. 
Practically all Negro leaders have criticized the Negro church on these 
points. Booker T. Washington, for example, said: 

From the nature of things, all through slavery it was life in the future world that 
was emphasized in religious teaching rather than life in this world. In his religious 
meetings in ante-bellum days the Negro was prevented from discussing many points 
of practical religion which related to this world; and the white minister, who was 
his spiritual guide, found it more convenient to talk about heaven than earth, so very 
naturally that today in his religious meeting it is the Negro's feelings which are 
worked upon mostly, and it is description of the glories of heaven that occupy most 
of the time of his sermon. 27 

Ignorance, poverty, cultural isolation, and the tradition of dependence are 
responsible for this situation, in the same way as they are factors keeping 
Negroes down in other areas of life. 

The frequent schisms in Negro churches weaken their institutional 
strength. New Negro churches and sects seldom begin because of theological 
divergences, but rather because a preacher wants to get a congregation, 28 
because some members of a church feel that the minister is too emotional or 
not emotional enough, because some members feel that they have little in 
common with other members of the church, as well as because of outside 
missionary influences and division. 29 The competition between the preachers 
is intense and, as we said, most churches are small. There is little collabora- 
tion between the churches. Overhead expenses tend to be relatively high in 
the small church establishments. 80 Since, in addition, the membership of 
the churches is composed usually of poor people, the economic basis of 
most churches is precariously weak." 

Poverty often makes the Negro church dependent upon white benefac- 
tors. It also prevents paying such salaries 1 * that ambitious young men could 
be tempted to educate themselves properly for the ministry. In fact the 

* Negro churches usually have poor business practices. There is little secretarial help, thus 
there is poor accounting, and the money is sometimes just given to the minister or to a few 
church officers to do what they please with it. There is probably a significant amount 
of misappropriation of funds under this system. (See Mays and Nicholson, of. cit., pp. 
168-197 and 259-265, and Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom [1939], p. 238.) 

"Mays and Nicholson {of. cit., p. 189) reported from their 1930 sample study that 
69.4 per cent of Negro ministers had an annual income of less than $2,000. The average 
rural preacher got only $266 per church per year, but often he served several churches 
or had some other outside source of income. See Chapter 14, Section 5. 

'According to a sample study by Woodson, ". . . only seven-tenths of one per cent of 
Negro high school graduates contemplate taking up the ministry, and many of those who 
have been known to qualify themselves thus do not stay in the ministry." (Carter G. 
Woodson, The Negro Professional Man and the Community [1931I. » 80.) 



Chapter 40. The Negro Church 875 

idea that a preacher should have education for his task is still usually lack- 
ing, and the average preacher has not much more of it than do the members 
of his flock. 81 The chief prerequisite for becoming a minister in most of the 
denominations to which Negroes belong is traditionally not education, but 
a "call" which is more often the manifestation of temporary hysteria or 
opportunistic self-inspiration than of a deep soul-searching. There are many 
exceptions, of course, and they are becoming somewhat more frequent, 
but the preachers who come to their profession through a "call" are still 
numerically significant. Such preachers tend to retain the emotionalism that 
has traditionally been identified with the Negro's religion. 

The ministry was once the chief outlet for Negro ambition. Under 
slavery, as we have noted, the preacher stood out as the leader and spokes- 
man for his group. After slavery his monopoly of status in the Negro com- 
munity diminished as business and professional men increased in number. 82 
Increasingly status within the Negro caste is being based on education. 
Since there is little in the way of special attention paid to the Negro minis- 
ter's education — except for a minority, practically all in the cities — he is 
rapidly falling in relative status. Upper and middle class Negroes deprecate 
the common uneducated Negro preacher. Initiative and leadership in mat- 
ters concerning the Negro community tend to pass to this new upper class 
of Negro businessmen and professionals. Meanwhile, taking up preaching 
is still one of the few possibilities of rising for the individual without a 
professional training. 

As a class Negro preachers are losing influence, because they are not 
changing as fast as the rest of the Negro community. This is now on the 
verge of becoming a most serious problem, endangering the future of the 
Negro church. As improvements in education have been rapid in the last 
decades, the bulk of the old Negro preachers are today below the bulk of 
younger generation Negroes in education. Young people have begun to look 
down on the old-fashioned Negro preacher. 33 Lately the problem seems to 
have become as serious in rural areas as in cities. It is true that city youths 
are better educated and more sophisticated, but so also are city ministers 
who occasionally make some attempt to adjust to the needs of youth. 84 

It is difficult to see how the continuing decline of the minister's prestige 
and leadership can be stopped. Few college students are going into the 
ministry. 86 The ministry is no longer a profession which attracts the 

Mays reports that there were 253 fewer students enrolled in Negro seminaries in 1939 
than in 1924. Including 92 Negro students in Northern white seminaries, there were only 
850 Negroes enrolled in all seminaries in 1939, and only 25+ of these were college 
graduates. (Benjamin E. Mays, "The Negro Church in American Life," Christendom 
[Summer, 1940], pp. 389-39 1 -) 



9y6 An American Dilemma 

brightest and most ambitious young Negroes." The development under way 
will take a long time to manifest its complete effects. But it goes on and will 
spell the further decline of the Negro church as an active influence in the 
Negro community, if it does not begin to reform itself radically. 

6. Trends and Outlook 

.The Negro church has been lagging ideologically, too. While for a long 
time the protest has been rising in the Negro community, the church has, 
on the whole, remained conservative and accommodating. Its traditions 
from slavery help to explain this. Its other-worldly outlook is itself an 
expression of political fatalism. In a city in the Deep South with a Negro 
population of 43,000 (Savannah), there are ninety Negro churches, one 
hundred active preachers and another hundred "jack legs"; here where the 
Negro ministry with few exceptions had been discouraging a recent move- 
ment to get the Negroes registered for voting, a Negro preacher explained: 

All we preachers is supposed to do is to preach the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 
and Him Crucified, and that's all. b 

In most Negro communities visited by the present writer the progressive 
Negro leaders, trying to organize the Negro community for defense, com- 
plained about the timidity and disinterest on the part of the preachers. 
"They talk too much about heaven and too little about down here." 
Regularly the explanation was given that the churches were mortgaged to 
influential white people and that the preacher got small handouts from 
employers and politicians. Without doubt the preacher's old position of 
the white man's trusted Negro "leader" secures small advantages not only 
to himself but also to his group — and according to the scheme we analyzed 

* In the last decade or so, there have been summer institutes established for Negro 
ministers — such as the one sponsored by the white Southern Methodist Episcopal Church — 
but relatively few Negroes participate, and even the education thus offered is completely 
inadequate for lack of time and money. 

"Ralph J. Bunche, "A Brief and Tentative Analysis of Negro Leadership," unpublished 
manuscript prepared for this study (1940), pp. 79-80. 

Sterner and I once attended a Sunday evening service in a Negro Baptist church in one 
of the capitals of the Upper South. The preacher developed the theme that nothing in 
this world was of any great importance: real estate, automobiles, fine clothes, learnedness, 
prestige, money, all this is nothing. It is not worth striving for. But an humble, peaceful 
heart will be remunerated in heaven. After the service we went up to the preacher for a 
talk. We asked him if he should not instead try to instil more worldly ambition in his 
poor and disadvantaged group. The preacher began to explain to us, as foreigners, that 
this would not do at all in the South. The role of the Negro church, he told us, was to 
make the poor Negroes satisfied with their lowly status. He finished by exclaiming: "We 
are the policemen of the Negroes. If we did not keep down their ambitions and divert them 
into religion, there would be upheaval in the South." This preacher is not typical in his 
philosophy of extreme accommodation or in his intellectual clarity. But it is significant 
that he exists. 



Chapter 40. The Negro Church 877 

m Chapter 34 — it does give him prestige in the Negro community. But as 
the Negro protest rises, the traditional Negro preacher alienates a growing 
section of the Negroes from the church. 

Care must be taken, however, not to over-state the criticism against the 
Negro church on this point. In both the North and the South one quite 
often meets Negro preachers who are active in the work for protest and 
betterment. Progressive ministers are still exceptions, but their existence 
might signify a trend. There seems to be less animosity against labor union? 
among Negro preachers — reflecting the increase in power of the unionr 
referred to in Chapter 38. As the Negro protest is rising, the preacher finds 
generally that he has to change his appeal to keep his congregation in line. 

When discussing the Negro church as it is and as it might come to be, 
it must never be forgotten that the Negro church fundamentally is an 
expression of the Negro community itself. If the church has been other- 
worldly in outlook and indulged in emotional ecstasy, it is primarily because 
the downtrodden common Negroes have craved religious escape from 
poverty and other tribulations. If the preachers have been timid and pussy- 
footing, it is because Negroes in general have condoned such a policy and 
would have feared radical leaders. The rivalry and factionalism, the 
organizational weakness and economic dependence of the Negro church, the 
often faltering economic and sexual morals of the preachers and their 
suspicion of higher education — all this reflects life as it is lived in the subor- 
dinate caste of American Negroes. 

When the Negro community changes, the church also will change. It is 
true that the church has not given much of a lead to reforms but has rather 
lagged when viewed from the advanced positions of Negro youth and 
Negro intellectuals. But few Christian churches have ever been, whether 
in America or elsewhere, the spearheads of reform. That this fundamental 
truth is understood — underneath all bitter criticism — is seen in the fact that 
Negro intellectuals are much more willing to cooperate with Negro 
churches than white intellectuals with white churches. 30 The Negro protest 
and improvement organizations cooperate with all "respectable" Negro 
churches. The solidarity behind the abstract church institution in the Negro 
community is simply amazing. The visitor finds everywhere a widespread 
criticism, but this is focused mainly on the preachers. Few question the 
church as such, its benevolent influence and its great potentialities. 

The Negro church is part of the whole circular process which is moving 
the American Negroes onward in their struggle against caste. The increas- 
ing education of the Negro masses is either making them demand some- 
thing more of their church than praise of the other-world and emotional 
catharsis, or causing them to stand aloof from the institutionalized forms 
of religion. Not only the upper classes of Negroes are now critical of the 
shouting and noisy religious hysteria in oldtime Negro churches and new 



878 An American Dilemma 

cults, but so are young people in all classes. The issue of emotionalism is 
still a keen divider but the dividing line now cuts deeper into the Negro 
community. In many Negro communities perhaps the majority still cling 
to the old patterns and resent persons — including ministers — who will not 
participate with them in the display of intense religious feeling. But, 
according to Mays and Nicholson, even in the rural South the revival 
meetings are less successful than they used to be, the professional evangelist 
is beginning to disappear, and the regular sermons attempt to be more 
thought-provoking. 87 

This is all part of the general process of acculturation. With considerable 
lag, the Negro clergymen, too, are acquiring a better education, which is 
reflected in their work. Negro preachers are increasingly in competition 
with professionals, businessmen, politicians, and labor union officials for 
local leadership. Competition is compelling them to try to do something 
positive for the Negro community. The social work programs of the 
relatively few churches which have them are mainly a development of the 
last decade or two, and we expect to see the trend continuing, especially in 
the North. The movement to the North and to the Southern cities also 
tends to emancipate the Negro preacher from white pressure. The fact that 
he gets more of his prestige from Negroes than from whites in the North 
19 beneficial to the Negro community. These trends are making the Negro 
church a more efficient instrument for amelioration of the Negro's position 
at the same time as they are reducing the relative importance of the church 
in the Negro community. 



CHAPTER 41 

THE NEGRO SCHOOL 



1. Negro Education as Concerted Action 

The trend toward a rising educational level of the Negro population is 
of tremendous importance for the power relations discussed in this Part of 
our inquiry. Education means an assimilation of white American culture. 
It decreases the dissimilarity of the Negroes from other Americans. Since 
the white culture is permeated by democratic valuations, and since the caste 
relation is anything but democratic, education is likely to increase dissatis- 
faction among Negroes. This dissatisfaction strengthens the urge to with- 
draw from contact with prejudiced whites and causes an intensified isolation 
between the two groups.* Increasing education provides theories and tools 
for the rising Negro protest against caste status in which Negroes are held. 
It trains and helps to give an economic livelihood to Negro leaders. 

In the Negro community, education is the main factor for the stratifica- 
tion of the Negro people into social classes. 6 The professionals who base 
their status upon having acquired a higher education form a substantial part 
of the Negro upper classes. And even in the middle and lower classes, 
educational levels signify class differences in the Negro community. In 
addition, education has a symbolic significance in the Negro world: the 
educated Negro has, in one important respect, become equal to the better 
class of whites. 

These tendencies are most unhampered in the North. There Negroes 
have practically the entire educational system flung open to them without 
much discrimination. They are often taught in mixed schools and by white 
teachers} some of the Negro teachers have white pupils. Little attempt is 
made to adjust the teaching specifically to the Negroes' existing status and 
future possibilities. The American Creed permeates instruction, and the 
Negro as well as the white youths are inculcated with the traditional 
American virtues of efficiency, thrift and ambition. The American dream 
of individual success is held out to the Negroes as to other students. But 
employment opportunities— and, to a lesser extent, some other good things 

* See Chapter 30, Section 2. 
See Chapter 31, Section! 1 and a. 

879 



88o An American Dilemma 

of life — are so closed to them that severe conflicts in their minds are bound 
to appear. 

Their situation is, however, not entirely unique. Even among the youths 
from other poor and disadvantaged groups in the North the ideals im- 
planted by the schools do not fit life as they actually experience it. 1 The 
conflicts are, of course, accentuated in the case of Negroes. Often they 
become cynical in regard to the official democratic ideals taught by the 
school. But more fundamentally they will be found to have drunk of them 
deeply. The American Creed and the American virtues mean much more 
to Negroes than to whites. They are all turned into the rising Negro 
protest. 

The situation is more complicated in the South. The Negro schools are 
segregated and the Negro school system is controlled by different groups 
with different interests and opinions concerning the desirability of preserv- 
ing or changing the caste status of Negroes. Looked upon as a "move- 
ment," Negro education in the South is, like the successful Negro organ- 
izations, an interracial endeavor. White liberals in the region and Northern 
philanthropists have given powerful assistance in building up Negro educa- 
tion in the South. They have thereby taken and kept some of the controls. 
In the main, however, the control over Negro education has been preserved 
by other whites representing the political power of the region. The salaried 
officers of the movement — the college presidents, the school principals, the 
professors, and the teachers — are now practically all Negroes; in the 
elementary schools and in the high schools they are exclusively Negroes. 
With this set-up, it is natural and, indeed, necessary that the Negro school 
adhere rather closely to the accommodating pattern. 8 

Negro teachers on all levels are dependent on the white community 
leaders. This dependence is particularly strong in the case of elementary 
school teachers in rural districts. Their salaries are low, and their security 
as to tenure almost nothing. They can be used as disseminators of the 
whites' expectations and demands on the Negro community. But the ex- 
treme dependence and poverty of rural Negro school teachers, and the 
existence of Negroes who are somewhat better off and more independent 
than they, practically excluded them from having any status of leadership 
in the Negro community. In so far as their teaching is concerned, they are, 
however, more independent than it appears. This is solely because the 
white superintendent and the white school board ordinarily care little 
about what goes on in the Negro school. There are still counties where the 
superintendent has never visited the majority of his Negro schools. As long 
as Negro stool pigeons do not transfer reports that she puts wrong ideas 
into the children's heads, the rural Negro school teacher is usually ignored. 

In cities the -situation is different. Negro elementary and high schools 
'See Chapter 34. 



Chapter 41. The Negro School 881 

are better; teachers are better trained and better paid. In the Negro com- 
munity teachers have a higher social status. As individuals they also achieve 
a measure of independence because they are usually anonymous to the 
white superintendent and school board. In the cities, the white community 
as a whole does not follow so closely what happens among the Negroes. 
The Negro principal in a city school, however, is directly responsible to 
white officials and watches his teachers more closely than do superintendents 
of rural schools. 

In state colleges the situation is similar, except that the professors have 
a still higher social status in the Negro community and except that the 
college tends to become a little closed community of its own, with its own 
norms, which tends to increase somewhat the independence of the teachers. 

In the private colleges there is much more independence from local 
white opinion within the limits of the campus. A friendly white churchman 
belonging to the interracial movement recently told the students of Atlanta 
University, in a commencement address, that the teachers there enjoyed 
greater academic freedom than their white colleagues at the Georgia state 
institutions, and this is probably true. The influence exerted by the North- 
ern philanthropists and church bodies who have contributed to the colleges 
— often exercised through Southern white liberals and interracialists and 
through outstanding conservative Negro leaders — is, to a great extent, 
effective as a means of upholding the independence of Negro college 
presidents and professors. 

As conditions are in the South, it is apparent that this influence is indis- 
pensable for this purpose. Neither the Negro teachers themselves nor any 
outside Negro institution could provide a power backing effective enough 
to keep off local white pressure. This outside white control gives the 
Negro teachers a considerably greater freedom even to inculcate a protest 
attitude — if it is cautiously done — than is allowed in publicly supported 
educational institutions. But it is inherent in the Southern caste situation, 
and in the traditions of the movement to build up Negro education in the 
region, that even this control is conservatively directed when compared 
with Northern standards. 

In spite of these controls, strongest at the bottom of the educational 
system but strong also in the higher institutions, there is no doubt, how- 
ever, that the long-range effect of the rising level of education in the Negro 
feofle goes in the direction of nourishing and strengthening the Negro 
■protest. Negro-baiting Senator Vardaman knew this when he said: 

What the North is sending South is not money but dynamite; this education is 
ruining our Negroes. They're demanding equality. 2 

This would probably hold true of any education, independent of the con- 
trols held and the direction given. An increased ability on the part of the 



882 Am American Dilemma 

Negroes to understand the printed and spoken word cannot avoid opening 
up contact for them with the wider world, where equalitarian ideas are 
prevalent. But in the South there is not much supervision of Negro schools. 
And as we shall see later, Southern whites have been prohibited by their 
allegiance to the American Creed from making a perfected helot training 
out of Negro education. 

2. Education in American Thought and Life 

Even where the Negro school exists as a separate institution it is, like all 
other Negro institutions, patterned on the white American school as a 
model. It is different only for reasons connected with the caste situation. 
Even in their thinking on education, Negroes are typical, or overtypical, 
Americans. 

As background for our discussion we shall have to remember the role of 
education in American democratic thought and life.* Education has always 
been the great hope for both individual and society. b In the American 
Creed it has been the main ground upon which "equality of opportunity 
for the individual" and "free outlet for ability" could be based. Education 
has also been considered as the best way — and the way most compatible 
with American individualistic ideals — to improve society. 

Research in, and discussion of, education is prolific. In America, pedagogy 
anticipated by several generations the recent trend to environmentalism in 
the social sciences and the belief in the changeability of human beings. It 
gave a basis for the belief in democratic values and expressed the social 
optimism of American liberalism. The major American contribution to 
philosophy — the theory of pragmatism — bears visibly the marks of having 
been developed in a culture where education was awarded this prominent 
role. And it was in line with American cultural potentialities when John 
Dewey turned it into a theory of education. No philosopher from another 
country would be likely to express himself as he did in the following: 

The philosophy of education is one phase of philosophy in general. It may be 
seriously questioned whether it is not the most important single phase of general 

'See Chapter 9, Section 3. 

k To many Americans the great stress on education early in the life of the new nation 
has become so commonplace that they do not see anything exceptional in it. Wilkerson, for 
instance, observes that the federal Constitution was silent on the question of education 
and that so were also many of the earlier state constitutions. (Doxey A. Wilkerson, "The 
Negro in American Education," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study [1940], 
Vol. 1, pp. io-ii.) The remarkable thing is, of course, that, on the contrary, some state 
constitutions in America did touch the question of public education. There were European 
countries where public education was introduced earlier than in America, or equally 
early. But nowhere would it have been considered important enough to deserve constitutional 
sanction. 

'See Chapters 4 and 6. 



Chapter 41. The Negro School 883 

philosophy ... the whole philosophic problem of the origin, nature, and function 
of knowledge is a live issue in education, not just a problem for exercise of intel- 
lectual dialectic gymnastics* 

At least since the time of Horace Mann, Americans have been leading • 
in the development of pedagogical thinking. The marriage between phi- 
losophy and pedagogy in Dewey and his followers has given America the 
most perfected educational theory developed in modern times. Under the 
slogan "education for a changing world" and supported by a whole science 
of "educational sociology," it requires that education be set in relation to 
the society in which the individual lives. The introduction of this value 
relation into discussions of educational goals and means is a paramount 
contribution of America. And this has remained not only an achievement 
of academic speculation and research but has, to a large extent, come to 
influence policy-making agencies in the educational field. America has, 
therefore, seen more of enterprising and experimental progressive redirect- 
ing of schools than has any other country. 

The duty of society to provide for public education was early established 
in America, and private endowments for educational purposes have been 
magnificent. America spends more money and provides its youth, on the 
average, with more schooling than any other country in the world. America 
has also succeeded in a relatively higher degree than any other country in 
making real the old democratic principle that the complete educational 
ladder should be held open to the most intelligent and industrious youths, 
independent of private means and support from their family. Education 
has been, and is increasingly becoming, a chief means of climbing the 
social status scale. It is entirely within this great American tradition when 
white people, who have wanted to help the Negroes, have concentrated 
their main efforts on improving Negro education. 

American Negroes have taken over the American faith in education. 
Booker T. Washington's picture of the freedmen's drive for education is 
classical: 

Few people who were not right in the midst of the scenes can form any exact idea 
of the intense desire which the people of my race showed for education. It was a 
whole race trying to go to school. Few were too young, and none too old, to make 
the attempt to learn. As fast as any kind of teachers could be secured, not only were 
day-schools filled, but night-schools as well. The great ambition of the older people 
was to try to learn to read the Bible before they died. With thU end in view, men 
and women who were fifty or seventy-five yean old, would be found in the night- 
schools. Sunday-schools were formed soon after freedom, but the principal book 
studied in the Sunday-school was the spelling-book. Day-school, night-school, and 
Sunday-school were always crowded, and often many had to be turned away for 
want of room.* 



884 An American Dilemma 

Campbell observed in the 'seventies that ". . . the blacks are very anxious 
to learn — more so than the lower whites." 8 Bryce remarked some decades 
later that "there is something pathetic in the eagerness of the Negroes, 
parents, young people, and children to obtain education." 6 And Baker 
wrote at the beginning of this century: 

The eagerness of the coloured people for a chance to send their children to school 
is something astonishing and pathetic. They will submit to all sorts of inconveniences 
in order that their children may get an education. 7 

As self-improvement through business or social improvement through 
government appeared so much less possible for them, Negroes have come 
to affix an even stronger trust in the magic of education. It is true that some 
Negroes may lately have lost their faith in education, either because the 
schools available to them — in the South — are so inadequate or — in the 
North — because they achieve education but not the things they hoped to do 
with it. This attitude of dissatisfaction is probably part of the explanation 
why Negro children tend to drop out of high school more than do whites.' 
If both sources of dissatisfaction could be removed, there is reason to believe 
that American Negroes would revert to their original belief in education. 
And, aside from such dissatisfaction and even cynicism, the masses of 
Negroes show even today a naive, almost religious faith in education. To 
an extent, this faith was misplaced: many Negroes hoped to escape drudgery 
through education alone. But it is also true that this faith has been justified 
to a large extent: education is one of the things which has given the 
Negroes something of a permanent advance in their condition. 

The American zeal for education has always been focused on the indi- 
vidual's opportunity. The stress on enforcing a basic minimum standard of 
education for all young people in the nation has been less. In education as 
in many other fields of culture, America shows great disparity; there are 
at once many model schools and a considerable amount of illiteracy and 
semi-illiteracy. Bryce observed: 

If one part of the people is as educated and capable as that of Switzerland, another 
is as ignorant and politically untrained as that of Russia. 8 

And a similar statement holds true today. 

This disparity is partly explainable in terms of size of the country and in 
terms of the administrative decentralization of the school system. But when 
one observes the tremendous differences in amount and quality of education 
between some of the cities and some of the rural districts in one single state, 
as, for instance, Illinois, he cannot avoid believing that more basic still is 
a general toleration by Americans of dissimilar status between regions and 

'See Chapter 43, Section 4. 



Chapter 41. The Negro School 885 

groups of people. In any case, these dissimilarities in educational facilities 
for whites in different regions are important for the Negro problem. A 
differential treatment of Negroes as a group has been less spectacular and 
has seemed less indefensible with this as a setting. 

There is no doubt that a change of American attitudes in this respect is 
under way and that an increasing stress is placed upon the desirability of 
raising the educational level in the sub-standard regions to greater equality. 
This change — which is part of a much more general tendency of the Ameri- 
can Creed to include ideals of greater economic equalization" — has taken 
form in the proposals for greater federal aid to education. The Negroes' 
chance of getting more equality in education is bound up with this move- 
ment. 11 

Considering the importance attached to education in America, it is sur- 
prising that the teacher has not been awarded a higher status in American 
society. Learning has never given much prestige, and until recently the 
teacher has been held on a relatively low economic level without much 
security of tenure, in most places. And even today he is, relatively speaking, 
not well paid, and his tenure is not secure, particularly in the South. 
Teachers in America have not even been allowed to have as much power 
over the government of their own schools as they have in comparable 
countries. Their status as employees is stressed. This applies to all teachers, 
though in different degrees. The teachers in grade schools, mostly women, 
are socially and economically placed at a disadvantage compared with other 
professionals with the same amount of preparation. The professors at 
colleges and universities are generally accorded middle class status, defi- 
nitely below that of a successful businessman. 

The Negro community is, in this respect, more similar to northern 
European societies. The teacher generally has a symbolic prestige from the 
importance of his calling. Because of the scarcity of business opportunities 
and of successful businessmen in the Negro community, the teacher is also 
more free from competition for prestige. It should be recalled, however, 
that the great personal dependency of the teacher, particularly in the rural 
South, and her low income tend to deflate her position in the Negro com- 
munity. 

Another peculiarity of America, which is not unconnected with the 
relatively low prestige of the teachers and of learning, is a common tendency 
to look upon education as something produced by the school and finished by 
graduation. The ordinary American does not conceive of education as a 
process which continues through adult life and is dependent upon the indi- 
vidual's own exertion. To few Americans does it seem to be an important 
goal in life continuously to improve their education. Few schools on any 

* See Chapter 9, Sections 3 and 4. 
See Chapter 15, Section 3. 



886 An American Dilemma 

level direct, much of their attention to preserving and developing the 
"educability" of the students. The very perfection of text books and too 
much teaching is likely to make the student more passive in his attainment 
of knowledge. Too little is generally asked of the students j too much— in 
teaching— is required of the teachers." This is, perhaps, one of the reasons 
why the final educational results do not measure up to the great amount of 
funds and time which go into schooling in America. In this respect the 
Negro schools do not differ from white schools. In fact, they can, even less 
well than white schools, afford to disregard the more formal requirements 
and go in for experimentation. 

In this connection should be noted the relative absence in America of a 
civic adult education movement upheld by the concerted efforts of the 
people themselves. We have related this to the relative political passivity 
of the American citizens between elections." The government of American 
municipalities does not decentralize power and responsibility to a great 
number of boards and councils, and does not offer, therefore, much oppor- 
tunity for participation to the ordinary citizen. This decreases the functional 
importance of civic adult education, as does also the relative absence of 
organized mass movements. If this is true of the white Americans, it is, of 
course, much more true of the Negroes, particularly in the South where 
they are largely disfranchised. Lack of participation in the wider community 
must depress interest in continued self-education, except when it is voca- 
tional or professional and motivated by narrow considerations of individual 
economic advancement. 
" America is, however, prominent in the type of passive mass education 
through such agencies as the radio, press, popular magazines and movies. 
The rise of the Negro population, not only to literacy but to a real capa- 
bility of consuming the spoken and printed word, and the increasing efficacy 
of those agencies, must have a strong influence in raising the culture level 
of Negroes. Through these media, they are made more American. 

'This is definitely true also of the ordinary college and, to an extent, also of the 
graduate school. There are too many arranged courses, too much "spoon feeding." The 
heavy lecturing — which the observer relates to the legislators' and the entire society's 
lack of respect for the learned profession and l/ieir demand to get labor for their money, 
as well as to the tradition of preaching kept in institutions which were almost all denomina- 
tional seminaries in the beginning — is perhaps even more dangerous for the teachers than 
for the students as nothing is so indoctrinating as to listen to one's own voice. It keeps 
the professors from scientific work; and it keeps the students from finding their own way 
to the sources of knowledge. The "self-made man" is generally an American ideal, but in 
the schools it is less well realized than in other spheres of culture. The "spoon feeding" in 
higher institutions is the more important since they set the patterns, to a considerable extent, 
for -the lower schools. 

'See Chapter 33. 



Chapter 41. The Negro School 887 

3. The Development of Negro Education in the South 

The history of Negro education in the South is one of heroic deeds as 
'well as of patient, high-minded and self-sacrificing toil. In this context we 
can only present the outlines of the subject. 

One of the cultural disparities between the North and the South at the 
outbreak of the Civil War was that the Northern states had established 
tax-supported public schools, while the public school movement was only 
in its beginning in the South. 9 The few Negroes in the North shared, on the 
whole, in the better educational opportunities in the region. 10 In the South 
most white people had little or no formal schooling. In all Southern states 
(except a few of the Border states and the District of Columbia) it was for- 
bidden to teach slaves how to read and write, and several states extended 
the prohibition to free Negroes. 11 

Still, a few of the slave owners, or their wives and daughters, considered 
it a Christian duty to teach the slaves to read, and by 1 860 perhaps as much 
as 5 per cent of the slaves could read and write. 12 A larger proportion of the 
free Negroes had acquired some schooling. The education of Negroes 
under slavery cannot be discussed without noting also the excellent training 
as artisans and handicraftsmen a small proportion of the slaves received. 
Each plantation was a more or less self-sufficient economy outside of its 
major crop export and food import, and, therefore, required slaves with 
each of the skills necessary to keep up the community. In the cities many 
slaves worked in the commercial handicrafts. The artisan tradition was 
passed on from person to person and usually did not require schools or the 
teaching of the more general arts." 

After the Civil War there came a tremendous demand for education 
in the South. Du Bois rightly points out that: 

The uprising of the black man, and the pouring of himself into organized effort 
for education, in those years between 1 86 1 and 1871, was one of the marvelous 
occurrence} of the modern world; almost without parallel in the history of civiliza- 
tion. 18 

A significant number of Union soldiers stayed in the South to teach the 
freedmen the "three R's." They were immediately assisted by better 
trained idealists — largely Abolitionists from the North, especially from New 
England. 1 * Northern Negroes also came down to swell the number 
of teachers. As soon as these front-rank teachers had given their pupils an 
elementary education, the latter had no difficulty in finding positions as 
teachers. Wages were low and living conditions poor for teachers, but 
idealism was burning, and a rudimentary education spread. 
The Freedmen's Bureau did some of its most important work in establish- 

* See Appendix 6. 



888 An American Dilemma 

ing and supporting schools for Negroes. Missionary and church organiza- 
tions in the North contributed not only by sending down teachers but 
also by giving money for buildings and support of the students. Indeed, 
most of the Negroes who received education in the South between 1865 
and 1880 were schooled in institutions supported by the charity of Northern 
churches. 16 Fisk, Atlanta, Howard and Hampton were founded in these 
years. The Negro communities themselves collected much money for their 
schools, particularly on the elementary level. 

As a part of this movement the Reconstruction governments laid the basis 
for a public school system in the South for both whites and Negroes. In all 
Southern states the great American principle of free public schools for all 
children was written into the new constitutions or other statutes. The 
Restoration governments only continued what their predecessors had 
organized for the whites. The Negroes were severely discriminated against; 
in many parts of the South Negro education deteriorated for decades. This 
period of reaction was a most crucial time for Negro education. Du Bois 
is probably right when he says that "had it not been for the Negro school 
and college, the Negro would, to all intents and purposes, have been driven 
back to slavery." 16 

The great wonder is that the principle of the Negroes' right to public 
education was not renounced altogether. But it did not happen. One 
explanation is the persistency and magnanimity of Northern philanthropy. 
But this activity was pursued under the indulgence of the Southern state 
and municipal authorities. And, though their own contributions to Negro 
education in many regions were not much more than face saving, the 
important thing is that face saving was deemed necessary and that the 
Negroes' statutory right to fublic education remained unassailable in the 
South. The American Creed, backed by the Constitution, showed itself 
strong enough not to allow the sacred principle of public education to 
succumb. Even in the South — as it came out of the Civil War and Recon- 
struction — the caste interest could never be pursued wholeheartedly. The 
moral dilemma, and the apologetic attitude, growing out of the partial 
allegiance to the American Creed, is illustrated in a pronouncement like 
the following from Thomas Nelson Page: 

The South has faithfully applied itself during all these years to giving the 
Negroes all the opportunities possible for attaining an education, and it is one of the 
most creditable pages in her history that in face of the horror of Negro-domination 
during the Reconstruction period; of the disappointment at the small results; in face 
of the fact that the education of the Negroes has appeared to be used by them only 
as a weapon with which to oppose the white race, the latter should have persistently 
given so largely of its store to provide this misused education. 17 

Almost as soon as the movement for the education of Negro youth began, 
the quarrel started as to whether Negro education should be "classical" or 



Chapter 4.1. The Negro School 889 

"industrial." 18 If the white Southerners had to permit the Negroes to 
get any education at all, they wanted it to be of the sort which would make 
the Negro a better servant and laborer, not that which would teach him to 
rise out of his "place." The New England school teachers — who did most 
of the teaching at first — wanted to train the Negroes as they themselves had 
been trained in the North: the "three R's" at the elementary level, with 
such subjects as Latin, Greek, geometry, rhetoric coming in at the secondary 
and college levels. But General S. C. Armstrong, a Union officer during the 
Civil War, 19 had established Hampton Institute in the tidewater region of 
Virginia as an "agricultural institution." He wanted to see continued the 
skilled artisan tradition that had existed among Negroes before the War. 
His most famous pupil, Booker T. Washington, founded the Tuskegee 
Institute in Alabama and became the apostle of industrial education for 
Negroes. There is no doubt that — quite apart from the pedagogical merits 
of this type of education — his message was extremely timely in the actual 
power situation of the Restoration. It reconciled many Southern white men 
to the idea of Negro education, and Washington has probably no small 
share in the salvaging of Negro education from the great danger of its 
being entirely destroyed. Meanwhile, the New England advocates of a 
classical education and their Negro followers carried on at Atlanta, Fisk, 
and at a few other Southern centers of Negro college education. The 
elementary schools — there were practically no secondary schools fot 
Negroes in the South at this time — followed the patterns set by the 
dominant colleges. 

The struggle between the conservative and the radical group of Negro 
leaders became focused on the issue: "industrial" versus "classical" educa- 
tion for Negroes. Washington became the champion for the former posi 
tion, and he was backed by the white South and the bulk of Northern 
philanthropy. Du Bois headed the group of Negro intellectuals who feared 
that most often the intention, and in any case the result, would be to keep 
Negroes out of the higher and more general culture of America.* This 
dispute was important in the development of Negro ideologies. It scarcely 
meant much for the actual development of Negro education in the South, 

' In this particular issue there was more heat and rivalry between the two groups than 
actual differences of opinion. Du Bois never deprecated in a wholesale manner vocational 
education; in later days he became, in fact, more and more positively in favor of it. 
Washington, on his side, had never accepted the dominant white man's idea that education 
for the Negro ought only to be training him to be a field hand or domestic servant and 
to know his lowly "place." In his famous Atlanta speech of 1895 he said: 

"To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or 
who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern 
white man, ... I would say: 'Cast down your bucket where you are, — cast it down in 
making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded. 

'"Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in tk§ 
r r °f*ssiotu t . n {Uf From Slavery [1901) first edition, 1900], p. 219. Italics ours.) 



890 An American Dilemma 

which was dominated by the whites. If Negro education in the South did 
not become turned entirely into industrial education on the elementary 
level, the main explanation was, as we shall see, the growing expense of 
such training after the Industrial Revolution and the competitive interest 
of white workers to keep the Negroes out of the crafts and industry. On 
the higher level, a nonvocational Negro education had, as Du Bois always 
emphasized, its chief strength in the fact that Tuskegee Institute and other 
similar schools raised a demand for teachers with a broader educational 
background. 

During all this time, from the Civil War until today, there has been a 
steady stream of money going from Northern philanthropy to Southern 
education. A large part of it has gone to white education. But a considerable 
portion has gone to Negro education, and it has had strategic importance: 
first, to give it a start during Reconstruction, later to hinder its complete 
destruction during Restoration, and to advance it in recent decades. 

From about 1865 to about 1875, the period of "classical" education, most 
of the money came from Northern reform groups and churches, aided by 
state funds allocated by the Reconstruction governments. From about 1880 
to about 1905 these sources were pretty dry, and educators of Negroes 
appealed to wealthy Northern businessmen, who had little interest in 
Negroes but could be relied upon to donate to most nonradical charitable 
causes. This was also the period when Negro college students formed sing- 
ing groups which appeared before Northern audiences and took up 
collections. 

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, Negro education 
received a great boost when the Northern philanthropic foundations stepped 
into the picture on a much larger scale. 20 Before then the George Peabody 
Fund (established in 1867) & iVe money to both white and Negro common 
schools and teacher-training' schools in the South. 21 The John F. Slater Fund 
(established in 1882) supported industrial and teacher-training schools. 
Both Funds were small, and at first dominated by conservative principles. 
In 1908 a Quaker lady of Philadelphia, Miss Anna T. Jeanes, established 
a Fund to give impetus to the small rural Southern Negro school. Mr. 
Jackson Davis, then school superintendent of Henrico County in Virginia 
and now an officer on the General Education Board, and Miss Virginia 
Randolph, a Negro teacher in that county, worked out the plan for this 
Fund. This plan calls for a rural industrial supervisor who goes from school 
to school in a county and helps the teachers organize their domestic science, 
their gardening and their simple carpentry work. At first the Fund paid the 
salaries of these "Jeanes' teachers," but gradually many of the county 
school boards took over the function. The remnants of the Peabody, Slater, 
and Jeanes Funds have been recently integrated into the Southern Educa- 



Chapter 41. The Negro School 891 

tion Foundation, which still helps to pay part of the salaries of the Jeanes 
teachers.** 

Another step was taken by the General Education Board, with money 
provided by John D. Rockefeller, under the direction of Wallace Buttrick. 
This foundation paid for state supervisors of Negro education who were 
to be under the state superintendents. The supervisors, who were white 
Southerners, had no official authority whatever, but they have been most 
important in raising the standards of the Negro public schools of the South. 
They plead to the state and county officials for improved educational facil- 
ities, and they get their authority out of their political independence, their 
intimate knowledge of their fields, and the fact that they act as the local 
agents for the several foundations interested in aiding Negro education. 28 
They are now gradually becoming integrated in the state administration 
and are paid out of state funds. 

Jackson Davis, N. C. Newbold, and several other leading educational 
statesmen of the South have been engaged in this work. The General 
Education Board has also given much money for fellowships, colleges, 
libraries, and other educational facilities for Southern Negroes and has 
made it possible for the Slater and Jeanes Funds to continue with their work. 
In 191 1, Mr. Julius Rosenwald began the successful activity of giving 
one-third of the funds required for the erection of a rural school building, 
provided the school authorities, with the aid of white friends and the Negro 
people themselves, would furnish the other two-thirds. 24 The Rosenwald 
Fund has established libraries for Negroes, has assisted Negro universities 
and colleges and has given generously to Negro scholars for fellowships 
and research projects. The John F. Slater Fund, given a new direction after 
1 9 10 under the leadership of Dr. James H. Dillard, established the first 
"high schools" for Negroes in the rural South to give prospective teachers 
in the rural Negro elementary schools some education beyond that of the 
elementary school itself. The small Phelps-Stokes Fund (established in 
191 1 ) has devoted itself to assisting Negro and white college students, 
making studies of Negro problems and improving educational facilities for 
Negroes in the United States and in Africa. Andrew Carnegie, and the 
large foundation which he established, the Carnegie Corporation of New 
York, have given significant sums to Negro colleges and libraries, to 
various Negro improvement organizations, and to research projects on the 
Negro — including the present study." 

" In addition to the foundations mentioned in the text, there are others working in the 
field of Negro education: 

(1) The Daniel Hand Fund (established in 1888), directed by the American Mission- 
ary Association, aids Negro schools and colleges along with others j 
(a) The du Pont family has donated gifts for the education of the small Negro 

population of Delaware 4 
(3) The Duke family has donated gifts to Negro colleges in North Carolinaj 



892 An American Dilemma 

The support of Negro education in the South given by Northern phil- 
anthropic organizations has been important in terms of both the funds 
spent and the initiative taken. It has also spurred the Southern state and 
municipal authorities. Federal aid has had its importance and might come 
to mean more in the future. The general facts about this and about the 
discriminations in the South against Negro education in terms of financial 
expenditure have been reviewed in Chapter 15. We shall later add some 
notes on what this means for the actual character of education. 

The stress then will be on elementary and secondary education. At the 
college level, Hampton and Tuskegee continue with their vocational 
emphasis but have recently tended to give a good basic education or the 
academic type. Most of the Negro liberal arts and teachers' colleges of the 
South are inadequate; more so even than the average white Southern 
college or university, which is notoriously inferior to the bulk of Northern 
colleges and universities. 25 The best Negro universities in the South — 
Howard (in Washington, D.C., supported by the federal government), 
Fisk (in Nashville, Tennessee, privately supported), Atlanta (in Atlanta, 
Georgia, privately supported) — are as adequate in many ways as the better 
Southern white universities. There are also one or two Negro colleges — for 
example, Talladega (in Alabama, privately supported) — that rank with 
the better white colleges. Only a half-dozen of the Southern Negro univer- 
sities offer any training on the graduate or professional level and, with the 
exception of Howard University, graduate training is restricted to a few 
fields. Many Southern Negro students go to the great Northern univer- 
sities. Many Northern Negro students go to Southern Negro colleges. 

The control of Negro schools in the South has been shifting somewhat 
in recent years. As elementary and secondary education for Negroes is 
coming to be taken for granted by white Southerners, the support for it is 
coming less from Northern philanthropy and more from state and local 
tax funds assisted by federal grants-in-aid. With the support has gone the 
control, and the South now has complete control of Negro education on 
the elementary and secondary levels. Negroes hold some of the control 
over their own schools, partly because they help to pay for them by volun- 
tary contributions, but mainly because they are the only teachers now in 

(4) The Guggenheim Memorial Foundation provides research fellowships (some 20 
outstanding Negroes have received these) ; 

(5) There have been gifts by many Negro philanthropists. (See Horace M. Bond, 
The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order [1934], pp. 145-147) 1 

(6) Church missions support a significant proportion of the secondary schools and 
colleges for Negroes in the South; 

(7) The Harmon Foundation gives awards to Negroes for outstanding achievement 
and holds, exhibits of fine arts by Negroes. Other small foundations have special 
prizes for Negroes. 



Chapter. 41. The Negro School 893 

Southern Negro schools, and white school supervisors do not care to bother 
with Negro schools unless they hear that something is being taught that 
they do not like. But ultimate control is held by the white superintendents 
and school boards, subject only to the few restrictions entailed in accepting 
federal grants-in-aid and to the advice of the General Education Board 
supervisors. The same is true of the public colleges. The private colleges 
and universities for Negroes in the South are still supported, in large 
measure, by Northern philanthropy, control over them is still held bv the 
trustees (who often come from outside the community where the colleges 
are located), by the foundations and other philanthropists, and by the 
Negro faculty itself which is expressly permitted a significant degree of 
autonomy. 

4. The Whites' Attitudes toward Negro Education 

There are apparent conflicts of valuations between whites and Negroes 
in regard to Negro education. These conflicts, the interests involved, and 
the theories expressing them determine the forms of Negro education. But 
the situation is not so simple as just a difference of opinion. In fact, many 
whites are as eager to improve Negro education as is any Negro, and there 
are some Negroes who are rather on the other side of the fence, at least for 
the purpose of an opportunistic accommodation. The situation lb compli- 
cated by the fact that both whites and Negroes are divided in their own 
minds. They harbor conflicting valuations within themselves. Only by 
keeping this constantly in mind can wc understand the development of 
Negro education and correctly evaluate future prospects. 

The Amci ican Creed definitely prescribes that the Negro child or youth 
should have just as much educational opportunity as is offered anyone else 
in the same community. Negroes should be trained to become good and 
equal citizens in a democracy which places culture high in its hierarchy of 
values. This equalitanan valuation is strong enough to dominate public 
policy in the North, in spite of the fact that probably most white people in 
the North, too, believe the Negroes to be inferior and, anyhow, do not 
care so much for their potentialities and possibilities as for those of whites. 
In the South the existing great discrimination in education is an indication 
that another valuation is dominating white people's actions. But it is a great 
mistake to believe that the American Creed is not also present and active 
in the motivations of Southern whites. Behavior is as always a moral com- 
promise. Negroes would not be getting so much education as they are 
actually getting in the South if the equalitarian Creed were not also active.* 

* The division of white opinion with respect to Negro education is brought out by a poll 
of public opinion in July, 1 940. (Planned by the American Youth Commission, interviews 
by the American Institute of Public Opinion, tabulations and analyses by several individuals 
and groups, published by the National Education Association. See National Education 



894 An American Dilbmma 

By itself, the interest of upholding the caste system would motivate 
Southern whites to give Negroes practically no education at all or would 
restrict it to the transmission of only such lowly skills as would make 
Negroes better servants and farm hands. There is no mistake about this 
interest; it is real and has economic importance. Charles S. Johnson gives 
an account of it as it appears in the rural South: 

Literacy is not an asset in the plantation economy, and it was not only discouraged 
but' usually forbidden. The belief that education spoiled the slave carried over with 
but little modification for many years into the belief that education spoils a field 
hand. The oldest members of the community are illiterate, and in those working 
relations which reveal least change from the past this lack has proved no important 
handicap. Reading and figuring carry elements of danger to established relations. 
Since the detailed direction of planting and handling of accounts are the sphere of 
the planter, theoretically it is he who can profit most from the technique of literacy. 
Too much attention to reading about the outside, and particularly to figuring, on the 
part of Negro tenants, would surely make them less satisfied with their status and 
bring them into harsh conflict with the system. The need of enough education to 
read and figure arises largely among those families desirous of escaping from the 
dependent relationship under the old plantation system. 26 

The poorer classes of whites in this respect have interests similar to those 
of the planters. They are in competition with Negroes for jobs and for 
social status. One of the things which demarcates them as superior and 
increases the future potentialities of their children is the fact that white 
children in publicly supported school buses are taken to fine consolidated 
schools while often Negro children are given only what amounts to a sham 
education in dilapidated one-room schools or old Negro churches by under- 
paid, badly trained Negro teachers. The observer, visiting Southern rural 
counties, gets clear statements of these interests on the part of all classes of 
whites who want to preserve the traditional caste order. The segregated 
school system of the South, in addition, allows a substantial saving by 
keeping Negro education low. 

The caste interest is not merely economic. The whites have told them- 
selves that education will make the Negro conscious of "rights' 1 which he 

Association Research Bulletin [November, 1940], p. 204.) A cross section of the nation 
was asked, "Do you think that the same amount of tax money should be spent in this state 
for the education of a Negro child as tor a white child?" Southern whites were split 
equally: 45 per cent answered "yes"} 46 per cent answered "no" (9 per cent are reported as 
having "no opinion"). Northern whites were in favor of equal educational expenditures by 
a heavy majority: 86 per cent answered "yes"; 10 per cent answered "no" (4 per cent 
are reported as having "no opinion"). 

The large minority in favor of equality in the South is remarkable. As a guide for 
practical policy, however, it has to be discounted because of the peculiarity, which we noticed 
in Chapter 28 and elsewhere, that Southern whites often become convinced by their legal 
pxttenas "separate but equal" that Negroes actually get equal schooling. 



Chapter 41. The Negro School 895 

should not know about. It will make him dissatisfied where he has been 
happy and accommodated. It will raise some Negroes above many whites 
in culture. It will make many more Negroes "uppity" and obnoxious. The 
supremacy of individual whites is bound up with Negro ignorance. If the 
Negro stays in the only "place" where he should be, then he does not need 
any education. These opinions also make sense in the light of the white 
caste's undoubted interest in keeping education away from the Negroes. 

The white people have among themselves all the power, and so their 
convergent interests have molded Negro education in rural districts. The 
low standard of Negro schools is the result. But even in the rural South 
the observer sees the impact of the American Creed. Often it is revealed 
only in a bad conscience. This is apparent everywhere. In most localities 
there also seems to be a gradual improvement of Negro schools. In prac- 
tically all places no obstacles are placed in the way of outside help if it 
observes the proper Southern forms, and it will even be encouraged either 
verbally or by "matching" it with local financial support. The scattering 
around the entire region of the Rosenwald schoolhouses is a case in point. 
Exertions by the Negroes to collect money among themselves for educa- 
tional purposes are never discouraged but applauded by almost everybody. 
This is not said by way of excusing the bald and illegal discrimination in 
the rural school systems in the South, but only to stress the fact that the 
white caste interests are practically never driven to their logical end. 

In the urban South, whites of the employing class do not have the same 
material interests in keeping the Negroes ignorant. They have rather to 
gain if their Negro servants and laborers have at least some education. The 
poorer classes of whites have scarcely any such gains to reap, however. 
They are interested in keeping Negroes as much as possible out of competi- 
tion on the labor market. The general interest of keeping the Negroes down 
to preserve the caste order intact is present in the cities too. It is shared 
by all classes, but, of course, felt most strongly by the poorer whites. City 
populations are, however, more closely integrated in the life of the nation: 
the regional traditions are somewhat weaker, the cultural level among 
whites is higher, the American Creed is stronger. So we find that Southern 
cities offer the Negroes a substantially better education. In the Border 
states the integration in the national life and the strength of the Ameri- 
can Creed are still stronger, and we find also that the educational facilities 
available to Negroes are more nearly equal to those of the whites. 

The primary rationalization of this gradual deviation in the South from 
the policy representing the crude caste interest is usually phrased in the 
popular theory of the American Creed— that education of the youths of 
the poorer classes is beneficial not only to themselves but to society. Thomas 
Nelson Page presented the liberal Southerners' attitude toward the educa- 
tion of the Negro masses many years ago: 



896 An American Dilemma 

There is much truth in the saying that unless the whites lift the Negroes up, the 
Negroes will drag them down, though it is not true in the full sense in which it was 
intended. It is not true to the extent that the white must lift the Negro up to his own 
level ; it is true to the extent that he must not leave him debased — at least must not 
leave him here debased. If he does, then the Negro will inevitably hold him, if not 
drag him down. No country in the present stage of the world's progress can long 
maintain itself in the front rank, and no people can long maintain themselves at the 
top of the list of peoples if they have to carry perpetually the burden of a vast and 
densely ignorant population, and where that population belongs to another race, the 
argument must be all the stronger. Certainly, no section can, under such a burden 
keep pace with a section which has no such burden. Whatever the case may have been 
in the past, the time has gone by, possibly forever, when the ignorance of the work- 
ing-class was an asset. Nations and peoples and, much more, sections of peoples, are 
now strong and prosperous almost in direct ratio to their knowledge and enlighten- 
ment. . . . 

Viewing the matter economically, the Negro race, like every other race, must be of 
far more value to the country in which it is placed, if the Negro is properly educated, 
elevated, and trained, than if he is allowed to remain in ignorance and degradation. 
He is a greater peril to the community in which he lives if he remains in ignorance 
and degradation than if he is enlightened. If the South expects ever to compete with 
the North, she must educate and train her population, and, in my judgment, not 
merely her white population but her entire population. 27 

This has been the main argument through decades for improving the 
educational facilities for Negroes in the South. Usually it is restricted by 
assertion of their lower capability of responding to education. Usually also 
it is qualified by the insistence on a particular kind of education as more 
suitable for Negroes. 

There is petty pressure on Negro education in the South, but the truth 
is that the Southern whites have never had the nerve to make of Negro 
education an accomplished instrument to keep the Negroes in their caste 
status. It would have, been possible, but it has not been done. The Southern 
whites' caste policy has been halfhearted all through, but particularly so in 
education. The explanation is again that they are also good Americans with 
all the standardized American ideals about education. The interest of 
educating the Negroes to become faithful helots has been obvious, but the 
Southern whites have not even attempted to make it effective in practice. 
Instead, they have merely kept Negro education poor and bad. And even 
on that point they have been gradually giving up resistance to the command 
of the Creed. This is the deeper dynamics of Negro education. 

5. "Industrial" versus "Classical" Education of Negroes 

Quite independent of how the specific value of "vocational" or "indus- 
trial" education,- as compared with a more liberal education, is viewed, 
there is no doubt that the popularity among whites, now as earlier, of the 



Chapter 41. The Negro School 897 

former type of Negro education is mainly motivated by the interests of 
preserving the caste order. "Industrial" education for Negroes is the 
formula upon which Southern whites have been able to strike a compromise 
between their belief in education, which stems from the American Creed, 
and their interests as white Southerners in preserving the caste order of the 
region. 

The argument runs: The Negroes are, and must be, servants, farm 
laborers, and industrial workers; they should, however, be trained to do 
their work better; then, in their "place," they would be better citizens too. 
What is needed, consequently, is a Negro education which bothers less with 
bookish learning and more with life in a humble status, daily duties, and 
the building up of character; the Negroes have to begin at the bottom and 
they will probably stay low, but they should be given the chance of moving 
upward slowly. The advocate of improved industrial training of Negroes 
also stresses the very material interest of the better class of white people 
to have more efficient servants. The play of these arguments can be ob- 
served today, when, for instance, one accompanies the State Agent for 
Negro Education in a rural county trying to persuade the local white 
leaders to spend money to improve Negro education. 

The formula, "industrial education for Negroes," thus has a different 
meaning for different white people. There are some who have a genuine 
belief in the superiority generally of a practical stress in all public education. 
There are many more who see strong particular reasons for this educational 
goal in the actual situation of Southern Negroes. Many have their primary 
interest in improving Negro education as such and know that it is politically 
much more feasible if it is proposed in this way. To many the formula is, 
however, only a rationalization for discrimination and for holding appro- 
priations low for Negro schools." 

Industrial education becomes a byword. In the mind of one man it meant that the 
negro should be taught only to know the relative distance between two rows of cotton 
or corn, and how to deport himself with becoming behavior behind the chair while 
his white lord and master sits at meat; while, in the mind of another it stood for the 
awakening of the best powers and possibilities. To the white man of the South it 
may have meant that the negro was to be made more serviceable to him and more 
easily amenable to his imperious will. To the white man of the North it may have 
meant that the black man was to be made a competent worker, equipped with 
intelligence and skill such as are demanded of Northern workmen. However variant 
may hare been the interpretations of the meaning of industrial education, there was 
a general agreement to discredit the higher culture of the race. 28 

This has, among other things, the implication that in the South the problem 
of "industrial" versus "classical" education for Negroes is not, and has 
"Although, as we shall presently observe, true vocational education actually is more 
expensive. 



898 An American Dilemma 

never been, discussed merely in terms of pedagogical advantages and 
disadvantages. The political caste problem is always an J necessarily in- 
volved. And the type of education to be given Negroes is always and neces- 
sarily connected with the amount of education and the financial obligations 
to be undertaken. 2 * 

Two factors complicate the issue even more: the high relative costs of 
modern vocational education and the white laborers' fear of the Negroes as 
competitors. In the period immediately after the Civil War, vocational 
education was — a fact now often forgotten — motivated also as a less expen- 
sive way of giving Negroes some schooling. General Armstrong, when 
founding Hampton Institute, stressed the agricultural and vocational line, 
not only for the reason that such a training best fitted the occupational 
possibilities of the freed slaves, but also because it allowed the students to 
earn something toward their maintenance at school. 80 In his appeals for 
funds for Tuskegee Institute, Booker T. Washington likewise always 
emphasized this element of economy, and particularly how the students, 
by their own work, erected many of the buildings and provided much to- 
ward the support of themselves and the school. 

The pedagogical aim of vocational education outside agriculture in those 
days was to continue and build up the artisan tradition from slavery and 
to turn out young Negroes skilled in the old handicrafts — train them to be 
carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, shoemakers. When, however, the Indus- 
trial Revolution finally hit the South in full force, the demand of efficient 
industry was no longer for the artisan but for the skilled machine operator. 
The old handicrafts became relatively less important. Even agriculture did 
not show much demand for skilled Negro labor. On the plantations the 
employers continued to be best satisfied with the ignorant field hands who 
were not disturbingly ambitious, and the trend toward increased Negro 
kndownership turned downward shortly after 1900. If Negroes — outside 
domestic service — were to be given effective vocational education, this 
would require such an elaborate equipment for the schools that it would 
become more expensive than "classical" education. 

At the same time and partly for the same basic reasons, the interest of 
the white workers against allowing Negroes to acquire skills became 
stronger. In agriculture and in the stagnating crafts, new skilled Negro 
labor was not welcome $ in industry it became a principle that all skilled 
jobs should be reserved for the whites. 

What if the industrial education of the Negro should be found to conflict with 

the interests of the white laborer or skilled worker? Does any one suppose that it is 

•■ the purpose of the South so to educate the Negro (or even allow him to be so 

educated) as to enable him to take the bread from the white man's mouth? And does 

•ay one suppose that the laboring white man of the arrogant and aggressive Anglo- 



Chapter 41. The Negro School 899 

Saxon race will stand tamely by with folded arms while there is danger of it! being 
done? This is the central point of the whole situation. 81 

By and large, in sfite of all the talk about it, no effective industrial training 
was ever given the Negroes in the Southern public schools, except training 
for cooking and menial service. The expensive vocational training, which 
conflicted so harshly with the interests of the white workers, has never 
become much more than a slogan. Negro education has mostly remained 
"academic" and differs only in its low level of expenditure and effectiveness. 

Even at the well-endowed centers of Hampton and Tuskegee, the indus- 
trial training offered was in demand almost solely because of a need for 
teachers in the lesser schools, rather than because of the needs of modern 
industry. This explains why they have been able to realize, in some lines 
at least, the vocational idea as well as they have, without coming into 
greater conflict with the interests of white workers. The schools to which 
those teachers have gone, and are now going, are usually not nearly so well 
equipped that they could be called "vocational" in any serious meaning of 
the term. They usually are poor schools, not deserving much of a classifica- 
tion into either "vocational" or "classical." A few exceptional schools 
excluded, they offer at best some training in domestic service for girls — 
which, for understandable reasons, meets more encouragement and less 
fear of competition — or a poor training in the technique of rapidly disap- 
pearing handicrafts, sometimes adjusted slightly to modern times by 
courses in "automobile repair work" or the like. 32 

The discussion of whether Negroes should have a vocational or a liberal 
schooling is thus only in part a real issue. Partly it is a cover for the more 
general problem as to what extent Negroes should have much education at 
all. The lines are blurred because the argument for vocational education 
is used both by the people who want to have more education for Negroes 
and by those who want to restrict it. The main conflict is between the ever 
present equalitarian American Creed, on the one hand, and the caste inter- 
est, on the other. The actual situation is different between regions; opinions 
are divided and confused within almost every individual. Let us, as an 
example, have a Southern liberal survey the field of opinions, as he sees it, 
and attempt to formulate his own attitude: 

It is surprising to note the prejudice with which a great many southern whites 
view the whole subject of Negro education. Their sincere opinion that the Negro 
should not be given educational opportunities comparable to those which are provided 
for the white children is at least partly due to the strong belief that better facilities 
in the colored schools would not yield a proper return in human values. This belief 
is a heritage from slavery. Of course there is also the attitude that the educated 
Negro will lose the humility which has characterized his relations with the southern 
white man ever since Reconstruction. The white laboring man is no doubt influenced 
in his opposition to bettei' educational facilities for Negroes by the fear that Negroei 



900 An American Dilemma 

will enter skilled trades and thereby create a new and very effective rivalry in a field 
in which the whites have not had as much competition as they have where the task 
requires less training and education. However, certain farsighted leaden and some 
others realize that the Negro must be given better schools. They believe that 
improved colored school facilities will benefit not only the Negroes but also the 
whites. They feel that the colored man is entitled to a good high school education 
in subjects which may be selected with a view to the peculiar social situation in the 
South. The Negro must be trained for the jobs which are available under present 
conditions. Cultural training in the arts and sciences must for the present be subor- 
dinated to an education which is more suitable to his needs. In this way the greatest 
number will be benefited. The curriculum for the colored schools needs a great deal 
of study with a view toward revision. 88 

6. Negro Attitudes 

The attitudes of the whites are of greatest importance for the growth of 
Negro education, as they have all the power. The Negroes are, how- 
ever, not without influence, partly because the whites are divided among 
themselves and divided in their own conscience. The remarkable thing is 
that the Negroes are split in much the same way and on the same issues. 

It is natural, to begin with, that the American Creed interest is more 
stressed with the Negroes. Deep down in their souls practically all Negroes 
feel that they have the right to equal opportunities for education. And the 
sanctity of the American Creed gives them the opportunity to express this 
opinion and to press the whites for concessions. The stress on education in 
American culture makes the Negro protest most respectable. But the 
observer finds also that there are a few upper class Negroes who express 
about the same opinion as whites, that common Negroes do not need and 
should not have much education. This is rare, however, and the opinion 
has to be concealed. 

Much more important is the split in the Negro world as to what kind of 
education is desirable. On the one hand, they sense the caste motivation 
behind most whites' interest in industrial education for Negroes. They 
know also that they can hope to win the respect of the whites and take their 
place as equal citizens in American democracy only if they are educated in 
the nonvocational cultural values of the broader society. On the other hand, 
they see the actual caste situation as a reality and know that many lines of 
work are closed to them. In order to utilize fully the openings left, and 
in order eventually to open up new roads into industrial employment, they 
often conclude that Negroes are in particular need of vocational training. 
They realize also that the great poverty and cultural backwardness of their 
people motivate a special adaptation of Negro education. On this point 
there is a possibility of striking a compromise with the liberal white man. 
In the North most Negroes will not make this concession, and by no means 
all Negroes, perhaps not even a majority, in the South are prepared to take 



Chapter 41. The Negro School 901 

the stand. Even the ones who do, stress at the same time the necessity of 
raising educational opportunities and of improving the schools. 

Concerning the content of teaching in other respects, Negroes are also 
divided. On the one hand, they are inclined to feel that the Northern 
system, where a standardized teaching is given students independent of 
whether they are whites or Negroes, is the only right thing. On the other 
hand, they feel that the students get to know too little about Negro prob- 
lems. They thus want an adjustment of teaching toward the status of 
Negroes, usually not in order to make the Negroes weak and otherwise 
fit into the white man's wishful picture about "good niggers" but, on the 
contrary, to make Negroes better prepared to fight for their rights. They 
feel that education should not only be accepted passively but should be 
used as a tool of concerted action to gain the equal status they are seeking. 
For this reason many, if not most, Negro leaders desire that Negro students 
should get special training in Negro problems. 

Du Bois, who originally was the most uncompromising advocate of the 
idea that no difference at all should be made in teaching Negro and white 
students, later came out with the opinion that the Negro student should 
not only be taught general history and social subjects as they were taught 
to white students, but also Negro history and Negro problems and, indeed, 
a special race strategy for meeting their individual and collective problems 
in America. Negro youth should even be taught to have pride in Africa. 84 

This opinion, except perhaps for the last point, is now commonly shared 
by most Negro intellectuals. The institution of "Negro History Week" has 
emanated from such attitudes." Negro colleges and high schools are devot- 
ing an increasing interest to Negro problems. White intcrracialists condone 
these things. 85 Other whites do not care but feel, as we have said, that it is 
the Negroes' right to discuss their own problems if they want to. 

There is a further controversy as to whether Negro education ought to 
be segregated or not. In the North the official opinion among whites is that 
segregation is not compatible with equality, but, as we have seen, much 
segregation is actually in effect as a consequence of residential segregation 
and of gerrymandering districts and granting permits to transfer. In the 
South direct segregation in schools is a necessary means of keeping up the 
tremendous financial discrimination against Negro schools. In recent years 
not even Southern liberals — with some rare exceptions — have stated that 
they favored mixed education. Segregation is usually not motivated by 
financial reasons but as a precaution against social equality, 86 

Negroes are divided on the issues of segregated schools. In so far as 
segregation means discrimination and is a badge of Negro inferiority, they 
are against it, 87 although many Southern Negroes would not take an open 
stand that would anger Southern whites. Some Negroes, however, prefer 

* See Chapter 35, Section 9. 



902 An American Dilemma 

the segregated school, even for the North, when the mixed school involves 
humiliation for Negro students and discrimination against Negro teachers. 
Du Bois has expressed this point of view succinctly: 

. . . theoretically, the Negro needs neither segregated schools nor mixed schools. 
What he needs is Education. What he must remember is that there is no magic, 
either in mixed schools or in segregated schools. A mixed school with poor and unsym- 
pathetic teachers, with hostile opinion, and no teaching concerning black folk, is bad. 
A segregated school with ignorant placeholders, inadequate equipment, poor salaries, 
and wretched housing, is equally bad. Other things being equal, the mixed school is 
the broader, more natural basis for the education of all youth. It gives wider contacts; 
it inspires greater self-confidence; and suppresses the inferiority complex. But other 
things seldom are equal, and in that case, Sympathy, Knowledge, and the Truth, out- 
weigh all that the mixed school can offer. 88 

Other Negroes prefer the mixed schools at any cost, since for them it is a 
matter of principle or since they believe that it is a means of improving race 
relations.* 

7. Trends and Problems 

Schrieke, surveying Southern education a few years ago, sums up the 
situation in the following words: 

. . . although there is some sort and some amount of Negro education everywhere, 
Negro education still does not have a fixed, legitimate, acknowledged place. It is 
realized that something must be done in order to keep the Negro satisfied and in 
order to uphold the American slogan of free schools for every child, but it is rare 
that a community has any real interest in planning or building a wise system of 
education for the race. Politically, it is not generally admitted that the Negro has a 
right to schools or to other public services. . . . The Negro is still not recognized as 
a citizen despite the Civil War amendments. 38 

This somewhat pessimistic evaluation is warranted by the facts. The educa- 
tional facilities for Negroes, particularly in many rural regions, are scandal- 
ously poor. 6 The white community often blinds itself to the entire matter. 

* There are many minor elements in the controversy. Frazier, for example, report) that 
some dark-skinned children in Washington and Louisville preferred mixed schools since 
the white teacher made no distinction between them and light-skinned Negroes— a distinction 
claimed to be made by some light-skinned Negro teachers. (£. Franklin Frazier, Negro 
Youth at the Crosstuays [1940], pp. 96-97.) On the other hand, some Negro upper class 
parents would like to keep their children away from the Negro schools, where prevail 
"dirt, noise, bad manners, filthy tales, no discipline," overcrowding and poorly trained 
teachers. (W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn [1940], p. 178.) 

* The present writer has gone into many one-room, one-teacher Negro schools and hardly 
believed his eyes and his ears when he ascertained the primitive school building, the lack of 
practically all equipment, the extreme lack of contact with modern American civilization 
«n the part of the untrained, poorly paid, Negro woman serving as teacher, and the bottom- 
less ignorance of the pupils. I once visited such a school in a rural county of Georgia, not 
far from Atlanta. The building was an old Rosenwald school, dilapidated but far better 



Chapter 41. The Negro School 903 

But in appraising the situation, it is equally important to recognize that 
there are dissimilarities in the level of educational facilities offered Negroes, 
and that there is a definite tendency upward. 

This trend is gaining momentum and is pushed not only by Northern 
philanthropy and the intervention of federal agencies, but also by the 
growing force of Southern liberalism.' The rising educational level of the 
whites in the region gives an increasing basis for understanding the necessity 
of doing something for Negro education. The skillful strategy of the 
N.A.A.C.P. is probably going to enforce a raise in the wages of Southern 
Negro teachers over the next decade and will, if it does not open the door 
of the graduate schools to Negroes, at least compel the Southern states to 

than many other school buildings in the region. The student* were in all age groups from 6 
to 7 years upward to 16 to 17. There was also an imbecile man of about 20 staying on as 
a steady student veteran. (The lack of institutions for old Negro mental defectives makes 
the great majority of them stay in their homes, and the homes find it often convenient to 
send them to school. There they are, of course, a great danger from several viewpoints.) 
The teacher, a sickly girl about 20 years old, looked shy and full of fear} she said she had 
had high school training. 

The students seemed to enjoy the visit and it was easy to establish a human contact with 
them. No one could tell who was President of the United States or even what the President 
was. Only one of the older students knew, or thought he knew, of Booker T. Washington. 
He said that Washington was "a big white man," and intimated that he might be the 
President of the United States. This student, obviously a naturally very bright boy, was the 
only one who knew anything about Europe and England) they were "beyond the Atlantic," 
he informed me, but he thought that Europe was in England. No one had ever heard about 
Walter White, John Hope, Du Bois, or Mo ton. No one had heard of the N.A.A.C.P. One 
boy identified Carver as a "colored man who makes medicine." Several could identify Joe 
Louis, Ella Fitzgerald, and Henry Armstrong. Asked if they knew what the Constitution 
of the United States was and what it meant to them, all remained in solemn silence, until 
the bright boy helped us out, informing us that it was a "newspaper in Atlanta." 

When telling such a horror story it must, at once, be added that it is not typical, though 
a large portion of rural Negro schools are at, or near, this cultural level. But it is remark- 
able, and a significant characteristic of the whole system, that it can exist even as an 
isolated rase. It should also be said that there are a few white schools in some regions of the 
South which do not reach much higher. I recollect that some white school children in 
Louisiana believed that Huey Long was still living (autumn, 1938) and was the President 
of the United States. 

A further reflection is that the usual measures of school efficiency (see Chapter 43, 
Section 4) are inadequate when the problem is to sound the bottom of ignorance in many 
Negro schools. 

'As an example of what can now be publicly stated in the South concerning the low 
existing level of Negro educational facilities and the need for improved ones, we may note 
the excellent Louisiana Educational Survey. Charles S. Johnson and Associates prepared the 
monograph on the Negro public schools, and his report is summarized in popular form in 
the "summary report" prepared by Carleton Washburne {Louisiana Looks at Us Schools 
f'94*]). Seldom has such an excellent survey appeared regarding the schools of any state, 
*nd the fact that this survey emanates from one of the Deep Southern states is a most 
hopeful sign. 



904 An American Dilemma 

initiate some sort of graduate training in the state-supported Negro col- 
leges. In the beginning this graduate training will perhaps be merely a 
sham gesture, but a basis for further advance will have been created. 
Segregation will probably be upheld on all levels while discrimination is 
being fought and decreased. Segregation will less and less be a means of 
economy j gradually it will, instead, become a financial burden. It is not 
unlikely that segregation will then start to break down on the highest level. 
In the total view, the prospects are thus not entirely discouraging. In fact, 
there have never been, since Reconstruction, fewer reasons for a defeatist 
attitude in regard to Negro education in the South. 

In spite of much and heated discussion regarding the type of Negro 
education, its actual development has never followed any plan or theory. 
The main problem has always been not what sort but how much educa- 
tion the Negro should have and how much he gets. Even today the chief 
problem is how to get increased appropriations and improved standards. 
As we have hinted, the theory of "industrial" training for Negroes has had 
its main function in being a bait for the powers of the purse in Northern 
philanthropy and in Southern public budgets. And the truth is that any 
type of improved education for Negroes is salutary. 

There is an immense need of new school buildings for Negroes, particu- 
larly in rural districts but also in most Southern cities. There is also need 
for new equipment of all sorts, for consolidated schools and for school buses. 
After the close of the present war there is going to be, in all likelihood, a 
great necessity for public works to mitigate unemployment, and much of 
this activity is bound to be directed upon erecting buildings for public 
schools. 

The only sound and democratic principle for distributing the benefits of 
the post-war public works policy in various districts and groups would be to 
build for those districts and groups in the nation whose old buildings are 
worst. Such a policy would, in the South, mean concentrating almost the 
whole activity on building Negro schools and other buildings for Negroes. 
The old Negro schools are generally so bad and inadequate that this kind 
of public construction would suffice to occupy the unemployed for quite 
a while. Such a policy will probably not be followed for political reasons. 
It is, however, not only a Negro interest but a general democratic interest 
that this policy be pressed, so that Negro schools get the maximum out of 
any post-war unemployment emergency. As communities usually want to 
have buildings erected independent of their purposes if they do not have to 
pay for them — because they mean work and income for the community— 
and as Southerners are not likely to object too much if Negro school build- 
ings are built with federal money, it should be taken up for deliberation 
whether it would not be a wise policy to distribute federal aid to education 
in the form of taking over the responsibility for erecting and furnishing 
the buildings. 



Chapter 41. The Negro School 905 

A second most important condition for progress is to improve the stand- 
ards of Negro teachers. This has been seen by the Northern foundations and 
also by many of the Southern state authorities, and much effort has gone 
into improving teacher training in the South. Southern state and private 
Negro colleges largely serve this purpose. Many of the small Negro 
colleges in the South are inadequate and the whole system needs to be 
systematized. Many of them will, perhaps, succumb in the financial strain 
of the present War, and this might turn out to be a blessing in disguise if the 
remaining colleges are increased and improved correspondingly. The 
establishment of a new model teacher-training college in the South would 
be a great service which a farsighted federal policy could undertake in 
order to equalize educational opportunities for Negroes. Meanwhile the 
raised salary scales, to which the South will be compelled, will probably 
raise the standards of training Negro teachers. Negro teachers need not 
only better training and higher salaries; they also need more security of 
tenure. If the rural teacher could be given a greater independence and a 
higher prestige, this, by itself, would make her a better teacher and, partic- 
ularly, increase the influence of the school over the community. 

If the federal government undertakes further financial responsibility 
for education, 11 it will be up against a problem which has been bothering the 
philanthropic foundations for a long time, although it is seldom discussed 
openly: How is it possible to aid without decreasing local responsibility? 
In the author's judgment, Northern philanthropy in its grand-scale charity 
toward the South, incidental to its positive accomplishments, has also had a 
demoralizing influence on the South. The South has become accustomed to 
taking it for granted that not only rich people in the North, but also poor 
church boards, should send money South, thus eternally repaying "the 
responsibility of the North for Reconstruction." Thus far, rich people in the 
South have been less inclined to give away their money for philanthropic 
purposes. 

For these moral reasons it is important, when the federal government 
steps in, that local financial responsibility be preserved as much as possible. 
The ideal solution would be that the federal government pay certain basic 
costs all over the country ', such as original building costs and a basic teach- 
er's salary. It is, of course, of special importance that, as far as possible, 
absence of discrimination be made a condition for aid. Otherwise the idea 
will become established that Negro education is the business of the federal 
government and less a concern of the state and the municipalities. In this 
sense there is a danger that the Negro people might become "the ward of 
the nation." 

Our assumption was that, to improve Negro education, larger appropria- 
tions, better buildings, more equipment, better paid and trained teachers 

' For a consideration of what the federal government has already done, see Chapter 15, 
Section 3. 



906 An American Dilemma 

are essential. By this we did not want to discount altogether the problem 
of the direction of Negro education but only to retain true proportions. 
The main fault with Negro education is that it is undernourished and 
inadequate. As it is improved, however, the problem of its direction becomes 
important. Even when Negro education is on a low level, as in most rural 
districts at present, it is, of course, important not to have it misdirected. 
But the choice seems, for the most part, still to be between an antediluvian 
"industrial" education and an equally antediluvian "classical" education. 40 
The Jeanes teacher movement and other constructive attempts in South- 
ern Negro education have tried to work out a makeshift policy in which 
the emphasis is laid upon maintaining and enriching the relations of the 
student to his community. 41 This is all very well, and entirely in line with 
modern educational theory as it has been developed in America. But one 
main point seems forgotten. With the present trends in Southern agricul- 
ture and American agricultural policy, it is fairly certain that many of the 
children born in a cotton county today are going to live and work not in 
cotton districts but in Northern and Southern cities. Many of the children 
born in a Southern city are going to live in the different environment of 
the Northern metropolis. If the American economy and economic policy 
are not going to stagnate, Negroes are going to work in new occupations 
within the next generation. What is needed is an education which makes the 
Negro child adaptable to and movable in the American culture at large. 

Even the Negro child who will stay in Southern agriculture will need 
to use various types of machinery, to follow popular journals in his field, to 
deal with credit institutions and government agencies, and successfully to 
take part in organizations. He needs to be able to read, write, and reckon, 
and to be lifted so high above illiteracy that he actually participates in 
modern American society. Before all, he needs not to be specialized, but 
to be changeable, "educable." And he needs it more than the white child, 
because life will be more difficult for him. 

The right balance between "industrial" and "classical" education can be 
struck if due weight is given to the prospect of mobility and change. The 
masses of Negro children are going to be laborers on the farms and in 
industries} some are going to be skilled laborers. We do not know where 
and in what occupation they are going to work, but we know there is going 
to be much moving around. They need to be taught skills; but the value 
of any vocational training should be judged in terms of the extent to which 
the skills acquired are transferable into skills in other trades. They need 
to be familiarized with the printed word and culture that is found in books, 
and, indeed, to get as much of the general American culture as they possibly 
can. 

Meanwhile, Southern Negro schools are going to remain inadequate. 
The North will continue for many decades to get untutored and crude 



Chapter 41. The Negro School 907 

Negro immigrants from the South. These uneducated masses of Southern- 
born Negroes will be a heavy burden on the social and economic order in 
the North. It is, therefore, an interest for Northern cities, and not only for 
the migratory Negroes, that a frogram of adult education be instituted to 
teach the migrating Negro masses the elements of American culture and 
also, ferhafs, elements of vocational skills. 

More significant in the dynamics of Negro education than the low average 
standards in some regions arc the high standards in others, and the general 
trend toward improvement. The American nation will not have peace with 
its conscience until inequality is stamped out, and the principle of public 
education is realized universally, 



CHAPTER 42 

THE NEGRO PRESS 



1. An Organ for the Negro Protest 

Most white people in America are entirely unaware of the bitter and 
relentless criticism of themselves; of their policies in domestic or inter- 
national affairs j their legal and political practices; their business enter- 
prises; their churches, schools, and other institutions; their social customs, 
their opinions and prejudices; and almost everything else in white Amer- 
ican civilization. Week in and week out these are presented to the Negro 
people in their own press. It is a fighting press. 

Negro papers are first of all race papers. They are first and foremost interested in 
the advancement of the race. A large percentage of the editorials are concerned with 
justice to the race, with equal privileges, with facts of race progress, or with com- 
plaint against conditions as they are. Of course there occur from time to time well 
written editorials on topics of general interest, such as world peace, better political 
adjustment, or the progress of civilization; but it still remains true that most of the 
editorials are distinctly racial. The articles in these papers are usually propaganda — 
that is, they follow the line of the editorials. A great many are genuinely inflamma- 
tory. 1 

The Negro papers offer something not found in the white press: 

Through all the Negro press there flows an undercurrent of feeling that the race 
considers itself a part of America and yet has no voice in the American newspaper. 
Members of this group want to learn about each other, they want the stories of their 
success, conflicts, and issues told, and they want to express themselves in public. 2 

The purpose of the press is clearly conceived. P. B. Young, the editor of 
one of the best Negro papers, the Norfolk Journal and Guide, expresses 
it thus: 

Traditionally our press is a special pleader; it is an advocate of human rights. 8 

There are at present about 210 Negro weekly, semi-weekly, or bi-weekly 
newspapers.* Some of these are for the general Negro public; others are 

* Florence Murray (editor), The Negro Handbook (1942), p. 201. (The figures are taken 
from a U. S. Bureau of the Census report for 1940.) There have been repeated attempts to 
launch Negro dailies but they have regularly failed. (See G. James Fleming, "The Negro 
Press," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study [1940], Chapter IX.) The Atlanta 

908 



Chapter 42. The Negro Press 909 

organs of Negro religious denominations and labor organizations. Most of 
the general newspapers have a circulation limited to the locality where 
they are published. But ten to twenty Negro papers have large circulations 
extending to whole regions and sometimes to all Negro America. In addi- 
tion there are some 129 monthly, bi-monthly and quarterly magazines.* 
Two of these have outstanding national importance: The Crisis, published 
by the N.A.A.C.P., and Opportunity, published by the National Urban 
League. The others are almost all organs of Negro religious denom- 
inations, fraternal orders, professional groups, colleges and schools. Only 
four Negro magazines are pictorial or theatrical. 8 The weekly press alone 
has a total circulation of around one and a half million. 6 

Practically all Negroes who can read arc exposed to the influence of the 
Negro press at least some of the time. Perhaps a third of the Negro families 
in cities regularly subscribe to Negro newspapers, 7 but the proportion is 
much smaller in rural areas. The readers of the Negro press are, however, 
the most alert and articulate individuals who form Negro opinion. News- 
papers are commonly passed from family to family, and they are sometimes 
read out loud in informal gatherings. They are available in barbershops, 
and sometimes in churches, lodges and pool parlors. Their contents are 
passed by word of mouth among those who cannot read. 8 Indirectly, there- 
fore, even aside from circulation figures, this press influences a large pro- 
portion of the Negro population. 

No unifying central agency directs the opinions expressed in the Negro 
press. Like white newspapers, Negro newspapers are in keen competition 
with one another for circulation. Without discounting either the idealistic 
zeal and the strength of personal opinion of many editors, columnists, and 
other Negro newspapersmen, or the influence of petty corruption in the 
Negro papers, by and large the Negro press provides the news and the 
opinion's which its reading public wants. This inference has the corollary 

Daily World is the only daily newspaper at the present time. In 1 940 its daily circulation 
was about 5,ooo, but it had a weekly edition "with a larger circulation. {Ibid., Chapter IX, 
pp. 8 ff.) 

* Among the magazines, The Interracial Review, an organ for Catholic Action, comes 
next perhaps in importance. Silhouette is a picture monthly, surviving Flash and Candid, 
which followed the Life pattern. A high place is held by The Journal of Negro History, 
edited by Carter G. Woodson; Journal of Negro Education, edited by Charles Thompson 
of Howard Universityj and Phylon, The Atlanta University Review of Race and Culture, 
edited by W. £. B. Du Bois. For some further notes on the publications or organizations 
and on the earlier appearances and disappearances of Negro magazines, see Fleming, of. cit., 
Chapter XII. Also see: Sidney V. Reedy, "The Negro Magazine: A Critical Study of Its 
Educational Significance," Journal of Negro Education (October, 1934), pp. 598-604. In 
this chapter we shall concentrate our attention on the regular Negro weeklies, which, at 
least directly, are of greatest importance for the formation of Negro opinion. Most of what 
we have to say is, mutatis mutandis, valid for the periodicals also. 



910 An American Dilemma 

conclusion that Negro opinion— at least among the more alert and articu- 
late groups — can be ascertained and studied in the Negro press. 

The opinions expressed in the Negro press — directly in the editorials 
and columns and indirectly in the type of news selected — are remarkably 
similar all over the country. This is undoubtedly caused by the common 
demands of the reading public and the similarity of milieu of the competing 
journalists. Negro papers in the South tend to be more cautious and less 
belligerent. But a large proportion of all Negro papers bought and read 
in the South are published in the North. This Northern competition 
explains to some extent why even Southern Negro newspapers give such a 
relatively blunt expression to the Negro protest. The more basic explana- 
tion, however, is that this is what the Southern Negro public wants to read, 
too. In the South, where concerted action on the part of Negroes is usually 
so severely checked, and where Negro leadership in all practical matters 
has to be accommodating, most of the time,* the Negro press serves as a 
safety-valve for the boiling Negro protest. 

This is possible — like the great amount of Negro protest within the walls 
of the Negro church and the Negro school — because the whites seldom 
know much about it. Whites, apparently, very rarely see Negro papers. 
Even when they do come across them, there is a certain abstract feeling 
among all Americans for the freedom of the press which, even in the South, 
covers the Negro newspapers. The Southern Negro press, further, usually 
takes the precaution of not attaching its protest too much to local issues and 
news, but to general principles, national issues, and news from distant 
points. The local pages in Southern Negro papers are usually restrained. 
Northern Negro papers are less afraid of carrying the Negro protest into 
local news and issues. But even in the North most of the local coverage 
tends to be restricted to news and gossip about the town. Indirectly, how- 
ever, even the pages devqted to the local community have a protest pur- 
pose as well as an informational purpose in both the North and the South. 
All Negroes, and particularly the ambitious upper and middle classes of 
Negroes who make up most of the reading public, are aware that white 
Americans deny them social status and social distinction. This makes class 
and accomplishment seem tremendously important. The display of Negro 
"society news" in the Negro press is partly an answer to the social deroga- 
tion from the whites. 

The more important and open expressions of the Negro protest are to be 
found in the news coverage of the whole American Negro world and, to 
an extent, the Negro world outside the United States, and also in the 
columns and editorials on the status of the Negro people. It is a character- 
istic of the Negro press that if, on the one hand, it is provincial in focusing 
interest on the race angle, it, on the other hand, embraces the whole race 

* See Chapters 34 and 37. 



Chapter 42. The Negro Press 911 

world. The press defines the Negro group to the Negroes themselves. The 
individual Negro is invited to share in the sufferings, grievances, and 
pretensions of the millions of Negroes far outside the narrow local com- 
munity. This creates a feeling of strength and solidarity. The press, more 
than any other institution, has created the Negro group as a social and 
psychological reality to the individual Negro. 

For this reason the Negro press is far more than a mere expression of 
the Negro protest. By expressing the protest, the press also magnifies it, 
acting like a huge sounding board. The press is also the chief agency of 
group control. It tells the individual how he should think and feel as an 
American Negro and creates a tremendous power of suggestion by imply- 
ing that all other Negroes think and feel in this manner. It keeps the Negro 
spokesman in line. Every public figure knows he will be reported, and he 
has to weigh his words carefully. Both the leaders and the masses are 
kept under racial discipline by the press. This promotes unanimity without 
the aid of central direction. 

The Negro press is thus strongly opinionated. This points to a difference 
between the Negro press and the foreign-language press supported by the 
various immigrant groups in America. 11 Both types of "minority press" 
serve the interest of their groups to read more news about themselves 
than the "majority press" cares to give them. Many individuals in the 
immigrant groups are also not familiar with the English language, and a 
foreign-language paper is to them a practical news agency. Many more 
feel a certain pride in a non-American origin and culture. But this attach- 
ment is usually experienced as a sentimental quality of distinction, besides 
that of being, or becoming, an American. Immigrants are usually bent on 
assimilation and, as good prospects are held out to them, b they feel little 
desire to protest. 

Negroes, on the contrary, have no language of their own, and their 
culture is American. But, however much culturally assimilated they are, 
they are not accepted as full-fledged Americans. They protest, not because 
they feel themselves different, but because they want to be similar and are 
forcibly held to be different." 1 The news in the Negro papers is selected and 

* For a sociological analysis of the immigrant press, see Robert E. Park, The Immigrant 
Prtss and Its Control (1912). 

"See Chapter 3, Section 1. 

'This is true in all ordinary immigrant groups which do not feel very disadvantaged, 
and who are consequently not in opposition to their treatment in America. Exceptions are the 
paper* of very disadvantaged groups or of extremely radical sub-groups. 

*To the white American their pretensions are preposterous. "The impatient, all but 
militant and anti-social attitude of an influential section of the Negro press is to be 
condemned in this connection. These editors show an unfortunate lack of appreciation of 
the traits of the people they aspire to lead. Their language implies that the Negro is only an 
Anglo-Saxon who is so unfortunate as to have a black skin. Such a race philosophy only 



912 Ant American Dilemma 

edited to prove the theory that they are similar and that they should be 
treated as ordinary Americans. 

In a sense, the Negro newspapers have, thus, an opposite purpose from 
the ordinary immigrant papers, which take full assimilation of the group 
for granted and cater only to temporary language difficulties and to a senti- 
mental pride in keeping up a cherished ethnic and cultural distinction. The 
foreign-language press is doomed to disappear as the immigrants become 
fully assimilated and are not replenished by new immigration. The Negro 
press, on the contrary, is bound to become ever stronger as Negroes are 
increasingly educated and culturally assimilated but not given entrance to 
the white world. 

In spite of this basic difference in purpose and "function," the two types 
of press are interesting to compare. In many important technical respects 
they show similarities. Both the immigrant papers and the Negro papers 
usually have their reading public spread all over the country, and both 
tend to become regional or national in circulation. Both ordinarily serve 
a reading public below the average in income. Both, therefore, have diffi- 
culty in soliciting advertising, which tends to keep them marginal as 
economic enterprises. At present, the foreign-language press is often better 
protected against competition from the majority press; it can support many 
dailies." With the decrease in the number of persons who read only a 
foreign language well, even the foreign-language papers will tend to 
become what the Negro papers already are, namely, papers read in addition 
to ordinary American newspapers. They will then also tend to be weekly 
and to be published in English, until they finally disappear altogether. 1 " 

2. The Growth of the Negro Press 10 

The development of the Negro press follows closely two interrelated 
trends: the rising Negrd protest and the increase of Negro literacy. The 
Negro press was born in the struggle against slavery as a Negro branch of 
the Abolitionist propaganda organs in the North. The first Negro news- 
paper, Freedom 's Journal, was launched in 1827 in New York by John B. 
Russwurm and Samuel E. Cornish. Detweiler counts 24 Negro journals 
appearing before the Civil War. Some of them were rather short-lived. 11 

works injustice to the Negro himself and it is high time to discard it." (John M. Mecklin, 
Democracy and Race Friction [1914], p. 46".) 

* In Chicago alone there are some 20 to 25 foreign-language daily newspapers (Elizabeth 
D. Johns, "The Role of the Negro Newspaper in the Negro Community," unpublished 
manuscript made available through the courtesy of the author [1940], p. 24), while the 
Negroes have not succeeded in keeping up dailies. There is at present only one Negro 

• daily (see footnote a few pages back). This is in spite of the fact that there are nearly 13 
million Negroes in the country, as compared to only 1 1 million foreign-born whites and 
the latter are split up into many nationalities. 

* This process has proceeded far, for instance, in the Scandinavian language groups. 



Chapter 42. The Negro Press 913 

The most famous of them was the North Star, edited by Frederick Doug- 
lass. It continued to be published — later as Frederick Douglass's Paper — 
until Emancipation, and had some white subscribers. Emancipation marked 
the end of this first period of Negro journalism. For the later development 
of the Negro press the tradition of militancy set during this first period was 
important. Many of those journals had been protesting, not only against 
slavery but also against discrimination in the North, and had advocated 
full civil liberties. They generally kept a high intellectual standard. James 
Weldon Johnson testifies: 

It is astounding on glancing backward to sec how well written and edited were the 
majority of these periodicals. They stated and pleaded their cause with a logic and 
eloquence which seldom fell below the highest level of the journalism of the period. 
And yet it is not, after all, astounding — there was the great cause, the auspicious time j 
and, by some curiously propitious means there were, too, the men able to measure up 
to the cause and the time. There were among the editors of these papers, especially 
in New York, men of ability and men of learning. 12 

After Emancipation, Negro papers could be published and distributed in 
the South. The campaign of Negroes to learn to read and the high prestige 
of the printed word provided a steadily growing Negro public. Negro 
papers started after Emancipation were "organs" for the Republican party. 
The Restoration was a hard blow for the Negro press, but the slow migra- 
tion to the North and the gradually rising proportion of literates in the 
Negro population sustained a rising number of Negro newspapers. 

In 1870 there were only about 10 Negro journals in America; in 1880 
there were 31 j and in 1890 there were 154. 13 In 1880 there were Negro 
publications in nineteen states; in 1890 in twenty-eight states. Most of 
these journals had a small circulation; many were only fly-by-night enter- 
prises. Some of them, as the Washington Bee, the Cleveland Gazette, the 
Philadelphia Tribune, and the New York Age, were, however, destined 
to have many years of national influence. Their success was largely the 
result of the "force of the personalities of their editors." 14 

From the Negroes' point of view, this period was a time of reaction and 
pessimism. The Negro press was not belligerent according to present 
standards, but followed Booker T. Washington's conciliatory course." But 
in 1 901 the Boston Guardian was launched by William Monroe Trotter 
as an uncompromisingly militant organ in the Abolitionist tradition. It got 

'When the Niagara movement staited, one of the main points of the reform program 
launched by the radical Negro intellectuals was to fight the corruption of the Negro press. 
More specifically, they accused the "Tuskegec Machine" (see Chapter 35, Section 3) of 
exerting undue pressure upon the Negro press In 1904 Du Bois published a statement in 
the Boston Guardian concerning the venality of certain Negro papers which he charged 
lad sold out to Mr. Washington. In his autobiography he reiterates the cha.-ges. (See Durk 
of Dawn [1940], pp. 76 ft., 86 ff., fassini). 



914 An American Dilemma 

a nation-wide reading public among the Negro intellectuals and was a 
force behind the Niagara movement." In 1905, Robert S. Abbott started 
his Chicago Defender, which was destined to revolutionize Negro journal- 
ism. The foundation of the N.A.A.C.P. in 1909 and the publishing of The 
Crisis in 19 10 gave further impulse to racial radicalism in the press. 

But it was the First World War that provided the tide of protest upon 
which the press rose in importance and militancy. It was largely the Negro 
newspapers that made the Negroes fully conscious of the inconsistency 
between America's war aims to "make the world safe for democracy" and 
her treatment of this minority at home. It was also the Negro press that 
made the northward migration into a Negro protest movement. b 

There was a more immediate personal interest in the contents of the 
press. Negroes wanted to read about employment possibilities and the 
stream of migration; about what happened to the 400,000 drafted Negro 
men and the 200,000 Negro soldiers in France. As riots increased in 
number and bloodiness, they wanted to read about them. The government 
believed that the Negro press was dangerous for morale during the War, 
and had to call a conference of Negro editors and other Negro leaders. 
It was staged as an important move and provided headlines in the Negro 
press. "With 'copy' like this to work on, every paper could exploit the war, 
and could benefit from it if its publisher was capable or willing to make 
the most of the circumstances."" 

The Negro, due to the War and to the Great Migration, had moved out 
of the isolated Negro community. In some places in the South attempts 
were made to keep out Negro newspapers- from the North. 16 This, again, 
provided stories and grievances and gave additional emotional value to the 
Northern Negro newspaper in the eyes of Southern Negroes. The circula- 
tion of the Negro press swelled. 

After the War there were other things to keep up this interest in Negro 
newspapers: the continued wave of lynchings and riots, the Garvey move- 
ment, the friendliness on the part of the Communists and other radical 
groups emerging during the 'twenties, the continuing migration and the 
problems that accompanied it. During the 'thirties Negro welfare was 
deeply involved in most government policies, and there was a new type of 
discrimination. The shift of the Negro vote from the Republican party to 
the New Deal Democrats was a dramatic move of Northern Negroes. 

The Second World War again increased unrest, suspicion, and dissatis- 
faction, which it is the opportunity of the press to stir up and organize. 
Again the inconsistency between expressed war aims and domestic policy 
becomes glaring. Again there is discrimination in the Army, Navy, and 
Air Force, and in the war industries. Again there are Negro heroes, unrec- 

* 6ee Chapter 35, 'Section 4. 
b See Chapter* 8 and 35. 



Chapter 42. The Negro Press ■ 915 

ognized by the whites, to praise. And again the low war morale of the 
Negro people becomes a worry to the government. Again white leaders 
come out with declarations that justice must be given to Negroes. The 
Administration makes cautious concessions. Negro leaders are more 
determined. All this makes good "copy." 

Now the color question is involved in the world conflagration. There is 
probably not a single issue of any one of the big weeklies which does not 
point out the failure of the British to give India independence, or contain 
editorial reflections to the effect that the defeat in Singapore and elsewhere 
was due to the Britishers' having maltreated and lost the confidence of the 
natives. China, moreover, cannot be expected to have too much trust in 
America which discriminates against all colored people. There is plenty 
of psychological compensation which the Negro press can now offer, and 
the opportunity is well exploited. There is little doubt that the Negro press 
is again making headway — carried along upon the rising tide of the protest. 

3. Characteristics of the Negro Press 

Negro newspapers are similar to ordinary American newspapers, partic- 
ularly those circulating among the lower classes. Many of the dissimilarities 
are only the exaggerations of common American traits, called forth by the 
caste situation. For a true perspective, it is important to keep this constantly 
in mind when discussing the characteristics of the Negro press in terms of 
dissimilarities. 

As already mentioned, the Negro newspaper is typically an "additional 
paper." More white papers are probably bought and read by Negroes than 
Negro papers. The Negro papers, therefore, largely supplement the ordi- 
nary papers with Negro news and opinions. 

Even in this field they are not without competition. A few liberal white 
newspapers in the South present noncontroversial news from the local 
Negro world and, occasionally, some from other places. Some Southern 
newspapers sell a special edition, often marked with a star or several stars, 
in the Negro community, which is never seen in the white section of the 
city. Not only are most whites unaware of these "black star" editions, but 
many Negroes believe they are buying the regular white newspaper. In 
these special editions Negroes get a whole page or more for themselves, 
often substituting for the financial news. There they may be called by the 
titles of Mr. and Mrs. and have plenty of information on local Negro 
social life, associations and churches. These white newspapers do not give 
as much Negro news from the rest of the nation as Negro newspapers, and 
they do not express the Negro protest. 

It is difficult to determine how much competition the white press in the 
South— of both the liberal and "black star" types— offers to the Negro 
press. The fact that the Negro newspaper is only an "additional" paper 



916 An American Dilemma 

that comes out once a week may cause Negroes to neglect it. The limited 
coverage of the Negro press and its reporting of news that is usually a few 
days old work against it. Also, some Negroes get "fed up" with the problem 
and protest news, and turn with relief to a general newspaper that contains 
the little social news about Negroes in which they are interested. On the 
other hand, because the Negro paper is only an "additional" one, like a 
magazine, Negroes may be willing to buy both papers if they buy any at 
all. The fact that the Negro press in the whole country has a circulation of 
about one and a half millions, which includes about one-third of all Negro 
families in the country," is a reason for believing that their weekly news- 
papers are not greatly hurt by competition from the Southern white daily 
press. 

There are, however, two types of indirect competition. First, the provi- 
sion of some Negro news in "black star" editions and in the regular liberal 
newspapers prevents the Negro press from carrying on a completely 
effective campaign against the white press on grounds of discrimination. 
Second, because of this and because Negro newspapers could not afford to 
provide general national and local news in addition to Negro news, the 
existence of the white press prevents the success of a daily Negro newspaper. 
Indeed, there is much soundness in the argument that the Negro newspaper 
remain a weekly one, since it could not hope to compete in providing 
genera] news as a daily paper. Many Negroes claim to get "fed up" on the 
Negro newspaper. This attitude would become accentuated if the Negro 
newspaper should appear daily. 

In the North there are no special Negro editions of the white daily 
press, and, with rare exceptions, white papers give even less attention to 
Negro life than is becoming standard in the Southern liberal press. One 
exception that should be mentioned is the New York newspaper with a 
national circulation, PM. 11 Although they do not give space to Negro 
news, it is possible that the Hearst newspapers attract a good many lower 
class Negroes. It is not known how much the white daily press competes 
with the Negro weekly press in the North, but it is probable that the 
competition is even less than in the South. The stronger "race pride" in the 
North and the high quality of many of the large Northern Negro news- 
papers are also factors. 

As the Negro newspaper is a weekly paper, as Negro news is not too 
plentiful because of the paucity of agencies and reporters to communicate 
it, and as much of the news is several days old when it appears in the 
weekly press, it is natural that editorials, columns, and other non-news 

* This equation u not quite justified) of course, because some families subscribe to more 
than one Negro newspaper. But it will do for rough calculations, since one and a half million 
persons, if they were, no more than one person from each family, would include more than 
one-third of all Negro families. 



Chapter 42. The Negro Press 917 

items are given a proportionally larger space than in an ordinary daily 
newspaper, and that the news itself is more "edited." This is true, inci- 
dentally, of all weeklies, whether Negro or not. In the Negro weekly it is 
further motivated by the strong propaganda purpose: the news is presented 
majnly to prove the thesis of the Negro protest. 

The Negro weekly is ordinarily a "sensational" paper. It is true that 
there are degrees: The highly respected and respectable Norfolk Journal 
and Guide is more conservative in its appearance, and many of the poor 
Negro organs in smaller cities do not reach the technical standard where 
sensationalism is possible. But by and large, the statement is true. Sensa- 
tional journalism is, however, not an un-American trait. The Negro press 
has merely adopted a technique from the white press with which it is in 
competition. The most sensational white newspapers are found in the big 
cities, and there they appeal to the masses. Fleming observes: 

It is not by accident, it should be pointed out, that the Negro papers which tradi- 
tionally and consistently feature big, black headlines across Page One and show other 
marks of sensationalism are in the cities where Hearst papers arc also published with 
their striking headlines making appeal also to the Negro and other mass readers. For 
instance, there are Negro papers which have lost circulation because Hearst papers, 
and others, could do a better job of carrying features giving "number" tips to 
policy players and bringing the daily reports of the stock market for betting purposes. 18 

The Negro editors and publishers give the same type of defense for the 
sensationalistic technique in journalism as do their white colleagues: 

. . . they want to reach the largest possible number of readers, in order to use that 
following as an instrument for improving and advancing the race. 19 

Thus the main factor in the explanation of why the Negro press exag- 
gerates the American pattern of sensational journalism is, of course, that 
the Negro community, compared with the white world, is so predominantly 
lower class. It is true that the lower half of the Negro community probably 
does not belong to the regular and direct audience of the Negro press. 20 
Even if practically all persons belonging to the upper class were to buy 
Negro papers, this could not sustain them. The main reading public must 
belong to the middle class and the upper layers of the lower class. Hence, 
in the main, an expansion of the circulation, which every paper aims at, 
must be obtained in the lower strata of the Negro community. In this 
struggle to increase circulation, sensationalism is a rational policy. 

Sensationalism also occurs in the Negro press because it is an "additional" 
Negro paper. Its excuse for existing is to select those items with a race 
angle and to "play them up," as they are "played down" in the ordinary 
white press. In hammering the Negro protest week after week, the press 
is constantly in danger of becoming abstract and tedious. It must, therefore, 



9i 8 An American Dilemma 

attempt to "personalize" the news as much as possible. It must accentuate 
the human-interest angle, and create a feeling that people are fighting and 
that big things are happening. 

Much space is thus devoted to crime. This might seem surprising since 
Negroes rightly accuse white newspapers of giving too much space to 
Negro crime and too little to all other Negro activities. But most Negroes, 
like other lower class persons, want to read about crimes." Furthermore, the 
white papers write much about crimes committed by Negroes against 
whites, but little about crimes in the Negro community and about crimes 
committed by white persons against Negroes. The last item, particularly, 
is important to the Negro newspapers seeking to combat and, if possible, to 
reverse the white stereotypes of "the criminal Negro." Crimes against 
Negroes by whites are always "played up" greatly. Lynchings are, of 
course, and have always been, a specialty for the Negro press. In the other 
direction, the Negro press is likely to treat as sensational individual accom- 
plishments of Negroes and public statements by whites for or against the 
caste system. It will also dramatize the society news. 

Few features in the Negro press seem more ridiculous to the ordinary 
white American than the display of Negro society. At the same time, no 
other news items in the Negro press demonstrate better how the social 
patterns and interests of Negroes are typically, and even over-typically, 
those of ordinary Americans. Fleming observes rightly: 

Many a sermon has been preached about Negro "sassiety" and of the way Negroes 
fritter away their time in the frivolities recorded on the society page. The answer lies 

* It is interesting; to observe, on the other hand, that "sex" is played up less in the 
Negro press than in the white tabloids appealing to lower class people. The Negro news- 
papers have more pictures of women, but almost generally they are dressed and they are 
presented in a social setting. These pictures are displayed in order to show off Negro society. 
The great social role given women is a general American trait and is, in the Negro world, 
particularly understandable when we remember the close ideological association between 
"white supremacy" in the South and "Southern womanhood." There seem, however, to be 
fewer pictures of alluring women displayed to tempt the sexual appetite of the readers. 
This impressionistic observation is corroborated by Susan M. Kingsbury, Hornell Hart, and 
Associates, Nevisfafers and the News (1937); four Negro papers (the Chicago Defender, 
the New York Amsterdam News, the New York Age and the Baltimore Afro-American) 
were found to give "less attention" to sex interests than did the white tabloid. (Ibid., 
p. 88.) To the outside observer the lively interest in everything with "sex-appeal" in Amer- 
ica appears as a backwash of puritanism. The observation has also been made by Negroes. 
James Weldon Johnson comments: 

"An examination of the vast number of salacious white periodicals published in the U.S. 
would incline one to think that sex has gone to the white man's head, transferred its seat to 
the imagination. When sex goes to the head, it loses its lusty, wholesome quality and begins 
to fester, to become maggoty. Sex with us is, in a large measure, still in the lusty, whole- 
some stage. Let's keep it there as long as we possibly can." (Ntgro Americans, What Nowt 
[«9J4]i PP. *9-J0.) 



Chapter 42. Th* Neoro Press 919 

in the background of the Negro: a people whole tastes, goals and ideals — both from 
formal training and informal ideals — are strictly American, with no special religious 
or nationalistic heritage being passed on to them in a way comparable to the experi- 
ence of the Jew or the offspring of more recent immigrants. In addition, Negroes 
in America have been largely a servant class, coming into close contact with the 
"cream" of American social position. From the days of slavery, therefore, they have 
known what is considered good taste and fine manners, and have sought to make their 
own lives after the pattern of the masters. Negroes also read the magazines and news- 
papers and see the same moving pictures as docs the rest of America! There is more 
truth than jest in the saying among Negroes that if you visit a Negro's home where 
the dinner service is complete in every detail and where the host and hostess know 
what to do with every piece of dinnerwarc, behold! there is a household where some- 
one, at some time, has been a butler, valet, maid or cook to some of the best families 
of America (not wholly true, but suggestive). 21 

The "society" page of the Negro newspaper is a direct copy of that of 
the white paper. It is certainly no more exaggerated than the gossip pages 
of the small-town American newspaper. Whites are amused by it partly 
because of their belief in the inferiority of the Negro, but also partly 
because they are seldom aware of the existence of a Negro upper class, 
especially one so attentive to the social niceties. 

Most upper and middle class Negroes "over-do" their social activity 
because they are struggling for status as individuals. Social mobility is 
great. Negroes stress "society" because whites deny them social prestige. 
They have to create prestige and distinctions of prestige among themselves, 
and there is an element of the caste protest in demonstrating that they 
have done it. But apart from this, Negroes, in their isolated and cramped 
world, enjoy reading about themselves in pleasant situations just like 
other small-town Americans. The society pages in a Negro paper are, 
indeed, most similar to the small-city white newspaper. While the Negro 
paper has the character of a small-town paper, at the same time, by cover- 
ing the whole country and the world from the race angle in its general 
news, it keeps the character of a general race paper. 

It seems probable that the society news in a Negro paper — as also in the 
small-city white paper — is of greatest importance for keeping up its sale. 
Many editors say that they feel that Negroes buy their papers partly 
because there they can read about themselves and their friends or social 
competitors. The Negro paper gives almost every upper or middle class 
Negro family a chance now and then to see one of the family displayed with 
name and picture, at least as a member of a club, a church, a committee, 
a high school class, or as attending a tea, a dance, a bridge party or a sports 
event. Fleming observes: 

In the large, anybody not in the criminal class, can get a "personal" or "social note" 
in the Negro paper. 22 



920 An American Dilemma 

This personal publicity in many cases also gives the editor or, in bigger 
Negro papers, his usually underpaid employees, some additional income.* 

Usually it is not so much the arrived upper class persons who strive for 
publicity in this Negro press as the people who are striving and aspire for 
recognition. But the former group gets its share because it is the pride of 
the Negro community and most often it dominates the civic organizations 
like the N.A.A.C.P., even if it leaves the churches and the lodges to the 
ambitious middle class. The news about all this organizational activity in 
the isolated Negro community — of churches, clubs, associations — serves 
primarily a purely practical purpose of giving certain information which is 
not offered in the ordinary press. It also defines the Negro community as 
an institutionalized society to the individual Negro, who is excluded so 
much from white society, and it gives him a feeling of security and belong- 
ingness. In all organizational activity there is also usually a "race cause" 
present, and even this news serves the protest motive in some degree. And, 
more or less incidentally, it supplements the society news in reporting on 
personal status and accomplishments of prominent individuals. 

The sports columns, likewise, have for their purpose to record and exalt 
Negro performances. Even the comics usually have, in addition to their 
regular purpose to distract and amuse, also a race message to tell: that the 
Negro is witty, that he is clever, that he is strong, and occasionally, that the 
whites are mean and inferior. When the Negro press indulges in self- 
criticism of the "race," there is often a prefatory repudiation of the 
white stereotypes of the "lazy" or "criminal" Negro and an attempt 
to redefine the characteristics in Negro terms: that Negroes are too good- 
hearted, too easily deceived and cannot "keep together." The Negro press 
makes an emphatic appeal to the Negroes to show in life and deed that the 
whites are mistaken. The Negro newspapers do what the national press in 
every country can be observed to do : they flatter the group and appeal to 
group-pride even when admonishing; they help to make it feel self- 
confident and superior. 

4. The Controls of the Negro Press 

The Negro press is primarily controlled by the active members of the 
upper and middle classes of the Negro community. As we have mentioned, 
these classes make up a great part of its subscribers. The people who 
publish and write the Negro newspapers belong to the upper class. It is the 
doings and sayings of people in the upper and middle classes that are 
recorded in the Negro press. They, therefore, set its tone. Indeed, the 

* I have met this practice of demanding a small amount of money for taking society news 
and even awociational material in many Negro communities! but can, of course, neither 
know about it* financial importance nor if it is also a practice in the comparable white 
pros. 



Chapter 42. The Negro Press 921 

Negro newspapers are one of the chief agencies for the Negro upper class 
to spread its opinions among the lower classes of the Negro community. 

In the Negro newspapers one can see displayed the dilemma of the 
upper class which wc have often commented upon. They react with even 
more resentment than lower class Negroes against the humiliation of Jim 
Crow segregation. However, the caste barriers serve partly as a protection 
to give them special opportunities and status. They need to appeal to racial 
solidarity to avert lower class hostility against themselves and to perfect 
their economic and social monopolies. But they also must desire to stress 
accomplishments and distinctions within the Negro community behind the 
caste wall, and they want to have painted in the Negro press the pleasant- 
ness of the life they enjoy. Frazicr observes: 

The Negro upper class, as we have remarked, has an essentially middle-class out- 
look (that is, in the historic sense), but in their philosophy and behavior one finds 
all forms of antiquated aristocratic attitudes toward work and expenditures as well 
as a "sporting complex." On the other hand, this class places great emphasis upon 
success and conspicuous consumption. Because of their isolation, members of this 
class overemphasize the importance of their position in the Negro world and speak 
contemptuously of poor whites (who incidentally include public school teachers). 
They exhibit an almost childish awe toward professional men, especially physicians. 
The confusion in ideals and values is also vividly represented in Negro newspapers. 
These news organs are intensely race conscious and exhibit considerable pride in the 
achievements of the Negro, most of which are meager performances as measured by 
broader standards. In addition to carrying a large number of advertisements of 
products designed to conceal Negro characteristics, these papers constantly play up 
the slightest recognition shown the Negro by whites. The confusion in ideologies 
is shown in other respects. For example, a casual reader of the Afro-American might 
get the impression that this newspaper is far to the "left" and espouses working 
class ideals, but a regular reader would find that upon occasions it is likely to play up 
the activities of Negro "society" or voice some reactionary religious or economic 
ideal. 28 

The upper class control of the Negro press gives it an essential con- 
servatism, which only the casual white reader will not observe. The Negro 
lower classes, however, are caught in the same dilemma. They have accepted 
white values, even when they are brought to protest against white exclusion. 
They thus take a vicarious satisfaction out of reading about Negro accom- 
plishments and even about the conspicuous consumption of the Negro 
upper classes. The lower classes also are radical only in the race question. 

The upper class should not, therefore, be held entirely responsible for 
the ideology of the Negro press. The lower classes also play a part in its 
control, since they contain the bulk of potential readers. As the educational 
level is raised and the circulation of Negro newspapers broadened, their 
control can be expected to have increasing weight. In all political matters 
which have a bearing upon the welfare of the poorer classes, the majority 



9?a Am Americak Dilemma 

of Negro papers take a "radical" stand. The same is becoming true on the 
issue of labor unionism. The fact that most persons in the upper class are 
dependent, directly or indirectly, upon the economic welfare of the masses 
for their livelihood tends to bend the political opinions of the Negro upper 
class toward economic "radicalism." 

Park, in his study of the immigrant press, pointed out: "In many cases 
the advertisements reveal the organization of the immigrant community 
more fully than does the rest of the paper," 24 and the same is true also of 
the Negro paper. The main observation about the advertising in the Negro 
press is that there is so little of it. And there does not seem to be much of 
a trend toward an increase.* In the almost complete absence of much ordi- 
nary commercial advertising, the ads for "hair-straighteners," "skin-bleach- 
ers," and other cosmetics, patent medicines, dream books and "occults" 
become the more conspicuous. 25 They often include half or more of all 
advertising in a Negro paper. 

The paucity of advertising, of course, makes the economy of a Negro 
newspaper precarious. b It cannot keep the copy price too high, either, if it 
wants a substantial circulation. These factors explain why some Negro 
papers are so weak economically. It is often pointed out by Negro news- 
papermen that the paucity of advertising at least has one good effect, 
that the Negro press becomes freer from any outside controls. It depends 
more exclusively on its readers. There is undoubtedly some truth in this. 
On the other hand, the weak economy of the average Negro newspaper 
must make it easier to buy it for little money, if anybody cares to. There is 
gossip in the Negro communities about how one or another Negro paper 
has "sold out for an ad." It is significant that small Negro newspapers often 
start up in Northern cities just before an important election and disappear 
after the election is over. 20 

* Fleming reports from the 1940 meeting of the Negro Newspaper Publishers' Asso- 
ciation in Chicago: 

"At the recent meeting . . . publisher after publisher reported his paper's losing fight to 
get advertising for soap, dental cream and chain grocery stores — and even now such copy 
is for the most part scant and infrequent, while there are even beer and whiskey concerns 
which turn down every suggestion to advertise in Negro papers. 

"Department store copy is absent because so many such stores are not anxious to have 
any, or any large numbers of, Negroes trying on hats, shoes and clothing j or they believe 
Negroes with capacity to buy will read their advertisement in the daily. New automobiles 
are missing because the industry does not believe that the Negroes are able to buy a new 
car. Other advertisers do not use any weekly paper whatever and see no difference between 
the white weekly and the Negro paper. In still other instances there are some dailies which 
so thoroughly cover the Negro community that advertisers can be convinced that advertising 
in the Negro paper is a needless duplication." (Of. cit., p. VI :i). 

*The economic weakness of Negro newspapers is partly reflected in their large death 
rate. Detweiler (Frederick G. Detweiler, The Negro Press m the United States [1922], p. 
14) points out that of 2S8 periodicals existing in 1910, only 163 remained in 1921, and 
pnly J9 of these went back to 1900, 



Chapter 42. The Negro Press 923 

As no studies of the finances and controls of the Negro press have been 
made, it is impossible to present a factual statement on this point. One 
important thing seems clear, however: the financial controls do not con- 
cern its stand on the racial question. In this main issue of the Negro press, 
it is free. Few white business enterprises have any interest in toning down 
the Negro protest.' It may be expected that, on the contrary, a white firm 
which bribed a Negro paper to favor its interest in some particular respect 
would rather want the paper's expression of the Negro protest to be 
accentuated in order to preserve confidence on the part of its readers. 27 The 
same holds true, on the whole, of political parties in the North and a few 
places in the South which pay in cash for support from the Negro papers 
before elections. 28 

As Negro newspapers specialize in Negro news, they become dependent 
upon the agencies which provide such news. A Negro newspaper covers its 
own locality. Some few can afford to send staff writers to places where 
important national events are occurring and to have regular correspondents 
in certain main centers. But for the rest, all Negro papers must depend for 
their news on syndicate and organizational releases. There are a number of 
Negro news agencies: some giving their services for nothing, some exchang- 
ing news for free advertising space, and some asking a small fee. 29 Before 
every election they tend to increase in number and efficiency. The main 
agency is the Associated Negro Press, in existence since 1919. 80 The 
N.A.A.C.P. sends out its own news releases every week, and they are 
important for the Negro press. 

5. Outlook 

The importance of the Negro press for the formation of Negro opinion, 
for the functioning of all other Negro institutions, for Negro leadership and 
concerted action generally, is enormous. The Negro press is an educational 
agency and a power agency. Together with the church and the school — and 
in the field of interracial and civic opinions, more than those two institu- 
tions — it determines the special direction of the process through which the 
Negroes are becoming acculturated. The Negro press causes, on the one 
hand, an intense realization on the part of the Negroes of American ideals. 
On the other hand, it makes them realize to how small a degree white 
Americans live up to them. 

As the educational level of the Negro masses rises, as those masses 
become less dissimilar in culture from other Americans, as the isolation 
between the two groups increases under voluntary withdrawal on the part 
of the Negroes, as race consciousness and race solidarity are intensified, as 
the Negro protest is strengthened, and disseminated even among the lower 

"Negro businesses will rarely have such an interest, either, and few Negro businesses 
cuuld afford to spend money on it, anyhow. 



924 An American Dilemma 

classes — as all these closely interrelated processes are proceeding, partly 
under the influence of the Negro press itself, the Negro press will continue 
to grow. With larger circulation, there will be increased possibilities of 
getting advertising. With a fortified economic basis the Negro press will 
be able not only to buy better equipment but also to engage better-trained 
journalists and to organize a better national news service. When the Negro 
press can produce a better product than now, it will sell even better. The 
Negro newspaper will probably remain a weekly, though perhaps in some 
regions it will become possible to launch Negro dailies. This is the prospect 
we see for the Negro press. It will flourish and become more conspicuous 
when the foreign-language papers die out. We are assuming that American 
society will not rapidly become so thoroughly reformed that it will be of 
no importance whether a man is black or white. We believe that there is 
a trend in America away from racial discrimination, and in Chapter 45 we 
shall summarize the reasons why we believe that this is so. But there is a 
long way to go before the Negro will be secure in enjoying his full 
constitutional rights. It will probably not happen in this generation and, 
perhaps, not in the next. Meanwhile, gradual improvements will only 
strengthen Negro concerted action as they will seem to prove that the 
Negro protest is effective. All improvements will give the Negro press 
more big news and important issues to discuss. 

In the South the white press has been undergoing a great change in its 
treatment of the Negro problem. Most liberal white newspapers are today 
more generous in reporting favorable news from the Negro world than 
white newspapers in the North and often open their columns for Negro 
letters to the editor. Northern newspapers are frequently more liberal in 
their editorials, especially since the outbreak of the War, but give only scant 
space to Negro news. This process of change in the white press is continu- 
ing. The present war emergency seems only to have speeded it up. But— 
aside from the Southern "black star" editions — this change does not mean 
serious competition for the Negro press since the latter serves to give 
"additional" news on the Negro. No feasible widening of the reporting of 
Negro activities in the white press will substitute for the Negro press. 
What happens to Negroes will continue to have a relatively low "news 
value" to white people, and even the most well-meaning editor will have 
to stop far short of what Negroes demand if he wants to satisfy his white 
public. It is likely also that with increased race consciousness among 
Southern Negroes, the "black star" editions will lose in popularity. 

Whether or not this forecast of an increasing circulation for Negro papers 
comes true, the Negro press is of tremendous importance. It has rightly 
been characterized as "the greatest single .power in the Negro race." 81 



Part X 
THE NEGRO COMMUNITY 



CHAPTER 43 

INSTITUTIONS 



I. The Negro Community as a Pathological Form of an 

American Community 

Until now the Negro community has not been the primary object of our 
study. But we have not been able to avoid dealing with the community and 
with various, alleged or real, cultural and personality traits of the American 
Negro. There are a number of problems, however, such as those of the 
Negro family, crime, insanity, and cultural accomplishments, which have 
been touched upon only incidentally. We shall now take up these 
nonpolitical aspects of the Negro community. The treatment will be 
incomplete and condensed, for three reasons. First, these problems are not 
focal in our inquiry. Second, many sides of them have already been dealt 
with in other parts of the book. Third, several of those problems have 
recently been treated extensively in the scientific literature. It would 
obviously be impossible to describe and analyze the hundreds of specific 
communities in which Negroes live. We must content ourselves instead 
with a general account of the basic community institutions and activities, 
noting the major contrasts between the white and the Negro pattern of 
community organization, depicting the salient historical trends, and indicat- 
ing the most striking divergences between the Northern and Southern and 
the urban and rural ways of life. 

The value premise for this Part is derived from the American Creed. 
America was settled largely by persons who, for one reason or another, were 
dissatisfied with conditions in their homelands and sought new opportuni- 
ties. Until 1 92 1 the nation welcomed immigrants almost unreservedly. 
They came from everywhere and brought with them a diversity of institu- 
tions and cultural patterns. It was natural that the "melting pot," "Ameri- 
canization" — or, to use a more technical term, "assimilation"— became a 
central element in the American Creed. To make a homogeneous nation out 
of diverse ethnic groups, the immigrants were to abandon their cultural 
"peculiarities"— or to contribute them to American culture as a whole, as 
some would have it — and to take on the cultural forms of America. There 
could be diversity, to be sure, but this diversity was not to have a strictly 
ethnic basis; individuals should be free to be part of any community they 

9*7 



928 An American Dilemma 

wished. Ideally, Americanization was to take place immediately, or, rather, 
in the five years required to achieve citizenship. But it was realistically 
recognized that in some cases it might require two or three generations. 

Negroes have been living here for over three hundred years, and practi- 
cally all of the ancestors of present-day Negroes came to this country more 
than a hundred years ago. It is probable that, on the average, Negroes have 
been Americans longer than any immigrant group except the British. They 
should be well assimilated by now. Negroes, however, together with the 
Orientals and, to some extent, Indians and Mexicans, have not been 
allowed to assimilate as have European immigrants. There is intense 
resistance on the part of the white majority group to biological amalgama- 
tion; and the lower caste status of Negroes is rationalized to prevent 
miscegenation. 11 Negroes have been segregated, and they have developed, 
or there have been provided for them, separate institutions in many 
spheres of life, as, for instance, in religion and education. Segregation and 
discrimination have also in other ways hampered assimilation. Particularly 
they have steered acculturation so that the Negroes have acquired the 
norms of lower class people in America. 

Negro institutions are, nevertheless, similar to those of the white man. 
They show little similarity to African institutions. In his cultural traits, 
the Negro is akin to other Americans. Some peculiarities are even to be 
characterized as "exaggerations" of American traits. Horace Mann Bond 
has characterized the American Negro as a "quintessential American." 1 
Even the "exaggeration" or intensification of general American traits in 
American Negro culture is explainable by specific caste pressures. In his 
allegiances the Negro is characteristically an American. He believes in the 
American Creed and in other ideals held by most Americans, such as getting 
ahead in the world, individualism, the importance of education and wealth. 
He imitates the dominant culture as he sees it and in so far as he can adopt 
it under his conditions of life. For the most part he is not proud of 
those things in which he differs from the white American. 

True, there has developed recently a glorification of things African, 
especially in music and art, and there was a back-to-Africa movement after 
the First World War. b But this is a reaction to discrimination from white 
people, on the one hand, and a result of encouragement from white 
people, on the other hand. Thus, even the positive movement away 
from American culture has its source in that culture. Negro race pride 
and race prejudice serve to fortify the Negro against white superiority. 
In practically all its divergences, American Negro culture is not something 
independent of general American culture. It is a distorted development, 
or a pathological condition, of the general American culture. The instability 
of the Negro iamily, the inadequacy of educational facilities for Negroes, 

'See Chapters 3 and 28. 

'See Chapter 35, Sections 7 and 9, and Chapter 38, Section 12. 



Chapter 43. Institutions 929 

the emotionalism in the Negro church, the insufficiency and unwholesome- 
ness of Negro recreational activity, the plethora of Negro sociable organiza- 
tions, the narrowness of interests of the average Negro, the provincialism 
of his political speculation, the high Negro crime rate, the cultivation of the 
arts to the neglect of other fields, superstition, personality difficulties, and 
other characteristic traits are mainly forms of social pathology which, for 
the most part, are created by the caste pressures. 

This can be said positively: we assume that it is to the advantage of 
American Negroes as individuals and as a group to become assimilated into 
American culture, to acquire the traits held in esteem by the dominant white 
Americans. This will be the value premise here. We do not imply that 
white American culture is "higher" than other cultures in an absolute sense. 
The notion popularized by anthropologists that all cultures may be good 
under the different conditions to which they are adaptations, and that no 
derogatory association should a priori be attached to primitive cultures, is 
a wholesome antidote to arrogant and erroneous ideas closely bound up 
with white people's false racial beliefs and their justification of caste. But 
it does not gainsay our assumption that here, in America, American culture 
is "highest" in the pragmatic sense that adherence to it is practical for any 
individual or group which is not strong enough to change it. 

Also not to be taken in a doctrinal sense is the observation that peculiari- 
ties in the Negro community may be characterized as social pathology. As 
a reaction to adverse and degrading living conditions, the Negroes' culture 
is taking on some characteristics which are not given a high evaluation in the 
larger American culture. Occasionally the Negro culture traits are appre- 
ciated by the whites. The Negro spirituals — called by James Weldon 
Johnson, though with some exaggeration, "America's only folk music" — 
are a case in point." 

From the practical point of view, the problem of the historical origin of 
the divergences of American Negro culture becomes irrelevant. The con- 

* Similar exceptions can be noticed in every lower class culture. There has been, for 
instance, in most industrial countries in recent decades, a "proletarian" branch of literature, 
which draws its themes and its inspiration from life in the lower classes. This literature is 
often, characteristically enough, appreciated more by members of the higher classes than by 
the proletarians themselves. Generally pastoral romanticism, which has been a part of urban 
civilization since the time of the ancient Greeks, has idealized lower class life. The tendency 
is tainted with sentimentality, and this is frequently displayed by people who show a particular 
interest in Negro culture. Among the radically inclined, this romanticism serves to express 
their sympathy for the underdog; among conservatives it serves as a rationalization for 
continuing the inequalities. To Negroes it serves as an expression of their protest and their 
"race pride." As usual it appeals much more to upper and middle class Negroes than to 
lower class Negroes. The sentimentality involved in idealizing lower class traits has, oi 
course, nothing to do with scientific observation. The residuum of truth in the tendency is, 
however, that even if generally the result of adverse living conditions are bad, exceptionally 
they may be good — "good" and "bad" defined according to our value premise of placing 
the. general American culture "higher." 



93<> An American Dilemma 

troversy on social causation has come to turn on the question of the impor- 
tance of the African heritage. To a long line of writers, the African heritage 
has been regarded as a sign of the Negro's lack of capacity for higher civi- 
lization. Those writers usually attached their interest to the unfavorable 
traits they attributed to the Negro: criminality, amorality, lack of ability for 
organized social life, little talent for inventiveness, and so on. On the other 
hand, a modern school of anthropologists and historians, trying to appreciate 
the Negro, shows an equal, though opposite, selectiveness in their interest. 
They attempt, for instance, to derive Negro music, dancing, and art from 
Africa and to describe peculiarities in religion and the mother-centered 
family as an African heritage, while they leave crime and amorality to be 
explained by white pressure. Melville J. Herskovits and Carter G. Wood- 
son represent this tendency." Others, like E. Franklin Frazier, have 
regarded the African heritage as insignificant and have sought the explana- 
tion in the special circumstances connected with slavery and caste. 2 The 
latter theory may be said to be predominant in sociological literature. 
There are certain variations of the latter theory: some would prefer to 
think of Negro institutions as "accommodations" to slavery and caste 
conditions^ some would prefer to think of them as the results of isolation 
due to slavery and caste; others would prefer to think of Negro institutions 
as a case of "cultural lag" because of the existence of slavery and caste. b 

Here the interest is in the fact that American Negro culture is somewhat 
different from the general American culture, that this difference is generally 
created by American conditions even if some of the specific forms are 
African in origin, and that the difference is significant for Negroes and for 
the relations between Negroes and whites. 

2. The Negro Family 

. The recent book by E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the United 
States (1939), is such an excellent description and analysis of the American 

* See Chapter 35, Section 9. 

" It cannot be said that either of these theories, or the theory of a predominant African 
heritage, is scientifically proved. The historical evidence is usually so incomplete that, with 
some selectiveness on the part of the particular writer, it can easily be fitted into any theory 
without proving it. Also, there is no reason -why all the theories could not be correct to a 
certain degree. For example, the practice of baptism is prevalent among American Negroes 
and is also to be found among African Negroes and American whites: it may have been that 
the African cult sensitized and predisposed Negroes to like baptism, but the specific pattern 
was adopted from white Americans. The scientific problem, which is largely unsolved, is to 
show comprehensively how, in specific respects, present-day Negro culture developed when 
the Negro slaves — who were certainly not without culture when they reached America — had 
to live on for generations under the specific circumstances created for them in America. 

* We do not mean to say that the difference between the two theories is not important in 
either a theoretical or a practical sense. We have considered the practical significance of 
Hcnlcovits' theory in Chapter 35, Section 9. 



Chapter 43. Institutions 931 

Negro family that it is practically necessary only to relate its conclusions to 
our context and to refer the reader to it for details. 

The uniqueness of the Negro family is a product of slavery. Most slave 
owners either did not care about the marital state of their slaves or were 
interested in seeing to it that they did not form strong marital bonds. The 
slave owners who did not want some of their slaves to marry were: those 
who had Negro mistresses, those who bred mulattoes or strong slaves, and 
those who did not want to make it difficult when they sold slaves individu- 
ally rather than in family units. The internal slave trade broke up many 
slave families — even those belonging to masters who encouraged stable 
marriages, when death or economic disaster occurred — and the threat of it 
hung over all slave families. Certain cultural practices grew up in slavery 
which retain their influences up to the present day in rural Southern areas: 
marriages sometimes occur by simple public declaration or with a ceremony 
conducted by a minister but without a marriage license. Coupled with this 
was the popular belief that divorce could occur by public declaration or 
simply by crossing state or county lines. 

After slavery there emerged certain new obstacles in the way of marital 
stability. Mobility was increased, work was not readily available, and there 
began a migration to cities with an attendant increase in desertion, prostitu- 
tion and temporary marriage. Yet coincident with these developments the 
stability of the Negro family grew. Even before the Civil War there had 
been certain masters who encouraged stable marriages among their slaves, 
and the freed Negroes, especially in the North, began to develop their own 
strong family units. The strong hold of religion on the Negro tended to 
stabilize his family life. At the close of the Civil War, the slave states 
legalized all existing common-law marriages a and, with the disappearance 
of the master's interests and of forced sale, there was a great increase in 
family stability. But the starting point was so low that Negroes never 
caught up. Isolation, poverty and ignorance were again the obstacles to 
acculturation. 

There are two outstanding types of exceptions to the general observation 
that the average Negro family is more disorganized than the white family. 
In rural areas of the South, especially in isolated areas, there is a large 
class of Negro families which is so like the ideal type of the monogamous 
patriarchal Christian family that Frazier calls them "Black Puritans." The 
impetus for this family form probably came from the religious slave owner. 
Much more significant is the upper class Negro family in the towns and 
cities. Upper class Negroes probably have fewer extra-marital relations and 

* Some states required that the couple be remarried » others required only that they declare 
their marriage before a public officer and get a certificate; but the majority of Southern states 
legalized all Negro common-law marriages without any action on the part of the couple. 
A few states left it to the courts to recognize legality as cases arose. (Gilbert T. Stephenson, 
Race Dittinctions in American Law [1910], pp. 67-68.) 



93* 



An American Dilemma 






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Section 

nitrd States* 

Cities of 10, ooo 

Cities of 2,500 1 

Rural 

mthern States 9 

Cities of 10,000 

Cities of 2,500 1 

Rural 

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Chapter 43. Institutions 933 

less divorce than upper class whites. 8 They have reacted against the reputa- 
tion of lower class Negroes and have not permitted themselves the marital 
laxness of some upper class whites. This has been more or less a spontaneous 
trend, developing not so much with a positive model from white society,* 
but more with the negative stimulus of white derisiveness. Whites do not 
realize that one of the most stable types of urban families is that of the 
Negro upper class, so in one sense the effort to build a reputation is wasted. 
But ammunition for white derision is lessened and a model for the Negro 
lower class is provided. Thus the efforts of the small Negro upper class 
may yet have an important effect. 

There are no perfect indices of family disorganization, since there are 
no official statistics on extra-marital relations, on "temporary" marriages 
without benefit of clergy, or on unofficial desertion. Perhaps the best direct 
index of family stability that is available is that of illegitimacy. There is 
far from complete reporting of illegitimate births, there is even serious 
under-reporting of all types of births. But the figures are available for the 
whole country and are relatively more complete than for any other direct 
index of family disorganization. Table 1 brings out strikingly the differ- 
ence between Negro and white illcgitimacy. b For the United States as a 
whole, the figures indicate that Negroes have about eight times as much 
illegitimacy as native whites and about sixteen times as much illegitimacy 
as the foreign-born whites. Differentials between various groups of 
Negroes are not so certain, but there would seem to be fewer cases of 
illegitimacy in the North than in the South (despite lack of regional differ- 
ences among whites) and fewer in the rural areas than in the urban areas. 

There are no nation-wide statistics on divorce by race, and even the 
scattered statistics available are of limited significance because most Negro 
couples who separate do so without a divorce and because the states have 
different legal practices in divorce. The same is true of legal desertion 
statistics.* All census data on this problem are somewhat inaccurate, and the 
figures cited suggest conditions rather than measure them precisely. The 
census information on the marital status of Negroes is especially inaccurate, 
since unmarried couples are inclined to report themselves as married, and 
women who have never married but who have children are inclined to 

* The model for the upper class Negro family was, in a sense, the white upper class family 
of an earlier generation. In this case, as in so many other cases, Negroes were assimilated 
with a cultural lag. 

* "Other races" are predominantly Negro and so may be used as an index of Negro. 
Frazier has data on illegitimacy for selected cities which have better statistics than the 
rest of the nation and which separate Negroes from whites. These data show roughly the 
same things as the table presented here. (See E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the 
United States [1939], Appendix B, pp. 568-569.) For a summary of studies of Negro 
illegitimacy in special localities, see Eleanor C. Isbell, "Memorandum on the Negro Family 
in America," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), pp. 63-64 and 84-89. 



934 An American Dilemma 

report themselves as widowed. It is suggestive that the proportion of 
"widows" among Negro women in 1930 was 15.9 per cent, as compared to 
9.7 per cent among native white women of native parentage. If a legal or 
common-law marriage had broken up, the partners became either unattached 
individuals (if they had no children or had abandoned them) or members 
of broken families (if they stayed with their children). Unattached indi- 
viduals and "one-person families" constituted about 13 per cent of the 
Negro population in 1930, whereas the corresponding figure for the white 
population was 9 per cent. Broken families were 30 per cent of all Negro 
families, but only 20 per cent among native white families, despite the 
greater concentration of Negroes in rural-farm areas where broken families 
are least frequent (Table 2). 

TABLE 1 
Proportion Broken Families* or All Families: 1930 

Negro Native White 

All families 29.6 19.; 

Rural farm families (South) 20.1 12.8 

Rural nonfarm families (South) 34.1 16.8 

Urban families (South) 38.4 19.8 

Source: Richard Sterner and Associates, The Negro's Share, prepared for this study (1943), p. 50. Sterner 
computed these figures from unpublished data of the U. S. Bureau of the Census. 

* Includes married if spouse is not present, widowed, divorced, and single heads of families. 

In addition to the direct indices of family disorganization, there are 
several other signs that Negroes have a larger share of the factors con- 
tributing to family disorganization. Lodgers, for example, are often a dis- 
ruptive factor in family life. In Northern urban areas 29 per cent of the 
Negro families reported lodgers in their homes in 1930, as compared to 
10 per cent of the native white families. In Southern urban areas the pro- 
portions were 20 per cent for Negroes and n per cent for whites." 
"Doubling up" of families in a single household is another factor contrib- 
utory to family disorganization, and Negroes have more of it. 5 Similarly, 
as we have noted in Chapter 16, Negroes have more over-crowding and less 
home ownership. 

While the Negro masses undoubtedly have much more of all those 
characteristics which define family disorganization in the traditional Ameri- 
can sense, they have certain other cultural traits which tend to reduce the 
disorganizing effect of those characteristics. Although the census would not 
bring out the fact, since there is a confusion over common-law marriage 
and temporary marriage, there are probably significantly fewer unattached 
Negro adults than unattached white adults. In a small community in rural 

'Richard Sterner and Associates, The Negro's Share, prepared for this study (1943)1 P- 
55, For the United States as a whole, 15.2 per cent of the Negro families had lodgers, u 
compared to 9.0 per cent of the native white families. 



Chapter 43. Institutions 935 

Alabama, Charles S. Johnson found no spinsters and extremely few older 
bachelors among the Negroes (612 families).* He also found only two 
divorced persons who had not remarried. Further: common-law marriage 
and illegitimacy are not seriously condemned within the Negro community 
-except among the upper classes — and they have, therefore, fewer dis- 
organizing effects on the individual. The Southern Negro community 
defines divorce in a broad sense — to include most cases of desertion or 
mutual agreement to separate and also the crossing of state or county lines 
— so that there is no moral guilt attached to remarriage even if there is 
legal guilt. The Negro community also has the healthy social custom of 
attaching no stigma to the illegitimate child and of freely adopting illegiti- 
mate children and orphans into established families. A high value is placed 
on children generally, and those who mate outside of marriage do not have 
a tendency to prevent the coming of children. There are few unwanted 
children. Another healthy social attitude found by Charles Johnson is that 
of regarding a forced marriage as less respectable than desertion after a 
forced marriage. The erring daughter is forgiven by her parents and is not 
ostracized by the community. 

The existence of these practices does not mean that the Negro community 
has no moral standards, even in the traditional American sense. "Fast 
women," philandering men and "fly-by-night" affairs are condemned. In 
the rural South, the rule is that a person may cohabit with only one other 
person during a given period: there is little promiscuity. 7 But the important 
thing is that the Negro lower classes, especially in the rural South, have 
built up a type of family organization conducive to social health, even 
though the practices are outside the American tradition. When these prac- 
tices are brought into closer contact with white norms, as occurs when 
Negroes go to the cities, they tend to break down partially and to cause thr. 
demoralization of some individuals. 

3. The Negro Church in the Negro Community" 

At least 44 per cent of American Negroes were claimed as members of 
Negro churches in 1936. Actually, the proportion is considerably higher, 
for several reasons. 8 Although church membership means different things 
to different people, it is quite obvious — not only from total membership 
figures, but also from the character of the church service, the religious 
nature of many of the Negro's songs, the great use to which the church 
building is put, the diversity of voluntary activities organized around the 
church — that religion and church play an important role in the Negro 

* The most useful general sources of information on the Negro church that we have found 
and the ones we have relied upon for most of our factual data are: B. E. Mays and J. W. 
Nicholson, The Negro's Church (1933); and J. G. St. Clair Drake, "The Negro Church 
and Associations in Chicago," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (194.0). 



936 An American Dilemma j 

community, probably more important than in the average white commu- 
nity. In this section we shall seek to sketch this role. 

Probably the chief "function" of the Negro church has been to buoy up 
the hopes of its members in the face of adversity and to give them a sense 
of community. This is, of course, true of any church, but it is especially 
true of Negroes, who have had a hard lot and to whom so many channels 
of activity outside the church have been closed. Negroes have had to place 
their hopes for a better life in religion. As a Negro poet puts it, "Our 
churches are where we dip our tired bodies in cool springs of hope, where 
we retain our wholeness and humanity despite the blows of death from the 
Bosses. . . ."* It is this need, perhaps more than anything else, which has 
attached the Negro so strongly to his church and accounts for his reputation 
as a religious person. In the colder and more critical words of Mays and 
Nicholson, 10 "It is not too much to say that if the Negro had experienced 
a wider range of freedom in social and economic spheres, there would have 
been fewer Negroes 'called' to preach and fewer Negro churches." 

The denominations to which Negroes belong do not tend to have a 
heavy, formal ritual." It is true that a significant proportion of church- 
going Negroes belong to the formalized Episcopalian and Catholic 
churches, but the great majority belong to the Baptist and Methodist 
churches or to the many little sects that have grown up in recent years. 
Lower class Negroes more than middle and upper class Negroes adhere 
to these latter churches. The small upper class of Negroes tends to belong 
to the Episcopalian, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches, since for 
them a main function of church membership is to give prestige. 11 

The religious service in Negro churches is often characterized by extreme 
emotionalism. The old-fashioned preacher employs gestures, intonation of 
the voice, sobbing, and words calculated to arouse emotion. 12 His audience 
aids with interjections at certain points and with stamping of the feet. 
There is a great deal of choir and congregational singing, and use of musical 
instruments of the percussion type. b These "rousements" bring most of the 
congregation into some degree of "possession." 

* For the facts concerning the distribution of Negro churches by denominations, see Chapter 
40, Section 3. 

"Allison Davis lists the rituals of Negro churches which arouse emotions as follows: 

"1, Narration of 'visions' or 'travels' as public evidence of individual's religious con- 
version. 

"z. Highly dramatized baptism in public setting, in a river, creek, or (usually in Old 
City and its environment) in a hog-wallow. 

"3. Communion service in which members shake hands with one another, and march 
around minister and church officers in a closely packed circle, while they sing and stamp feet. 

"4, Communal participation by members in both sermon and frayers, with antiphonal 
structure in which members reply to preacher or deacon, or interrupt him. Communal sing- 
ing, of came antiphonal form. 

"j. Funeral service in which all congregation views corpse, and participates in both 



Chapter 43. Institutions 937 

Whites, in searching for rationalizations to justify the subordination of 
the Negro, have seized upon the fact of religious emotionalism and ascribed 
it to "animal nature" and even to "excessive sexuality." Even Northerners 
— or we could perhaps say, especially Northerners — have done this, since the 
Negro's religion is so different from their own, and they are at a loss to 
account for this behavior. Southerners, on the other hand, are accustomed 
to seeing extreme emotionalism in many lower class white churches and 
revival meetings. 

Two things are important in attempting to explain this emotionalism. In 
the first place, it has been exaggerated. A large minority of Negroes do not 
attend church, and another large minority do not have emotionalism in 
their church service. There are wide differences among the various Negro 
denominations in degree of emotionalism manifested, 18 Emotionalism is 
uncommon in the upper and middle class Negro churches — which are quite 
like white churches of the same class level in this respect — and it is uncom- 
mon in the Catholic Church and other large, well-established urban 
churches where there are more lower class Negroes than middle and upper 
class Negroes. There is a definite trend for Negro youth to avoid the 
emotional type of church, and the same is true of the social "climbers" of 
all ages and occupations. 14 Emotionalism is most common in the rural 
Southern Negro churches and in the "storefront"" churches of the cities. 
These form the great bulk of the Negro churches, but since their congre- 
gations are small, they do not include such a large proportion of the Negro 
churchgoers. But even in the churches of the rural South, emotionalism is 
declining. According to Mays and Nicholson, revival meetings in the rural 
South are less successful than they used to be} the professional evangelist 
is disappearing^ and the regular sermons attempt to be more thought- 
provoking. 10 



sermon and prayers j a highly communal service with violent demonstrations such as shout- 
ing and 'getting happy.' 

"6. Marching of usher board of church, or of visiting usher boards, around seated con- 
gregation up to chancel, where donation is made by each member of usher board. Repeated 
several times, while both usher board and congregation sing. 

"7. Intoning, or at times the singing, of sermon or prayer by minister. Use by minister 
of sobbing technique, or of triumphant laugh in preaching; walking into congregation or 
elaborate physical dramatization of sermon by preacher. 

"8. Devotion of a large part of the service to the collection of money. 

"To these may be added rituals of the Sanctified, Spiritualist, Holiness, and other esoteric 
sects found among both Negroes and whites of the lower class positions, such as the practice* 
of 'sacred dancing, ' rolling in a sawdust pit in state of ecstasy, tambourine playing, reading 
of the future, healing of the sick, use of images of saints, foot-washing, use of drum and 
of jazz music, etc." ("The Negro Church and Associations in the Lower South," unpublished 
manuscript prepared for this study [1940], pp. 81-84..) 

* The term "storefront" churches is commonly used to include churches in residences as 
well ai in stores. 



938 Am American Dilemma j^ 

The second point is that the great periods of Negro conversion to 
Christianity were periods when the emotional forms of religion were taking 
hold of the whites too. In the Great Revival of 1800, it was common to see 
large groups of whites, gathered in a field upon the advertisement of a 
traveling revival leader, shouting, crying, laughing, "speaking with 
tongues," barking, dancing, rolling around, and manifesting all the traits 
associated with extreme "possession." Negroes occasionally participated, but 
more often just watched from a distance or had their own imitations with 
the help of white missionaries. 10 Negroes — and lower class whites in iso- 
lated communities in the South — have retained these religious practices in 
a relatively subdued form. Negroes have been losing them, but not as 
rapidly as have whites. Certain practices of the Negro Baptist and Metho- 
dist churches — such as permitting persons to become clergymen without 
having an education — and the geographical and cultural isolation of 
Negroes in the rural South, have helped to keep the Negroes behind the 
whites in the trend toward less emotionalism. 

It may be that emotionalism in religion is well suited to take the Negro's 
mind off his degradation and frustration. It is commonly said that it is 
religion that "keeps him going." The feeling of "possession" is used the 
world over to produce euphoria when circumstances are unduly unpleasant 
— although in most groups, drugs and drink rather than religious excite- 
ment produce the effect. Whether or not there is any relation between the 
decline of emotionalism in religion and the growing resentment and 
caustic bitterness among Negroes could not be proved, although it is 
plausible. 

Just as emotionalism was borrowed from and sanctioned by religious 
behavior among whites, so were the smaller religious sects taken over by 
Negroes after they were started by whites. The generation following 1880 
saw the origin of a large number of lower class religious movements, espe- 
cially among whites in the Middle West. 17 These movements gained most 
headway, perhaps, among the poor whites and the Negroes of the South. 
To this group of sects belong the Holiness Church, the Disciples of Christ, 
the Church of God and twenty-odd others. 18 

The Negro church is a community center far excellence. In the South, 
there are few public buildings' for the recreation of Negroes, except some 
of the schools, upon the use of which many limitations are laid. Negroes 
are usually too poor to build special community centers. Only in large cities 
does private enterprise provide halls for Negro meetings and recreation. 
Negro homes are almost always too small to have more than two or three 
guests at one time. Only the church is left, and in many ways it is well 
fitted to serve as a community center. It is usually located in the heart of 
the community it is meant to serve, often closer to most of the homes than 
is the school. It is owned by the Negroes themselves, and they can feel 



Chapter 43. Institutions 939 

free to do what they please in it. The white man's respect for religion gives 
it a freedom from intrusion that is not enjoyed even in the Negro home. 
In the rural churches, often the preacher himself does not participate in 
the social activities that go on in his church, since he often has three or 
four other churches to attend to." In fact, the Negro church is such a good 
community center that it might almost be said that anyone who does not 
belong to a church in the rural South does not belong to the community. 19 

The school is often located in a church in the rural South. Lodges and 
clubs frequently hold their meetings in the church, more often in rural 
areas than in the cities. Lectures and meetings for discussion of civic prob- 
lems — including political meetings in the North — are probably most often 
held in churches. The large Negro churches in Northern, and sometimes 
Southern, cities often have the full gamut of social and recreational activ- 
ities that is found in large white churches. 20 And, finally, the church, like 
the barbershop and the pool parlor, is a place to which one wanders when he 
has nothing else to do. 

The denominations to which Negroes predominantly belong — Baptist 
and Methodist — attempt to exercise a strict control over morals, and have 
a rather broad definition of morals. For want of a better term, we may 
say that they have "puritanical" standards of behavior. Negroes have taken 
over these standards but have modified them somewhat to suit Negro 
customs and white demands. For example, Negro preachers condemn extra- 
marital sex relations, but they seldom take any specific steps to stop them 
because usually so many of their congregation engage in the condemned 
behavior. Too, they dare not say anything against relations between Negro 
women and white men in the South for fear of physical punishment. In 
addition to extra-marital sex relations, the practices of gambling, drinking, 
drug-taking, smoking, snuff -dipping, card-playing, dancing and other minor 
"vices" arc condemned. Sometimes even ordinary sports and picnics come 
under a religious ban. These injunctions seem to have effect on middle class 
Negroes, especially those who are ready to settle down. The upper class 
among Negroes also tends to avoid some of these practices, but more 
because they individually want to or because they want to maintain status, 
rather than because of any specific injunction against them by the church. 
The bulk of the lower class, and the youth of all classes, seems to pay little 
attention to them. Females, as greater churchgoers, and as the traditional 
guardians of morals, obey them more than males. 

The Negro church, in respects other than its emotionalism, is like any 
lower class white Protestant church. In its relation to the Negro community, 

* The churches may often be scattered over the countryside, and the ministers have 
difficulty in getting to them. Mays and Nicholson report that, of 1 59 rural churches studied, 
only 5.7 per cent of the preachers lived within to miles of the church. (Of. cit., p. 251.) 



940 An American Dilemma 

however, the Negro church tends to be different from the white church m 
relation to its community. 

The Negro preacher's stand on problems of caste and on all "political" 
problems is equivocal. On the one hand, he must preach "race solidarity" 
because his congregation demands it and because he himself stands to gain 
if the economic and political situation of his community improves. On the 
other hand, he is not only a focus of caste pressure, but his position of lead- 
ership depends upon the monopoly given him by segregation. Although the 
Negro preacher is "other-worldly" in his sermons," he has a closer relation 
to politics than has the white clergyman. In accordance with Baptist and 
Methodist tenets, he preaches puritanical morals, and yet is often far from 
exemplary in his own life and sometimes has connections with the under- 
world. These paradoxes exist because the Negro preacher is not only a 
clergyman, but also, as Du Bois puts it, "a leader, a politician, an orator, 
a 'boss,' an intriguer, an idealist." 21 These divergent interests make the 
Negro preacher shift his actions fairly frequently with respect to contro- 
versial questions, so that he appears inconsistent. 

Negro preachers usually support Negro business. But at least one case 
is known where they have received threats from white business competitors 
for doing so. 82 And there is the fact that the Negro church often receives 
more money from white businessmen (since there are more of them even 
in Negro neighborhoods) than from Negro businessmen. In advertising 
Negro business, preachers use the pulpit as well as written endorsements 
and the church paper. 23 Some of the Negro businessmen are known rack- 
eteers: their legitimate businesses are sometimes a "front" for gambling 
rackets and even vice. The churches are, of course, officially against such 
things, but gambling (especially "policy") among the members of the 
congregation is too widespread to be stamped out, and often the contribu- 
tions from Negro policy racketeers — especially in the North — are a major 
source of support for the church. Some Negro ministers in Chicago meet 
the situation by ignoring the policy playing that goes on} others openly 
endorse it on the grounds that it provides jobs for Negroes and that 
"gambling isn't the worst sin." Some Spiritualist churches actually give out 
lucky numbers to be played. 24 

Where Negroes vote, preachers frequently take a stand and use their 
influence and their pulpit to swing Negro votes. 25 Although the feeling 
is prevalent among Negroes, as among whites, that clergymen should have 
nothing to do with politics, the Negro preacher's position as a community 
leader, as well as his desire to get money for his church and even for him- 
self, often leads him to have some sort of tie with a political machine or 
candidate. A minister who has a political tie gains in power, since he can 
"fix" minor difficulties with the law for members of his congregation and 

* See Chapter *o, Section 5. 



Chapter 43. Institutions 941 

sometimes even has control over a few jobs, political or otherwise. Poli- 
ticians, both white and Negro, realizing that Negroes are in great need and 
are easily influenced by any display of friendliness or of power, often make 
use of the large churches even without the minister's express assent. They 
make an appearance at a church service and conspicuously donate large 
sums of money at collection time. Many of the church members inter- 
viewed by Gosnell did not resent a white politician even in the pulpit, since 
they felt that the Negro needs all the white influence he can get, and since 
they do not have time to attend regular political meetings in which they 
are interested. 28 The church, as the community's most central public institu- 
tion, seems to many Negroes to take on political functions, as other non- 
religious functions, quite naturally. 

The Negro community is so poor, and the number of Negro churches so 
large in relation to the number of churchgoers," that the upkeep of the 
church is a financial drain. A good portion of the time during an average 
church service is taken up with the collection, and there is a tendency to 
emotionalize the collection so as to elicit more money. 27 Both in the 
South and in the North, there is importuning of white churches, white 
businessmen, and other white individuals for money to support the 
churches. Still the average Negro does not get much back from his 
church in the way of community services. 28 Relatively few of the 
churches — even the urban churches — offer facilities for recreation, and 
the amounts spent on charity, education and social service are pitifully 
small. This is partly due to the fact that there are too many churches, 
which makes the overhead expense too high. b Too, the urban Negro church 
often gets itself into great debt when it buys or builds a church edifice. In 
Mays and Nicholson's sample of urban Negro churches in 1930, 71.3 per 
cent had debts on their buildings. 29 Finally, Negro churches have poor 
business practices. For all these reasons, and relative to the poverty of the 
congregation, the Negro church is more expensive to the average Negro 
than the white man's church is to him. Most Negroes are aware of this 
fact and are not happy over it. 

The Negro church is at once modeled after the white church and yet 
fitted into the needs and culture of the Negro community. Theology and 
church service are the same as in white Protestant churches. Emotionalism 
was borrowed from the whites but has been retained after most whites have 
abandoned it, and is now considered a Negro "characteristic." Although 
Negroes do not, on the whole, pay much attention to the moral injunctions 
of the church, the church has been the major center of community life, and 
the preacher has been the major leader of the community. But this is 

* For statistics on the number of members per church, see Chapter 4,0, Section 3, 
" For the facts on church expenditures, see footnote 30 of Chapter 40. 
■"' See Chapter 40, Section 5. 



942 An American Dilemma 

changing rapidly as the Negro community becomes diversified, as other 
professionals are becoming more numerous, as upper and middle classes 
develop among Negroes, as the minister does not advance as rapidly in 
education and sophistication as do the youth of his community. The Negro 
church has declined in relative importance since 1880, and the prospects 
are for a continued decline. Nevertheless, the Negro church means more to 
the Negro community than the white church means to the white com- 
munity — in its function as a giver of hope, as an emotional cathartic, as a 
center of community activity, as a source of leadership, and as a provider 
of respectability. 

4. The Negro School and Negro Education" 

As we have pointed out in Chapter 41, there were few educational facil- 
ities for Negroes before the Civil War. Since then the proportion of Negro 
children attending school has gone up so rapidly that now it is not far 
behind the also increasing proportion of white children attending school 

TABLE 3 
School Attendance in the United States, Ages 5-10, Br Race: 1850-1940 



NEGROES WHITES 



Per cent of Per cent of 

Population Population 

Year Number aged j-20 aged 5-20 



1850 26,461 1.7 51.9 

i860 32,629 1.8 56.0 

1870 180,372 9.2 51 .2 

1880 856,014 32.5 58.2 

1890 999.3H 3M 55-4 

1900 1,083,516 31.0 53.6 

1910 1,644,759 44.7 6i.3 

1920 2 i 03o,26g 53.5 65.7 

1930 2,477,311 60.0 71.5 

1940 2,698,901 64.4 71.6 



Sources: The figures for 1850-1890, inclusive, are from E. George Payne. " Negroes in the Public Ele- 
mentary School of the North," The Annals of the American Academy ofrMiaU and Social Science (November, 
1028). p. 334. 

The figures for 1900 to 1940, wo have calculated from the following sources: (1) U. S. Bureau of the Census, 
St/roes in ike United States, 1700 to 1914, p. 377; (2) U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 
IfHO-loji, pp. 300-210: (j) Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Population. Preliminary Release, 
Series P-10, No. 17. Table 2. From the deceuiial censuses of population of 1850 to 1800, we have corroborated 
Payne's figures on number of Negroes and whites attending school for every year but 1890 (where we have a 
discrepancy of some 7.500 in the figure for Negroes), but we have not attempted to get the base figures on the 
number aged 5 to ao for these years. For Negroes alone. Bond corroborates Payne's percentages within 1.3 
par cent. (Horace Mann Bond, The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order [1934.IP- J 76.) 

' The most useful general study of Negro education is that of Horace Mann Bond, The 
Education of the Negro in the American Social Order (1934). Also useful in more specialized 
problems are: (1) Charles S. Johnson and Associates, "The Negro Public Schools," Section 
8 of the Louisiana Educational Survey (1942)) (2) Buell G. Gallagher, American Caste 
and the Negro College (1938)1 (3) Doxey A. Wilkerson, Special Problems of Negro 
Education (1939)1 (4) David T. Blose and Ambrose Caliver, Statistics of the Education 
of Negroes: 1933-1934 and 1933-1936, U. S. Office of Education Bulletin No. 13 (1938). 



Chapter 43. Institutions 943 

(Table 3). These figures are deceptive, however, since the bulk of Negro 
children live in the South, and education for Negroes in the South is 
generally inferior to that for •whites. Too, school attendance is something 
that can be misrepresented to a census-taker. The main reason for the 
discrepancy still existing is that Negroes do not attend high school and 
college to the same extent as do whites. As we shall see later in this section, 
elementary school attendance is about the same for Negroes and whites, 
except in the rural South. 

TABLE 4 
School Attendance, Aqes 7-20, by Race and Reoion: 1930 





Per cent of Population aged 7-10 
attending school April 1, 1930 


Region* 


Negroes 




Whites 


United States 
Urban 
Rural 


64.4 
67.0 
63.0 




75-4 
75-8 

74-9 


North and West 
Urban 
Rural 


7«.l 
71.1 
7Q.6 




76.4 


South 
Urban 
Rural 


63-1 
64.5 
62.7 




70.8 



Sourcts: Calculated from U.S. Bureau of the Census. Negroes in the United Stairs. 1020-1031, p. ill] 
and Fifteenth Census oflht United States: ip?o, Population, Vol. a, pp. logo. 1 106-1 107. 

* South defined as the three census divisions: South Atlantic, Bast South Central, West South Central) 
North and West defined as the rest of Continental United States (including Missouri). 

Table 4 shows that Negroes are below whites in school attendance to the 
extent of about 9.6 per cent in the South and 5.3 per cent in the North. 
Within the South, rural areas have a greater discrepancy (between whites 
and Negroes) than do urban areas. 80 

While the quantitative, though not qualitative, discrepancy between 
Negro and white education is disappearing, the lack of schools for Negroes 
in the past is reflected today in the statistics on educational status of adults 
(Table 5), The average Negro past the age of 25 years is reported to have 
had 5.7 years of schooling, as compared to 8.8 years for the average native 
white person. The education of rural-farm Negroes (practically all South- 
ern) has been least complete: 15 per cent have had no formal education at 
all, and almost 60 per cent never reached the fifth grade. Only 5.5 per 
cent of rural-farm Negroes (compared to 28.1 per cent of rural-farm native 
whites) have received any high school training whatsoever. In the country 
as a whole only 1.2 per cent of adult Negroes are college graduates (com- 
pared to 5.4 per cent of native whites) and only 7.1 per cent can claim to be 
high school graduates (compared to 28.6 per cent of the native whites). 
Clearly the formal education of the Negro population is greatly inferior to 



944 



Aw American Dilemma 



table 5 

Ysam or School Completed, by Person* 35 Year* Old akd Over, »t Race, 

FOR THE UtflTED STATES, RURAL AND URBAN AREAS: I94O 



Persons 2j yean and 

over 
No school years com- 
pleted 
Grade School: 

I to 4 years 

5 and 6 years 

7 and 8 years 
High School: 

I to 3 years 

4 years 
College: 

I to 3 years 

4 years and more 
Not reported 
Median school years 

completed 







PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION 






United States 


Urban 


Rural Nonfarm 


Rural Farm 


Native 
White 


Negro 


Native 
White 


Negro 


Native 
White 


Negro 


Native 
White 


Negro 


IOO.O 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 


1 00.0 


100.0 


100.0 


100.0 


'•3 


10.0 


0.8 


6.6 


1-7 


12.7 


M 


15.0 


6.i 

9-7 
36.0 


31.3 

21.J 
19.8 


3-7 

7-5 

33-6 


»3-7 
21.3 
24.8 


7-3 
10.8 
36.1 


35-5 

21.4 
16.5 


11. 1 
1 4.6 
4»-7 


44-1 
21.9 
11.7 


17.3 
16.6 


8.J 

4-1 


18.7 
20.1 


n.j 

6.2 


16.9 
«4-5 


6.4 
a-4 


13-7 
8.9 


3.6 

1.0 


6.6 

J-4 
1.1 


1.8 
1.2 
1.8 


7-S 
7.0 
1.0 


2.6 
1.8 
>-5 


6.5 
4-7 
J-4 


1.4 
0.9 

2.7 


4.0 
1.1 


0.6 
0.3 
1.8 



8.8 



5-7 



9-6 



6.8 



8.6 



5-= 



8.o 



4-i 



Source: Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Population, Preliminary Release. Scries P 10. No. 8 

that of the native white population even in number of school years com- 
pleted — disregarding the still more inferior quality of Negro education in 
the South. 

The situation is dynamic: education for Negroes is improving. The per- 
centage of Negro children who remain in school beyond the fourth grade 
rose from 1 8 in 192 1 to 20 in 1936. 81 At a later point we shall note the 
striking recent increase in high schools for Negroes. But Negro children 



TABLE 6 

Ratio of Neoro to White Pupils in Public Schools by Grades 

iw 18 Southern States: 1933-1934 





Ratio of 




Ratio of 




Negro to White 




Negro to White 


Grade 


Pupils Enrolled 
.631 


Grade 


Pupils Enrolled 


1 


8 


.141 


2 


.396 


9 


•«3S 


3 


.360 


10 


.112 


4 


.328 


II 


.099 


< 


.288 


12 


•091 


6 


.1J2 


Post-Graduate 




7 


.200 


High School 


.013 




Kindergarten 


.087 



Source: Calculated from data in Doxoy A. Wtlkenon, Special Problems of Negro Education (1930) PP. 
166-rM. Wllkenem takes his data from U.S. Office of Education, Biennial Survey of Education in the Untied 
Matct; lOil-1034. Bulletin No. 2 (193s). PP- 56-57 and 96. 



Chapter 4.3. Institutions 945 

still lag far behind white children in education. There is a much stronger 
tendenq' for Negroes than for whites to drop out of school at lower grades. 
While the ratio of Negroes to whites in the first grade in the 1 8 Southern 
states (1933-1934) is .631, the ratio drops to .141 in the eighth grade and 
to .091 in the twelfth grade (Table 6). The "holding power" of the Negro 
school is low at all levels. The reasons for this are in the whole character 
of the caste relation in the South. This tendency for Negroes to drop out 
of school more than do whites stops at the college level. Of all high school 
graduates over 25 years of age in the country (1940), a slightly greater 
proportion of Negroes than of whites have gone to college (42.6 per cent 
compared to 41.9 per cent). 83 Of course, a much smaller proportion of all 
Negroes than of whites goes to college, but once Negroes have attained 
high school graduation, they have a slightly better chance of going to 
college. This reversal is probably due to the tremendous difficulties the 
Negro child encounters in getting as far as high school graduation, to the 
relative lack of opportunities for Negro high school graduates, and to the 
relatively better opportunities for college-trained Negroes." 

It is unnecessary to take up the Negro school in the North since it hardly 
exists as a separate entity. Most of the Negro children in the North are 
separated from white children because of a small amount of legal segrega- 
tion, a moderate amount of forced illegal segregation, and a large amount 
of coercive but not illegal separation (connected with housing segregation 
and the system of gerrymandered districts and permits). 1 " But there is little 
difference between Negro and white schools in the North either in quality 
of instruction and facilities or in the content of the courses. What there is, 
is due to the rapid migration of the Negroes to the North, which has caused 
an undue over-crowding of schools and an over-burdening of teachers. But 
this lag in adjusting facilities to increased enrollment would seem to carry 
with it no discrimination, and would probably disappear shortly after the 
end of large-scale migration. The teachers of Negro children are as well 
trained as the teachers of white children, except possibly for the selection 
which occurs when a white teacher avoids teaching in a school attendee* 
almost entirely by Negro students. 

There is practically no attention paid to Negro problems or Negro 
students' needs in the Northern school. Except for a few all-Negro colleges, 
Negroes in Northern colleges are a small proportion of the student popu- 
lation, and except for a certain amount of social ostracism, they are not 

* See end of Chapter 13. The explanation is not that college enrollment is so much more 
common in the North generally. The proportion of those over *$ who have had at least 
one year of college is the same in the South as in the North (not including the Pacific or 
Mountain states): 9.2 to 9.5. {Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Popdation, 
Preliminary Release, Series P-10, No. 8.) 

" See Chapter 19, Section 6. 



94$ An American Dilemma ..^ 

treated differently than are white students.* The main reason why the 
average Negro gets an education inferior to the average white in the North 
is that poverty and disease keep him out of school more and force him to 
leave school at an earlier age. The rising legal minimum age for leaving 
school— all Northern states having some sort of compulsory attendance law 
since the Civil War — and the lack of employment opportunities, especially 
during the depression of the 1930's, have tended to reduce this differential, 
except at the college level. The school, outside of the activity of educating 
the young, is not important in the life of the Northern Negro community 
— a general characteristic of all schools in Northern cities where Negroes 
live. Only one aspect of Northern education for Negroes requires special 
attention: like white students, Negro students in the North are inculcated 
with the American Creed and with the traditional American virtues of 
efficiency, thrift, ambition, and so on. But employment opportunities — and 
to a lesser extent, some of the other "good" things of life — are so closed 
to them that these school-bred attitudes create special conflicts in their 
minds and cause them to become especially cynical with regard to them. b 
But this cynicism is by way of defense, and their deprivations cause the 
Northern Negro youth to place the highest value on the American Creed 
and the American virtues. 

The situation in the South, however, is different. While the federal and 
state constitutions require equal educational facilities for Negroes and 
whites, and the pretense is kept up that the constitutional requirements are 
met by "separate but equal" school systems: actually, however, the educa- 
tional facilities for Negroes are far inferior to those for whites except at a 
few universities supported by Northern philanthropy or by the federal 
government. To a great degree this is inevitable where two parallel segre- 
gated school systems must be maintained. The richer Northern commu- 
nities, with a smaller proportion of Negroes, find it a drain on the budget 
to support a single decent school system, much less two. The insufficient 
support of Negro schools in the South is reflected in a complete lack of 
schools in some rural areas, an insufficient number of schools in other areas, 
a grave lack of equipment, a lack of enforcement of the truancy laws for 
Negroes, an inferior quality of teacher training, differential payment to 
teachers, and miserably poor standards all around. The situation has been 
so bad that Southern Negroes have lost much of the faith in education 
they once had. 

In the rural South the one-room school house for Negroes is fairly typical, 
with the whole range of elementary grades taught by a single teacher in a 

' Except at the graduate level, when instructors in the social sciences expect Negro students 
to study Negro problems. 
"See Chapter 36. 
'See Chapter 15, Section 3; and Chapter 41. 



Chapter 43. Institutions 94,7 

angle room. Where Negroes are a small element in the population, Negro 
school houses may be far apart (cases have been reported where an elemen- 
tary school child has had to travel up to eighteen miles every day). The 
authorities are very discriminatory in providing bus services for Negro 
pupils.* School buses are generally provided for rural whites, but are rarely 
provided for Negroes. Some Negro families have to pay for private bus 
service, and others board their children in town. 88 The alternative is not to 
go to school at all, an alternative followed by some discouraged Negro 
families. There is a special need for school bus service in rural areas, since 
adequate schools cannot be paid for unless they serve many children resid- 
ing over a wide area. But the "consolidation of schools" movement has 
hardly begun for rural Negro schools in the South, although it is well- 
developed for the white schools. 

Another handicap of a financial nature is that Negro children must some- 
times provide all their own books and other school supplies; white children 
get these things free. The content of the elementary education in the rural 
South is almost unbelievably poor in the eyes of the outsider; a poorly 
trained" and poorly paid'' Negro woman 4 must control and teach a group 
of children from a poor and uncultured home background, in an over- 
crowded," dilapidated,' one-room B school house, where she must perform 
at least some of the janitorial and administrative duties. She is also subject 
to unusual outside pressure." 

The Negro school in the rural South is kept open only about seven 

' While Negroes constituted 28 per cent of the pupils enrolled in the public schools of 
10 Southern states (1935-1936) and were 34 per cent of the rural-farm population aged 
5 to 17 (1930), they received only 3 per cent of the total expenditures for transportation 
(1935-1936). (Compiled from a variety of government reports by Wilkerson, of. cit., p. 19.) 

6 See Chapter 14., Section 4. 

" See Chapter : 5, Section 3. 

d Of all teachers in public elementary and secondary schools in the 1 8 Southern states in 
1935-1936, 80.6 per cent were women. (Blose and Caliver, of. cit., p. 12.) 

'The average pupil load per teacher in 18 Southern states in 1933-1934 was 43 for 
Negroes and 34 for whites. {Biennial Survey of Education: 1,032-1934, pp. 64-65, and 
93-94 and 99 j compiled by Wilkerson, of. cit., p. 21.) 

'The average value of school property in 10 Southern states in 1 935-1 936 was $38 per 
Negro pupil and $183 per white pupil. (Compiled from various government publications 
by Wilkerson, of. cit., p. 31.) 

The literature is replete with descriptions of how dilapidated the rural Negro school 
houses are: see, for example, ibid., pp. 28-29; Ambrose Caliver, Rural Elementary Educa- 
tion among Negroes under Jeanes Supervising Teachers, U. S. Office of Education, Bulletin 
No. 5, (1933); John G. Van Deusen, The Black Man in White America (1938), pp. 
164-166. 

* Sixty-five per cent of all the Negro public schools in Louisiana are one-teacher schools, 
and another 27 per cent are two- or three-teacher schools (Charles S. Johnson, "The Negro 
?ublic Schools," p. 43). 

"See Chapter 40, Section 1. 



9+8 An American Dilemma 

months a year-, Negro children must work in the fields in planting and 
harvesting seasons, and the white planters give the signal for the Negro 
school to curtail its session, to close or to open. There is a low attendance 
generally because transportation is so poor for Negroes, because they must 
help around the house, because they are frequently ill or have insufficient 
clothing, because there is practically no enforcement of truancy regulations." 
The white schools, in contrast, operate for eight or nine months a year, with 
fixed opening and closing dates, and with fairly rigorously applied truancy 
regulations. The secondary school situation for Negroes in the rural South 
is much worse, since there are so few secondary schools, and they are so far 
apart. As a consequence, Negro children come out of their school system — 
both elementary and secondary — very poorly educated. All studies show 
them to be far below the national average in scholastic achievement. 84 

Standards of teacher selection are low in the rural South. If a Negro girl 
knows a white member of the school board or any influential white person, 
she can be fairly sure of getting a teaching job even though she never 
completed high school. Sometimes there is the formality of passing an 
"examination" to get a teacher's certificate. The low standard of selection 
of the Negro school teacher, her usually inadequate ability to teach, and 
her extreme dependence on white men, give her a fairly low status in the 
rural Negro community. To the extent that she has been educated, how- 
ever, she can attain a higher status. The teacher and the school house are 
usually integrated into the Negro community, since the teacher's social life 
is bound up with that of the parents of her pupils, and the school house is 
usually used for community purposes. Although all rural people probably 
have a sense of possessiveness for their local school house and use it for a 
variety of purposes, rural Southern Negroes have a special pride in theirs 
since they help to collect the money for it and sometimes they actually 
build and furnish it. Some teachers have succeeded in organizing Parent- 

*The average number of days in a school year in iS Southern states in 1935-1936 was 
167 for whites and 146 for Negroes. The worst state was Mississippi, where the average 
school term was 145 for whites and 119 for Negroes. The discrepancy was even greater in 
Louisiana and South Carolina, although the absolute figures were not so low. In addition, 
Negro children failed to attend classes quite as frequently as white children so that their 
average number of days attended was only 113, as compared to 136 for whites. (See Blose 
and Caliver, op. cit. t p. 35.) These figures are so high because no separation is made between 
rural and urban schools. In Southern cities, Negro and white schools usually have the ranie 
length of term, but in rural areas of the Deep South, "terms of three and four months' 
duration are by no means uncommon . . ." (Bond, op. cit., p. 191.) Further, as on<* super- 
intendent in Louisiana said, "You can't afford to enforce compulsory school laws for the 
Negro children. As it is, their schools are too crowded, and we hardly know what to do with 
the ones we have. If all of them were in school that should be there, we'd have a school 
problem that the school board just wouldn't know how to handle." (Cited in Charles S. 
Johnson, "The Negro Public Schools," p. 125.) 



Chapter 43. Institutions 949 

Teacher Associations, and these have been of material advantage to both 
parents and teachers.' 

There is a clear tendency to avoid civics and other social sciences in the 
SouthernNegro public schools. Theyare not taught to any extent in the white 
schools, but a special effort is made to prevent Negroes from thinking about 
the duties and privileges of citizenship. In some places there are different 
school books for Negroes and whites, especially in those fields that border 
on the social. Where white students are taught the Constitution and the 
structure of governments, Negroes are given courses in "character build- 
ing," by which is meant courtesy, humility, self-control, satisfaction with 
the poorer things of life, and all the traits which mark a "good nigger" in 
the eyes of the Southern whites. The content of the courses for Negroes 
throughout the South, except at the colleges with a tradition dating back 
to the "classical" influence of the New England "carpetbagger," is molded 
by the caste system at every turn. For example: a leaflet sent out by a 
privately controlled and privately supported North Carolina "Institute" — 
something meant to be a cross between a technical high school and a tech- 
nical college — describes its course of study as follows: 

While the school gives a thorough English Education, it must be remembered that 
it is strictly moral, religious and industrial. Every boy and girl is taught practical 
Politeness, Farming, Housekeeping, Laundry, Dressmaking, Printing, Cooking, Brick- 
masonry, Plastering, and Automobile Mechanics. Students arc taught self-reliance, race 
pride, independent man and womanhood. They are encouraged to remain at their 
homes in the South, to buy land, assist their fathers and mothers and to educate 
their fellows. 

To repeat: this is the course of study at a privately supported school at 
almost the college level. It is probably an exceptionally poor school, but 
it illustrates what does exist. Publicly supported elementary schools for 
Negroes in the South put out no such statements regarding courses of study. 
There is a strong element of the vocational in the education of Southern 
Negroes. Rural boys are given courses in agriculture j urban boys are given 
courses in the manual arts; and girls are given courses in home economics. 
Since little money is made available to teach such courses 1 ' — and adequate 
teaching of them requires a good deal of expensive equipment — and since 
the teachers are often inadequately trained, the courses are usually on a low 
level. The range of these courses, too, is restricted: for the most part, 
Negroes are taught only how to be farmers, semi-skilled workers and 

* While rural Negro teachers are integrated into the community, they are usually not 
active in it and belong to few civic organizations other than the P.T.A. (Charles S. Johnson, 
"The Negro Public Schools," pp. 100-101.) 

"Negroes receive little of the money made available for vocational education by the 
federal government, since the state legislatures misappropriate the funds. See Chapter 15, 
Section 3 



950 Ah American Dilemma 

servants. Negroes who have succeeded in becoming businessmen have 
usually gone through the regular academic curriculum rather than the 
vocational schools. Except for the private schools, which train for skilled 
work, vocational education for Negroes in the South has usually meant 
training to do more efficiently the traditional menial "Negro job." Little 
attention has been paid to the fact that a changing economy has created a 
serious over-population in agriculture and even in domestic service. The 
teaching of new occupations to Negroes is even further from whites' minds 
than the teaching of the older, but desirable, occupations. Vocational educa- 
tion in the public schools of the South has also served as a means to keep 
Negroes from getting the general education given to whites, since it is felt 
— with good reason — that an academic education would make Negroes 
ambitious and dissatisfied with a low occupation, would "ruin a good field 
hand." Vocational education for Negroes in the North has had none of 
these degrading traits, and a larger proportion of Negroes in high schools 
has been getting vocational training in the North than in the South. 35 

Educational conditions for Southern Negroes are better in the cities than 
in the rural areas. Negroes live closer together, and the local governments 
are thus more willing to build more and better schools. There are no 
problems of having the schools too far apart, of closing down the schools 
for planting and harvest season, of having all grades under one teacher in 
one room. The teachers are better trained, in some cases better trained than 
white teachers in the same cities, since Negro women who go to college 
have few opportunities outside of the city school systems. 88 They also 
achieve a measure of independence." While the quality and quantity of 
education in the city schools is better than in the country schools, the sub- 
jects taught and their content are about the same. The Negro school teach- 
ers in the Southern cities usually have a high status in the Negro community 
and often are looked up to as leaders in social life and general activities. 87 

High schools for Negroes in the South have existed in significant num- 
bers for only about twenty years'' and are still inadequate. In 1 8 Southern 
states (1933- 1 934), only 19 Negro children out of 100 aged 14 to 17 
(1930) were attending public high schools, as compared to 55 white chil- 
dren in the same Southern states and to 60 children in the nation as a 
whole." These low figures are not entirely due to the lack of public high 
schools for Negroes, but are tied up with the whole educational and social 

'See Chapter 41, Section 1. 

b In 1915-1916 there were only 64 fublic high schools for Negroes in the 18 Southern 
states and more than half of these were in 4 states — Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee 
and Texas. There were also 216 private high schools in that year. In 1935-1936 there were 
1,305 fublic high schools in these states, and in 1932-1933, 92 private high schools. 
(Blose and Caliver, op. cit., p. S.) 

* The worst state for Negroes was again Mississippi, where 7 Negro children out of 100, 
as compared to 66 white children out of 100, attended public high school. (Wilkerson, 0/. 
cit., op. 36-17-) 



Chapter 43. Institutions 951 

structure of the South: Negro children tend to drop out of elementary 
school, partly because the family is poor and they are needed for work, 
partly because schools are so inaccessible, and partly because instruction is 
so inferior. But the lack of high schools is also important: Wilkerson points 
out that there was one white high school teacher for every 1 1 white seventh 
grade (elementary school) pupils but only one Negro high school teacher 
for every 20 Negro seventh grade (elementary) school pupils. 3S Although 
two-thirds of all Southern Negroes live in rural areas, only 508 of the 
1,077 Negro high schools in 18 Southern states (1933- 1934) were in rural 
areas, and they enrolled only 21 per cent of the total number of Negro 
pupils in public high schools in these states. 89 

The Negro public junior college is practically nonexistent in the South, 
since there were only 5 of them in 16 Southern states (1933-1934), enroll- 
ing only 706 students.* In addition, Negroes had 17 private junior 
colleges, enrolling another 1,344 students. The colleges proper present a 
comparable situation. Negroes constituted 25 per cent of the population 18 
through 21 years of age in 17 Southern states (1930) but only 6 per cent 
of the public college enrollment (1933-1934). 41 

Of the 117 Negro institutions of higher learning in the United States 
(1932-1933), only 36 were public. More than half of these public colleges 
were land-grant institutions — largely stimulated and supported by the 
federal government} of the 81 private colleges, all but seven were church- 
affiliated. Most of these colleges did not have the teachers and school 
facilities to provide an adequate education.* Before 1937, only 5 Negro 
institutions offered instruction at the graduate level. 42 After that year, 
when the federal courts declared that a state must offer equal educational 
opportunities to Negroes, several Southern states forced ill-equipped public 
Negro colleges to assume graduate instruction. For all practical purposes, 
however, it may still be claimed that only 3 or 4 Negro institutions have 
real graduate instruction, and none of them offers the Ph.D. degree. 

The whole Southern Negro educational structure is in a pathological 
state. Lack of support, low standards, and extreme dependence on the 
whites make Negro education inadequate to meet the aims of citizenship, 
character or vocational preparation. While illiteracy is being eliminated, 
this is only in a formal sense — since children who are taught to read and 
write and do arithmetic seldom make use of these abilities. Still there are 
many educational opportunities for Negroes, and the situation is far better 
than it was at the close of the Civil War. The concept of education for 

'By 1939, the Southern Association of Colleger and Secondary Schools had awarded 
Class "A" rating to only 18 Negro colleges, and 4. Negro junior colleges. (Fred McCuistton, 
Graduate Instruction for Negroes in the United States [1939], pp. 29-30.) In addition to 
these, 3 public and 2 private institutions had been accredited in 1938 by the North Central 
Association and the Middle States Association. In the 1 1 states under the Southern Associa- 
tion, 46 per cent of the white colleges are accredited but only 22 per cent of the Negro 
college*. (Wilkerson, op. cit„ p. 70.) 



oc2 An American Dilemma 

'•* «f» 

Negroes is hardly questioned any longer. The complete educational ladder 

is available to practically all Northern Negroes and to most of the Southern 

Negroes who live in large Southern cities. At least the rudiments of an 

education are available even to the rural Southern Negroes. There is 

considerable educational opportunity at the college level, even in the 

South. The general trend toward improved education is helping the Negro, 

even if he does not share in the new opportunities as much as do whites. 

5. Voluntary Associations 

As many foreign observers have pointed out, 43 America has an unusual 
proliferation of social clubs, recreational organizations, lodges, fraternities 
and sororities, civic improvement societies, self-improvement societies, 
occupational associations, and other organizations which may be grouped 
under the rubric of "voluntary associations." While this is true of 
Americans generally, Negroes seem to have an even larger relative 
number of associations. In Chicago in 1937, when the total Negro 
population of the city was less than 275,000, there were over 4,000 
formal associations, the membership of which was wholly or largely 
Negro. 4 * In Natchez, Mississippi, where the total Negro population 
was about 7,500, there were more than 200 Negro associations discov- 
ered in one week in 1935. 45 This characteristic of the Negro commu- 
nity becomes even more striking when it is realized that generally upper 
and middle class people belong to more associations than do lower class 
people. 40 Thus, despite the fact that they are predominantly lower class, 
Negroes are more inclined to join associations than are whites} in this 
respect again, Negroes are "exaggerated" Americans. Only a small number 
of the Negro associations had as their primary purpose to protest against 
caste or to improve the Negro community in some way j 47 these protest and 
improvement associations were considered in Chapter 39. Here we shall 
give brief consideration to the many associations which have a "sociable" 
or "expressive" function. With rare exceptions, these associations have only 
Negroes as members, and their large number is in some measure a product 
of the prohibitions against having Negro members in white associations. 

Max Weber has sought to explain the numerous social clubs in America 
as a means of helping people to business, political and social success. 48 This 
is only partly true for American Negroes. It is undoubtedly the reason why 
upper and middle class Negroes belong to more voluntary associations than 
do lower class Negroes. 49 But it does not serve to explain why Negroes have 
relatively more associations than do whites, or why lower class Negroes are 
members of as many associations as they are. Membership in their own 
segregated associations does not help Negroes to success in the larger Amer- 
ican society. The situation must be seen as a pathological one: Negroes are 
active in associations because they are not allowed to be active in much of 
the other organized life of American society. As Robert R. Moton pointed 



Chapter 43. Institutions 953 

out, 80 the tremendous amount of club activity among Negroes is, in one 
sense, a poor substitute for the political activity they would like to partici- 
pate in but cannot because of caste. Negroes are largely kept out, not only 
of politics proper, but of most purposive and creative work in trade unions, 
businessmen's groups, pressure groups, large-scale civic improvement and 
charity organizations, and the like. 

A second reason why we regard the huge number of voluntary associa- 
tions among Negroes as pathological is that some of them — especially the 
lodges — would seem to follow a pattern which is about a generation behind 
the general American pattern. Whereas in white America the lodges — with 
their secret rites and elaborate ritual — began to become unpopular at least 
thirty years ago, the decline of Negro lodges occurred, not because they 
became unpopular, but because they failed to pay insurance premiums. The 
most serious decline of Negro lodges has occurred in the last ten years." 1 
And when lodge membership did decline among Negroes, the lower class 
people who left lodges simply joined religious sects, rather than disentangle 
themselves completely from such old-fashioned groups, as did whites. 5 -' 
The content of the meetings of the Negro sociable groups, even outside the 
old-fashioned lodges, also reveals the lag in their adaptation to modern 
American standards. The meetings are often heavily formalized, in the 
manner of white upper class clubs of a generation or two ago. Strict rules 
of parliamentary procedure are followed in the "business" meetings; the 
"entertainment" consists, with little variation, of card-playing, lectures, or 
recitals; a complete roster of officers is elected even if there arc less than 
a dozen members in the entire club; in upper class clubs formal dress is 
required at certain of the meetings." 

Another reason why we regard the great number of Negro voluntary 
associations as a sign of social pathology is that they accomplish so little in 
comparison to what their members set out to achieve by means of them. 
A large number of the associations — including not a few of the "social" 

'"Behavior at club meetings is rather rigidly stereotyped — (i) business, while visitors 
wait in another room, (2) card playing, (3) eating, (4) a period of rather general 
unorganized conversation and hilarity. There are wide variations, however, in the nature 
of the 'business' discussed and in the amount of formality involved. The bulk of the clubs 
are very formal in their conduct of business, having a parliamentarian to correct the group 
on points of order, even when only four or five members are present. Since there is a great 
deal of inter-club visiting, the clubs are careful about 'doing things in an orderly manner' 
so that they will not get a 'bad reputation.' Some clubs play whist, but the bulk of them 
play auction bridge; a few play contract. A few vary the procedure by the use of popular 
games such as 'Pick-up-sticks,' 'Lexicon,' or 'Pit.' 

"Ranking within the club world depends partly upon the elaborateness of the entertain- 
ing and the orderliness of meetings. Clubs range from the very formal middle-aged women's 
groups of upper-middle class to the rather rough behavior of younger upper-lower class (or 
even middle-aged lower class groups.) On the whole, however, the standards of the club 
world operate to stereotype the behavior." (Drake, "The Negro Church and Associations in 
Chicago," pp. 466-467.) 



954 An American Dilemma ^ 

clubs — claim to be "rivfe-minded" or interested in improving the "race."" 
They collect money and hold dances or card-parties for such purposes, and 
they drain off a large part of the Negroes' spare time." Even when they do 
not claim to be engaged in protest or amelioration, the social clubs and 
lodges divert to themselves a larger part of the Negro people's time and 
money than do comparable associations among the whites. 8 * This is accentu- 
ated by their intense rivalry and heavily formalized activity. Since, as we 
noted, Negro clubs and lodges do not help their members to business, 
political, or social success in the same way that white clubs do, much of their 
activity is wasted effort. Many Negroes are aware of this and talk against 
it. But the pattern of a "heavy" social life is so traditional in the Negro 
community that even those who do not like it cannot escape it without 
cutting off much of their relationship with their fellows and without losing 
some of their prestige. It is probable that the bulk of the Negroes, includ- 
ing those who make no overt protest against the great proliferation of clubs 
with ritualized social activity, feel frustrated by it at times. The average 
sociable club has only one or two dozen members} there is an intense 
rivalry between clubs for status and an equally intense rivalry between 
members within any given club for office; the club is often short-lived ; it 
seldom aids the individual to achieve success or raises the level of the 
"race"; it is time-consuming and the activities undertaken are heavily 
formalized. 

Aside from the above-mentioned differences between Negro and white 
voluntary associations, they are much alike. Negro associations are appar- 
ently modelled after white associations, even if those white models are 
remnants of a past generation and so appear ludicrous to some white peo- 
ple today. 

'The athletic associations, the occupational associations, and the Parent-Teacher Asso- 
ciations have definite and limited functions, so that much of what is said about the social 
clubs, church clubs, "welfare" clubs, and lodges in this paragraph does not apply to the 
former groups. 

b Much of the money collected for "charity" by the social clubs goes to pay for the heavy 
expenses of the entertainment and of the club. (See Drake, "The Negro Church and Asso- 
ciations in Chicago," p. 4.77 and Davis, of cit., p. 163.) 

* As we noted above, the Negro social clubs are modelled after upper class white social 
clubs of the period 1880-1910 or the small town social clubs of today. The Negro lodges 
were modelled after the white lodges as they have been since 1865. The Negro lodges 
began when the white lodges refused to take in Negro members, and when white insurance 
companies refused to accept Negroes as insurance policyholders. There was no attempt to 
hide the fact that they were imitations of the white lodges: the Eighth Annual Report of 
the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World states: 

"Like all other secret and benevolent organizations that have been organized, the white 
order of Elks will not permit colored persons to become members. But there are colored 
Elks, sow. . . . Some may try to deprecate the colored Elks but we have the same ritual that 
dte white Elks have. . . . The difference between the white and colored Elks is this: 
•0m white order it known as the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Ours is known 
:*» the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World." (Cited by W. E. B, 
Du Bois (editor). Economic Cooperation among Negroes [1907], p. 126). 



Chapter 43. Institutions 955 

The distinctive thing about Negro associations has been the death benefit 
and sickness insurance features of some Negro lodges and benevolent 
societies. Even this was not a unique trait of Negro organizations, since 
white lodges frequently have them too. But it was much more developed 
among Negroes, 84 and it made the lodges of almost equal importance with 
the churches in the period around 1 890. ss The insurance features of many 
lodges elicited the only serious praise that has been bestowed upon Negro 
sociable organizations. A survey edited by Du Bois in 1898 said that the 
lodges represented the "saving, banking spirit among the Negroes and are 
the germ of commercial enterprise of a purer type," but at the same time 
he castigated their "extravagance and waste in expenditure, an outlay for 
regalia and tinsel." 50 Booker T. Washington saw the secret society as the 
Negro's means of creating capital, learning business techniques, and teach- 
ing the "masses of people habits of saving and of system which they would 
not otherwise have been able or disposed to learn." 57 But owing to the 
frequent failure of the lodges and benevolent societies to pay insurance 
premiums,* which has been noticeable since the beginning of the depression 
in 1929,°* the lodges have been declining in popularity. 1 * Especially the 
lower classes have left; the middle classes remain for the prestige, power 
and recreation that the lodges provide. But even the middle classes, and 
especially the upper classes, are being attracted away from the lodges and 
toward the business and professional associations, the college and high 
school fraternities and sororities. Typical of the highest sort of evaluation 
of the lodges heard today is the one expressed by the secretary of a local 
Urban League in a Northern city: 

Not much practical value to the community at large but vastly important to the 
individual who is thereby associated with a definite group. There are a few vision- 
ary optimists in each order who think their group can become "a great force for the 
political and social betterment of the Negro people," but the rest are there becanse 
they like to have a good time with the boys, or the girls, and who like the pomp and 
ceremony and mumbo-jumbo of the meetings — which is as good a reason for join- 
ing as any. 69 

Thus, aside from the fact that all Negro groups are inevitably forced to 
be "race conscious" and that most of them at least pretend to improve the 
position of the "race," "there is a pronounced tendency ... for mutual aid 
associations and civic groups to become recreational associations." 60 It is, 
therefore, only as a means of recreation that Negro voluntary associations 
can be given a high evaluation. To determine whether or not such a high 
evaluation is justified, we shall have to consider, briefly, the general charac- 
ter of recreation and amusement in the Negro community. This we shall 
do in the following chapter. 



'See Chapter 14, Section j. 

* See footnote $1 to this chapter. 



CHAPTER 44. 

NON-INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE 
NEGRO COMMUNITY 

IIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIMIIIII IWIIIII tMlllllltllllllMI MIIItlllllllimillllllltllllllMMIIIIIIOIIIIIIHmillllWIMIIIIIHHtlmlWIIIIIII 

1. "Peculiarities" of Negro Culture and Personality 

The increasing isolation between Negroes and whites has, as we noted," 
increased the mutual ignorance of the two groups. Lower class Negroes 
know much of the private side of the lives of the whites since so many of 
them are servants to whites; upper and middle class Negroes know very 
little about either the private or the public life of whites. Whites of all 
classes know even less about Negroes. Because of their lack of intimate 
contact with Negroes, whites create and maintain stereotypes about them. 
Most of the stereotypes have no basis in fact, but even those that are super- 
ficially true are not understood by whites in terms of their motivation and 
cultural origin. Even when they do not mean to be unfriendly to Negroes, 
whites observe that certain aspects of Negro life are "different" or "pecul- 
iar." Some of these cultural peculiarities bother whites j all of them are 
taken into account — consciously or unconsciously — when whites act in regard 
to Negroes. Since the whites are the dominant group, it is important for 
Negroes to determine what whites find peculiar about their culture. In this 
chapter, we shall not attempt to describe all the ways in which the Negro 
community differs from the white community, but only those non-institu- 
tional differences in Negro culture which whites find most unusual or 
disturbing. We shall start from our conclusion in Chapter 6 that these 
differences have no basis in biological heredity, that they are of a purely 
cultural nature. 

In this section, we shall sometimes be writing about Negro culture traits 
as though they applied to all Negroes. This is, of course, incorrect, and it 
angers many Negroes. There is a diversity of behavior patterns among 
Negroes, perhaps as great as in white American society with all its diverse 
national backgrounds. Negro communities range from the folk societies of 
isolated rural Southern areas to the highly sophisticated wealthy night club 
groups of Harlem. Much of the diversity among Negroes arises out of a 
tendency of upper class Negroes to act in a manner just the opposite of lower 

* Sac Chapter 30. 

956 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 957 

class Negroes, and some of it arises out of diverse historical background. We 
shall try to take account of the diversity, but we feel we are justified in 
writing of Negro culture traits because average Negro behavior differs from 
average white behavior. From a practical standpoint it is necessary to take 
account of these differences in averages because white people see them and 
use them to buttress their prejudices. 

Because of the isolation between the two groups and because of the fear 
and suspicion on the part of Negroes toward the whites, it is practically 
impossible for any white investigator to get completely into the Negro 
community. We do not claim that we completely understand the Negro 
community, and no doubt many Negro readers will find some of our 
observations about them to be naive or mistaken. Yet the white 
investigator has two advantages: First, he knows what white people 
do not know about Negroes. Negroes do not realize how ignorant 
most white people are about the Negro community, and they do not 
understand how even their white friends may be unaware of certain 
things about them. Second, Negroes are so thoroughly isolated from 
white society that they have little basis for comparing their society 
with white society. Without the objectivity acquired by stepping outside of 
their own culture, they often cannot see how the Negro community differs 
from the white. For these two reasons, it may be that the white investigator 
can more easily determine what whites find "peculiar" in the Negro com- 
munity and can more easily interpret these peculiarities to the whites. Thip 
is not inevitably so, however, and there is need for Negro scholars, with 
their greater ability to get inside the Negro community, to understand the 
white man's point of view when they study and describe the Negro 
community. 

The trait which the whites perhaps associate most with Negroes is a 
tendency to be aggressive. a This tendency is remarked about whenever 
Negroes commit crimes, whenever they are insulting and even whenever 
they try to rise out of their "place." The tendency is exaggerated in the 
minds of the whites, and whites are ambivalent in their beliefs since they 
also frequently speak of the Negroes as docile, subservient and dull. The 
tendency is exaggerated partly because white newspapers give relatively 
little news about Negroes other than crime news, b partly because of the 

" Some of the culture traits frequently associated with Negroes have been discussed at length 
in other chapters and will not be taken up again at this point. For a consideration of Negro 
immorality, see Chapter 43, Section 2. For a discussion of Negro religious emotionalism, 
see Chapter 43, Section 3. For a discussion of Negro aping of white manners, see Chapter 
32 i Chapter 42, Section a and Chapter 43, especially Section 5. For a discussion of Negro 
laziness, inefficiency, and lack of ambition, see Chapter 9, Scetion 2, and Chapter 10, Section 
2. For a consideration of the causes of Negro servility, see Chapter 29, Section 2. For a 
discussion of racial beliefs in general, sec Chapter 4, especially Sections 7 and 8. 

* See footnote 23 of Chapter 30. 



«r> 



• 



958 An American Dilemma 

traditional racial stereotypes and partly because many whites do not attrib- 
ute to Negroes the natural human reactions to insult and deprivation. 

Except for the sullen criminal youths found mainly in Northern cities,' 
Negroes seem to be no more aggressive than whites. In view of the fact 
that they are so frequently discriminated against and insulted, Negroes are 
remarkably passive and polite toward whites. Negroes have never, since 
the Civil War, organized to revolt against white domination. They are 
generally courteous to whites who do not insult them, and even to whites 
who do. It probably can be generalized that when noncriminal Negroes are 
called "bumptious," especially in the South, they are merely trying to get 
their rights as citizens and thus are attempting to rise out of their lower 
caste status. Another reason why whites, especially Northern whites, find 
Negroes aggressive or unpleasant is because they have unwittingly insulted 
them b or because they do not understand the Negro's suspicion and fear 
of whites arising out of the uncertainty of life and property in the South. 
In the North, too, Negroes may do unpleasant things out of ignorance or 
appear "bumptious" because they are glad to be free of Southern restric- 
tions." 

'See Chapter 36, Section 5. 

* We have noted several times in this book that Negroes are sensitive to insult and that 
whites, especially Northern whites, insult them unwittingly. When, in November, 1942, 
Irving Berlin wrote a patriotic song, he used the word "darky" in it and precipitated a storm 
of protest. He quickly changed the word to Negro and said he had not meant to insult anyone. 
The following excerpt from a letter to the editor of Time magazine is interesting both as an 
example of unwitting insult and for the list of names by which Negroes like to be described. 

"First it was your constant use of the abortive term N egress \ your farfetched designation 
of pickaninnies in a Chicago department store. . . . Now it is your use of "darky-driven" 
trucks! . . . Damn! ! What is wrong with Time's policy toward the American Negro in the 
hut year and a half? It's getting so I can't read an article about the race without being 
intuited 1 . . . 

"Some terms (adjectives) that might be used in describing Negroes: 

"bronzed (conventional but well liked) coal black (trite) 

mighty black smooth yellow (don't use 'high yaller > ) 

jade black golden tinted 

blue black mellow (current 'j8-'4o) 

huskies smooth (in place of 'shiny') 

Zigaboo (coined by Negroes) golden brown 

Senegambian chocolate brown (trite) 

coffee-colored (used by Time) (yo« add to the list) 

Dorfts 
"Nigger darky 

Negress octoroon 

pickaninny quadroon, etc." 

(A letter to the editor, Time [August 25, 1941], p. 8.) 

* "If the Negroes in Harlem show at times less courtesy toward white visitors than is 
required by the canons of good taste, this is bad, but understandable. It was remarked 
shortly after the first migration that the newcomers on boarding street cars invariabiv 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 959 

Next to aggressiveness, probably the most striking trait of Negroes 
noticed by whites is emotionality and spontaneous good humor. This is 
given both a high and a low evaluation. On the one hand, the ability to 
enjoy life is recognized as desirable, and the Negro's music, dancing, litera- 
ture and art are appreciated by the whites. But on the other hand, lack of 
self-control and the tendency to act on impulse are deprecated. Negroes 
have acquired the art of enjoying life more than have whites. 1 Because 
they have no direct background in puritanism, they have taken sex more as 
it comes, without all the encumbrances and inhibitions. The relative eco- 
nomic independence of the Negro woman allows her to mate more in the 
spirit of equality and mutual enjoyment, and less out of a sense of duty 
or to get economic advantages. Because they have so little money to spend 
on entertainment and because the white masters in slavery times did not 
bother to regiment the small amount of free time of the Negroes, the 
Negroes have learned to enjoy small and inexpensive things and to get 
as much pleasure as they can out of their free time. The habit of spending 
a good deal of leisure time out-of-doors, due in part to the over-crowdedness 
of the Negro home, has contributed to the social pleasantness of Negro life, 
since being outside involves meeting friends and having no worries about 
destroying furniture." Negroes also try much harder than do whites to get ■*? 
as much pleasure out of their work as they can. ** 

There is something of the "devil-may-care" attitude in the pleasure- 
seeking of Negroes. They know that all the striving they may do cannot 
carry them very high anyway, and they feel the harshness of life — the 
caste pressures are piled on top of the ordinary woes of the average white 
man. "So you might as well make the most of it"j "what the hell difference . 
does it make." In this spirit, life becomes cheap and crime not so reprehen- 
sible. Thus both the lack of a strong cultural tradition and the caste-fostered 
trait of cynical bitterness combine to make the Negro less inhibited in a way 
which may be dangerous to his fellows. They also make him more indolent, 
less punctual, less careful, and generally less efficient as a functioning 
member of society. 

Because of the false racial belief that Negroes had innate emotional 
talents to compensate for their low intellectual capacities, whites have 
seldom hindered the development of the Negro in the artistic fields. In 

strode to the front even if there were seats in the rear." (Charles S. Johnson, "New Frontage 
on American Life," in Alain Locke [.editor], T/ie New Negro [1925], p. 287.) 

* Negroes do not hesitate to tell how they enjoy life in spite of caste. Claude McKay, for 
example, says: 

"The prison is vast, there is plenty of space and a little time to sing and dance and laugh 
and love. There is a little time to dream of the jungle, revel in rare scents and riotous 
colors, croon a plantation melody, and be a real original Negro in spite of all the crackers. 
Many a white wretch, baffled and lost in his civilized jungles, is envious of the toiling, easy- 
living Negro." {A Long Way from Home [i937]> PP< i45->46.) 



960 An American Dilemma jj, 

fact, whites have enjoyed a paternalistic feeling in fostering this develop- 
ment. Negroes have been able to find an economic market for their artistic 
achievements, and this has fostered still more their development in this 
field, especially as opportunities are so closed to them in other fields. The 
pattern of uninhibited singing and dancing into which the Negro child is 
brought from his earliest years also gives a superb training for achievement 
in these fields. This trait of singing and dancing is so deep in the American 
Negro's culture that he sometimes falls into the white man's error of 
thinking of it as a racial trait: "white people have no rhythm"; "they can't 
dance with feeling"; "whites are naturally cold." 

The good humor that is associated with the Negro's emotionalism is the 
outcome, not only of the attempt to enjoy life to its fullest, but of stark 
fear of the white man. Much of the humor that the Negro displays before 
the white man in the South is akin to that manufactured satisfaction with 
their miserable lot which the conquered people of Europe are now forced 
to display before their German conquerors. The loud high-pitched cackle 
that is commonly considered as the "Negro laugh" was evolved in slavery 
times as a means of appeasing the master by debasing oneself before him 
and making him think that one was contented. Negroes still "put it on" 
before whites in the South for a similar purpose. They also use it when 
they are entirely among themselves — in the same way as they use the hated 
term "nigger." 

In a similar manner, the Negro slave developed a cleverness in language 
which is akin to the "bright sayings" of children. Like the "Negro laugh," 
he found that a clever remark amused the white man and often staved off 
punishment or brought rewards. 

No master could be thoroughly comfortable around a sullen slave; and, conversely, 
a master, unless he was utterly humorless, could not overwork or brutally treat a 
jolly fellow, one who could make him laugh. The famous black-face minstrels by 
white performers get their suggestion from the plantation entertainers. The most 
important use of humor to the Negro, however, was in his personal relations with his 
white master. The master says to a young slave, "You scoundrel, you ate my turkey," 
and the slave replies, "Yes, suh, Massa, you got less turkey but you sho' got more 
nigger." The slave lives to eat another turkey and the master has another entertaining 
story.* 

*W. D. Weatherford and C. S. Johnson, Race Relations (1934), p. 284. Preceding the 
statement quoted in the text, Johnson gives the following analysis of Negro humor: 

"The humor of the Negro has been regarded as one of his native characteristics. It is, 
Indeed, one of the useful contributions of the race to the grim struggle of America for 
progress and wealth. This humor has enlivened the public and private stage, the joke columns 
of the press, and countless after-dinner speeches. It has made entertainment without end 
for the smoking cars of the railroad trains. Since the native African is not a very humorous 
person, it seems most likely that this quality of humor was developed in slavery, and there 
^3i just as food reason for regarding it as a survival trait." 



Chapter 44. Non- institutional Aspects 961 

In one other way the Negro's humor has grown out of the caste situation, 
not out of fear of it but out of contempt for it: the Negro tries, in all sorts 
of ways, to express his hatred of the prejudiced white man. Such cynical 
humor travels in the Negro community as do the anti dictator jokes in the 
totalitarian countries of Europe: 

"It says in the white folks' newspaper that our women are trying to ruin the white 
folks' homes by quitting their jobs as maids." 

"Yeah. A lot of white women are mad because they have to bring up their own 
children." 

Like the Negro's cackling laugh and appeasing humor, his "dumbness" 
has been developed as an accommodation to caste. There is no gainsaying 
the fact that most Negroes are extremely ignorant: they have no tradition 
of learning; they have had unusually bad schools in a region generally 
noted for the poverty of its education; their interests are often so closely 
restricted to the Negro problem that they have not developed knowledge 
of other things; they are forcibly isolated from white society so that they 
often cannot know what is expected from them in the way of manners. 
Yet, in addition to all this actual ignorance, there is a good deal of pre- 
tended ignorance on the part of the Negro. To answer certain questions 
posed to them by white people in the South is a way of getting both them- 
selves and their fellows in trouble. So they feign inability to understand 
certain questions. To volunteer information is often a sure way of being 
regarded as "uppity" by whites. So they restrict their conversation to what 
is necessary or customary. And they act humble, which also gives them an 
air of "dumbness." The aggressive Negro, the one who talks the most in 
an effort to impress others with his cleverness, is likely to be more ignorant 
and less intelligent than most of the humble or reserved Negroes. Actually, 
Negroes tend to be clever in their petty guilefulness. Some of the false- 
hoods told by Negroes — and lying is another of the traits in the stereotype 
of the Negro — have their cause in the fear or suspicion of the white man. 3 
In other cases Negroes may lie to whites in resentment against the caste 
system. Among themselves, Negroes are probably not given to lying, 
humility, "dumbness" or reservedness any more than whites are. In fact, 
they are inclined to be talkative and witty. Some of their talk is malicious 
gossip and detraction of others: there is naturally much jealousy among the 
members of a suppressed group when one of them rises or gets any 
privileges. There is intense competition among all those Negroes who feel 
that they have a chance to rise. The individualism of Negroes, their in- 
ability to "hang together," their bitter competition and jealousy are com- 
mented upon by white observers and deplored by Negro leaders. 8 
Another trait attributed to the Negro and connected with emotionalism 



962 An American Dilemma 

is a love of the gaudy, the bizarre, the ostentatious.* The lower and middle 
class Negroes have their lodges with all their pomp and ceremony. If 
they can afford it, they wear colorful clothing of unusual style. Their social 
gatherings are made expensive by good food, display and excellent enter- 
tainment. The Negro's reputation for conspicuous display is, of course, 
exaggerated, because most Negroes do not have the money to be ostenta- 
tious: so many of them wear the cast-off clothing of white people and live 
in tiny shacks and flats. White people often generalize about the Negro 
race from a single observation: a Negro racketeer driving a gaudy, expen- 
sive car will cause thousands of white people to remark about the ostenta- 
tiousness of Negroes. What there is of color and pomp in their lodges and 
social gatherings is a sort of lag in acculturation, a misguided attempt to 
gain status by conspicuous consumption. Negroes have no more of this than 
do immigrant white groups and even many poor native white groups. 
Some of what appears exotic to whites is simply a result of the development 
of unique culture traits: a group which is kept so forcibly isolated as are 
the Negroes is bound to initiate a few such traits even though the great 
bulk of their behavior patterns are those which are common to all Amer 
icans. An example of such a trait is that which has come to be known as 
a "zoot suit": a man's suit with broad-seated and narrow-cuffed trousers and 
a long suit-coat, usually worn with a wide-brimmed hat. This suit, inci- 

* This trait, as well as the connected Negro trait of audaciousness, is characteristic of 
white Southerners too, and it may be that Negroes have taken on the trait from the whites. 
"White southerners employ many of the same defense mechanisms characteristic of the 
Negro. They often carry a 'chip on the shoulder' j they indulge freely in self-commiseration ; 
they rather typically and in real Negro fashion try to overcome a feeling of inferiority by 
exhibitionism, raucousness, flashiness in dress, and an exaggerated self-assertion. An air of 

" belligerency, discreetly employed when it can be done without risk, is one means of release 
for the individual who feels himself the underdog. A casual observation of the conduct of 
southern law-makers in the chambers of Congress will be sufficient to demonstrate that 
southern legislators, taken as a group, are more abusive, indulge in personalities and more 
rough and tumble repartee than the legislators from any other section. What spice there is 
in the Congressional Record is furnished by the southerners, whether it be a Cole Blcase, 
a Heflin or a 'Cotton Ed' Smith delivering one of the notorious diatribes against the Negro, 
(including a discourse on how permanent is the odor of the Negro), or a Huey Long giving 
One of his opponents a 'dressing down' with enough insulting innuendo to have caused 
gun-play in the old days (and enough even today to have gotten Huey's nose punched now 
and then, it was rumored). The southerner is proficient too, at conjuring up arguments to 
show how shabbily the South has been treated. Like the Negro, the white South holds out 
its hands for alms and special privilege. A Georgia planter, bitterly anti-New Deal, was not 
at all moved by the assertion that a lot of northern money was being sent South in relief 
and other New Deal activities. 'We oughta be gittin' some of it back) they stole enough from 
us in the war,' he drawled. It is well-known in the inside circles of some of the national 
academic societies that southern members put in special claims for representation among the 
office-holders on the grounds that 'the South is discriminated against,' and they often got 
recognition." (Ralph J. Bunche, "Memorandum on Conceptions and Ideologies of the Negro 

|^Fr?$>lem," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study [1940], pp. 71-73.) 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 963 

dentally, has been borrowed by white youths in America who consider 
themselves experts on jazz music (also of Negro origin) and by pseudo- 
sophisticated lower class youths of certain European countries. 

There are some special reasons why Negro clothing may look bizarre to 
white people: first, pieces of cast-off clothing may not go well together even 
though each piece looked all right when it was worn with its original 
counterpart. Second, that clothing which looks well on most white people 
may look foolish or odd on Negroes, because of the different skin color and 
features. Third, those who try to fit their clothing to their skin color and 
features may select things that are strange and exotic to conservative whites. 
Sometimes the adjustment of clothing to physical traits is successful: white 
clothing on dark skin often achieves a beautiful effect. Another interesting 
adjustment is the Negro woman's use of red lipstick on the eyelids to make 
her eyes appear larger, whereas white women use blue, brown, or black 
eye shadow to achieve the same effect. 

Upper class Negroes, in their attempt to avoid the unfavorable traits 
commonly associated with Negroes, are conservative in their dress and 
public behavior. They avoid everything that is loud, gaudy and cheap. But 
they also are driven by a desire for status and so engage in conspicuous 
consumption of another type. They imitate the staid, old-fashioned patterns 
of those upper class white people who have not become emancipated. Their 
clothes are most "respectable" and most expensive; their homes — though 
small — are furnished in "good taste"; their social gatherings are costly and 
ceremonial. They even go to extremes of conspicuous consumption in their 
desire to gain status, as many other channels of gaining status arc closed 
to them. 4 They try to copy the "highest" standards of white people and 
yet get absolutely no recognition for doing so. 

The struggle for status manifests itself frequently in speech and this, 
too, may become ostentatious. With education valued so highly, and with 
so little of it available to them, Negroes often try to exhibit an education 
which they do not have. In speech this takes the form of the misuse of 
big words. The trait is manifested not only in the pompous oratory of 
many Negroes but also in their everyday conversations. On other occasions 
the big words are used properly, but they are out of place in simple con- 
versation. The correct but misplaced use of big words also originates in an 
attempt to gain status, and is probably a survival of nineteenth century 
florid oratory. 

The eating of chicken, 'possum, watermelon, corn pone, pork chops is 
part of the stereotype of the Negro, at least in the North. These things 
are, of course, either common or delicate foods in the South for both 
whites and Negroes, and there is no special reason why their consumption 
should be regarded as a "Negro trait." As a matter of fact, the foods 
generally consumed by Negroes are far from bizarre: they can seldom 



964 An American Dilemma 

afford any but the most prosaic types of foods. And Negroes are at least 
as cautious as are whites in their distribution of expenditures.* The belief 
that they have so much of the foods they desire seems to have the oppor- 
tunistic purpose of hiding the fact that Negroes are too poor to buy all 
the foods they actually need." 

Another commonly observed trait of Negroes is their lack of poise, their 
inability to act in the conventional yet free and easy way expected of 
adult men and women in America. Much of this is a product of Southern 
caste etiquette, of course, where Negroes are presumed to be "uppity" if 
they stand up straight, look into the eyes of the person they are talking to 
and speak distinctly and to the point. Even in the North, many Southern- 
born Negroes keep their eyes on the ground, shuffle their feet, wiggle their 
bodies, and talk in a roundabout manner. Even when they want to get 
away from the Southern caste etiquette, many Negroes lack poise in their 
contacts with whites out of a sense of insecurity. Like adolescent youths, 
many Negroes will either exhibit a startling lack of poise or appear to 
gain it by putting on a cold front and acting mechanically. The uncertainty 
of the caste etiquette is another factor making for lack of poise: how a 
Negro is supposed to act before a white man varies with time, locality and 
the character of the white man. Among themselves, of course, Negroes are 
as much at ease as white people are. 

At all times, even when they have poise, Negroes are secretive about 
their community when talking to whites. 6 They are suspicious of questions, 
and, except for stool pigeons who gain something by telling whites what 
goes on among Negroes, they are loyal to their group. They will usually 
protect any Negro from the whites, even when they happen not to like 
that individual Negro. They do not like to talk to whites about their 
community or about Negroes in general, for fear that anything they say 
will be twisted around to disparage Negroes. This is true even of Negro 
intellectuals when they talk to friendly white intellectuals. Negroes are 
suspicious of whites, even when there is not the slightest ground for being 
so, and whites seldom realize this. 

The Negro's superstitiousness has been given much attention by whites. 
It is generally assumed that the Negro's superstitions and magical practices 
are of African origin. There i$ probably some truth in this assumption, but 
it has led whites to search out these superstitions and magical practices and 
to exaggerate them. As Powdermaker says, in referring to the large litera- 

* Chapter 16, Sections 3 and 5. 
Somewhat like the belief that Negroes are addicted to certain foods is their association 
with dice-throwing. City Negroes do engage in much dice-throwing, but rural Negroes and 
upper class Negroes do not often engage in this pastime. Crap-shooting is now so much 
engaged in by whites that there is some doubt whether Negroes shoot craps an} uiOic ihan 
whites do. 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 965 

ture on the subject: "It seems doubtful, however, that this emphasis on 
superstition is in proportion to its importance in the life of the Negro 
today." 6 As among white people, superstition among Negroes is a survival 
of an earlier period, and as such it is disappearing as Negroes assimilate 
modern American culture traits. Upper class Negroes are about as free from 
superstition and magical practices as upper class whites are, and Negro 
youth of the lower classes adhere to them only loosely. It is only in the 
rural areas of the South that these beliefs and practices have a powerful 
hold on Negroes. It is there that the "voodoo" doctors are still to be 
found, 7 who use incantations and charms, but often add advice in love 
or economic cases, and pills in sickness cases in imitation of real doctors. 
Quack doctors find Negroes easy prey, even in Northern cities.* 

To the Northern white man, although seldom to the Southern white 
man, the speech of the Negro seems unusual. In fact, the "Negro dialect" 
is an important cause of the Northern whites' unconscious assumption that 
Negroes are of a different biological type from themselves. The present 
writer found many Northern whites who were amazed when they learned 
that Negroes could and did speak perfect English. It is not realized that 
the so-called "Negro dialect" is simply a variation of the ordinary Southern 
accent which so many Northerners like so well. It is this accent in lower 
class slang form, with a very small number of uniquely Negro cultural 
additions. There is absolutely no biological basis for itj Negroes are as 
capable of pronouncing English words perfectly as whites are. 

Northern whites are also unaware of the reasons why they practically 
never hear a Negro speaking perfect English: First, at least three-fifths 
of Negroes living in the North are Southern-born, 8 and Negroes tend to 
retain the accent of their childhood, just as others do. Second, even most 
Northern-born Negroes were brought up in households and communities 
where they heard nothing but the "Negro dialect" spoken. School was the 
only place to learn good English, and many Negroes did not, or could not, 
take adequate advantage of it. Third, Negroes seem to be proud of their 
dialect, and frequently speak it even when they know how to speak perfect 
English. Some upper class Negroes do this to retain prestige and a follow- 
ing among lower class Negroes. In the South a few educated Negroes do 

" A recent case of quackery in New York City is reported in the New York Herald Tri- 
bune of March tj, 1942 (p. 10). A Weit Indian Negro ". . . complained that he went to 
Byron [the quack] last October for treatment for recurrent headaches, The treatment con- 
sisted of copious draughts of herbs and bites on the neck, and was neither particularly 
effective nor worth the $59 charge, according to the complainant. . . . Byron also is known 
as Saibu Sudcns. When using that name he wears a fez, on the grounds that he is part 
Egyptian, and at other times dons a skullcap in token of his claim that the other part is 
Jewish." Byron gave his age as 99 years. 

For a discussion of superstition and occultism among Negroes in Harlem, see Claude 
McKay, Harlem (1940), pp. 82-85; ioj-ho. 



An American Dilemma » 

an 

k to avoid appearing "uppity" in the eyes of the whites. Few Negroes seem 
to realize that the use of the dialect augments white prejudice, at least in the 
North. Fourth, most of those who know how to speak perfect English are 
members of the upper classes, and these are so segregated that a large 
proportion of the whites can go through their entire lives without hearing 
one of them speak. The high-toned, pleading voice of the Negro is also 
associated with his speech. This trait was, of course, developed by the 
demands of the caste etiquette. 

There are only a few dozen words and phrases that are uniquely Negro, 
except possibly in some isolated Southern rural areas. 9 Some of these words 
refer to things which are unique to the Negro community — such as "peola" 
and "high yaller" which refer to skin colors found among Negroes but 
not among whites. Others refer to things or conditions for which there is 
no adequate English word — such as "dicty" which means trying to put 
on airs and act upper class without having the basis for doing so. "Muck- 
ety-muck" and a few other Negro words have been taken over into general 
American slang. For the most part, the white American is not aware that 
there are uniquely Negro words, although he may be vaguely aware that 
there are some things said when Negroes talk among themselves that he 
cannot understand. 

As more Negroes become educated and urbanized, it may be expected 
that they will lose their distinctive cultural traits and take over the domi- 
nant American patterns. The trend will work slowly, since caste serves to 
isolate Negroes from American culture and so hampers their assimilation. 
Still, there is reason to believe that it is more rapid today than it was before. 
As the trend proceeds, and as there emerges a class of Negroes which is 
recognized by whites to have the same cultural traits as themselves, the 
Negro will be thought to be less "peculiar" than he is now. Recognition of 
increased cultural similarity is not unimportant in the general attitude of 
whites toward Negroes. Thus cultural assimilation plays a role in the 
general circular process determining the Negro's status in America. 

Crime" 

Negro crime has periodically been the subject of serious debate in the 
United States and, at least since 1890, has often been the object of statistical 
measurement. Just as the past year has seen an epidemic of reports in New 
York newspapers of assault and robbery by Negroes, so other periods 
have seen actual or alleged "crime waves" among Negroes in other areas. 

'In preparing thia section we have relied moat heavily on an unpublished manuscript 
prepared for this study: Guy B. Johnson and Louise K. Kiser, "The Negro and Crime" 
(1940). A part of this study was incorporated in an article by Guy B. Johnson, "The Negro 
add Crime," Tht Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (September, 
*94«)> PP- 93-«°+- 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 967 

At all times the stereotyped notion has prevailed that Negroes have a 
criminal tendency, which manifests itself in acts ranging all the way from 
petty thievery by household servants to razor-slashing homicide. 

The statistical studies of Negro crime have not been consistent in their 
findings, and each has evoked much criticism in scientific circles. The census 
of 1890 contained a criticism of its own crime statistics: 

The increase in the number of prisoners during- the last 40 years has been more 
apparent than real, owing to the very imperfect enumeration of the prison population 
prior to 1880. Whatever it has been, it is not what it might be supposed to be, if we 
had no other means of judging of it than by the figures contained in the census 
volumes. 10 

Since that time, there have been many pertinent criticisms of Negro crime 
statistics. 11 Johnson and Kiser express the attitude of all honest students 
of Negro crime toward these statistics: 

The statistical data upon which we are forced to base our knowledge of Negro 
crime measure only the extent and the nature of the Negro's contact with the law 
and is of value for that purpose. However, our information relates to apparent 
crime only and not to the actual amount of crime committed by any one group or by 
the population in general. There is no consistent and measurable relation between 
apparent and real criminality and, as a result, it is not possible to estimate from avail- 
able criminal data the amount and proportion of Negro crime or the extent to which 
it is increasing or decreasing. 12 

This attitude, as well as the conflict of conclusions, is not difficult to under- 
stand when one realizes the nature of the statistics on Negro crimes and 
the character of the legal process which defines a given act as a crime. Crime 
statistics are generally inadequate, despite a tremendous improvement 
within the last decade, and Negro crime statistics are further complicated 
by discrimination in the application of the law and by certain unique 
traditions. It may be stated categorically that there are no statistics on 
crimes fer se: there are only statistics on "crimes known to the police," on 
arrests, on convictions, on prisoners. Honest studies based on different sets 
of statistics will give different findings. Crime is not uniformly defined 
from state to state and from time to time. Statistics on one area at one 
time will show different conclusions from statistics on another area at 
another time. Finally, the conclusions of a given study are largely deter- 
mined by the "factors" one takes into account in analyzing the statistics. 
It is necessary to consider all the weaknesses of the statistics on Negro 
Crime because these statistics have been used to buttress stereotypes of Negro 
criminality and to justify discriminatory practices. Even capable and honest 
scientists like Walter Willcox have used the available statistics to "prove" 
Negro criminality. 18 But Willcox did this in 1899* competent scientists 
are no longer so uncritical of their data. Incompetent popularizers, how- 



9<>8 An American Dilemma j>, 

ever, continue to misuse the statistics. In this situation it becomes more 
important to criticize the statistics than it is to present them. To such a 
criticism we shall now proceed. 

Statistics on Negro crime have not only all the weaknesses of crime 
statistics generally — such as incomplete and inaccurate reporting, variations 
between states as to definitions and classification of crimes, changes in 
policy — but also special weaknesses due to the caste situation and to certain 
characteristics of the Negro population. One of the basic weaknesses arises 
out of the fact that those who come in contact with the law are generally 
only a selected sample of those who commit crimes. Breaking the law is 
more widespread in America than the crime statistics indicate and probably 
everyone in the country has broken some law at some time. But only a 
small proportion of the population is arrested, convicted and sent to 
prison. Some major crimes (such as violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust 
Act and avoidance of certain tax payments) are even respectable and are 
committed in the ordinary course of conducting a business; 14 others (such 
as fraud and racketeering) are not respectable but are committed frequently 
and often go unpunished. It happens that Negroes are seldom in a position 
to commit these white collar crimes; they commit the crimes which much 
more frequently result in apprehension and punishment. This is a chief 
source of error when attempting to compare statistics on Negro and white 
crimes. 

In the South, inequality of justice seems to be the most important factor 
in making the statistics on Negro crime and white crime not comparable. 
As we saw in Part VI," in any crime which remotely affects a white man, 
Negroes are more likely to be arrested than are whites, more likely to be 
indicted after arrest, more likely to be convicted in court and punished. 
Negroes will be arrested on the slightest suspicion, or on no suspicion at 
all, merely to provide witnesses or to work during a labor shortage in 
violation of anti-peonage laws. The popular belief that all Negroes are 
inherently criminal operates to increase arrests, and the Negro's lack of 
political power prevents a white policeman from worrying about how 
many Negro arrests he makes. Some white criminals have made use of 
these prejudices to divert suspicion away from themselves onto Negroes: 
for example, there are many documented cases of white robbers blackening 
their faces when committing crimes. 16 In the Southern court, a Negro will 
seldom be treated seriously, and his testimony against a white man will be 
ignored, if he is permitted to express it at all. When sentenced he is usually 
given a heavier punishment and probation or suspended sentence is seldom 
allowed him. 1 * In some Southern communities, there are no special insti- 
tutions for Negro juvenile delinquents or for Negro criminals who are 

* Quantitative evidence for this and the following paragraphs may be found not only in 
Part VI of thi» book, but also in Johnson and Kiser, of. cit., pp. $5-191. 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 969 

insane or feeble-minded. Such persons are likely to be committed to the 
regular jails or prisons, whereas similar white cases are put in a separate 
institution and so do not swell the prison population. 

Some of the "crimes" in the South may possibly be committed only by 
Negroes: only Negroes are arrested for violations of the segregation laws, 
and sometimes they are even arrested for violation of the extra-legal 
racial etiquette (the formal charge is "disturbing the peace," "insolence 
to an officer," "violation of municipal ordinances," and so on). The beating 
of Negroes by whites in the South is seldom regarded as a crime, but 
should a Negro lay hands on a white man, he is almost certain to be 
apprehended and punished severely. As Frazer points out: "In the 
South, the white man is certainly a greater menace to the Negro's home 
than the latter is to his." 17 Similarly, when white lawyers, installment 
collectors, insurance agents, plantation owners, and others, cheat Negroes, 
they are never regarded as criminals. 18 But stealing by Negroes from 
whites — beyond that petty stealing which is part of the patriarchal tradi- 
tion from slavery — is almost always punished as a crime. 

In one respect, Southern discrimination against Negroes operates to 
reduce the Negro's crime record. If a Negro commits a crime against 
another Negro, and no white man is involved, and if the crime is not a 
serious one, white policemen will let the criminal off with a warning or a 
beating, and the court will let htm off with a warning or a relatively light 
sentence. In a way, this over-leniency stimulates greater crimes since it 
reduces risks and makes law enforcement so arbitrary. Life becomes cheap 
and property dear in the Negro neighborhood — a situation conducive to 
crime. 

These things occur in the North, too, although in much smaller degree. 
In the North it is not so much discrimination which distorts the Negro's 
criminal record, as it is certain characteristics of the Negro population. In 
the first place, unorganized crime is much more prevalent in the South 
than in the North, both among whites and among Negroes, and when the 
Negro migrates North, he brings his high crime rate along with him. 
Specific cultural practices brought from the South also affect the Negro's 
crime record in the North: a member of New York's grand jury told the 
author that part of the high Negro juvenile delinquency and crime rate 
was due to the Negro practice of fighting with knives instead of with fists, 
as whites do. "The fights start in the same way among both groups, but the 
law defines the Negro's manner of fighting as a crime, and the white's 
manner of fighting as not a crime." 19 

A third impersonal cause of distortion of the Negro's crime record is 
his poverty: he cannot bribe the policeman to let him off for a petty 
offense; he cannot have a competent lawyer to defend him in court; and 
when faced with the alternatives of fine or prison by way of punishment, 



970 An American Dilemma ^ 

he 'a forced to choose prison. Hie Negro's ignorance acts in a similar 
fashion: he does not know his legal rights and he does not know how to 
present his case; thus even an unprejudiced policeman or judge may 
unwittingly discriminate against him. Also associated with the Negro 
lower class status in distorting his crime record is his lack of influential 
connections: he does not know the important people who can help him 
out of petty legal troubles. In the North, the fact that an unusually large 
proportion of Negroes are in the age group 15-40, which is the age 
group to which most criminals belong, operates to make the Negro crime 
rate based on total population figures deceptively high. Negro concen- 
tration in the cities in the North, where the crime rate is generally higher 
than in rural areas, acts in the same manner. The Negro crime rate is 
further inflated by greater recidivism: a given number of Negro criminals 
are sent to jail more often than are the same number of white criminals. 30 
The longer prison sentence meted out to Negroes raises the number of 
Negroes in prison at any one time beyond what it would be if crime 
statistics reflected only the total number of criminals. 

In general, our attitude toward crime statistics must be that they do not 
provide a fair index of Negro crime. Even if they did, a higher crime 
rate would not mean that the Negro was more addicted to crime, either 
in his heredity or in his culture, for the Negro population has certain 
external characteristics (such as concentration in the South and in the 
young adult ages) which give it a spuriously high crime rate. With this 
attitude in mind, we may examine some of the statistics. The most nearly 
complete, and the most reliable, set of statistics on crime for the nation are 
the recent annual reports of the United States Bureau of the Census, 
Prisoners in State and Federal Prisons and Reformatories. We shall use 
the set for 1939, the most recent set available at the time of writing. These 
statistics have two important weaknesses (in addition to those just re- 
viewed) : First, they do not include criminals in local jails, but only those 
in state and federal prisons and reformatories. For this reason, they do not 
include most of the petty crimes, and to get a relatively complete picture 
of types of offense we shall have to turn to other sources. Second, prisoners 
are a very selected group of criminals: they have been apprehended, 
arrested, indicted, convicted and committed. Criminologists generally hold 
that the further the index from the crime, the poorer it is as a measure 
of crime. This may be true for white prisoners, but it is not nearly so true 
for Negro prisoners. So many Negroes are arrested on the vaguest sus- 
picion that those who are actually sent to prison may more likely be a 
representative group of criminals than those who are only arrested. 

Table 1 shows that there are about three times as many Negro males 
in prisons and reformatories as there are native white males, in proportion 
to the sizes of their respective populations, and that the rate for Negro 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 



971 



TABLE 1 

Prisoners Received From Courts ar State and Federal Prisons 
and Reformatories by Sex, Race and Nativity: 1939 



Number Received from 
Courts 



Rates per 100,000 
Population* 



Race and Nativity 


Total 


Male 


Female 


Total 


Male 


Female 


White 


47.971 


45>796 


a.>75 


42.3 


77-0 


3-7 


Native 


45,48o 


43.157 


4,023 


444 


80.9 


3-8 


Foreign-born 


4,691 


4.539 


154 


43-6 


42.1 


1.8 


Negro 


»7.3*4 


'6,135 


1,189 


134.7 


457-4 


18.0 


Other Races 


729 


698 


3i 


123.8 


202.9 


12.7 



Sources: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Prisoners in Stale and Federal Prisms and Reformatories; 1030 (1041). 
p. 11; and Sixteenth Census of the United Stales: 1940. Population, Preliminary Release, Series P-10, No. 6 
• The population bases are as of 1040. 

women is more than four times as great as that for native white women. 
Foreign-born whites have rates much lower than native whites and mem- 
bers of races other than white and Negro (that is, Indians, Chinese, Fili- 
pinos, and others) have rates almost as high as do Negroes. Table % 
reveals that the difference between Negroes and whites is much larger 
in the North than in the South. In the South the number of Negro male 
felony prisoners is only between two and two-and-a-half times as great 
(in proportion to population) as the number of native white male felony 
prisoners. In the North, however, the Negro rate is almost five times as 
large as the white rate. This would seem to be due mainly to the fact 
that Northern Negroes are concentrated in cities, where social disorganiza- 
tion is greater and law enforcement is more efficient. We shall return to 
the problem of causes of crime after considering the types of offenses 
which are most characteristic of Negroes. 

TABLE 1 

Male Felony Prisoners Received From Courts by Stats and Federal Prisons 
and Reformatories, by Geographic Areas and by Race and Nativity: 1939 



Number 



Rate per 100,000 Population » 



Race and Nativity 


Southern 
States b 


Northern and 
Western States 


Southern 
States b 


Northern and 
Western States 


Total 

Native White 

Foreign-born White 

Negro 

All Other Races 


19,430 

10,659 

134 

8,548 

91 


38,894 

44,759 

',435 

4,404 
298 


46.6 

34-3 
21. 1 
86.3 
88.6 


34.1 
30.0 
13.3 
148.7 
61.3 



Sources: U.S. Bureau of the Census. Prisoners in Slats and Federal Prisons and Reformatories: 1030 
(1041), p. 28; and Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Population, Preliminary Release, Series P-IO, 
No. I. 

• Population bases are as of 1940. , . 

» Southern states include, according to this census publication: Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia. 
Virginia. West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, 
Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. Georgia and Alabama did not report. All Northern states reported. 



972 An American Dilemma ^ 

Negroes tend to commit certain types of crimes and not others; on the 
average the distribution of their crimes according to type differs from 
that of the white population. We have already mentioned that Negroes 
do not tend to commit "white collar" crimes; they do not have the 
opportunity to commit these large-scale, almost respectable crimes. Another 
significant omission is organized crime by gangs; Negro criminals commit 
their crimes as individuals, often more spontaneously than do white 
criminals.* There are Negro racketeers, of course, but most of the big 
rackets operating in the Negro community (mainly connected with gam- 
bling) are run by whites. 11 

Statistics on offenses by type are faulty because of variations in definition 
and classification used by different states. But they can be used to give a 
rough picture of the differences between whites and Negroes according 
to type of offense. We shall use the Uniform Crime Reports of the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation, since these offer the only available nation-wide 
information classifying arrests both by race and by specific offenses, includ- 
ing minor offenses. From Table 3, we can see that the Negroes' proportion 
was particularly high in crimes of homicide, assault, carrying and possessing 
weapons, robbery, burglary, larceny, receiving and possessing stolen goods, 
prostitution, disorderly conduct, "suspicion," violation of liquor laws, 
gambling. On the other hand, the contribution of Negro offenders was 
noticeably low in cases of embezzlement and fraud, forgery and counter- 
feiting, auto theft, sex offenses other than prostitution, drunkenness and 
driving while intoxicated. 

In view of the fact that whites generally believe that Negroes are 
especially responsible for rape and sex crimes, it is important to note 
that these offenses seem to be relatively unimportant among Negroes 
(although the rate is higher among Negroes than among whites). All 
existing studies bear out this point, so that the low rate of sex offenses is 
not just a quirk of these specific statistics.- 1 Like other Negro crime rates, 
the Negro rape rate is fallaciously high: white women may try to extricate 
themselves from the consequences of sexual delinquency by blaming or 

"The following statement refers to the Harlem Negro Community of New York City: 
"In regard to adult delinquency we find no organized criminal gangs, but a preponderance 
of S!ich crimes as flourished among poverty stricken and disorganized people. Moreover, the 
fact should be stressed that the very economic impotence of the community and its subjec- 
tion to exploitation by outside interests, such as the policy racket and the location of institu- 
tions in the community for the pleasure and vices of whites, who seek this means of escape 
from the censure of their own groups, encourages anti-social behavior and nullifies the efforts 
of responsible citizens to maintain social control." (The Mayor's Commission on Conditions 
in Harlem, "The Negro in Harlem: A Report on Social and Economic Conditions Responsible 
for the Outbreak of March 19, 1935," typescript [1936], P- "S-) 

* See Chapter 14, Section 10, for a discussion of racketeering, gambling and other 
"shady" occupation*. 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 973 

TABLE 3 

Distribution or Ambsts Accordino to Race and Type or Offense (Excluding those 
Under Fifteen Years or Aos): 1940 

Per Cent Negro of 
Offense Charged Total in Each Rate per loo.ooo Pop ulation' 

Criminal homicide 

Robbery 

Assault 

Burglary — breaking or entering 

Larceny-theft 

Auto-theft 

Embezzlement and fraud 

Stolen property; buying, receiving, etc. 

Arson 

Forgery and counterfeiting 

Rape 

Prostitution and commercialized vice 

Other sex offenses 

Narcotic drug laws 

Weapons, carrying, possessing, etc. 

Offenses against family and children 

Liquor laws 

Driving while intoxicated 

Road and driving laws 

Parking violations 

Other traffic and motor vehicle laws 

Disorderly conduct 

Drunkenness 

Vagrancy 

Gambling 

Suspicion 

Not stated 

Alt other offenses 

Total 12.8 ij07M 39'-'' 

Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports (Fourth 
Quarterly Bulletin. 1940), p. 223; and Sixteenth Census of the V nited States: IV W, Population, Preliminary 
Release Series P-10. No. 1. 

* Population bases taken as of 1940. 

b Less than one-tenth of one per cent. 

■ White includes both foreign-born and native-born, and it includes Mexicans (who arc separated in the 
original statistics). 

framing Negro men; a white woman who has a Negro lover can get rid 
of him or avoid social ostracism following detection by accusing him of 
rape; neurotic white women may hysterically interpret an innocent action 
as an "attack" by a Negro. 22 Real cases of Negro raping of white women 
probably involve only psychopathic Negroes, at least in the South, for 
punishment is certain and horrible. 

As among whites, most of the crimes committed by Negroes are of a 
petty type; it is only by comparison with the white crime rates that the 
Negro rrime rates for serious offenses stand out. 



flense 


Negro 


White" 


40. 1 


19.8 


3-5 


30.8 


31-7 


7-6 


44.0 


1 16.4 


1J-7 


*4-S 


66.3 


22.0 


28.4 


138.1 


37-4 


14.8 


IJ-4 


9.6 


11.5 


I7.I 


14.3 


27-J 


7-6 


3.2 


'7-4 


i-S 


0.8 


9-1 


5.0 


5-4 


22.1 


10.4 


3-9 


»5-4 


17-7 


5-6 


1 4.9 


11. 1 


6.8 


19-3 


7-5 


2.9 


45-8 


20.3 


M 


15.6 


9-7 


5.7 


47-2 


:it>.s 


4-4 


6.8 


15-3 


33.4 


21.6 


1 0.0 


3-9 


'4-3 


b 


b 


11.0 


»5-< 


6.2 


28.1 


64.1 


17.6 


12.3 


1 10.1 


84.8 


19-5 


81.5 


36.0 


41.9 


43-1 


6.0 


27.1 


1 10. fi 


37-9 


19.5 


6.? 


3.9 


y-s 


69.2 


24.1 



974 An Amewcan Dilemma ^ 

One of the moat noticeable feature* of the Negro offenses it the small number of 
vicious or serious crimes in the period studied — that is, most of the cases studied were 
misdemeanors rather than felonies. There were, it is true, a rather considerable 
number of assault cases but a large proportion of these were in connection with 
drunkenness. . . . The comparatively large numbers in for possession and selling liquor 
and for fraud ... are partly explained by the fact that quite a number of the 
former merely had in their possession a little liquor which they had not yet drunk, 
and that most of the fraud cases were instances of jumping small board bills. 

There was very little difference noted between the percentages of various crimes 
of the two races. In general, the crimes which one committed, most frequently, the 
other also tended to commit frequently. 

If any one feature . . . may be thought of as characterizing most of the Negro's 
crimes, it is not their viciousness or even their immense numbers, but merely their 
petty qualities, . . . 

The relatively small proportion of violent crimes committed by Negroes, and the 
large proportion of cases of drunkenness, petty larceny, vagrancy, and other lesser 
offenses, further enhances the conclusion that there is no innate racial criminal 
tendency. 23 

The study for the Mayor's Commission on Conditions in Harlem, made 
by E. Franklin Frazier, showed that in the first six months of 1935, 6,540 
Negro men and 1,338 Negro women were arrested in Harlem. 2 * Of the 
male arrests, 31.9 per cent were for policy gambling and 30.9 per cent 
were for disorderly conduct. Only 7 per cent were for burglary, robbery, 
grand larceny, assault and robbery, and pickpocketry combined} 5.0 per 
cent were for felonious assault} and only 0.5 were for homicide. About 80 
per cent of the Negro women arrested were charged with immoral sex 
behavior. Another study showed that 54 per cent of the arrests of all 
women for prostitution in New York City were of Negro women, and 
that the rate for Negro women was 10 times that for white women. 2 * 

Theft, burglary, and other property offenses are committed mainly 
against whites} assault, murder, and other crimes against persons are 
committed mainly against other Negroes. "Premeditated crimes or those 
requiring education and cunning do not seem to be so prominent among 
colored offenders as do those crimes likely to involve some emotional flare- 
up, or some immediate desire or economic necessity." 26 

Explanations of Negro crime have usually started out from the statistical 
finding that Negroes commit more crimes than do whites. If this is done, 
the first group of "causes" of Negro crime to be considered are the 
discriminations in justice which we summarized at the beginning of this 
section. Because the criminal statistics reflect police and court practices as 
much as they do crime, it is impossible to prove whether or not the Negro 
crime rate would be higher than the white crime rate if there were no 
discrimination. In the same way, the general characteristics of the Negro 
population — poverty, ignorance of the Jaw, lack of influential connections, 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 975 

Southern patterns of illegality and use of weapons in fights, concentration 
in the cities and in young adult ages in the North — operate to make the 
Negro crime rate higher than the white crime rate, and so may be thought 
of as another group of causes of Negro crime. Existing data are insufficient 
to hold these factors constant in order to determine whether Negroes 
would still have a higher crime rate if they did not have these general 
characteristics in any greater degree than does the white population. 

A third group of causes of Negro crime is connected with the slavery tra- 
dition and the caste situation. It has always been expected of Negro servants 
in the South that they should pilfer small things — usually food but some- 
times also clothing and money. In fact, their money wages are extremely 
low partly because the white employers expect them to take part of their 
earnings in kind. Something of the same custom prevails between all white 
employers and Negro employees in the South. This custom has had two 
effects which operate to raise the Negro's criminal record: First, it has 
developed in the Negro a disrespect for the property of others, which some- 
times leads him to pilfer things from people to whom he does not stand in 
the relationship of indulged servant. If he may take a pair of socks from one 
employer, why may he not take a screw driver from another employer? 
This feeling is strengthened by the fact that Negroes know that their 
white employers are exploiting them. If they cannot get decent regular 
wages, they feel they should be allowed to get what they can by pilfering. 27 
The second way in which this Southern custom gets the Negro in trouble is 
when he moves North. In the North any type of taking of property with- 
out express permission is regarded as stealing and it may sometimes lead 
to arrest: Negro servant women in the North have a bad reputation for 
petty pilfering, and this adds to bad interracial feeling. 

Much more deeply based in the caste situation than this custom is the 
Negro's hatred of whites. A not insignificant number of crimes of Negroes 
against whites are motivated by revenge for discriminatory or insulting treat- 
ment. Such a crime may be emotional, as when a Negro suddenly feels that 
he has stood enough in the way of deprivation and insults and that he only 
desires to make white people suffer too, even at the cost of his own punish- 
ment by law or by a mob. Negro literature is filled with stories of Negroes 
suddenly breaking out in such a manner. The revenge motive may also lead 
to a cold and calculating crime: it is said by many Negro social scientists that 
"mugging" — the robbing and beating of a victim in a certain way by a group 
of three or four petty professional criminals — was originally practiced only 
in Negro neighborhoods on white men who were thought to be searching for 
Negro prostitutes. The revenge motive is seen in the unnecessary and cruel 
way in which the victim is beaten. 

The Negro's reaction to caste is much more general than can be expressed 
by calling it a revenge motive. Caste, especially when it operates to cause 



976 Am American Dilemma #* 

legal injustice and insecurity of life and property, prevents the Negro from 
identifying himself with society and the law. Because the white man regards 
him as apart from society, it is natural for a Negro to regard himself as 
apart. He does not participate in making the laws in the South, and he has 
little chance to enforce them. To the average lower class Negro, at least in 
the South, the police, the courts, and even the law are arbitrary and hostile 
to Negroes, and thus are to be avoided or fought against. The ever-present 
hostility to the law and law-enforcement agencies on the part of all South- 
ern Negroes and many Northern Negroes does not often manifest itself 
in an outbreak against them because the risks are too great. But occasion- 
ally this hostility does express itself, and then there is crime. The Negro 
community tends to be sympathetic toward an individual Negro who 
commits a crime against whites, since he is only expressing a hostility which 
is felt generally. Sometimes the hostility toward the white community is 
expressed in crimes against Negroes who turn traitor to their group and 
work with the whites.* 

The slavery tradition and the caste situation are also reflected in the low 
regard for human life that characterizes lower class Southerners generally, 
and especially Negroes. A slave's life had only a money price, not a legal 
or ethical price. After Emancipation, the use of violence to support the 
caste system and the general Southern pattern of illegality maintained this 
low regard for human life. Negroes have taken over the white man's 
attitude and have even exaggerated it. Assault and murder are relatively 
more common among Negroes. Such crimes are rarely premeditated; they 
are the result of a moment's anger when it is not inhibited by a developed 
respect for life and law. The fact that the law is arbitrary, in the South, 
further depreciates the value of a Negro's life and property. For crimes 
committed against other Negroes, Negro criminals often go unpunished 
or are lightly punished, especially if they can get white men to act as 
"character" witnesses. Sometimes even a white man will not insist on having 
a Negro who steals from him arrested, usually because he needs this Negro 
as a worker. 2 * 

Certain traits, present everywhere, but more developed in the Negro 
as a consequence of his slavery background and his subordinate caste status, 
have also been conducive to -a high Negro crime rate. Sexual looseness, 
weak family bonds, and poverty have made prostitution more common 
among Negro women than among white women. Carelessness and idleness 
have caused the Negro to be the source of a disproportionate amount of 
accidental crimes and of vagrancy. Negroes also have a high record in crimes 
connected with gambling and the use of liquor, although it is not certain 
whether their record is higher than that of other lower class groups. 

Social organization is generally at a low level among Southern Negroes, 

* Thii include* "wool pigeons," "Uncle Toms" and petty racketeer! looking for immunity. 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 977 

but disorganization only reaches its extreme when Negroes migrate to cities 
and to the North/ The controls of the rural community are removed; 
and the ignorant Negro does not know how to adjust to a radically new type 
of life. Like the European immigrant, he comes to the slums of the North- 
ern cities and learns the criminal ways already widely practiced in such 
areas. The high crime rates in the Northern cities that successively charac- 
terized the slum dwellers of German, Scandinavian, Irish, Polish, and 
Italian descent, are now characteristic of Negroes and Mexicans as the 
most recent of a series. 29 Negroes are especially prone to take over the 
criminal patterns of the urban slums since they have such difficulty in 
getting regular and decent jobs. More Negro mothers than white mothers 
have to work for a living and so cannot have the time to take care of their 
children properly. Negro children, more than white children, are forced to 
engage in street trades, where they can easily pick up the arts of robbing and 
prostitution. The over-crowdedness of the homes and the consequent lack 
of privacy prevent the growth of ideals of chastity and are one element in 
encouraging girls to become prostitutes. The friction that is bound to develop 
in a poverty-stricken household, especially where there are no strong family 
traditions, weakens still further the family controls over the children, and 
the children then become more subject to the influences of the streets. 
Poverty is thus an important breeder of crime among Negroes. 

Partly because Negro neighborhoods are slum areas and partly because 
Negroes are supposed to be masters of sensuous pleasure, Negro neighbor 
hoods are frequented by whites who wish to do something illicit or immoral. 
White criminal gangs in Northern cities often have their headquarters in 
Negro neighborhoods. White men come to Negro neighborhoods to find 
both white and Negro prostitutes. Gambling dens and cabarets (during 
the Prohibition era, elaborate speakeasies) are often concentrated in Negro 
neighborhoods. All sorts of tastes, including those which are regarded as 
immoral and perverted, are catered to in Negro sections. Illegal selling of 
narcotics is much simpler in Negro neighborhoods. The owners of these 
enterprises are practically all whites, although the "entertainers" and sub- 
ordinates are often Negroes. The police do not stand on the law so much 
in Negro neighborhoods j what goes on is too much for them to handle, 
and they come to expect graft for "protection." In such a neighborhood 
Negroes, especially children, 1 * develop a distorted sense of values. Much of 

* The prison system of the South — bad for whites and especially bad for Negroes — acts 
like migration in fostering criminality among Negroes. Negroes have a higher recidivism 
rate than do whites, which means that Negro criminals have become more addicted to 
crime and less corrigible. (Sec Johnson and Kiser, op. cit., pp. 364-367 and 258-263.) 

'Recently Northern cities have become especially concerned about juvenile delinquency 
among Negroes. In New York City in the autumn of 194.1, for example, there were a large 
number of newspaper reports about a serious new delinquency wave in Harlem. In addition 
to the daily newspaper stories, there were statements and speeches by public officials, meeting* 



978 An American Dilemma ** 

the Crime and vice among Negroes in cities, and sometimes even in smaller 
towns, exists because the white man brings his own crime, vice and disre- 
spect for law to the Negroes.* 

The intense competition between Negroes and the relatively unfixed 
moral standards serve to encourage crimes inflicted by Negroes on other 
Negroes. With so few opportunities available to them Negroes are willing 
to take greater risks to obtain some of them. With uncertain sex mores and 
a great deal of family disorganization, Negroes are more likely to act with 
motives of sexual jealousy. The over-crowdedness of the home and the 
lack of recreational facilities augment the effect of all these disorganizing 
and crime-breeding influences. 

We know that Negroes are not biologically more criminal than whites. 
We do not know definitely that Negroes are culturally more criminal, 
although we do know that they come up against law-enforcement 
agencies more often. We suspect that the "true" crime rate — when extrane- 
ous influences are held constant — is higher among Negroes. This is true 
at least for such crimes as involve personal violence, petty robbery, and 
sexual delinquency — because of the caste system and the slavery tradition. 
The great bulk of the crime among Negroes has the same causes as that 
among whites. It is only the differences between the two rates for which 
we have had to seek special explanation. There are the same variations in 

of Negro and white civic groups, special investigating committees, and other means of 
arousing the public to the high Negro delinquency rate. The Negro rate had always been 
considerably higher than the white rate, and now it seemed that the Negro rate was increasing 
while the white rate was steady and even declining. According to a Report of the Sub- 
committee on Crime and Delinquency of the City-Wide Citizens' Committee on Harlem, there 
were "five times as many Negro juvenile delinquents arraigned in Children's Court as white 
delinquents in proportion to their respective numbers in the population, and 194.1 saw an 
increase of 23 per cent in Negro juvenile delinquency in the city." ([August, 194.2] p. 2. The 
Negro rate had risen steadily before 1941, too, because of continuing immigration from the 
South [.Ibid., p. 3].) This public agitation apparently had some effect, for the Negro 
delinquency rate fell while the white rate rose following the entrance of the United States 
into the War. (Ibid., p. 3.) Newspaper interest in Negro delinquency has continued and 
efforts to diminish it have not slackened. New job opportunities for Negroes, as a con- 
sequence of the war boom, may also be a factor in lowering the juvenile delinquency rate. 

* In their positions as servants to whites, Negroes see further into the seamy side of the 
white man's life. 

"Many of the moral Negroes have a very low opinion of white sexual and family stand- 
ard*. In their positions as butlers, maids, waiters, and bellhops, they have had exceptional 
opportunity to view the seamy intimacies of high life. Since servants are supposed not to see 
or hear, their presence is no deterrent, and they tell among themselves lurid tales of drunken- 
ness and promiscuity, some of which are undoubtedly true. There is a saying among male 
Negroes of the better class that all white girls are loose and many diseased. But caste resent- 
ment enters into their judgment just as race prejudice is likely to color similar generaliza- 
tions about Negro morality by white men." (Robert A. Warner, New Haven Negroes 
[1940L P. 118.) 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 979 

the crime rate between social classes among Negroes as among whites: 
The upper and middle classes among Negroes are at least as law-abiding as 
the corresponding classes among whites } much of the differential in gross 
, crime rate lies in the fact that the proportion of lower class Negroes is so 
much greater. Upper and middle class Negroes make a special effort to be 
law-abiding just as they try to avoid most of the typical and stereotyped 
patterns of behavior associated with the Negro lower classes. But, like the 
lower class, they meet prejudiced treatment from the police and the courts 
and so add to the crime rate. 

3. Mental Disorders and Suicide 

As we observed in Chapter 6, there is no indication that Negroes are 
innately more susceptible than are whites to mental disorder generally or to 
certain specific types of mental disorder. The circumstances under which 
Negroes live, however, have a definite influence on their mental health. 
We shall be able to give only a limited demonstration of this influence, 
since the data we are forced to use are extremely poor." 

There is no proof that there was an increase in mental disease among 
Negroes after Emancipation, but if there was — as is likely — it may simply 
have been a manifestation of the general trend toward increased mental 
disease that was characteristic of whites also. 80 Even if the increase was 
unusually sharp, this may be regarded as an instance of how Negroes started 
to "catch up" to whites after Emancipation, rather than as a proof that 
Negroes "could not take" freedom. 

Until 1933, there was a greater proportion of whites than of Negroes 
in state hospitals b for the insane, in the country as a whole, though in most 
of the Northern states the reverse was true for at least a decade previously. 81 
The Census of 1933 showed that the proportion of Negroes in state hos- 
pitals was higher than the proportion of whites in state hospitals in the coun- 
try as a whole). This also was true in all but four of the Southern states, 
despite discrimination against Negroes in admitting them to state hospitals. 
Because whites made some use of private hospitals and because state hos- 
pitals discriminated against Negroes, it cannot be inferred from these figures 

* Statistics on mental disorder in the United States refer to cases in institutions, not to al) 
cases or even to all cases known to doctors. Since institutional policy varies more with time 
and place than with mental disease itself, the statistics must be used with extreme caution. 
It is impossible, for example, to present meaningful figures comparing Negroes and whites 
in the whole country (or in the South alone) , Southern Negroes with Northern Negroes, or 
rates at present with rates a few decades ago. 

k Throughout this section we shall use statistics for state hospitals only. Private hospitals 
not only have a differential policy by race and region, but require a fee that prohibits most 
Negroes from using them. Fortunately for comparative purposes, most whites also use the 
state hospitals. But the mere fact that whites use private hospitals to a certain extent makr* 
the comparison of Negroes and whites in state hospitals of limited usefulness. 



980 An American Dilemma ^ 

that Negroes now have a higher true rate of mental disease than do whites 
in the South. But the discrimination, if any, is so minor in the North, and 
the discrepancy in the rates between Negroes and whites is so great, that it 
is practically certain that Negroes have more mental disease in the North . 
than do whites. 

The only detailed and comprehensive study of the mental disease of 
Negroes is that by Benjamin Malzberg for New York State in 1929-193 1.* 2 
He found the Negro rate of first admissions to state hospitals to be 151 
per 100,000 population, as compared to 74 for whites. Even for New York 
City alone, Negroes had a much higher rate than did whites. 88 These great 
discrepancies existed in spite of the fact that the Negroes were a younger 
population and the young generally have less insanity. The Negro rate in 
New York State, standardized to hold age constant, was 225 per 100,000 
population, as compared to 97 for whites. The Negro rates exceeded the 
white rates at every age. 

It is clear that the great discrepancy between Negroes and whites in New 
York State is due to migration. There was practically no difference in the 
rate of Negroes and whites born in New York State (40 as compared to 
45)." Also there was only a relatively small difference between Negroes 
and whites born in states other than New York (186 as compared to 151), 
and this difference was probably due to the greater divergence in the 
places that Negroes came from. Conditions of life in the South, from which 
most Negroes in the North have come, are the most important reason for 
the higher mental disease rate of Negroes, as we shall see when we come 
to consider specific types of mental diseases. Also it is disorganizing to 
have to change one's home, job, friends, manner of living, especially if 
that change is as great as that from the rural South to the urban North. 
Too, the people who make these moves are generally the least satisfied and 
least secure j otherwise they would not be making the change. 1 * 

The conditions under which Negroes live are reflected in the types of 
mental diseases predominant among them. There are two types of mental 
disease which are 3 or 4 times as prevalent among Negroes as among whites 
(New York State, 1929-1931): 34 general paresis, which is a consequence 
of syphilis, and the psychoses that sometimes follow too great indulgence in 
alcohol. Clearly the high syphilis rate among Negroes — and the family 
disorganization and poor health facilities in the South, which are behind 
it — is a major cause of the high mental disease rate of Negroes in the North. 
The poverty of Negroes in both South and North, and the disorganization 

* The slightly higher rate for whites is undoubtedly due to the fact that the white popula- 
tion was 8 years older, on the average, than the Negro population. 

b It is not necessary to claim that migrants are least successful or most successful. For 
purposes of explaining the correlation between migration and mental disorder, it is enough 
to claim that migrants are least satisfied, irrespective of their degree of success. 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 981 

associated with migration, would seem to be behind the greater indulgence 
in alcohol. In New York State the standardized rates were also significantly 
greater for Negroes than for whites in the following mental diseases: 
psychosis with cerebral arteriosclerosis (ratio: 2.9 to 1), dementia praecox 
(ratio: 2.0 to 1), senile psychoses (ratio: 1.9 to 1), manic-depressive psy- 
choses (ratio: 1.5 to i). a Dementia praecox and manic-depressive phychoses, 
at least, would seem to be due in part to migration and urbanization. 36 

According to a preliminary report of a study in progress, by Mandel 
Sherman and Irene C. Sherman, the specific symptoms of mental disease 
also are related to social background. 36 Delusions of psychotic Negroes tend 
to center around the topics of religion, possession of great wealth (often 
used to help other Negroes), attainment of superiority in the literary and 
educational fields, and outstanding assistance to the race. Delusions of 
whites, on the other hand, center around possession of great wealth (usually 
for personal benefit only) and somatic reactions (for example, false belief 
that one has a serious physical illness) . In this connection it is interesting to 
note that Negroes have much less paranoia (the "disease of egotism") 
than do whites. Another significant trait of the delusions is that those of 
Negro men and women are much less divergent than are those of white 
men and women. Negroes are also reported to have more hallucinations 
(errors in perception) than do whites, probably because they are less well 
educated and more superstitious. 

This presentation of a few selected facts regarding the distribution and 
differential character of mental disease is a sketchy reflection of a whole 
trend in psychiatric research. Experts are far from unanimous regarding the 
causation of mental disease or of the specific forms which it takes, but there 
is a growing feeling among them that the tensions and crises of life, as 
well as more objective social conditions, such as the presence of syphilis and 
the excessive use of hard liquor, are directly connected with mental disease. 
Negroes and whites lead different sorts of lives, to a certain extent and on 
the average, and this may be expected to reflect itself in differentials in 
the incidence of mental disease and of its specific manifestations. The 
average lower class Negro has, on the one hand, a more carefree life and 
fewer inhibitions, as so little is expected of him by the whites, by other 
Negroes, and by his own conscience. On the other hand, he meets the most 
severe frustrations along the caste line. The situation is different in different 
social classes: upper and middle class Negroes may feel the latter frustra- 
tions more intensively at the same time as they are not allowed the com- 

' Institutionalization is an even poorer index of feeble-mindedness than it is of mental 
disease. The rate of first admissions is much higher for whites than for Negroes in the 
country as a whole, but this is clearly due to discrimination against Negroct in the South. 
In New York and New Jersey, where there is something like impartiality in institutional 
policy, Negroes have a higher rate than do whites. 



982 An American Dilemma #*» 

pcnsation of carelessness in personal behavior. If these and other group 
experiences are reflected in the incidence of mental disease, it may be 
possible to learn about Negro culture and personality through a study of 
characteristic mental aberrations of Negro individuals. 

In contrast to the high mental disease rate, Negroes apparently have a 
very low suicide rate. It is only 4.0 per 100,000 population ( 1940), as com- 
pared to 15.5 for whites, 8.4 for Indians, 45.2 for Chinese and 26.0 for 
Japanese. 87 One of the reasons for the low suicide rate for Negroes is a 
younger age composition, since suicide rises rapidly with age. But it also 
seems that Negroes are actually less prone to escape their problems by 
taking their lives.* 

4. Recreation 

Negro recreation is conditioned by three factors: First, Negroes*are barred 
from using public recreational and amusement facilities in many places even 
in the North, and are inadequately supplied with private facilities. 11 Second, 
their geographical concentration in the South means that many of their 
recreational patterns follow those of the rural South. These are carried 
over to the urban North by the migrants from the South and are further 
shaped by the fact that the great bulk of the Negro population is of low 
economic status and lives in slum areas. Third, because recreation and 
amusement must be carried on almost entirely within the isolated Negro 
community, Negro recreation has developed peculiar traits of its own, dif- 
ferent from those that characterize recreation in the white community. One 
of the most striking characteristics of Negro amusements and recreation is 
their tendency to be informal, intimate and sociable. 

Life in rural areas is generally dull and uneventful. 88 There is little to do 
during a large part of the year} at other times farm work takes up all the 
time. 89 Recreation may become the means of filling up empty, dull days or 
serve as relief from long, hard, monotonous labor. Because of the lack of 
facilities, recreation tends to be informal and unorganized. Besides swim- 
ming, hunting, and fishing, 40 a considerable amount of time is spent in 
loafing, talking, boasting, telling tall stories, singing. Everybody partici- 
pates, and the behavior is free, easy, and spontaneous. Loud good-natured 
"banter" is part of it; it often deteriorates, however, into aggression and 
obscenity. 41 The laughing, boisterous groups, frequently seen by the whites, 
give them the idea that Negroes have a wonderfully happy time. While it 
is true that the Negroes' recreational behavior is relatively unrestrained 

* This is especially striking in view of the fact that few Negroes are Catholics, and 
Catholics have a low rate because of religious injunctions. 

"See Chapter 15, Section 5. For a full discussion of the inadequate recreational facilities 
provided for Negroes, see E. Franklin Frazier, "Recreation and Amusement among Ameri- 
can Negroes," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940). 



Chapter 44. Non-i- n sx i t ut ional Aspects 983 

and uninhibited, it is not a constructive form of amusement; it is monoto- 
nous and offers no chance to develop skills, physical or mental. Whenever 
commercial amusements invade the rural areas, no matter how cheap and 
sordid, the young people flock to them, thankful for any brightly lighted, 
stimulating place to meet people and to dance. 

One of the chief amusements in rural areas is "going to town" which may 
be to the nearest town, to the general store, to the "ice-cream parlor" (for 
the young people), or to the railroad station, either in the evenings or on 
Saturdays. 42 The time is spent in shopping, meeting acquaintances, sitting 
around the stove in the general store, or standing on the street corners 
laughing and joking.* The men and young people participate in these 
activities, but the older women rarely do. 

For the older women, church activity is usually the only form of recrea- 
tion. 43 They go to church to meet friends, display their new clothes when 
they have them, and enjoy the rivalries and strivings for prestige and posi- 
tion in the church. If the church is at all primitive in its service and music, 
it offers the additional experience of emotional catharsis. For the most part, 
rural women lead an even more monotonous and isolated life than do men. 

One would expect that in the absence of other recreational facilities there 
would be many radios, but this does not seem to be so. 44 More use is made 
of the phonograph. 45 Even the limited use of radios and phonographs, 
however, is healthy in that it helps to break down the isolation of these com- 
munities; and, since many of the successful, popular musicians are Negroes, 
it stimulates the ambition of Negro youth. Rural Negroes see few movies. 
Where there are movie houses in rural areas, they do not provide accom- 
modations for Negroes. Although movies offer a limited type of experience 
(and not always a wholesome one) to urban youth, they do give them some 
idea of other ways of living, other sections of the country and other histori- 
cal periods. Even this minor broadening experience is absent from rural 
experience. 

The informal gatherings to talk and joke and meet one's friends are 
carried over from the rural areas to the city. There the barbershop, the 
street corner, and most frequently, the poolroom become the gathering 
places for the lower class men and boys. In the cities, the men and boys who 
have the time for such activity are usually unemployed, and the atmosphere 
is much less wholesome and innocent than that which surrounds the same 
sort of loafing and talking in the country. The proprietor of the poolroom 
is often a petty criminal engaged in gambling and commercial vice, and the 

* Again we may point out that the gaiety of these informal groups may be deceiving, 
since much of the conversation is bitter and angry about incidents that have happened in 
town or on the plantations. The whites never hear this, as it ceases when they approach. 
The boisteiousness and unrestrainedncss of conversation is customary in uneducated people j 
and the laughter may be at the expense of the whites and bitter rather than humorous. 



9B4 Am American Dilemma A 

young people become involved in criminal activities through his influence. 
The banter, loafing, wrestling, and working off of animal spirits, natural 
and harmless in wide country spaces, become stealing and gang activity in 
the city. Too, the free and easy sex contacts of the rural areas are classified 
as juvenile delinquency in the city.* 6 On the other hand, Y.M.C.A.'s, 
settlement houses, city playgrounds, and athletic clubs in the North do 
provide organized and wholesome recreation, although not enough of it. 
Since Joe Louis' rise to fame and fortune, any place that provides gym- 
nasium facilities attracts boys. 

Negro people in the city, even of the respectable middle class, spend 
much of their time on the streets, partly because of their rural background, 
partly because of the crowdedness and unattractiveness of their homes. One 
of the favorite Negro pastimes is "strolling." James Weldon Johnson 
describes it in Harlem: 

The masses of Harlem get a good deal of pleasure oat of things far too simple for 
most other folks. In the evenings of summer and on Sundays they get lots of enjoy- 
ment out of strolling. . . . Strolling in Harlem does not mean merely walking along 
Lenox or upper Seventh Avenue; ... it means that those streets are places for 
socializing. One puts on one's best clothes and fares forth to pass the time pleasantly 
with the friends and acquaintances and, most important o£ all, the strangers he is 
sure of meeting. One saunters along, he hails this one, exchanges a word or two with 
that one, stops for a short chat with the other one. He comes up to a laughing, 
chattering group, in which he may have only one friend or acquaintance, but that 
gives him the privilege of joining in. He does join in and takes part in the joking, 
the small talk and gossip, and makes new acquaintances. He passes on and arrives in 
front of one of the theatres, studies the bill for a while, undecided about going in. 
He finally moves on a few steps farther and joins another group and is introduced to 
two or three pretty girls who have just come to Harlem, perhaps only for a visit; 
and finds a reason to be glad that he postponed going into the theatre. The hours of 
a summer evening run by rapidly. This is not simply going out for a walk ; it is more 
like going out for adventure. 47 

There is also much casual visiting back and forth in the respectable lower 
and middle class community, especially among the women. 

Urban Negroes find most of their amusement and recreation in the social 
clubs, athletic clubs, churches and lodges." Sports, dancing, card-playing and 
other games, petty civic improvement activities, and, in the churches, singing 
and dramatics * 8 are the chief forms of amusement. In the large Northern 
(but not the Southern) cities, movies, theaters, concert halls, night clubs, 
and restaurants are generally available to Negroes (if they can afford 
them) ; but there is always the possibility of insult or unpleasantness, and no 
Negro section, even in New York or Chicago, can support a complete set 
of recreational facilities. The voluntary organizations, therefore, continue 

* For a discussion of these voluntary associations, see Chapter 43, Section 5. 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 985 

to be a chief source of Negro recreational life. Clubs support each other by 
buying tickets to the other's dances, style shows, plays, and so on; conse- 
quently, a full (sometimes too full) social and recreational life is provided 
the club members.* Since the same small group of people with the same 
interests constantly intermingles socially, since these people participate 
little in other activities; and since clubs frequently meet in private homes, 
a highly personalized and socialized recreational life is the result. This 
feeling of intimacy and "at homeness" pervades all the sociable and recrea- 
tional life that is peculiarly Negro and is what the whites see and remark 
about when they say that Negroes have a good time. Negroes among them- 
selves act as if they were in a small family group, often even in commercial 
places. They know everybody and have a personal interest in everybody; 
they feel that they are part of a small community. This looks cozy and 
cheerful and intimate to whites accustomed to impersonal, formalized, over- 
organized social relations. 

A few other characteristics of Negro recreation may be noted. One of the 
main forms of recreation among lower class Negroes is gambling. Besides 
playing the numbers," Negroes are traditionally expert poker players and 
crap-shooters. c The excitement of gambling coupled with the chance of 
gain is easily understandable in the light of the monotony of rural life and 
of the unemployment in cities. These games, also, can be played anywhere 
with little equipment and with anybody who happens to be around. It 
should be noted, further, that crap-shooting is the invariable accompaniment 
of traditional "Negro jobs," those of waiter, bell-boy, porter, jobs where 
the over-all hours are long and where the men must be on call at all times, 
but where there is much unoccupied time. 

Among the urban youth and lately among rural youth, dancing is a 
favorite pastime. Dancing is one of the favorite forms of recreation among 
the upper class and in the clubs and equally so in the commercialized dance 
halls frequented by lower class young people. Negroes have developed most 
of the modern jazz dances which are now popular in the white world. 

Most Negroes do not follow the usual American pattern of taking a vaca- 
tion. The great majority of them are too poor. 49 The upper classes who can 
afford to are usually barred from those vacation resorts which meet their 
standards. 

Before the World War Negroes were developing summer resorts for their exclu- 
sive use on a relatively large scale. There is an excellent Negro summer resort in 

' See Chapter 43, Section 5 j also see J. G. St. Clair Drake, "The Negro Church and 
Associations in Chicago," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), pp. 

473-47$. 

b See Chapter 14, Section 10. 

' Whites now play these gambling games extensively, also; see the footnote on crap shoot- 
ing in Section 1 of this chapter. 



986 An American Dilemma *"* 

Michigan, and Mother in Mississippi. Several colored seaside retorts flourish along 
the Atlantic coast. On the whole, however, these can be patronized only by the few 
who have the time and money to spend a good portion of the year away from home 
on vacation. While there are some Negro resorts which can be enjoyed by poor 
Negroes, the number of this class actually able to patronize them is small. A pseudo- 
vacation is obtained by many of the working colored people by securing jobs at 
seashore or other resorts where they can earn their living and still have vacation in 
off hours and through a change of scene. In Philadelphia, for illustration, it is 
common for colored cooks and maids to go to Atlantic City and other nearby resorts 
for summer work, thus breaking the monotony of their routine and obtaining some 
semblance of a real vacation away from the home city and without starving. This is 
no doubt better than no vacation at all but the problem has not been faced. The 
majority of this group must continue to think of vacation as a short period free from 
work but otherwise no different from the rest of the year. 50 

One of the most wholesome aspects of Negro recreation and amusement 
is that it is not a separate part of their lives, but is well integrated into the 
daily routine. Part of this seems to be that Negroes, having little time free 
from hard work, devised relaxing accompaniments to their work. Singing, 
for example, accompanies all work, even on the chain gang; gambling while 
working is another example. Part of it is that so many of the usual recrea- 
tional forms were denied them that they learned to enjoy the everyday 
things they did. 61 Whatever the cause, this integration of fun and work 
has undoubtedly made life possible for many Negroes under the difficult 
situations they face. 

5. Negro Achievements* 

Opportunity is a most important prerequisite for achievement; and since 
the Negro's opportunities in America have been kept low, his achievements 
are also small. In 1929- 1930, there were only 98 Negroes listed in Who's 
Who in America. 62 No Negro is outstanding in national, state or local poli- 
tics. Few Negroes have been outstanding in business, and these have become 
successful usually by catering to special needs of the Negro group. At 
present, when the federal government is asking capable and wealthy busi- 
nessmen to work for it as "dollar-a-year" men, only one Negro has been 
included in the group. There, have been but one or two outstanding Negro 
military leaders. No Negro has been an outstanding jurist, although a few 
Negro lawyers deserve fame for the way they have handled cases involving 
Negro rights. Since scientific achievement requires not only a superior 
education but also a secure position and facilities in a university or large 

* We shall not attempt to give a systematic survey of Negro achievements in this section. 
Rather we shall single out the main fields in which Negroes have made notable achieve- 
ments and give examples of the achievements and the achievers. In order to be concrete, we 
•hall mention names. The persons named are merely outstanding examples; they do not 
include all Negroes who have made notable achievements. 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 987 

industrial concern, there have been only half a dozen outstanding Negro 
natural scientists, and perhaps a dozen or so outstanding Negro social 
scientists. 8 And so it goes, down the list of fields in which superior per- 
formance is regarded as noteworthy. Most of the fields in which Negroes 
commonly attain superior performance are regarded as lowly — such as 
agriculture and personal service — and so no attention is paid to the high 
performance, and it is not recognized as an achievement. The esteemed 
fields in which Negroes have made many achievements are those of the arts, 
of the sports and of entertainment. 

Before we go on to these, we call attention to the high performance of 
Negroes in a field that is often overlooked by whites. We refer to the 
fighting for the Negro cause — the field of race leadership. If we include 
this field with politics, we can honestly say that some of the most capable 
statesmen in the United States are Negroes, whatever we may think of their 
policies. If these men, with their training in practical politics, were white, 
they would no doubt be national leaders just as they are now race leaders. 
This was almost recognized of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washing- 
ton, but the two other Negro statesmen of equal stature — W. E. B. Du Bois 
and James Weldon Johnson — have been virtually ignored by whites. On a 
second level, still high when compared with most white national leaders, 
are such men as Elmer Carter, Lester Granger, Charles Johnson, A. 
Philip Randolph, and Walter White. A woman, Mary McLeod Bethune, 
belongs on this level. Younger men, with no small achievement and still 
greater promise, are Earl Dickerson, Adam Clayton Powell and Roy Wil- 
kins. In addition to these, there are wise Negro politicians all over the 
country, in the national offices of the betterment and protest organizations, 
and in the federal government in Washington. Working on the Negro 
problem gives one a set of practical ideals, a training in strategy, and a 
respect for courage, patience, and loyalty, that are necessary to a first-rate 
politician. 

It is in the field of entertainment that the Negro's achievements are most 
widely recognized, and the opportunities made available to him there have 
made it possible for him to develop excellence in the economically sub- 
sidiary fields of arts and sports. The Negro has not only provided enter- 
tainment and art but also material for entertainment and art by whites: 
the Negro folk tales of Uncle Remus were set in writing by Joel Chandler 
Harris j many of the rhythmic songs of the Negro have provided the basic 
themes for white composers (Stephen Foster, for example) j the greatest 
popularizers of ragtime music were Al Jolson and Irving Berlin j some of 
the best dramas of Negro life are by Du Bose Hey ward} the Negro's 

' It may be remarked, in passing', that in sociology, which is the branch of science under 
which most of the studies of Negro life and problems have gone on, Negroes have occasionally 
made first-rank achievements in the field. 



988 An American Dilemma & 

abstract painting and sculpture have been one of the sources of modern 
cubism and surrealism. 58 But Negroes themselves do not take second rank 
in these fields. Joe Louis is now the world's champion heavyweight prize- 
fighter, and Jack Johnson held this title a generation ago. Negroes have 
held several of the lesser boxing championships (notably Henry Arm- 
strong and John Henry Lewis) and have achieved first rank in running 
(notably Jesse Owens), football (notably Paul Robeson), and some of the 
other sports. Among the ten highest paid concert artists of the year 1941, 
three were Negroes: Marian Anderson, Dorothy Maynor and Paul Robe- 
son." 4 Roland Hayes ranked not far below the first ten. The stage has long 
witnessed front-rank Negro actors, and it is now graced with such figures as 
Todd Duncan, Canada Lee, Paul Robeson and Ethel Waters. On the dance 
jtage there are such masters of their respective talents as Katherine Dunham 
and Bill (Bojangles) Robinson. Negroes have invented a whole series of 
dance steps, including the fox trot, cake walk, Charleston, black bottom, 
turkey trot, the shag, jitterbugging; and Latin American Negroes have 
contributed the tango, rhumba, samba, conga. The screen and radio are 
practically closed to serious Negro actors — there being only three or four 
pictures in the entire history of film-making that have portrayed Negroes, 
even as minor characters, in roles other than those of buffoons or criminals.* 
But some Negroes have achieved huge success in the role of buffoon — 
notably Hattie McDaniels and Rochester. Negro musicians of various types 
are also popular on the radio. Negro jazz band leaders are among the most 
popular — Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, 
Fletcher Henderson, Jimmie Lunceford, King Oliver and Fats Waller. 

* There is a definite improvement, in the last year or so, in the treatment of Negroes in 
movies. Before 1940, there had been, in addition to the movies in which Negroes were 
portrayed as clowns, criminals, or incidental servants, only such special movies and shorts 
as were meant for purely Negro consumption. (For a history of these all-Negro pictures, see 
James Asendio, "History of Negro Motion Pictures," International Photographer [January, 
1940], p. 16.) There had been only one or two full-length movies in which Negroes were 
portrayed in more favorable or more human roles and which were meant for general white 
consumption. Ignorance on the part of film producers and fear of offending white Southerners 
were the main reasons for this treatment. After 1940, patriotic motives, stimulated by the 
growing war spirit, as well as definite pressure from the federal government, moved Holly- 
wood to treat Negroes a little more favorably in the movies. In 1940 and 1942 there were 
produced: Syncopation, showing the role of the Negro in the creation of jazz music; In 
This Our Life, an Ellen Glasgow story in which a Negro youth incidentally tells his ambi- 
tion to be a lawyer and in which he is almost executed for a crime committed by one of the 
white heroines; Tales of Manhattan, which shows Negroes as superstitious peasants but 
withal some cleverness and human emotion. In the week of July 31, 1942, some Negro leaders 
held a conference with "70 top executives of the screen world" to try to get them to assign 
to Negroes "roles in motion pictures more in keeping with their status and contribution 
to American life and culture." (NJ.A.C.P. Press Service [July 31, 1942], p. 4.) It is likely 
that such efforts, if continued, will have some effect, especially when further pressure 
comes from war agencies of the federal government. 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 989 

Negroes have contributed such popular musical forms as ragtime, jazz, 
the blues, swing and boogie-woogie. 

Negroes have been greatly hampered in more serious music, but in the 
past year Dean Dixon has emerged as a symphony orchestra conductor 
under the sponsorship of the white music critic, Samuel Chotzinoff. Negroes 
have achieved moderate success in composing serious music (for example, 
William Grant Still) and much greater success in composing lighter music 
(for example, Will Marion Cook, Duke Ellington, James Reese Europe, 
W. C. Handy and Rosamund Johnson). In art, Negroes have had most 
influence as subjects for and influences on white artists, but there have 
been a few front-rank American Negro painters and sculptors (Richmond 
Barthe, Aaron Douglas, Augusta Savage, Henry O. Tanner). In literature, 
Negroes have a forte, and in all branches of literature Negroes have made 
really outstanding achievements. The names of Countee Culfcn, Langston 
Hughes, Claude McKay, Sterling Brown, and Richard Wright (and in the 
past Paul Lawrence Dunbar and James Weldon Johnson) are well known 
to the white reading public, and there are at least a score of other Negro 
writers of equal merit but little known to the white reading public. 

To understand why Negroes have made outstanding achievements in 
these fields, it is necessary to go into their history. We find that there are 
two distinct lines of development, which have begun to converge only in the 
last twenty years. One is the buffoonery practiced for the entertainment of 
whites; the other is the great variety of expressive activity practiced for 
the artists' own enjoyment. 

Under slavery, the chief form of entertainment in the large, isolated 
plantation was the slave show. The Negro was the court jester, who pleased 
his master by singing, dancing, telling jokes and generally "acting up." 
James Weldon Johnson describes the earliest Negro entertainment: 

Every plantation had its talented band that could crack Negro jokes, and sing and 
dance to the accompaniment of the banjo and the bones, the bones being the actual 
ribs of a sheep or some other small animal, cut the proper length, scraped clean and 
bleached in the sun. When the wealthy plantation owner wished to entertain his 
guests, he needed only to call his troupe of black minstrels. 65 

Even during slavery, but especially after it, there developed the "nigger 
minstrel show" which had the same features as the entertainment furnished 
by slaves. Practically all these shows which were successful had white actors 
who put burnt cork on their faces and spoke with a Negro accent; only 
Bert Williams among the Negroes achieved success as a minstrel come- 
dian. 58 These shows, which still exist in a modified form, 67 appealed to the 
crudest tastes and accentuated all the Negro stereotypes. Their heyday 
lasted from 1875 to 1900, and during this period Negro musicians, song and 
play writers, and dancers stooped low to appeal to the popular taste. 58 Only 



99<> An American Dilemma & 

the songs developed into something better. These songs — known as "coon 
songs" because they were funny at the expense of Negroes, stressing their 
supposed chicken-eating, wife-beating, razor-slashing traits— had a rhythm 
which made them popular. Later they developed into ragtime. After receiv- 
ing a further influence from Negro secular folk-music — especially that 
kind fostered by vagrant Negro troubadours along the Mississippi River — 
ragtime was to have a meteoric career culminating in Irving Berlin's 
"Alexander's Ragtime Band" (1911), and it ultimately developed into 
jazz."* After the turn of the century, Negro entertainment began to improve 
in quality: the minstrel show gradually gave way to the musical comedy. 
Musical comedies written and acted by whites were popular in the period 
just before the First World War; and under the stimulus of the general 
popularity, shows written and acted by Negroes were successful. A high level 
of achievement was reached at this time by the writing and acting team of 
Cole and Johnson. These shows were still funny, but they also contained 
some serious art and appealed to a more cultivated audience. 

After the War, Negro entertainment began to climb to new heights of 
popularity and quality. The jazz fad was on, and Negro singers, dancers 
and orchestras were much in demand. There was a great opportunity for 
Negro composers and musicians to supply jazz and blues music, and some- 
times more classical variations. The African theme in art was suddenly the 
object of great admiration. Opportunity and Crisis magazines offered prizes 
for the best poetry and prose writing by Negroes, and the successful candi- 
dates found themselves swept up in adulation by thrill-seeking whites. To 
the Negroes, it was the period of the "New Negro," when their capacities 
and achievements were beginning to be recognized by the whites. To most 
of the whites who were giving this recognition to the Negroes, it was the 
period of the "gay 'twenties": the patronage they gave to Negro artists and 
performers was only part of the general seeking, on the one hand, after 
thrills and novelties and, on the other hand, after really good art, music 
and literature. They sponsored artists with little ability along with artists 
of great ability. They encouraged Negroes to develop African and pseudo- 
African themes because they were so exotic and bizarre. They also encour- 
aged the noisy, the sexy and the perverted. When the Great Depression 
ended the "gay 'twenties," the patronage of the Negroes was greatly dimin- 
ished, and the Negro arts were left with certain traits that they could not 
easily change. 

Negro entertainment and the arts were, however, far from stopped com- 
pletely during the 1930's. There were still many serious white devotees, and 
the Negroes themselves formed an increasingly appreciative audience. The 
"swing" and "boogie-woogie" period came into popular music, and the 
blues enjoyed a new burst of popularity. Negro stage comedians were still 
popular, jithough there was less money available to pay for them. It was the 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 991 

serious arts of poetry, the drama, painting and sculpture which were most 
affected by the depression. During the 1920*8 they had been supported 
by the intellectuals and the pseudo-intellectuals; during the 1930's these 
people either had little money left or no longer cared for the Negro arts. 
The fad of adulating things Negro was definitely over, and Negro per- 
formers and artists had to compete with others without any special advan- 
tage. The best held on and strengthened their popularity; the mediocre 
dropped out and were soon forgotten. The Negro artists themselves 
developed higher standards and sought to base their art on something more 
secure than the white man's demand for the exotic and the bizarre. General 
anti-Negro prejudice makes it somewhat harder for a Negro artist or per- 
former to get a position than for a white person of equal talent, but on the 
whole there is less prejudice in this field than in practically any other field.* 
Some whites are inclined to have a double standard in judging Negro 
achievements; they applaud mediocrity and thereby foster it. 

The federal government provided special opportunity between 1935 and 
1939, when the Federal Theater aided unemployed Negroes by putting on 
all-Negro shows: there was a chance not only for Negro actors, but also 
for Negro writers, musicians and producers. The shows were successful 
and they strengthened both white and Negro recognition of Negro talent. 
The Negro painter was also given his chance when the W.P.A. and the 
N.Y.A. required the designing and decoration of such public works as 
schools, libraries, hospitals and parks. These federal agencies also offered 
art classes of various sorts, mostly in practical arts, and many Negroes par- 
ticipated. 00 The Federal Writers' Project provided further opportunities 
for Negro writers. 

Today Negroes have a high record of performance and popularity in both 
serious and comic entertainment. Negro dancers, singers, orchestras, come- 
dians, strip-teasers, and acrobats are used in theater stage shows and night 
club floor shows in all the large Northern cities. There are all-Negro shows 
and shows with both white and Negro performers (in the last 6 or 7 years 
Negroes have even been permitted to play in predominantly white 
orchestras). 81 Negro sections of cities often contain a few entertainment 
places which are popular with white audiences. In the South Negro per- 
formers are much more restricted, but are sometimes used if strictly segre- 

* Negroes cannot get on the opera stage, and they are occasionally restricted on the con- 
cert stage (witness the famous incident in 1939 when the Daughters of the American Revolu- 
tion prevented Marian Anderson from singing in Constitution Hall in Washington, D. C). 
More serious restrictions against the Negro occur in the field of sports. Negroes cannot get 
into big league baseball and rarely have they been allowed into competitive tennis or golf 
games. They are generally kept out of competitive sports which require teams. Even in 
boxing, the sport in which they have achieved such notable success, they have been seriously 
restricted (for example, Jack Dempsey, when champion, consistently refused to let Harry 
Wills battle for his crown). 



99 2 An American Dilemma •^ 

gated. Negro minstrel shows are still found, and the Negro buffoon is often 
part of vaudeville shows. Negro tap-dancers are in fairly wide demand, as 
are Negro burlesque dancers. Serious Negro artists and writers have a 
reasonably wide audience: one of the most popular novels of the past five 
years has been Richard Wright's Native Son. 

Although most of the contemporary Negro literature received its stimu- 
lation from white sponsorship beginning in the first decade of the twentieth 
century and greatly increased during the 1920's, it has in addition a 
purely Negro history. Since 1760, when Jupiter Hammon, a slave in Long 
Island, New York, published "An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, 
with Penitential Cries," there has hardly been a decade when some Negro 
has not published something. The early writing by Negroes was perhaps 
not so good, but few white Americans then were accomplishing anything 
of note. Frederick Douglass, however, attained a high level of prose writing 
in some of his Abolitionist oratory. By the last decade of the nineteenth 
century, a Negro poet, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, was recognized as on a level 
with the best white American poets of the century. 

Another serious strain in Negro art was that of folk-music. In this, 
Negroes have probably surpassed white Americans. The folk-songs are gen- 
erally classified into two types: the spirituals and the secular songs. After 
some early experimentation, the spirituals emerged as the distinctively 
Negro religious music after 1 830. S2 Negroes sang them practically only for 
their own benefit until the Fisk Jubilee Singers sang them around the 
country to get money for their school. By the 1890's they were recognized 
by whites as an outstanding form of music. This recognition was no doubt 
helped by Dvorak, the great Bohemian composer, in his use of some of 
them as main themes in his New World Symphony (1895). Since then, 
they have been favorite songs with all levels of white society, and many an 
outstanding Negro singer has got his start by fulfilling the demand of 
whites for spirituals. 

The secular folk-songs began mainly as work-songs or leisure-time songs. 
There were no musical instruments, of course, and the people kept time 
by clapping or stamping, or if they were working, they kept time by the 
movements needed in their work. Thus there developed an emphasis on 
rhythm, and Negroes became masters of the possibilities in rhythm. The 
songs were begun by whole groups of people: usually some song leader 
would start off with a likely line; if it caught, the rest of the group would 
take it up and it became a theme for the chorus; other individuals would 
chime in with a rhyming line to keep the song going. 03 Some of the songs 
are more individualized in character — especially the love songs, the blues 
and the clever satires. Each song had many variations and was continually 
in the process of change until someone wrote it down. Sometimes the words 
did not pake sense, or the consecutive lines would not follow each other 



Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 993 

logically. But they were cheerful, rhythmical songs which expressed much 
of the Negro's interests, problems and attitudes. These songs are still 
being created. They have achieved a great popularity in the white world: 
sometimes they are "jazzed up" or "swung" and become popular songs; 
sometimes they became popular in their original form (for example, most 
of the blues); sometimes they are sung as semi-popular folk-songs; some- 
times they are mistakenly grouped with the spirituals because they have a 
few religious words. It was a white man, Stephen Foster, who was the 
chief popularizer of the secular Negro folk-songs. 

Until recently, the puritanical spirit has been a powerful influence on 
entertainment and the arts in America. To a large degree white Americans 
have considered it somewhat immoral to be an entertainer, and white 
American men have considered it beneath their dignity and their capacity 
to cultivate the arts. Nevertheless, practically all Americans have enjoyed 
stage entertainment, and many Americans show "appreciation of the arts." 
Since whites stereotype the Negroes as immoral and somewhat bestial, they 
have been willing to let Negroes entertain them. They could enjoy the 
bawdy and frivolous songs, dances and jokes without "sinning" them- 
selves. 64 White men have also been willing to let their women and their 
Negroes cultivate the arts.* 

Negroes, on their side, have developed entertainment and the arts 
because they were relatively free of puritanical traditions and because there 
they were offered relatively attractive economic opportunities. Also with- 
out the means of paying for entertainment, they have learned how to 
entertain themselves. They have been so successful at this that they have 
taken over the whites' false racial belief that Negroes arc innately superior 
in emotional expression. This has, however, helped to provide a tradition 
of success which has spurred them on. Further, novels, poetry, songs, and 
even painting and sculpture have proven excellent media for expressing 
the Negro protest or rationalizing the Negro's accommodation to caste. 65 
Even the spirituals often have these themes, sometimes under the guise of 
religious words to avoid censure from the whites ("Didn't my Lord 
deliver Daniel, and why not every man?" "Let My People Go"). The race 
issue is often a source of inspiration, and it provides a limitless set of high 
ideals. Whether all these influences make Negroes superior to whites in the 
arts we are not in a position to judge. We are merely interested in explain- 
ing why Negro achievements in this field are so much greater than in 
other fields, and why they have been so popular among whites. There are 

* At first, whites may have thought it a little presumptuous of Negroes to go into the arts, 
but even under slavery, "Negro craftsmen were well-known as cabinet-makers, marquetry 
setters, wood carvers and iron-smiths as the workmanship of many colonial mansions in 
Charleston, New Orleans and other colonial centers of wealth and luxury will attest." (Alain 
Locke, Negro Art: Past and Present L"9J6]> PP- « and v) 



994 An American Dilemma ««* 

many negative factors to be considered in judging relative excellence: 
Negroes can seldom get the training usually considered necessary to highest 
achievement in the arts; their segregated schools are usually inadequate; 
they are restricted in their contacts and, much more than whites, lack the 
atmosphere congenial to creative work; they are seldom allowed to get far 
from the race problem; many white critics have a double standard — more 
indulgent to Negroes — when comparing the products of Negro and white 
artists; there are still some restrictions against Negro artists, especially in 
the South. 

Whatever the reason for the success of Negroes in the fields of entertain- 
ment and the arts, the success has had predominantly beneficial effects for 
the Negroes. It has enabled them to get a measure of self-confidence, even 
though it may have had the secondary effect of stimulating a false pride 
in race. It has made the whites more friendly, and sometimes it has made 
them have a measure of respect for Negroes.* It has opened a significant 
number of excellent economic opportunities for Negroes, and is thus the 
economic basis for a sizable portion of the Negro upper and middle class. 
Interest in the arts may have improved the taste and poise of Negroes; but 
interest in entertainment may have degraded their tastes. In a number of 
ways, never analyzed by students of Negro social life, entertainment and the 
arts have had a pervasive influence on practically all Negroes. 

When white support of Negro literature and art was partially with- 
drawn after 1929, Negroes tended to react away from doing the things 
whites wanted them to do. Paul Robeson, for example, declared: 

I believe where the Afro-American made his mistake was when he began trying to 
mimic the West instead of developing the really great tendencies he inherited from 
the East. I believe the Negro can achieve his former greatness only if he learns to 
follow his natural tendencies, and ceases trying to master the greatness of the West. 
My own instincts are Asiatic. 66 

This is only petulance, of course, but many Negro writers and artists have 
come to believe that they can develop an art quite distinct from the white 
American's art and from what the white American is willing to pay for. 
But, as George S. Schuyler wrote in 1926, "Negro art there has been, is, 
and will be among the numerous black natives of Africa; but to suggest 
the possibility of any such development among the ten million colored peo- 
ple in this republic is self-evident foolishness." 87 Negro art will continue 
to be American because its creators are American and American influences 
continually mold it. Whether Negro artists will turn out products which 
differ from those of white artists will depend on those individual artists, 
and on the audiences willing to pay for the art. 
• See Chapter 30, Section 3. 



Part XI 
AN AMERICAN DILEMMA 



CHAPTER 45 

AMERICA AGAIN AT THE CROSSROADS 

i. The Negro Problem and the War 

The three great wars of this country have been fought for the ideals of 
liberty and equality to which the nation was pledged. As a consequence of 
all of them, the American Negro made great strides toward freedom and 
opportunity. 1 The Revolutionary War started a development which ulti- 
mately ended slavery in all Northern states, made new import of slaves 
illegal and nearly accomplished abolition even in the South — though there 
the tide soon turned in a reaction toward fortification of the plantation 
system and of Negro slavery. The Civil War gave the Negro Emancipa- 
tion and Reconstruction in the South — though it was soon followed by 
Restoration of white supremacy. The First World War provided the Negro 
his first real opportunity as a worker in Northern industry, started the 
Great Migration out of the South, and began the "New Negro" movement 
— though the end of the War saw numerous race riots and the beginning of 
a serious decline in employment opportunities. After the advances on all 
three occasions there were reactions, but not as much ground was lost as 
had been won. Even taking the subsequent reactions into account, each of 
the three great wars in the history of America helped the Negro take a 
permanent step forward. 

Now America is again in a life-and-death struggle for liberty and equal- 
ity, and the American Negro is again watching for signs of what war and 
victory will mean in terms of opportunity and rights for him in his native 
land. To the white American, too, the Negro problem has taken on a signif- 
icance greater than it has ever had since the Civil War. This War is crucial 
for the future of the Negro, and the Negro problem is crucial in the War. 
There is bound to be a redefinition of the Negro's status in America as a 
result of this War. 

The exact nature of this structural change in American society cannot 
yet be foreseen. History is not the result of a predetermined Fate. Nothing 
is irredeemable until it is past." The outcome will depend upon decisions 
and actions yet to be taken by whites and Negroes. What we can know 
definitely, however, are the trends as they developed up to the War and 

* See Appendix j, Section 3. 

097 



998 An American Dilemma 

the changes so far during the War. On the basis of this knowledge, we out 
discern the gamut of possibilities for the future. If, in addition, we have 
some insight into the temper and inclination of the people who are both 
the actors and the spectators of the drama being staged, we can estimate 
which are the most probable developments. 

i. Social Trends 

Looking back over the ground we have mapped in our inquiry, we can 
make two general observations. One is the following: What we usually call 
"social trends" have their main significance for the Negro's status because 
of what is in white people's minds. It is true, for instance, that the decreas- 
ing relative demand for unskilled work, compared with skilled and semi- 
skilled work, and the change of much dirty and heavy labor to clean and 
easy iabor, have dangerous implications for the Negro's employment 
opportunities. But if these technological and economic trends have disas- 
trous effects on the Negro, the cause of this is the persistency with which 
white people want to keep him out of skilled and pleasant work. It is also 
true that the trend toward mass unemployment in America tends to turn 
Negro labor into a relief burden. But, again, the concentration of unemploy- 
ment upon the Negro people is explainable only as the direct and indirect 
effects of discrimination. The restricted immigration of white Europeans 
to America and other population changes are reversing the century-old 
trend, in which the Negro was becoming a smaller portion of the total 
population of the United States, into a trend in which the Negro is becom- 
ing a slightly increasing proportion of the population. But if this change of 
trend will disappoint some white Americans and perhaps tend to increase 
racial friction, the cause is again race discrimination. 

The second observation is this: The important changes in the Negro 
•problem do not consist of, or have close relations with, "social trends" in 
the narrower meaning of the term but are made up of changes in people's 
beliefs and valuations. We started by stating the hypothesis that the Negro 
problem has its existence in the American's mind. There the decisive 
struggle goes on. It is there that the changes occur. Our investigation has 
amply confirmed our basic assumption, as an abbreviated summary of 
some of our main findings regarding recent trends will demonstrate. 

In the field of "social'' relations we traced a slow but visible decrease of 
discrimination in the South during recent decades up until the outbreak 
of the present War. The racial etiquette was gradually loosening. White 
people were beginning to take cognizance of distinctions in education and 
class within the Negro community and becoming prepared to treat Negroes 
somewhat differently according to their individual worth. The "no social 
equality" theory was not quite so rigid as in earlier generations. The entire 
Jim Crow apparatus was maintained, but its motivation was no longer so 



Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads 999 

self-evident. Southern liberals were demanding with increasing courage and 
determination that the doctrine "separate, but equal" should be followed 
out in its "equality" aspect as well as in its "separateness" aspect — that 
segregation should not be utilized as a means of discrimination. 

The separation of the two groups in the South was, meanwhile, becoming 
more and more perfected as the frequency of personal master-servant 
relations was decreasing and as the segregated Negro institutions and 
Negro professions were being built up. There even seemed to be a growing 
mental isolation between whites and Negroes. Behind this potentially most 
dangerous development was not only the exclusionist policy of the whites, 
but also the sullen dissatisfaction and bitter race pride of the Negroes them- 
selves. They were "withdrawing" themselves as a reaction to the segregation 
and discrimination enforced by the whites. 

In the North the sudden influx of Southern Negroes during the Great 
Migration caused a temporary rise in social discrimination. Since, in spite 
of this, there was much less of it in the North than in the South, the migra- 
tion meant a decrease of social segregation and discrimination for the Negro 
people as a whole. It also seemed that, despite the sharp temporary rise on 
account of the migration, the trend in the North, too, was toward decreas- 
ing race prejudice. 

In the administration of justice there was a definite improvement in the 
South, even if Negroes in that region are still far from enjoying equality 
before the law. There was a slow rise in the quality of the police and the 
courts. Lynching, peonage, and other conspicuous aberrations of justice 
were becoming stamped out. This development was spurred by the increas- 
ing interest and interference in the judicial order of the region, shown by 
the federal courts and other federal agencies, and also by the state govern- 
ments. The activity of such private organizations as the N.A.A.C.P. and 
the Interracial Commission were also of paramount importance for this 
development. More fundamentally the prestige of law was rising in the 
South and people were becoming more law-abiding. These changes were 
related to a general rise in education of the Southerners and to their fullef 
participation in the larger American culture. 

In the North the Negro continued to enjoy full equality before the law. 
There was some strain in the North during the Great Migration, some- 
times mounting to race riots during which the arm of the law was not 
always just and impartial. But on the whole the judicial order of the 
region was upheld, and equality in justice was not a major problem. 

In the political sphere, the South continued to disfranchise the Negro, 
contrary to the clear precept of the American Creed and the Constitution. 
The masses of whites were also kept from political participation. Real 
issues were kept out of politics and there was a great amount of corruption. 
But these things proved increasingly difficult to keep up. Economic and 



iooo An American Dilemma 

ideological changes, related to the region's rapid industrialization, urban- 
ization, and labor unionization, stepped up by the Great Depression and 
the New Deal, caused political splits in the Southern Democratic party 
machines. The splits usually remained latent, but here and there, now and 
then, they forced themselves into the open. The "Solid South" seemed 
definitely endangered. The poll tax was under fierce attack in all Southern 
states, and some had already abolished it. 

Meanwhile such things as the rise of the price level since the 'nineties 
and the improved educational level of Southern Negroes made the statutory 
devices to keep Negroes from the polls — by property and literacy require- 
ments as well as by the poll tax — less and less effective. Negro disfranchise- 
ment came increasingly to depend upon extra-legal and illegal sanctions. We 
viewed this situation as extremely unstable for several reasons: the legal 
culture of the South was rising; there were no more loopholes left for 
legalizing Negro disfranchisement; the Solid South was showing signs of 
breaking up; the liberal forces in the North were getting increasingly 
exasperated with the South ; and the Supreme Court was starting to enforce 
the Constitution as it applied to voting in the South. Southern liberals were 
standing up, not only against the poll tax, but often also against the one- 
party system and the exclusion of Negro voters from the primaries. Even 
conservative Southerners were occasionally found to hold the opinion that 
sometime in the future the Negro was going to vote in the South. While 
the Negro was almost as effectively disfranchised in the South in the years 
before the outbreak of the present War as he has ever been, our judgment, 
when taking all these changes into account, thus was that his political 
position was potentially much stronger and that his gradual enfranchise- 
ment was bound to come. 

In the North the Negro enjoyed uninfringed his right to vote, and the 
steadily continuing migration to the North meant that the Negro vote was 
growing. 

In the enjoyment of -public services the Negro was discriminated against 
severely in the South in blunt repudiation of the Constitution and the state 
laws. But even in this sphere we saw a slow improvement of his status as a 
result of the rising legal culture of the region; the pressures from the 
Negroes, from public opiriipn in the North, from the federal courts and 
administration as well as from the white Southerners' own better conscience. 
It was becoming somewhat less unusual that a playground or even a little 
park was arranged for Negroes in some cities. The Negro schools were 
greatly improved even if they usually still remained inferior. Without 
question the New Deal was of tremendous importance for the Negro in 
respect to the share he received of public services. It is true that the Wash- 
ington administration did not dare and, in any case, did not succeed in 
Stamping out discrimination in relief, agricultural policies, or anything else 



Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads iooi 

in the South, but it definitely decreased it. It also brought a new land of 
public servant to the South, educated and zealous officials who were not 
primarily interested in "keeping the Negro in his place" but in encouraging 
and advancing him. This introduced a new and wholesome type of public 
contact for the Negro people in the South, and Negroes got a feeling that 
public authority could be other than arbitrary and suppressive. 

In the North public services were, on the whole, granted to Negroes as 
to other citizens in similar circumstances. 

While in all these spheres the trends at the outbreak of the present War 
were definitely in the direction of a rise in the status of the Negro in 
America," the same cannot be said about those relating to his occupational 
status. In Southern agriculture the Negro's plight had been becoming 
continually worse and showed no prospects for a brighter future. His low 
place on the occupational ladder usually as a plantation tenant — the increase 
of Negro landownership had stopped 40 years earlier — his dependence on 
cotton, his lack of education, and the intense race prejudice in the blighted 
rural regions of the South made him the main sufferer of the boll weevil, 
of Southern over-population and "white infiltration," of mechanization and, 
during the 'thirties, of the collapsing world market and the contractionist 
national agricultural policy. Yet there were no wholehearted attempts on 
a mass scale, either by the federal government or by any other agency, to 
reeducate rural Southern Negroes to take up new occupations in other 
areas. America was under the spell of economic defeatism so far as a belief 
in continued rapid industrialization was concerned, and there was no hope 
of placing the dislocated Negro sharecropper in the industrial cities. 

Some rural Negroes moved to Northern and Southern cities, increasing 
unemployment there. Monopoly of jobs by the whites increased during the 
Great Depression, and Negroes did not find any new employment openings. 
Various national policies, such as the Wages and Hours Law, instituted to 
stamp out sweatshop conditions, could not avoid hurting the employment 
opportunities of Negroes since they were marginal workers. Under these 
conditions it is a wonder that Negroes were able to retain as many of their 
jobs as they did. But Negro unemployment mounted in all cities, particu- 
larly in the North, and the Negro workers increasingly became a relief 
burden. The whole country, and particularly the North, was much more 
generous toward the Negro in doling out relief to him than in allowing 
him to work and earn his bread by his own labor. 

Meanwhile, the new unions in the mass production industries gave Negro 
workers hope by organizing them together with whites in fields in which 

* Coming back to South Carolina after an absence of twenty years, John Andrew Rice 
noted as one of the outstanding changes: "The Southerner's attitude toward the Negro is 
incredibly more humane than it was in the South I knew as a child." (/ Came Out of the 
Eighteenth Century [1942], p. 195.) 



1002 An American Dilemma 

Negroes were already working. But, with few exceptions, they did not open 
up new industries for Negro employment during the 'thirties, neither did 
they pave the way for Negroes to rise by promotion from the level of 
unskilled workers to that of the semi-skilled and skilled. Negro business 
did not flourish either, and the small gains made in a few professions were 
quantitatively insignificant. There is no question but that the development 
in the economic sphere was grave. But as discrimination was slowly decreas- 
ing in all other spheres, as there were good prospects that national politics 
would remain liberal and progressive, as Negro defense organizations and 
the Negro advisors in the federal administration were hammering on the 
inequalities, and as the new unions were pledged to nondiscrimination, 
there seemed to be good prospects that even the threatening trends respect- 
ing the Negro's economic status could have been turned, if the country had 
got out of the long stagnation in a normal way and had entered a new era 
of continued industrialization. Some of the economic policies of the New 
Deal were poorly thought out and badly integrated; in some respects they 
were damaging to the Negro. But administrators and experts were eager 
to learn from their mistakes and could be expected to accomplish better 
economic planning and direction when they were relieved of the pressure 
of emergency and improvisation. 

3. The Decay of the Caste Theory 

The problem of what would have occurred if there had been no war is 
now purely academic. The Second World War is bound to change all 
trends. But before we analyze the implications of the War for the Negro 
problem, we need to take a still broader perspective and ask: what has hap- 
pened to white opinions on the Negro problem in the span of three gener- 
ations since Emancipation? 

In the South three generations ago white people had for their defense 
a consistent and respectable theory, endorsed by the church and by all 
sciences, printed in learned books and periodicals, and expounded by the 
South's great statesmen in the Capitol at Washington. The Negro's subor- 
dinate status was a principle integrated into a whole philosophy of society 
and of human life. The Negro was a completely different species of man- 
kind: undeveloped, "child like," amoral, and much less endowed with 
intellectual capacities than the white man; he was meant by the Creator to 
be a servant forever; if kept in his "place" he was useful or at least toler- 
able, and there he was also happy; "social equality" was unthinkable as it 
implied intermarriage which would destroy the white race and Anglo- 
Saxon civilization. Much of this theory — which acquired an elaborate 
structure to satisfy the specific needs to justify discrimination in various 
spheres of life — remained through Reconstruction, and it was again hailed 
in the Restoration of white supremacy. Indeed, much of it remained until 



Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads 1003 

a couple of decades ago. But now it is almost destroyed (or upper class and 
educated people. Its maintenance among lower class and uneducated people 
meets increasing difficulties. The gradual destruction of the popular theory 
behind race prejudice is the most important of all social trends in the field 
of interracial relations. 

It is significant that today even the white man who defends discrimina- 
tion frequently describes his motive as "prejudice" and says that it is 
"irrational." The popular beliefs rationalizing caste in America are no 
longer intellectually respectable. They can no longer, therefore, be found 
in current books, newspapers or public speeches. They live a surreptitious 
life in thoughts and private remarks. There we have had to hunt them 
when studying the matter in this inquiry. When they were thus drawn out 
into the open they looked shabby and ashamed of themselves. Everybody 
who has acquired a higher education knows that they are wrong. Most 
white people with a little education also have a hunch that they are wrong. 
There is today a queer feeling of credo quia absurdum hovering over the 
whole complex of popular beliefs sustaining racial discrimination. This 
makes the prejudiced white man nearly as pathetic as his Negro victim. 

The white man is thus in the process of losing confidence in the theory 
which gave reason and meaning to his way of life. And since he has not 
changed his life much, he is in a dilemma. This change is probably irrevers- 
ible and cumulative. It is backed by the American Creed. The trend of 
psychology, education, anthropology, and social science is toward environ- 
mentalism in the explanation of group differences, which means that the 
racial beliefs which defended caste are being torn away. It also means, by 
implication, that the white majority group in power is accused of being the 
cause of the Negro's deficiencies and unhappiness. Authority and respecta- 
bility are no longer supporting the popular beliefs. The beliefs are no 
longer nourished from above. Instead they are increasingly fought. There 
is a considerable time-lag between what is thought in the higher and in 
the lower social classes. But as time passes the lower social strata also will 
change their beliefs. These ideas are spread by the advance of education. 

All of this is important. People want to be rational, and they want to feel 
that they are good and righteous. They want to have the society they live 
in, and their behavior in this society, explained and justified to their con- 
science. And now their theory is being torn to pieces; its expression is 
becoming recognized as a mark of ignorance. 

On the other side of the caste gulf the development leads to increased 
bitterness. To the Negro the white man's trouble with his conscience cannot 
but seem to be insincerity or something worse. The Negro protest is rising, 
spurred by the improvement in education. The Negro group is being per- 
meated by the democratic and equalitarian values of the American culture. 
Since at the same time there has been increasing separation between the two 



1004 An American Dilemma 

groups, Negroes are beginning to form a self-conscious "nation within the 
nation," defining ever more clearly their fundamental grievances against 
white America. 

America can never more regard, its Negroes as a patient, submissive 
minority. Negroes will continually become less well "accommodated." 
They will organize for defense and offense. They will be more and more 
vociferous. They will watch their opportunities ever more keenly. They 
will have a powerful tool in the caste struggle against white America: the 
glorious American ideals of democracy, liberty, and equality to which 
America is pledged not only by its political Constitution but also by the 
sincere devotion of its citizens. The Negroes are a minority, and they are 
poor and suppressed, but they have the advantage that they can fight 
wholeheartedly. The whites have all the power, but they are split in their 
moral personality. Their better selves are with the insurgents. The Negroes 
do not need any other allies. 

This moral process had proceeded far when the Second World War 
broke out 

4. Nfgroes in the War Crisis 

This War is an ideological war fought in defense of democracy. The 
totalitarian dictatorships in the enemy countries had even made the ideolog- 
ical issue much sharper in this War than it was in the First World War. 
Moreover, in this War the principle of democracy had to be applied more 
explicitly to race. Fascism and nazism are based on a racial superiority 
dogma — not unlike the old hackneyed American caste theory — and they 
came to power by means of racial persecution and oppression. In fighting 
fascism and nazism, America had to stand before the whole world in favor 
of racial tolerance and cooperation and of racial equality. It had to denounce 
German racialism as a reversion to barbarism. It had to proclaim universal 
brotherhood and the inalienable human freedoms. The fact that the 
Japanese utilize anti-white feelings in Asia and elsewhere made it even 
more necessary to stress the racial equality principle. 

In the internal political struggle before America became involved in the 
War, the isolationists had worked up the idea that there was much to 
improve at home without trying to improve the rest of the world. They did 
not disdain even to point to the injustices inflicted upon the Negro; many 
isolationists to the left put the Negro cause to the forefront. A Georgia 
senator who had made a lengthy talk about the danger to democracy 
abroad was challenged by an isolationist co-senator with the question 
whether the fight for democracy should not begin in Georgia. The plight 
of the Negro sharecropper and the presence of peonage and lynching were 
brought up to stress the unsolved tasks at home and to win Negro sym- 
pathies for the isolationist- cause. 2 One permanent result of this pre-war 



Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads 1005 

discussion was that, in this War, the promises to establish the full demo- 
cratic liberties, not only abroad but also in America, played an even more 
prominent role than in the First World War. 

For the Negroes this new War carried unpleasant reminiscences of the 
earlier one. The situation looked bitterly ironical. This time, too, the Negro 
had to fight desperately to get the right to fight for his country. In the 
armed forces Negroes were discriminated against in the usual ways and to 
almost the same extent. Mobs had attacked Negro soldiers and war workers, 
and a Southern senator had requested the Army to keep Negro soldiers out 
of the South. Negroes also had to fight to get into the war industries and 
had only partial success. In the First World War they actually made 
considerable advances in industrial employment, and the Great Migration 
was a welcome consequence. But this time the nation was well stocked with 
unemployed whites at the beginning of the defense boom. A technological 
development had also intervened, decreasing the industrial demand for 
unskilled labor — the type of jobs for which Negroes are least unwelcome. 
Up to the time when this is being written (August, 1942)} the Negro has 
been almost excluded from the great bulk of the war industries. Discrimina- 
tion is the rule practically everywhere. 

Under the threat of a Negro march on Washington, skillfully staged by 
A. Philip Randolph, the President made a solemn proclamation against 
discrimination in the defense industries and government agencies and 
appointed a committee, having both Negro and white members, to see that 
it was observed. Other branches of the Administration made declarations 
and issued orders against discrimination: some of these statements were 
apparently sincere in their intention, some were face-saving moves, and 
most had their locus somewhere in the wide range between. The Repub- 
lican National Committee resolved that racial discriminations are "wrongs 
under the Constitution" and pledged the opposition party to work to 
correct them. The national labor unions also lined up for nondiscrimination. 
The Negroes heard and read the kindly promises. They again noted the 
public acceptance of their own reading of the Constitution and the American 
Creed. But they knew the grim reality. 

In the twenty years between the two World Wars the general level of 
education of the American Negroes had become considerably higher, and 
so had their capacity for democracy. The Negro press had become better 
equipped, and it reached farther. The Negro organizations had grown in 
strength. The national Negro leaders had become firmer, and they were 
more resentful. This time they were not willing cheerfully to postpone 
their complaints until the War was over. The elderly Du Bois renounced 
with bitterness the credulous advice he once gave his people in the First 
World War to "close ranks." In this new War the Negro leaders advertised 



ioo6 As American Dilemma 

freely— and sometimes provocatively — the danger of a low morale among 
Negroes. 

In this War there was a "colored" nation on the other side — Japan. And 
that nation started out by beating the white Anglo-Saxons on their own 
ground. The smoldering revolt in India against British rule had significance 
for the American Negroes, and so had other "color*' incidents in the world 
conflict: the wavering sympathies of several native populations in the 
Dutch and British possessions in the Pacific, the mistrust against Great 
Britain among the Arab peoples, the first abandonment of Ethiopia, and 
the ambiguity of the plans for the colonial chessboard of Africa. Even 
unsophisticated Negroes began to see vaguely a color scheme in world 
events, although their thoughts are usually not yet organized in a definite 
pattern. 3 In a "letter to the editor" by a Negro, which crept into a liberal 
white paper in the Upper South, the concluding sentences read: 

The Negro races on earth are very suspicious of the white man's good intentions. 
This is very likely to be the last war that the white man will be able to lead humanity 
to wage for plausible platitudes. 4 

And this low-toned threat from a single Southern Negro became occasion- 
ally more shrill in the North: all colored people should be united in their 
interests against the whites, and the aim should not be "national unity" but 
a real color war which would definitely end white imperialism and exploi- 
tation. 

But this was exceptional. World politics and the color issue are, in the 
final analysis, of secondary importance to American Negroes, except as 
avenues for the expression of dissatisfaction. The American Negro is thor- 
oughly Americanized; his complaint is merely that he is not accepted. 
What really matters to him is his treatment at home, in his own country. 
A Negro journalist, explaining the feeling of the Negro to the white public, 
has this to say: 

Because he must fight discrimination to fight for his country and to earn a living, 
the Negro to-day is angry, resentful, and utterly apathetic about the war. "Fight for 
what?" he is asking. "This war doesn't mean a thing to me. If we win 1 lose, so 
what?" 5 

Reading the Negro press and hearing all the reports from observers who 
have been out among common Negroes in the South and the North con- 
vince me that there is much sullen skepticism, and even cynicism, and vague, 
tired, angry dissatisfaction among American Negroes today. The general 
bitterness is re&ected in the stories that are circulating in the Negro 
communities: A young Negro, about to be inducted into the Army, said, 
"Just carve on my tombstone, 'Here lies a black man killed fighting a 
yellow man for the protection of a white man.'" Another Negro boy 



Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads 1007 

expressed the same feeling when he said he was going to get his eyes 
slanted so that the next time a white man shoved him around he could 
fight back.* Their caste status being what it is in America, Negroes would, 
indeed, not be ordinary human beings if such dissatisfaction and bitterness 
were not their reaction to all the morale talk about democracy, the four 
freedoms, the American way of life, all the violent denunciations of Nazi 
race hatred and the lack of freedom under totalitarian rule. We should 
also remember, however, that, even if Negroes are still mainly excluded 
from work in the manufacturing industries and from employment offering 
much future prospect, the war boom has created a lot of secondary employ- 
ment for Negroes, too. There is more money in circulation and some 
trickles down to the Negroes. With a little money in his pocket even the 
poor Negro day laborer or domestic worker feels that he can afford to 
stiffen himself. Many white housewives notice strange thoughts and 
behavior on the part of their Negro servants these days. 

The loyalty of the American Negro in war and peace is, however, prover- 
bial. The only thing Negroes ask for is to be accepted as Americans. The 
American Constitution is even dearer to them than to their white compa- 
triots. They are more unreservedly anti-fascist. Few American Negroes 
want the Axis powers to win the War. But this is not much of an issue to 
Negroes, as they, about as much as white Americans, are convinced of the 
invincibility of their country. Negroes have never doubted the strength and 
resourcefulness of the whites. Even more, they know that America offers 
more possibility of democracy, even for themselves, than do the Axis 
nations. In one of the most thoughtful statements on the question of Negro 
loyalties since the beginning of the war crisis, Ralph Bunche says: 

There should be no illusions about the nature of this struggle. . . . The fight now 
is not to save democracy, for that which does not exist cannot be saved. But the fight 
is to maintain those conditions under which people may continue to strive for realiza- 
tion of the democratic ideals. This is the inexorable logic of the nation's position as 
dictated by the world anti-democratic revolution and Hitler's projected new world 
order. 7 

But it is quite common that Negroes feel a satisfaction in the temporary 
adversities and want the War to become as serious a matter as possible to 
the white people in power. There have been reports that poor Negro share- 
croppers in the South sometimes indulge in dreams of a Japanese army 
marching through the South and killing off a number of "crackers." They 
do not want them to land in the North, though, and they certainly do not 
want them to stay. But much more common is a glowing ill-concealed 
satisfaction over the war adversities on various fronts. Practically every 
issue of any Negro newspaper gives proof of this attitude. It must be 
conceded that Negroes have also some good rational reasons for this feeling. 
They know, of course, that, as a Northern Negro social scientist explains: 



ioo8 An American Dilemma 

... the graver the outside clanger to the safety of this country, the more abundant 
the gains will be likely to be [for the Negroes]. But until such time as this country 
is actually in grave clanger most of the attention given to the problem of [Negro] 
morale will be that of conjuring up the right type of propaganda to allay their dis- 
content. 8 

A white commentator complained some months ago that the Negro press 
is something of a fifth column. He received the unanimous and angry- 
answer in all Negro papers that this is exactly contrary to the truth. 
Negroes are standing only for the democratic principles, to defend which 
America is waging war. They are dissatisfied because these principles are 
ignored in America itself. They are just the opposite of war dodgers and 
traitors: they pray to have the right to fight and die for their country and 
to work in the war industries, but they are excluded. They can, with new 
reason, point to the inconsistency between American ideals and practices, as 
does one of their wisest editors, Elmer A. Carter: ". . . this strange and 
curious picture, this spectacle of America at war to preserve the ideal of 
government by free men, yet clinging to the social vestiges of the slave 
system." 9 This ideological attack is so clear-cut and simple and so obviously 
to the point that it appeals even to the least educated Negro. The cause 
of the American Negro has supreme logical strength. And the Negro is 
better prepared than ever before in his history to fight for it. 

5. The War and the Whites 

This simple logic is, of course, apparent to white Americans, too. And 
the whites were on the way, even before the War, to lose their caste theory 
and their complacency in the face of obvious abuses of the American Creed. 
They are also stirred up by the War and the great cause of human liberties 
at stake. In the North the question can be publicly approached in only one 
spirit, that of the American Creed. A newspaper editorial reads like this: 

If the United Nations win this war the principle of the world-wide legal equality 
of races will have to be recognized. Since this is largely a war of ideas, and since 
racial equality before the law has become one of the central ideas on the demo- 
cratic side, we can almost say that this principle, in itself, may be the deciding factor. 
The Chinese, the East Indians, the numerous African peoples and many other groups 
are on our side, or would be so if they were completely convinced that we mean what 
we say by equality just as unreservedly as the Nazis mean what they say by inequality. 
But we Americans cannot very well talk convincingly in these terms unless we prove 
our sincerity in our own country. Our largest recognizable racial minority is the 
Negro. 10 

The titular leader of the Republican party, Wendell Willkie, speaking 
in July, 1942, at the annual conference of the N.A.A.C.P. in Los Angeles, 
California, had this to say: 



Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads 1009 

Today it is becoming increasingly apparent to thoughtful Americans that we cannot 
fight the forces and ideas of imperialism abroad and maintain a form of imperialism at 
home. The war has done this to our thinking. ... So we are finding under the 
pressures of this present conflict that long-standing barriers and prejudices are break- 
ing down. The defense of our democracy against the forces that threaten it from 
without has made some of its failures to function at home glaringly apparent. Our 
very proclamations of what we are fighting for have rendered our own inequities 
self-evident. When we talk of freedom and opportunity for all nations the mocking 
paradoxes in our own society become so clear they can no longer be ignored. 11 

The world conflict and America's exposed position as the defender of the 
democratic faith is thus accelerating an ideological process which was well 
under way. In this dramatic stage of the American caste struggle a strategic 
fact of utmost importance is this, that the entire caste order is extra-legal 
if not actually illegal and unconstitutional. The legal order of the land 
does not sanction caste but, on the contrary, is framed to guarantee equality 
and to suppress caste. The only important exceptions are the Jim Crow 
laws in the Southern states. But even they are written upon the fiction of 
equality, although, if equality were enforced, they would not only lose in 
efficacy as means of expressing caste subordination, but also become tremen- 
dously burdensome economically for society and, consequently, the whites 
would be robbed of one of their main interests in upholding them. 

The whites are aware of the tremendous social costs of keeping up the 
present irrational and illegal caste system. Among other things, this anomaly 
is one of the main factors keeping the respect for law and order and the 
administration of laws at such a low level in America. The whites investigate 
these irrationalities and the consequent social wastage} they build scientific 
systems to explain their social causation, in fact, they know all about it and 
deplore it. They have the political power to make caste legal and orderly, 
whether with Negro consent or without it. But practically never will whites 
be heard making such proposals, and still less will they seriously discuss 
and plan for such a change. They cannot afford to compromise the American 
Creed. 

Caste may exist, but it cannot be recognized. Instead, the stamp of 
public disapproval is set upon it, and this undermines still more the caste 
theory by which the whites have to try to explain and justify their behavior. 
And the Negroes are awarded the law as a weapon in the caste struggle. 
Here we see in high relief how the Negroes in their fight for equality have 
their allies in the white man's own conscience. The white man can humiliate 
the Negro; he can thwart his ambitions; he can starve him; he can press 
him down into vice and crime; he can occasionally beat him and even kill 
him; but he does not have the moral stamina to make the Negro's subjuga- 
tion legal and approved by society. Against that stands not only the Consti- 



IOIO An American Dilemma 

tution and the laws which could be changed, but also the American Creed 
which is firmly rooted in the Americans' hearts. 

6. The North Moves Toward Equality 

In the North the Creed was strong enough long before the War to 
secure for the Negro practically unabridged civic equality in all his relations 
with public authority, whether it was in voting, before the courts, in the 
school system or as a relief recipient. But he is discriminated against ruth- 
lessly in private relations, as when looking for a job or seeking a home, to 
live in. The white Northerner, in his private dealings with people to whom 
he does not feel akin, has dangerous traditions derived from the exploita- 
tion of new immigrants. But even in those nonpublic spheres, and particu- 
larly in the problem of breadwinning, the white Northerner is becoming 
prepared, as a citizen, to give the Negro his just opportunity. But appar- 
ently, as a private individual, he is less prepared to feel that he himself 
is the man to give the Negro a better chance: in his own occupation, trade 
union, office or workshop, in his own residential neighborhood or in his 
church. The social paradox in the North is exactly this, that almost every- 
body is against discrimination in general but, at the same time, almost 
everybody practices discrimination in his own personal affairs. 

It is the cumulation of all these personal discriminations which creates 
the color bar in the North and for the Negro causes unusually severe 
unemployment, crowded housing conditions, crime and vice. About this 
social process the ordinary white Northerner keeps sublimely ignorant and 
unconcerned. This aloofness is, of course, partly opportunistic but it can 
be fought by education. When now, in the war emergency, the Negro is 
increasingly given sympathetic publicity by newspapers, periodicals, and 
the radio, and by administrators and public personalities of all kinds, one 
result is that the white Northerner is gradually waking up and seeing what 
he is doing to the Negro and is seeing also the consequences of his demo- 
cratic Creed for his relations with Negroes. We have become convinced in 
the course of this inquiry that the North is getting prepared for a funda- 
mental redefinition of the Negro's status in America. The North will accept 
it if the change is pushed- by courageous leadership. And the North has 
much more power than the South. The white South is itself a minority and 
a national problem. 

Also working in favor of the Negro is another trend, namely, the 
concentration of responsibility. Particularly in the crucial economic sphere 
this trend is rapid. Labor relations are coming increasingly to be planned 
and regulated by broad union policies and by national legislation and 
administration. The War will force this change forward step by step. After 
the War, in the great crisis of demobilization and liquidation, mass unem- 
ployment will be a main problem. Large-scale public intervention will be 



Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads ioii 

a necessity. In this endeavor no national administration will dare to allow 
unemployment to be too much concentrated upon the Negro. 

The average white Northerner will probably agree with a policy which 
holds open employment opportunities for Negroes, because, as we said, he 
is against economic discrimination as a general proposition. There is also — 
together with all opportunistic ignorance and unconcernedness — a bit of 
rational defense for the distance he preserves between his political and his 
private opinion. In the individual shop where he works or the residential 
section where he lives, he sees the danger in admitting a few Negroes, since 
this will bring an avalanche of Negroes on his shop or his neighborhood. 
This danger is, of course, due to the fact of the Negro's general exclusion. 
It is part of the vicious circle holding the Negro down. 

If government policy prevents general discrimination, however, there 
will be no avalanche of Negroes on any one white employer or group of 
employers. The Negroes, who comprise less than 10 per cent of the popula- 
tion, must be given their chance in private enterprise or be supported by 
public funds. "Buck-passing" is no longer possible when the problem comes 
to be viewed nationally. And the planning and directing agencies will be 
compelled to make the white public see the problem nationally in order to 
get public support for the policy they must pursue. As private relations 
are increasingly becoming public relations, the white Northerner will be 
willing to give the Negro equality. 

These are the reasons why we foresee that the trend of unionization, 
social legislation, and national planning will tend to break down economic 
discrimination, the only type of discrimination which is both important and 
strong in the North. Other types of discrimination will then tend to 
decrease according to the law of cumulative causation which has been fre- 
quently referred to in this book. 

7. Tension in the South 

The situation in the South is different. Unlike the white Northerner, 
who is most inclined to give the Negro equality in public relations and 
least inclined to do so in private relations, the white Southerner does not 
differentiate between public and private relations — the former as well as 
the latter have significance for prestige and social equality. Moreover, he 
is traditionally and consistently opposed to Negro equality for its own sake, 
which the Northerner is not. He may be privately indulgent much more 
than the white Northerner, but he is not as willing to give the Negro equal 
treatment by public authority. This is one of the romantic principles behind 
the legal inequity in the South. But the Southerner is a good American, too, 
and the region has been becoming rapidly "Americanized" during the last 
generation. 

The ordinary conservative white Southerner has, therefore, a deeper 



Z0I2 An American Dilemma 

split in his moral personality than does the white Northerner. ThewWar 
is stirring up the conflict in his soul. The air is filled with reminders of 
the great cause of democracy and the equality of peoples, which is the main 
issue in the War America is waging against nazism, fascism, and Japanese 
imperialism. His "own Negroes" are making some money, reading the 
Negro press and getting restless. The N.A .A.C.P. and other protest organ- 
izations are fighting ever more daringly in his own cities. In his newspapers 
he reads how the national leaders, from the President down, come out with 
blunt denunciations of racial discrimination. He is finding that Northern 
leaders are increasingly getting interested in the poll tax, the white pri- 
mary, Negro disfranchisement, injustices against Negroes, and other 
peculiar institutions of the South which he guards behind the doctrine of 
"states* rights." 

What is he supposed to do? Give up Jim Crow and so perhaps allow a 
Negro to marry his daughters; build good schools for Negroes, though 
the schools are not too good for his own children; punish white invaders 
of Negro rights, though they otherwise may be perfectly good and upright 
citizens; relinquish white supremacy? Is he supposed to retreat from all 
"Southern traditions"? He sees "outside aggression" wherever he turns. 

This is an old story and a phase of a mental cycle through which the 
unfortunate South has often passed before. The fact that this time the white 
Southerner's caste theory is weaker than ever and does not inspire much of 
his own intellectual confidence makes his dilemma worse. His emotions 
on the color issue are less stable also because his personal ties to the Negro 
group have been decreasing, and racial isolation has been intensified during 
the last generation. He "knows the Negro" less well than did his father 
and grandfather, though he continues to pretend that he knows him well, 
because to "know the Negro" is also a Southern tradition. Having fewer 
personal contacts with Negroes he is likely to exaggerate the signs of oppo- 
sition from the Negroes, for he feels that the Negroes have good reason to 
develop opposition. The presence in Southern communities of Negro 
soldiers, many from the North, increases, his uneasiness. Du Bois, writing 
about the First World War, talks about: 

. . . the deep resentment mixed with the pale ghost of fear which Negro soldiers 
call up in the breast of the white South. It is not so much that they fear that the 
Negro will strike if he gets a chance, but rather that they assume with curious 
unanimity that he has reason to strike, that any other persons in his circumstances, or 
treated as he is would rebel. Instead of seeking to relieve the cause of such a possible 
feeling, most of them strain every effort to bottle up the black man's resentment. 12 

In the present crisis, Guion G. Johnson, a liberal Southern white histo- 
rian, could already in July, 1941, report from the South that 

. . . there has been some uneasiness that "our Negroes" are being tampered with, 
and white advocates of racial goodwill have occasionally found it more difficult 



Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads 1013 

within the last year to speak out boldly. White persons who have for decades been 
working toward interracial cooperation may now find themselves charged with fifth 
column activity and Negro leaders may be denounced as communists or nazis. 18 

Another prominent white Southern liberal describes in a letter to the author 
the mental state of the white South as of summer, 1942: 

... we are in the midst of a situation in the South where we seem to have been 
thrown back with great losses where we had expected great gains: and ... the situa- 
tion in the South may be of the proportions of a crisis greater than we have had 
in many years. For the first time in my experience the situation is so complex that we 
do not know how to proceed to next steps. Just a few yeaTS ago we almost had 
unanimity in plans for cooperative arrangements, in which Negroes and whites were 
enthusiastic and in which representatives of nearly all phases of the South were partici- 
pants. We had worked into entirely new patterns of fellowship and participation, and 
there were many evidences that the South was beginning to be proud of this progress. 
Today, as far as I know, there is practically none of this left. The South is becoming 
almost unanimous in a pattern of unity that refers to white unity. The thousands of 
incidents and accidents in the South are being integrated into the old pattern of 
Southern determination against an outside aggression. 14 

In the approaching conflict between the Negro and the South, this writer 
sees that 

... a South which was just coming into its own, getting ready for an enriched 
agriculture, a more balanced economy, a more liberal viewpoint will sacrifice all this 
in a pathetic blood and sweat episode reminiscent of the Civil War and Reconstruc- 
tion. 

Similar to this deeply concerned statement of a liberal white Southerner, 
we may cite the equally troubled view of a Negro clergyman, Dr. J. S. 
Nathaniel Tross: 

I am afraid for my people. They have grown restless. They are not happy. They 
no longer laugh. There is a new policy among them — something strange, perhaps 
terrible. 15 

The situation is so critical in the South today that fifty Southern Negro 
leaders have seen fit to gather together, deliberately excluding Northern 
Negroes, and to plead for racial amity. They accept social segregation, but 
request the elimination of all other inequalities. This development was 
made necessary by the fearful backing away of some Southern liberals — 
notably Mark Ethridge, John Temple Graves, and Virginius Dabney — 
from the social segregation issue. The meeting of the Southern Negroes 
serves both as an attempt to prevent the racial lines from being drawn more 
sharply and as a disclaimer of responsibility for future violence. 

An important element in the situation is that the Southern Negroes, if 
they are attacked, are more prepared to fight this time than they have ever 



iOH An American Dilemma 

Wta before. A competent Negro social scientist, who has recentty been 
studying conditions in the Upper South, confirms this view and, in May, 
1 04 j, confides that he expects die outbreak of serious race riots in the South 
within the next year. 

The situation is grave, and the years to come will provide a serious test 
of the political resourcefulness of white public authorities and of other 
white and Negro leaders. But regardless of what happens, we do not believe 
that this is a turn for the worse in race relations in the South. Even if there 
are going to be serious clashes and even if their short-run effects will be 
devastating to the Negroes involved and, perhaps, to Negroes in the whole 
region, we believe that the long-run effect of the present opinion crisis in 
the South, because it is a catharsis for the whites, will be a change toward 
increased equality for the Negro. When we make this judgment, we recall 
a remark once made in a conversation by a prominent and conservative 
Negro social scientist in the South. He stated as his considered opinion that 
tensions are not necessarily bad and that under certain conditions even race 
riots may have wholesome effects in the long run. He continued in about 
the following way: "They stir up people's conscience. People will have 
to think matters over. They prevent things from becoming settled. If the 
race situation should ever become fixed, if the Negro were really accommo- 
dated, then, and only then, would I despair about a continued great 
improvement for Negroes. As long as there is friction and fighting, there 
is hope." 

At this juncture the white North is moving in a direction contrary to the 
South. The white South is becoming increasingly isolated. There has not 
been such a great distance in the views of the Negro problem between the 
white majority groups in the two regions since Reconstruction. Though 
it is seldom expressed clearly, the outside observer feels convinced that an 
increasing number of white Northerners mean business this time. It is true, 
as James Weldon Johnson once observed, that "essentially the status of the 
Negro in all other sections will depend upon what it is in the South," 16 
but the North will find it increasingly necessary to have its say about the 
Negroes' status in the South. The North cannot well afford any longer 
to let the white Southerners have their own way with the Negroes as 
completely as they have had. 

The national compromise has lasted for two generations ; it may now 
be approaching its end, at least relatively. Ten years from now this period 
in the history of interracial relations in America may come to look as a 
temporary interregnum. The compromise was not a stable power equilib- 
rium. Signs of its end have been frequent during the 'thirties: a whole set 
of Supreme Court decisions, the New Deal in the South, the increasing 
activity of federal agencies to stamp out peonage, the agitation for a federal 
lynching law and for an abolition of the poll tax by Congress, the repeal 



Chapter. 45. America Again at the Crossroads 1015 

of the two-thirds majority rule for the nomination of the Democratic 
candidate for the Presidency, and so on. 

The Negro problem is becoming national in scope in a different sense 
than was meant when white Southerners expressed a belief that the Negro 
migration to the North would give the North more of a share in the trouble 
of having Negroes as neighbors and that then the North would understand 
the racial philosophy of the South better. The Negro vote and the labor 
vote in the North also have considerable weight in checking Southern 
conservatism and have increasing power to do so. But aside from all that, 
.rational planning cannot leave out the South or humor too much its irra- 
tionality. As a matter of fact the South, particularly its agriculture and its 
population pressure, will continue to remain one of the main national 
worries. 

Because of this development, spurred by the war crisis and the coming 
peace crisis, it seems justifiable to predict a growing tension between the 
two regions, one which will not be restricted to the Negro issue. There if 
not going to be a civil war, of course. The South is this time relatively 
much weaker in all respects. The North will probably not become more 
considerate if the interracial tension in the South gets out of hand and 
results in bloody clashes. As recourse to civil war is out of the question and 
as things thus have to be settled by political means, the fact becomes of 
importance that the white South is not united against a redefinition of the 
Negro's status. The South has been, and is, changing rapidly, and Southern 
liberalism has been coming to be a force though it was practically nowhere 
in political power and today is fearfully timid on the Negro issue. Even 
the ordinary conservative white Southerner has a deeply split personality. 
In the short run this can be suppressed, and the tension can lead to violent 
reactions. But in the long run it means that the conservative white South- 
erner himself can be won over to equalitarian reforms in line with the 
American Creed. 

8. International Aspects 

What has actually happened within the last few years is not only that the 
Negro problem has become national in scope after having been mainly a 
Southern worry. It has also acquired tremendous international implications, 
and this is another and decisive reason why the white North is prevented 
from compromising with the white South regarding the Negro. The situa- 
tion is actually such that any and all concessions to Negro rights in this 
phase of the history of the world will repay the nation many times, while 
any and all injustices inflicted upon him will be extremely costly. This is 
not yet seen clearly by most Americans, but it will become increasingly 
apparent as the War goes on. 

We mentioned in passing that the American Negro cannot help observing 



ioi6 An American Dilemma 

the colon angle to this War. He is obviously getting vicarious satisfaction 
out of this perspective, and he is also testing some vague feelings of solidar- 
ity and allegiance to the cause of other colored peoples involved in the 
world conflagration. But this is a minor part of the international implica- 
tions. The American Negro is thoroughly American in his culture and 
whole outlook on the world. He is also loyal to America, and there is no 
danger that he will betray it. This is at least certain in the short-range view, 
which covers this War and the coming peace. How the Negro would react 
if he were left dissatisfied and if later a new war were to be fought more 
definitely along color lines is more difficult to predict. 

The main international implication is, instead, that America, for its 
international prestige, power, and future security, needs to demonstrate to 
the world that American Negroes can be satisfactorily integrated into its 
democracy. In a sense, this War marks the end of American isolation. 
America has had security behind the two protecting oceans. When now this 
isolation has been definitely broken, the historians will begin to see how it 
has always greatly determined the development of America. Statesmen 
will have to take cognizance of the changed geopolitical situation of the 
nation and carry out important adaptations of the American way of life 
to new necessities. A main adaptation is bound to be a redefinition of the 
Negro's status in American democracy. 

It is commonly observed that the mistrust of, or open hostility against, 
the white man by colored people everywhere in the world has greatly 
increased the difficulties for the United Nations to win this War." Many 
old sins and stupidities are today staring back upon the white man, and he 
continues to commit them, though he now knows better. The treatment of 
the Negro in America has. not made good propaganda for America abroad 
and particularly not among colored nations. That good American who has 
acquired such a rare understanding for the Asiatic people's mind, Pearl S. 
Buck, comments: 

Japan ... is declaring in the Philippines, in China, in India, Malaya, and even 
Russia that there is no basis for hope that colored peoples can expect any justice from 
the people who rule in the United States, namely, the white people. For specific 
proof the Japanese point to our treatment of our own colored people, citizens of 
generations in the United States. Every lynching, every race riot, gives joy to Japan. 
The discriminations of the American army and navy and the air forces against colored 
soldiers and sailors, the exclusion of colored labor in our defense industries and trade 
unions, all our social discriminations, are of the greatest aid today to our enemy in 
Asia, Japan. "Look at America," Japan is saying to millions of listening ears. "Will 
white Americans give you equality? " 1T 

* Not only colored peoples have been disturbed by America's treatment of her Negroes. 
The German radio often mentions America's harsh treatment of Negroes in its propaganda 
broadcast* to European peoples. (New York Times [September z, 1942], p. 3.) 



Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads 1017 
■And she assures her compatriots: 

We cannot . . . win this war without convincing our colored allies — who are most 
of our allies — that we are not fighting for ourselves as continuing superior over 
colored peoples. The deep patience of colored peoples is at an end. Everywhere 
among them there is the same resolve for freedom and equality that white Americans 
and British have, but it h a grimmer resolve, for it includes the determination to be 
rid of white rule and exploitation and white race prejudice, and nothing will weaken 
this will. 18 

This is perhaps an exaggeration. Perhaps the War can this time be won 
even without the colored people's confidence. But the absence of their full 
cooperation, and still more their obstructive activities, will be tremendously 
costly in time, men and materials. Caste is becoming an expensive luxury 
of white men. 

It seems more definitely certain that it will be impossible to make and 
preserve a good peace without having built up the fullest trust and good- 
will among the colored peoples. They will be strong after the War, and 
they are bound to become even stronger as time passes. For one thing, this 
is certain in so far as numbers are concerned. During the short span of the 
last three centuries, which include almost the entire epoch of white power 
expansion, the peoples of European stock increased sevenfold, while the 
others increased only threefold. The whites grew from a bare 100 millions, 
or a fifth of the globe's total, to over 700 millions, or a third of all man- 
kind. The increase for the whites was fastest during the last century when 
they gradually became able to control deaths but had not as yet brought 
births under control. The whites are, however, now in the second phase 
of this dynamic sequence: the white birth rate is falling so fast that it is 
catching up with the relatively stable death rate. The population expansion 
of the whites is now slowing down, absolutely and relatively. Many of the 
Western nations, including America and all those other peoples on the 
highest level of industrial civilization, will probably start to shrink in 
population numbers within a few decades. The colored nations, on the 
other hand, are just entering the first stage where expansion is likely to be 
pushed by an increasingly improved control over death, and it is unlikely 
that the increase in birth control will keep pace with the improvement of 
the control over death. The whites will, therefore, from now on become a 
progressively smaller portion of the total world population. If we except 
the Russian peoples, who are still rapidly increasing, the rapid change in 
proportion stands out still more dramatically. 

Another broad trend is almost as certain, namely, that the "backward" 
countries, where most colored people live, are going to become somewhat 
industrialized. The examples of Japan and, more recently, of Russia and 
China give support to the view that in the future we shall see many back- 
ward countries industrialized at a tremendously more rapid rate than were 



ioi8 An American Dilemma 

the pioneer Western countries, who -had to find out everything for them- 
selves. The same examples illustrate also how such backward nations can 
advantageously use the newly created industrial apparatus for producing 
war materials, and they illustrate, too, how they can fight with them. 

Particularly as Russia cannot be reckoned on to adhere to white suprem- 
acy, it is evident from these facts — though nobody in our countries seems 
to take it seriously — that within a short period the shrinking minority of 
white people in our Western lands will either have to succumb or to find 
ways of living on peaceful terms with colored people. If white people, for 
their own preservation, attempt to reach a state in which they will be 
tolerated by their colored neighbors, equality will be the most they will 
be strong enough to demand. 

History is never irredeemable, and there is still time to come to good 
terms with colored peoples. Their race pride and race prejudice is still 
mostly a defensive mental device, a secondary reaction built up to meet 
the humiliations of white supremacy. This is apparent in the case of the 
American Negro. It probably holds true even for other colored people 
who have not yet had a taste of power. A Chinese propaganda leaflet 
assures the Americans: 

Chinese nationalism or race-consciousness is essentially defensive in character. It 
has developed out of continuous fight for freedom, and has never been offensive. 19 

It should be apparent that the time to come to an understanding on the 
basis of equality is rapidly running out. When colored nations have once 
acquired power but still sense the scorn of white superiority and racial 
discrimination, they are likely to become indoctrinated by a race prejudice 
much more akin to that of the whites — a race prejudice which can be 
satisfied only by the whites' humiliation and subjugation. 

9. Making the Peace 

Americans in general are concerned with the task of making a constructive 
peace after the War. It is commonly understood that this task is fraught 
with immense and unprecedented difficulties and, particularly, that the 
flagrant mismanagement of international affairs by the great democracies 
in the period between the two World Wars, the devastation caused by the 
Second World War, the breaking up of the state structures of Europe, and 
the approaching liquidation of colonial imperialism in the Far East have 
created a psychological state in mankind which, aside from all physical and 
economic deficiencies, raises almost insurmountable obstacles for the peace- 
makers. Americans generally recognize also that the protection of the two 
oceans is gone forever, that American isolationism will never more be 
possible, that America is in world politics for better or for worse, and that 



Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads 1019 

this time it has to stick to the making and upholding of the peace which 
is yet to be written. 

Americans also recognize that America has to take world leadership. 
The coming difficult decades will be America's turn in the endless sequence 
of main actors on the world stage. America then will have the major 
responsibility for the manner in which humanity approaches the long era 
during which the white peoples will have to adjust to shrinkage while the 
colored are bound to expand in numbers, in level of industrial civilization 
and in political power. For perhaps several decades, the whites will still 
hold the lead, and America will be the most powerful white nation. 

America goes to this task with the best of intentions. Declarations of 
inalienable human rights for people all over the world are now emanating 
from America. Wilson's fourteen points were a rehearsal; Roosevelt's four 
freedoms are more general and more focused on the rights of the individual. 
The national leaders proclaim that the coming peace will open an age of 
human liberty and equality everywhere. This was so in the First World 
War, too. This time something must be done to give reality to the glittering 
generalities, because otherwise the world will become entirely demoralized. 
It will probably be impossible to excite people with empty promises a third 
time. It is commonly agreed, and taken as proved by the coming of this 
War, that peace cannot be preserved if the development of a democratic 
life in every nation is not internationally guaranteed and the possibility of 
oppression is not checked. It is anticipated that international agencies will 
be created to sanction such a development. 

In view of the clarity and unanimity in America on these fundamental 
points, few white Americans fully realize all the obvious implications. 
I have, for instance, met few white Americans who have ever thought of 
the fact that, if America had joined the League of Nations, American 
Negroes could, and certainly would, have taken their cases before inter- 
national tribunal back in the 'twenties. Some versatile Negro protest leaders 
are, however, familiar with the thought. After this War there is bound to 
be an international apparatus for appeal by oppressed minority groups. 
In America, Negro organizations like the N.A.A.C.P. are excellently 
equipped for such conspicuous litigation. It is, indeed, possible that such 
implications of the coming democratic peace, when they become better seen 
and publicly discussed, will act as deterrents and as a motive for isolation- 
ism in some American circles. But there is no way back. America is irre- 
deemably in world politics. 

Behind her two protecting oceans America has until now lived an 
exuberant and carefree life without having to bother much about its inter- 
national reputation. Probably no other modern people has cared less about 
what impression it makes on other nations. The ordinary American might 
have been interested to know, but has not bothered much about, the fact 



1020 An American Dilemma 

that lynching? and race riots are headlines in Bombay; that Huey t#ng 
and Father Coughlin, the wave of organized crime during and after 
Prohibition, the fiscal bankruptcy of Chicago some years ago, the corrupt 
political machines in Philadelphia, the Dayton trial of Darwinism, provided 
stories for the Sunday papers in Oslo; that many men and women in 
democratic countries around the entire world have had their first and 
decisive impression of American public life from the defense of Sacco and 
Vanzetti and the Scottsboro boys. Friends of America abroad have tried 
to make the picture of American life more balanced and more accurate by 
fixing public attention on the numerous good sides, on American accomplish- 
ments, on all the good intentions and on the favorable trends. But they 
have been only partly successful, and America itself has — until this War — 
never cared to advertise America abroad. 

This — like America's openness to criticism, which is the positive side of 
this unconcernedness — is a sign of great strength, but it was the strength 
of a departed isolation. There was also ignorance behind the attitude. 
Aware of all the good things in his country and rightly convinced that, on 
the whole, they greatly outweigh all the imperfections, the ordinary 
American takes it for granted that America is liked and trusted abroad. 

The loss of American isolation makes all this most serious. America has 
now joined the world and is tremendously dependent upon the support and 
good-will of other countries. Its rise to leadership brings this to a climax. 
None is watched so suspiciously as the one who is rising. None has so little 
license, none needs all his virtue so much as the leader. And America, for 
its own security, cannot retreat from leadership. 

There is, of course, another possible solution besides good-will, and that 
is power. In some quarters in America the observer finds exaggerated 
notions about the power which America's financial strength after the "War 
will allow her. Americans have not commonly taken to heart what was 
conclusively proved by experience in the period between the two World 
Wars, namely, that, after the loans are given, the power belongs to the 
debtor and not to the creditor. 

Military power, however, can be substituted for good-will. But America 
does not have the will or stamina for real imperialism. The farmer, the 
laborer, the merchant, the intellectual, in one word, the common man who 
ultimately makes political decisions is against suppression abroad. In the 
international field the Southerner is not unlike his Northern compatriot. 
All American adventures in imperialism give abundant proofs of half- 
heartedness and show again the power over the Americans of the American 
Creed. If America does not go fascist, American militarism will not be an 
adequate substitute for good-will. 

The treatment of the Negro is America's greatest and most conspicuous 
scandal. It is tremendously publicized, and democratic America will con- 



Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads 102 i 

tinue to publicize it itself. For the colored peoples all over the world, 
whose rising influence is axiomatic, this scandal is salt in their wounds. In 
all white nations which, because of the accident of ethnic homogeneity or 
for other causes, have not been inculcated with race prejudice, the color of 
the victim does not provide any excuse for white solidarity. That this is 
so in Russia is well known and advertised. It holds true also in many other 
white nations. 

10. America's Opportunity 

But these consequences of the present course of America's and the world's 
history should not be recorded only in terms of compelling forces. The 
bright side is that the conquering of color caste in America is America's own 
innermost desire. This nation early laid down as the moral basis for its 
existence the principles of equality and liberty. However much Americans 
have dodged this conviction, they have refused to adjust their laws to their 
own license. Today, more than ever, they refuse to discuss systematizing 
their caste order to mutual advantage, apparently because they most seri- 
ously mean that caste is wrong and should not be given recognition. They 
stand warmheartedly against oppression in all the world. When they are 
reluctantly forced into war, they are compelled to justify their participation 
to their own conscience by insisting that they are fighting against aggression 
and for liberty and equality. 

America feels itself to be humanity in miniature. When in this crucial 
time the international leadership passes to America, the great reason for 
hope is that this country has a national experience of uniting racial and 
cultural diversities and a national theory, if not a consistent practice, of 
freedom and equality for all. What America is constantly reaching for is 
democracy at home and abroad. The main trend in its history is the gradual 
realization of the American Creed. 

In this sense the Negro problem is not only America's greatest failure 
but also America's incomparably great opportunity for the future. If 
America should follow its own deepest convictions, its well-being at home 
would be increased directly. At the same time America's prestige and power 
abroad would rise immensely. The century-old dream of American patriots, 
that America should give to the entire world its own freedoms and its own 
faith, would come true. America can demonstrate that justice, equality and 
cooperation are possible between white and colored people. 

In the present phase of history this is what the world needs to believe. 
Mankind is sick of fear and disbelief, of pessimism and cynicism. It needs 
the youthful moralistic optimism of America. But empty declarations only 
deepen cynicism. Deeds are called for. If America in actual practice could 
show the world a progressive trend by which the Negro became finally 
integrated into modern democracy, all mankind would be given faith 



10X2 An American Ditsmma 

again— it would have reason to believe that peace, progress and ordes&re 
feasible. And America would have a spiritual power many times stronger 
than all her financial and military resources— the power of the trust and 
support of all good people on earth. America is free to choose whether the 
Negro shall remain her liability or become her opportunity. 

The development of the American Negro problem during the years to 
come is, therefore, fateful not only for America itself but for all mankind. 
If America wants to make the second choice, she cannot wait and see. She 
has to do something big and do it soon. For two generations after the 
national compromise of the 1870's between the North and the South on the 
Negro problem, the caste status of the Negro was allowed to remain almost 
unchanged. It was believed by most well-meaning people that self-healing 
would work, that the Negro problem would come to solve itself by the lapse 
of time. George Washington Cable wrote in the 'eighties: 

There is a vague hope, much commoner in the North than in the South, that 
somehow, if everybody -will sit still, "time" will bring these changes. 20 

Two decades later, Ray Stannard Baker reported from the South: 

All such relationships will work themselves out gradually, naturally, quietly, in the 
long course of the years: and the less they are talked about the better. 21 

Most of the literature on the Negro problem continues to this day to be 
written upon this same static assumption. 

We have given the reasons why we believe that the interregnum, during 
which the forces balanced each other fairly well, is now at an end. The 
equilibrium, contrary to common belief, was unstable and temporary. As 
American Negroes became educated and culturally assimilated, but still 
found themselves excluded, they grew bitter. Meanwhile the whites were 
in the process of losing their caste theory. The international upheavals 
connected with the two World Wars and the world depression brought 
these developments to a crisis. American isolation was lost. Technical 
developments brought all nations to be close neighbors even though they 
were not trained to live together. 

We are now in a deeply unbalanced world situation. Many human rela- 
tions will be readjusted in the present world revolution, and among them 
race relations are bound to change considerably. As always in a revolution- 
ary situation when society's moorings are temporarily loosened, there is, on 
the one hand, an opportunity to direct the changes into organized reforms 
and, on the other hand, a corresponding risk involved in letting the changes 
remain uncontrolled and lead into disorganization. To do nothing is to 
accept defeat. 

From the point of view of social science, this means, among other things, 
that social engineering, will increasingly be demanded. Many things that 
for a long period have been predominantly a matter of individual adjust- 



Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads 1023 

ment will become more and more determined by political decision and 
public regulation. We are entering an era where fact-finding and scientific 
theories of causal relations will be seen as instrumental in planning con- 
trolled social change. The peace will bring nothing but problems, one 
mounting upon another, and consequently, new urgent tasks for social 
engineering. The American social scientist, because of the New Deal and 
the War, is already acquiring familiarity with planning and practical action. 
He will never again be given the opportunity to build up so "disinterested" 
\ social science. 

The social sciences in America are equipped to meet the demands of the 
post-war world. In social engineering they will retain the old American 
faith in human beings which is all the time becoming fortified by research 
as the trend continues toward environmentalism in the search for social 
causation. In a sense, the social engineering of the coming epoch will be 
nothing but the drawing of practical conclusions from the teaching of social 
science that "human nature" is changeable and that human deficiencies and 
unhappiness are, in large degree, preventable. 

In this spirit, so intrinsically in harmony with the great tradition of the 
Enlightenment and the American Revolution, the author may be allowed 
to close with a personal note. Studying human beings and their behavior 
is not discouraging. When the author recalls the long gallery of persons 
whom, in the course of this inquiry, he has come to know with the impetu- 
ous but temporary intimacy of the stranger — sharecroppers and plantation 
owners, workers and employers, merchants and bankers, intellectuals, 
preachers, organization leaders, political bosses, gangsters, black and white, 
men and women, young and old, Southerners and Northerners — the general 
observation retained is the following: Behind all outward dissimilarities, 
behind their contradictory valuations, rationalizations, vested interests, 
group allegiances and animosities, behind fears and defense constructions, 
behind the role they play in life and the mask they wear, people are all 
much alike on a fundamental level. And they are all good people. They 
want to be rational and just. They all plead to their conscience that they 
meant well even when things went wrong. 

Social study is concerned with explaining why all these potentially and 
intentionally good people so often make life a hell for themselves and 
each other when they live together, whether in a family, a community, 
a nation or a world. The fault is certainly not with becoming organized 
fer se. In their formal organizations, as we have seen, people invest their 
highest ideals. These institutions regularly direct the individual toward 
more cooperation and justice than he would be inclined to observe as an 
isolated private person. The fault is, rather, that our structures of organ- 
izations are too imperfect, each by itself, and badly integrated into a social 
whole. 



1024 An American Dilemma 

The rationalism and moralism which is the driving force behind so&d 
study, whether we admit it or not, is the faith that institutions can be 
improved and strengthened and that people are good enough to live a 
happier life. With all we know today, there should be the possibility to 
build a nation and a world where people's great propensities for sympathy 
and cooperation would not be so thwarted. 

To find the practical formulas for this never-ending reconstruction of 
society is the supreme task of social science. The world catastrophe places 
tremendous difficulties in our way and may shake our confidence to the 
depths. Yet we have today in social science a greater trust in the improva- 
bility of man and society than we have ever had since the Enlightenment. 



APPENDICES 



APPENDIX I 

A METHODOLOGICAL NOTE ON 
VALUATIONS AND BELIEFS 



I. The Mechanism of Rationalization 

People hare ideas about how reality actually is, or was, and they have ideas about 
how it ought to be, or ought to have been. The former we call "beliefs." The latter 
we call "valuations." A person's beliefs, that is, his knowledge, can be objectively 
judged to be true or false and more or less complete. His valuations — that a social 
situation or relation is, or was, "just," "right," "fair," "desirable," or the opposite, 
in some degree of intensity or other — cannot be judged by such objective standards 
as science provides. In their "opimons" people express both their beliefs and their 
valuations. Usually people do not distinguish between what they think they know and 
what they like or dislike. 

There is a close psychological interrelation between the two types of ideas. In our 
civilization people want to be rational and objective in their beliefs. We have faith in 
science and arc, in principle, prepared to change our beliefs according to its results. 
People also want to have "reasons" for the valuations they hold, and they usually 
express only those valuations for which they think they have "reasons." To serve 
as opinions, specific valuations are selected, are formulated in words and are motivated 
by acceptable "reasons." With the help of certain beliefs about reality, valuations are 
posited as parts of a general value order from which they are taken to be logical 
inferences. This value hierarchy has a simple or elaborate architecture, depending 
mainly upon the cultural level of a person. But independently of this, most persons 
want to present to their fellows — and to themselves — a trimmed and polished sphere 
of valuations, where honesty, logic, and consistency rule. For reasons which we shall 
discuss, most people's advertised opinions are, however, actually illogical and contain 
conflicting valuations bridged by skewed beliefs about social reality. In addition, they 
indicate very inadequately the behavior which can be expected, and they usually 
misrepresent its actual motivation. 

The basic difficulty in the attempt to present a logical order of valuations is, of 
course, that those valuations actually are conflicting. When studying the way in which 
the valuations clash, and the personal and social results brought about by the conflicts, 
we shall, morover, have to observe that the valuations simply cannot be treated as if 
they existed on the same plane. They refer to different levels of the moral person- 
ality." The moral precepts contained in the respective valuations correspond to 

'This hypothesis is presented more fully in the Introduction to this volume (Sections i 
and 2). 

10*7 



1028 An American Dilemma 

different degrees of generality of moral judgment. Some valuations concern Jvman 
beingi in general; others concern Negroes or women or foreigners; still others 
concern a particular group of Negroes or an individual Negro. Some valuations have 
general and eternal validity; others have validity only for certain situations. In the 
Western culture people assume, as an abstract proposition, that the more general and 
timeless valuations are morally higher. We can, therefore, see that the motivation of 
valuations, already referred to, generally follows the pattern of trying to present the 
more specific valuations as inferences from the more general. 

In the course of actual day-to-day living a person will be found to focus attention 
on the valuations of one particular plane of his moral personality and leave in the 
shadow, for the time being, the other planes with their often contradicting valuations. 
Most of the time the selection of this focus of evaluation is plainly opportunistic. 
The expressed valuations and beliefs brought forward as motives for specific action or 
inaction are selected in relation to the expediencies of the occasion. They are the 
"good" reasons rather than the "true" reasons; in short, they are "rationalizations." 

The whole "sphere of valuations" — by which we mean the entire aggregate of a 
person's numerous and conflicting valuations, as well as their expressions in thought, 
speech, and behavior — is thus never present in conscious apperception. Some parts of 
it may even be constantly suppressed from awareness. But it would be a gross mistake 
to believe that the valuations temporarily kept in the shadow of subjective inatten- 
tion — and the deeper-seated psychic inclinations and loyalties represented by them — 
are permanently silenced. Most of them rise to consciousness now and then as the 
focus of apperception changes in reaction to the flow of experiences and impulses. 
Even when submerged, they are not without influence on actual behavior. They 
ordinarily bend behavior somewhat in their direction; the reason for suppressing them 
from conscious attention is that, if obeyed, they would affect behavior even more. 
In this treatise, therefore, behavior is conceived of as being typically the outcome of a 
moral compromise of heterogeneous valuations, operating on various planes of generality 
and rising in varying degrees and at different occasions to the level of consciousness. 
To assume the existence of homogeneous "attitudes" behind behavior would viokte 
the facts, as we must well know from everyday introspection and from observation 
and reflection. It tends to conceal the moral conflicts which are the ultimate object of 
our study in this book. 

The individual or the group whose behavior we are studying, moreover, does not 
act in moral isolation. He is not left alone to manage his rationalizations as he pleases, 
without interference from outside. His valuations will, instead, be questioned and 
disputed. Democracy is a "government by discussion," and so, in fact, are other forms 
of government, though to a lesser degree. Moral discussion goes on in all groups from 
the intimate family circle to the international conference table. Modern means of 
intellectual communication have increased the volume and the intensity of such moral 
interrelations. 

When discussion takes the form of moral criticism by one person or group or 
another, it is not that the one claims to have certain valuations that the other does 
not have. It is rather an appeal to valuations which the other keeps in the shadow of 
inattention, but which are assumed, nevertheless, to be actually held in common. This 
assumption, that those with opposing opinions have valuations in common, is ordinarily 



Appendix i. Note on Valuations and Beliefs 1019 

correct. As we observed in the Introduction,* cultural unity in America consists in 
the fact that most Americans have most valuations in common, though they are 
differently arranged and bear different intensity coefficients for different individuals 
and groups. This makes discussion possible and secures an understanding of, and a 
response to, criticism. 

In this process of moral criticism which men make upon each other, the valuations 
on the higher and more general planes — referring to all human beings and not to 
specific small groups — are regularly invoked by one party or the other, simply because 
they are held in common among all groups in society, and also because of the 
supreme prestige they are traditionally awarded. By this democratic process of open 
discussion there \i started a tendency which constantly forces a larger and larger part of 
the valuation sphere into conscious attention. More is made conscious than any single 
person or group would on his own initiative find it advantageous to bring forward at 
the particular moment. In passing, we might be allowed to remark that this effect — 
and in addition our common trust that the more general valuations actually represent 
a "higher" morality — is the principal reason why we, who are convinced democrats, 
hold that public discussion is purifying and that democracy itself provides a moral 
education of the people. 

When thus even the momentarily inopportune valuations are brought to attention, 
an element of indecision and complication is inserted. A need will be felt by the 
person or group, whose inconsistencies in valuations are publicly exposed, to find a 
means of reconciling the inconsistencies. This can be accomplished by adjusting one 
of the conflicting pairs of valuations. If the valuation to be modified is on the less 
general plane, a greater moral harmony in the larger group is brought about. Specific 
attitudes and forms of behavior are then reconciled to the more general moral 
principles. If, on the other hand, an attempt is made to change or reinterpret valuations 
which are more general in scope and most of the time consciously shared with all 
other groups in society, the deviant group will sec its moral conflict with other 
groups becoming increasingly explicit (that is, if the other groups are not themselves 
prepared to change their general valuations toward a moral compromise). This process 
might go on until discussion no longer becomes feasible. In the extreme case such 
a moral isolation, if the dissenting group is powerful enough, may break the peace 
and order of society and plunge a nation into civil war. 

In the short-run day-to-day conflicts, usually no abrupt changes of valuations will 
occur. The need for reconciling conflicting valuations brought into the open through 
public discussion will, for the time being, only result in quasi-logical constructions. 
In the very nature of things, these constructions must be fantastic, as they represent 
an attempt to reconcile the illogicalities by logical reasoning. 

The temptation will be strong to deny the very existence of a valuation conflict. 
This will sometimes bring in its wake grossly distorted notions about social reality. 
There is a sort of social ignorance which is most adequately explained as an attempt 
to avoid the twinges of conscience. It is, for instance, an experience of every social 
scientist, who has been working on problems of social policy and has taken some 
interest in people's reactions, that the strongest psychic resistance is aroused when 
an attempt is made to teach the better situated classes in a society about actual lower 

* Section z. 



1030 An American Dilemma 

class standards of living and what causes them. This particular type of moral i.st%fom 
works, sometimes with extraordinary effectiveness, in the American Negro problem. 

The feeling of need for logical consistency within the hierarchy of moral vain* 
ationi — and the embarrassed and sometimes distressed feeling that the moral order is 
shaky — is, in its modern intensity, a rather new phenomenon. With less mobility, less 
intellectual communication, and less public discussion, there was in previous generations 
less exposure of one another's valuation conflicts. The leeway for false beliefs, which 
makes rationalizations of valuations more perfect for their purpose, was also greater 
in an age when science was less developed and education less extensive. These historical 
differentials can be observed today within our own society among the different social 
layers with varying degrees of education and communication with the larger society, 
stretching all the way from the tradition-bound, inarticulate, quasi-folk-societieg in 
isolated backward regions to the intellectuals of the cultural centers. When one moves 
from the former groups to the latter, the sphere of moral valuations becomes less 
rigid, more ambiguous and also more translucent. At the same time, the more general 
valuations increasingly gain power over the ones bound to traditional peculiarities 
of regions, classes, or other smaller groups. One of the surest generalizations is that 
society, in its entirety, is rapidly moving in the direction of the more general 
valuations. The speed stands in some relation to, and can be gauged by, geographical 
mobility, the development of intellectual communication, the decrease of illiteracy 
and the funds spent on education. 

During this process of growing intellectualization, people's awareness of incon- 
sistencies in their own spheres of valuations tends to be enhanced. At the same time — 
if moral cynicism does not spread, a possibility which we shall consider presently — they 
are increasingly reconditioned to demand consistency in their own valuations and, 
particularly, in those of other people. They learn to recognize and to avoid the use 
of illogicalities and misconceptions of social reality for overcoming the incongruities 
in their valuations. The impatient humanitarian might find this process exasperatingly 
slow, and the results meager. The perspective of decades and generations, however — 
providing mora] catastrophes do not interrupt the growth process — yields a more 
optimistic impression. 

We have already hinted at the fact that valuations are seldom overtly expressed 
except when they emerge in the course of a person's attempts to formulate his beliefs 
concerning the facts and their implication in relation to some section of social reality. 
Beliefs concerning the facts are the very building stones for the logical hierarchies of 
valuations into which a person tries to shape his opinions. When the valuations 
are conflicting, as they normally are, beliefs serve the rationalization function of 
bridging illogicalities. The beliefs are thus not only determined by available scientific 
knowledge in society and the .efficacy of the means of its communication to various 
population groups but are regularly "biased," by which we mean that they are 
systematically twisted in the one direction which fits them best for purposes of 
rationalization. 

There are in the Negro problem whole systems of popular beliefs concerning 
the Negro and his relations to the larger society which are crudely false and can 
only be understood in this light. These "popular theories," or ideologies, are them- 
selves important data in our study, as they represent strategic social facts in the 
practical and political problems of race relations. A legitimate task of education is 



Appendix i. Note on Valuations and Beliefs 103 i 

to attempt to correct popular beliefs by subjecting them to rigorous examination in the 
light of the factual evidence. This educational objective must be achieved in the 
face of the psychic resistance mobilized by the people who feel an urgent need to 
retain their biased beliefs in order to justify their way of life. 

If this educational effort meets with success, the illogicalities involving valuations 
become exposed to the people who hold them. They are then pressed to change 
their valuations to some degree or other. For if popular beliefs depend upon valuations, 
as we have shown, the valuations also depend upon the beliefs in our civilization bent 
upon rationalism. When supporting beliefs are drawn away, people will have to 
readjust their value hierarchies and, eventually, their behavior. As the more general 
norms in our culture are given supreme moral sanction, this means — if we assume that 
this "valuation of the valuations" is upheld, and moral cynicism counteracted — that 
the valuations on a more specific level (often called "prejudices") will yield to them. 
This is the reason, and the only reason, why we generally assume that improved 
knowledge will make for "better" citizens. Facts by themselves do not improve 
anything. 

There is a question of terminology which should be touched upon, as it is 
not without importance for our scheme of thinking. The term "value" has, in its 
prevalent usage, a loose meaning. When tightened it is generally taken to refer to 
the object of valuations, rather than to the valuations themselves. Unfortunately it has 
a connotation of something solid and homogeneous while our hypothesis is that the 
valuations are conflicting. We shall avoid using the term "value." The term "attitude" 
has the same connotation of solidity. Too, it is often used to denote beliefs as well 
as valuations. When used in this book "attitude" should be understood as simply 
a convenient synonym for valuation.* 

2. Theoretical Critique of the Concept "Mores" 

We must voice our grave skepticism toward the simple explanatory scheme concern- 
ing the role of valuations in social life typified by William Graham Sumner's concepts, 
"folkways" and "mores." b Since his time these concepts — or one of their several 
synonyms — have been widely used by social scientists and have, in particular, deter- 
mined the approach to the Negro problem. The formula will be found to be invoked 
with some regularity whenever an author expresses his attitude that changes will be 
slow, or, more particularly, that nothing practical can be done about a matter. It is 
closely related to a bias in social science against induced changes, and especially against 
all attempts to intervene in the social process by legislation. The concept of mores 
actually implies a whole social theory and an entire laissez-faire ("do-nothing") 
metaphysics, and is so utilized. 

Leaving aside for the present the political connotations of Sumner's construction, 
and focusing our interest only on its usefulness as a scientific tool, our main criticism 

'This paragraph will, perhaps, explain why the author has not been able to avoid the 
term "valuation'' though knowing well that it is not widely used in America. The term 
has been used, however, by John Dewey in several of his works, by Charles H. Cooley in 
his Social Process (1918), by Robert M. Maclver in his Social Causation (1941), and 
probably by others. 

b William Graham Sumner, Folkways (1911, first edition 1906). 

'See Appendix 2, Section 3, and Chapter i, Section 11. 



1032 An American Dilemma 

if the following: By stowing the commonly held valuations Into the system of fibres, 
conceived of as a homogeneous, unproblematic, fairly static,* social entity, the inves- 
tigator it likely to underestimate the actual difference between individual) and 
group and the actual fluctuations and changes in time. He is also likely to lose sight 
entirely of the important facta, that even within a single individual valuations are 
operative on different planes of generality, that they are typically conflicting, and 
that behavior is regularly the outcome of a moral compromise. 

It might be that Sumner's construction contains a valid generalization and offers 
a useful methodological tool for studying primitive cultures and isolated, stationary 
folk-communities under the spell of magic and sacred tradition. It might even be 
that the most convenient definition of such a folk-culture is the applicability of the 
theory of folkways and mores. The theory is, however, crude and misleading when 
applied to a modern Western society in process of rapid industrialization, moving in 
swift trends rippled by indeterminate cyclical waves: a society characterized by national 
and international mobility, by unceasing changes and differentiations of all valuations 
and institutions, by spreading intellectualization, by widening intellectual communi- 
cation and secularization, by ever more daring discussion even of fundamentals and 
intimacies, and by a consequent virtually universal expectation of change and a firm 
belief in progress. If Sumner's construction is applied to such a society, except as a 
contrast conception to mark off some remaining backward cultural isolates which 
are merely dragged along and do not themselves contain the active factors of social 
dynamics, it is likely to conceal more than to expose. It conceals what is most 
important in our society: the changes, the conflicts, the absence of static equilibria, the 
lability in all relations even when they are temporarily, though perhaps for decades, 
held at a standstill. The valuation spheres, in such a society as the American, more 
nearly resemble powder-magazines than they do Sumner's concept of mores. 

3. Valuation Dynamics 

In our view, changes in valuations — of the type known as "revolutions," "muta- 
tions," or "explosions" — are likely to occur continuously in modern society. "Stability," 
or rather lack of change, when it reigns, is the thing which requires explanation. 
Individual persons in modern society are in the same sort of labile equilibrium as the 
molecules of explosives. Their valuations are inconsistent, and they are constantly 
reminded of the inconsistency. Occasionally the moral personalities of individuals 
burst, and a modification and rearrangement of the valuations in the direction of a 
more stable equilibrium is accomplished. 

Since similar influences work upon all individuals in the society, the cumulative 
results include continuous changes of "public opinion." Such changes are "intentional," 
in a sense, and part of a democratic development. The trend of opinions and 
changes in institutions in a democracy — the "reforms" — usually have their core in 
the cumulation of such valuation explosions in the minds of people. When the 
inconsistency between people's valuations is large and has effectively been exposed, 
the change might occasionally be sudden and quite big, and we speak then of a social 

* Summer recognized a "strain toward consistency" within the mores because of conflicting 
principles, but his main emphasis — and the same is true when the concept is used by con- 
temporary writers— is always upon stability, inertia, and resistance against induced change. 
Compare Appendix 2, Section 3. 



Appendix i. Note on Valuations and Beliefs 1033 

revolution. But the more evolutionary social change*, if they are dissected into their 
elements, are not very different except in magnitude. 

The history of every nation and of every community, in fact, of every group, 
is, in one sense, the record of the successive waves of such opinion explosions. Even 
societies have their catharses and, like individuals, they have them almost all the 
time. It is the weakness, not only of the static and fatalistic traditions in social 
science attached to the great names of Marx and Sumner, but of our common 
tendency to look for explanations in terms only of natural forces and material trends,* 
that we blind ourselves to the dynamics of opinion as it develops from day to day; 
or, in any case, we become inclined to deal with human opinions more as the result 
of social change than as part of the cause of it. 

By stressing that opinions are not passive elements in the social process, we have, 
of coarse, not meant to make them altogether independent of material forces. The 
very fact that opinions to an extent are opportunistic implies that they will change as 
a result of every other change in social environment. Changes in the technique of 
production, of communication and of consumption force individual and group revalu- 
ations. But so, also, does spread of knowledge, as well as moral discussion and political 
propaganda. Ideas have a momentum of their own; they are partly primary causes 
in the social process; or rather, they are integral factors in an interdependent system 
of causation. 

In an opinion catharsis — of an individual or a group— a new, temporary, and labile 
equilibrium of conflicting valuations is established. The direction in a normal and 
peaceful process of popular education is toward decreasing inconsistency. We said 
that ordinarily the new balance gives greater weight to the more general valuations. 
But our reason for the conclusion was that those valuations were generally agreed 
to be morally "higher" and have supreme social sanction, and wc added the reserva- 
tion that our conclusion assumes that moral cynicism does not spread. If moral 
cynicism should spread, however — that is, if people become willing to throw aside 
even their most cherished general valuations, such as their faith in democratic liberty, 
equality, and Christian brotherhood — the situation permits almost any type of 
reconstruction. Instead of a rebirth of democracy and Christianity such that those 
terms acquire new personal meanings for every individual, there may be a revulsion 
to fascism and pagan gods. 

When a sudden and great opinion catharsis occurs in society, customs and social 
trends seem to the participants to be suspended or radically changed, as they actually 
are to a certain extent. In this sense history is undecided; it can take several courses. 
Ideological forces take on a greater importance. Leaders — whom we call either "states- 
men," "thinkers" and "prophets" or "demagogues" and "charlatans," depending upon 
our valuation of their aims and means — capture the attention of the masses and 
manage to steer the upheaval in one direction or the other. On a smaller scale the 
same occurs in every group at all times, and the "leaders" are legion; in a sense 
we are all "leaders." In the explanation of this type of process, where ideological 
factors, together with all other factors, are active forces within an interdependent 
system of causation, the materialistic conception of history breaks down. Indeed, 
any mechanical philosophy of human dynamics is inadequate — except when looking 

* See Appendix 2, Section 3. 



1034 An American Dilemma 

backward, became in looking backward*, any development can be organized jAto any 
scheme, if it i* general enough. 

Before leaving the subject of social dynamics, we most qualify our remarks to 
recognize the existence of social statics. By stressing the instability of valuations we 
do not deny that there is an enormous amount of resistance to change. There is a 
great deal of practically mechanistic causation in human life, almost completely 
divorced from valuations. People do strive to keep their valuation conflicts under 
control. They want to keep them off their minds, and they are trained to overlook 
them. Conventions, stereotypes, and convenient blind spots in knowledge about social 
reality do succeed in preserving a relative peace in people's conscience. Even more 
important, perhaps, is the fact that there are only a few hours a day free from the 
business of living, and that there are so many "pleasant" things to do during these 
few hours. Most people, most of the time, live a routine life from day to day and 
do not worry too much. If it could be measured, the amount of both simple and 
opportune ignorance and unconcernedness about social affairs would undoubtedly be 
greater than the amount of knowledge and concern. 

But to stress these things is not to invalidate the dynamic theory we have presented. 
Modern people Jo have conflicting valuations, and the spread of knowledge and the 
increase of interrelations ore more and more exposing them. Changes in the material 
environment also keep minds from becoming settled. If we call the relative absence 
of change in modern society "stability," we must recognize that it is not such as is 
envisaged in the theory of the folkways and mores. There is instability at bottom, 
a balancing of forces in conflict with each other., and there is continuously the 
possibility of rapid, and even induced, change, the direction of which is not altogether 
predetermined by trends and natural forces. 



APPENDIX 2 

A METHODOLOGICAL NOTE ON FACTS AND 
VALUATIONS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE 

—■■■■«■■■■>■■■»■■■■■■■■■■»■■■■■■*■■«■« !■■ WMllWtlMMWHWlWWllWMlWWlMlMllMMMMlMMMH 

i. Biases in the Research on the American Negro Problem 

The biases in popular beliefs about social reality and the deeper conflicts of 
valuations rationalized by these popular theories can be made apparent through com- 
parison with "objective" truth as this is revealed by scientific research.* But the 
scientist himself is not necessarily immune to biases. In the light of the history of 
scientific writings on the American Negro problem, the biased notions held in 
previous times and the opportunistic tendencies steering them stand out in high 
relief against the better controlled scientific views of today. Our steadily increasing 
stock of observations and inferences is not merely subjected to continuous cross- 
checking and critical discussion but is deliberately scrutinized to discover and correct 
hidden preconceptions and biases. Full objectivity, however, is an ideal toward which 
we are constantly striving, but which we can never reach. The social scientist, too, 
is part of the culture in which he lives, and he never succeeds in freeing himself 
entirely from dependence on the dominant preconceptions and biases of his environ- 
ment. 

Race problems, generally, and the Negro problem in America, particularly, are 
to an extraordinary degree affected by conflicting valuations of high emotional tension. 
Keeping in mind the actual power situation in the American nation and observing 
the prevalent opinions in the dominant white group, we are led, even by a 
superficial examination, to expect that even the scientific biases will run against the 
Negroes most of the time. This expectation has been confirmed in the course of 
our study . b 

The underlying psychology of bias in science is simple. Every individual student 
is himself more or less entangled, both as a private person and as a responsible citizen, 
in the web of conflicting valuations, which we discussed in Appendix I. Like the 
layman, though probably to a lesser extent, the scientist becomes influenced by the 
need for rationalizations. The same is true of every executive responsible for other 
people's research and of the popular and scientific public before which the scholar 
performs, and whose reactions he must respect. Against the most honest determination 

* See Appendix i, Section i. 

'The fact that most of the literature on the Negro problem is biased one way or the 
other is commonly understood in America and often stated; see, for example, E. B. Reuter, 
The American Race Problem (19381 first edition, 1917), pp. 17 and 271 John Dollard, 
Caste and Class in a Southern Town (1937), pp. 33-41. 

103s 



1036 An American Dilemma 

to be open-minded on the part of all concerned and, primarily, on the paifbf the 
(cientiiti themselves, the need for rationalization will tend to influence the objects 
chosen for research, the selection of relevant data, the recording of observations, the 
theoretical and practical inferences drawn and the manner of presentation of results. 
The method of detecting bias also is simple. As the unstated premises are kept 
hidden, the inferences drawn from them and from the factual data contain logical 
flaws. The general method of detecting biases is, therefore, to confront conclusions 
with premises and find the non sequitur which must be present if inferences are 
biased. If all premises are not stated explicitly, the inferences must be inconclusive. 
This method works as long as the biases are restricted to the plane of inferences. If 
the biases have influenced the very observations, so that the observed data are wrongly 
perceived and recorded, the method is to repeat the observations. If they have 
influenced the selection of data collected, the viewpoints and hypotheses applied, or 
the demarcation of the field of study, the check consists in the application of 
alternative hypotheses and the widening of the scope of research to embrace the 
neglected fields. The awareness of the problem of bias is a most important general 
protection. 

Certain tendencies toward scientific bias are apparent on the surface.* These biases 
may be classified into groups, each of which may be regarded as a continuum along 
which the specific biases fall. 6 

(a) The Scale of "Friendliness" to the Negro. Various authors show a different 
degree of "friendliness" to the Negro people and to the Negro cause. It will often 
be visible in the very style of presentation, but its more important locus is, of course, 
in approaches and conclusions. This applies not only to general books on the 
Negro problem but to special researches and to researches primarily centered on 
other topics but involving some aspect of the Negro problem. 

White scholars until the last two or three decades worked more or less consistently 
in the interests of the dominant white group's need for rationalization or justification 
of the system of color caste. Even the friends of the Negro people were moved by 
the dominant public opinion to assume, without much questioning, views which 
were unduly unfavorable to the Negroes. They were, in other words, "friendly" to 
the Negroes only when compared with the very unfriendly general public opinion, but 
not when compared with what disinterested scholarship should have demanded. This 
general bias is most easily detected in the question of the Negro's racial traits, but it 
also operated in other fields, for instance in the writing of history. 

In the course of a general movement in the American social sciences toward 
increasing emphasis upon the "environment" as a cause of differences between social 
groups the scientific treatment of the Negro problem has, during the last few 
decades, become vastly more friendly to the Negroes. Without any doubt many white 

* Under a more penetrating analysis all tendencies to bias wall be found to have involved 
relations among themselves and with deeper ideological tendencies which have even shaped 
our main conceptual tools in social science; see Section 3 of this Appendix. These ideological 
tendencies are biased in a static and do-nothing (laissez-faire') conservative direction, which, 
in the main, works against a disfavored group like the American Negroes. 

b The statements made in the following paragraphs grew out of the author's reflections 
upon the literature on the Negro problem. For further explanation and substantiation the 
-eader is referred to the specific chapters of our inquiry. 



Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 103 7 

scientists in the field, perhaps the majority, have attached their research interests to 
the Negro problem or to various aspects of it because of a primary reform interest. 
In the national ethos there is traditionally, as we often have occasion to point 
out, a strong demand for "fair play" and for consideration toward "the underdog." 
Since Negroes are severely suppressed, even today, and since by virtue of that fact 
they often fall below the mark in conduct and accomplishments, and since public 
opinion is still prejudiced against the Negroes, even a friendliness which stands out 
as exceptional may allow views which are rather on the unfriendly side of true 
objectivity. The range of scientific opinions, therefore, does not even today necessarily 
include the unbiased opinion. 

Negro social scientists can be assumed, naturally, to have been biased in the 
friendly direction. Generally speaking, they have most of the time reached results 
more favorable to their group. Public and academic opinion in the dominant majority 
group, the Negro scientists' desire to lean backwards and be strictly scientific, and 
other reasons, may often cause even the Negro scientist to interpret the facts in a 
way which is actually biased against his own people. 

(b) The Scale of "Friendliness" to the South. Most Negroes still live in the 
South, and, what is more important, all economic, social, and political problems of 
this region are connected with the Negro problem to a degree without comparison in 
other regions. The historical tradition through slavery, Civil War, Reconstruction, and 
Restoration also ties together the judgments on the South and on the Negro. 
The same is true of the caste restrictions to which the Negro in the South is 
subjected. In genera], a friendly attitude toward the South carries with it unfavorable 
views toward Negroes or at least a tendency to minimize the fact that they are a 
substantial proportion of the South's people. Conversely, a sympathetic attitude toward 
Negroes, their shortcomings, their grievances, and their problems, and especially the 
attempt to explain them on any basis other than racial inferiority, will be taken as a 
criticism of the social and moral order of the South. 

The first tendency is conspicuous in practically all writings on the Negro problem by 
Southern writers — at least until recently. The natural interest to defend the white 
South will be reflected in adverse biases in the discussion about the Negro. Because 
of the present trend in social sciences toward fewer adverse biases against the 
Negro, Southern social scientists have increasingly taken a critical attitude toward 
Southern institutions and morals. This second tendency runs parallel to, and supports, 
Southern liberalism.* 

A pro-Southern bias, is, however, not restricted to Southern writers. Ever since the 
great national compromise of the 1870*8, when Reconstruction was liquidated, the 
need for rationalization of the anomalous position and treatment of the Negro has 
been national in scope. Contrary to the belief commonly held in the South, the 
present writer has reached the conviction that not only the general public in the 
North but also Northern social scientists are rather pro-Southern in their biases. 1 " 

* Southern liberalism is discussed in Chapter 21, Section 5. 

"This impression is based upon the writer's comparative studies of the literature on the 
Negro problem. The more precise significance of the statement is the belief that if a statis- 
tically reliable sample from Northern scientific literature were made of statements which 
twisted truth somewhat in one direction or the other, there would be a considerable pre- 
ponderance of twists in favor of the South. Usually those twists are in the nature of avoid- 



1038 An American Dilemma 

Became the existence of the Negro problem it 10 widely held to be a bW«npon 
Southern civilization, this common tendency in favor of excusing or explaining the 
South gives rise to biases adverse to the Negro. The recent trend toward increased 
friendliness to the Negro has been connected with rising criticism against the South. 
Negro writers have naturally never shared much in the pro-Southern bias. 

(c) The Scale of Radicalism-Conservatism. The place of the individual scientist 
in the scale of radicalism-conservatism has always had, and still has, strong influences 
upon both the selection of research problems and the conclusions drawn from research. 
In a sense it is the master scale of biases in the social sciences. It can be broken up into 
several scales, mutually closely integrated: equalitartanism-aristocratistn, environmental- 
ism-biological determinism, reformism — laissez-faire, and so forth. There is a high 
degree of correlation between a person's degree of liberalism in different social prob- 
lems. Usually the more radical a scientist is in his political views, the more friendly 
to the Negro cause he will feel and, consequently, the more inclined he will be to 
undertake and carry out studies which favor the Negro cause. The radical will be 
likely to take an interest in refuting the doctrine of Negro racial inferiority and to 
demonstrate the disadvantages and injustices inflicted upon the Negro people. 

The tendency toward increased friendliness to the Negro people, already referred to, 
is undoubtedly related to a general tendency during the last few decades, in American 
society and its social science, toward greater liberalism. In a particular problem where 
public opinion in the dominant white group is traditionally as heavily prejudiced in the 
conservative direction as in the Negro problem, even a radical tendency might fail 
to reach an unprejudiced judgment; whereas under other circumstances or in other 
problems the objective truth might lie beyond the most extreme conservative position 
actually held. The prevalent opinion that a "middle-of-the-road" attitude always gives 
the best assurance of objectivity is, thus, entirely unfounded. 

(d) The Scale of Optimism-Pessimism. Without doubt most social scientists are 
under the influence of the general tendency of any man or any public not to want to 
be disturbed by deeply discouraging statements about the social situation and impending 
trends or by demands for fundamental changes of policy." In the Negro problem, which 
has extremely disturbing prospects, indeed, this tendency to defend the "happy end- 

ance of facts and conclusions which would be embarrassing to the South; sometimes the 
avoidance takes the form of understatements, euphemistic expressions or concealment of 
such data and conclusion in unduly abstract and complicated formulations. Pro-Southern 
biases in the studies of Southerners, when they occur, take the same expression; in addition, 
their presentations of facts will often be softened by tributes to the regional romanticism. 
This bias is more prevalent in the fields of history and sociology than in the other social 
sciences. 

* This tendency can be illustrated from many other fields. When an economic depression 
turns into a prolonged stagnation of industry as in America during the 'thirties, economists 
are likely to begin to talk about "maturity" of the economy, and to direct their interests to 
minor waves of ups and downs within the stagnation. When the industrialization process is 
checked for a time, some agricultural economists will always be found to give themselves 
and the general public consolation in a new enthusiasm for self-sustaining farming or even 
an American peasantry. When sound forecasts of the reproduction trend point to a cumula- 
tively declining future population, the statisticians in all countries turn out for a time to 
talk about the approach or a "constant population." 



Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1039 

ing," for white America and the Negro people will generally make for a soft-pedaling 
of such adverse facts in the interracial situations as offer little prospect of becoming 
changed within a reasonable time. This minimization or suppression of discouraging 
facts may occur when they refer to either the white or the Negro group. At the same 
time encouraging signs will be unduly played up. Practically the whole literature on 
the Negro, as on all other social problems, is influenced by this tendency.* 

This optimistic bias may work against the Negro or for him. It may be connected 
with a radical or a conservative inclination. In some respects this tendency will gain 
strength as people's interest in reforms increases; they do want to believe in them. A 
skeptical conservative is, sometimes, more likely to face facts as they are, than is a 
fervent liberal. On the other hand, a conservative is interested in presenting actual 
conditions in a favorable light, while the reformer takes his very start in revealing 
unfavorable facts. The tendencies here cross each other in a most complicated pattern. 

The majority of people do resist having matters which they regard as unfortunate 
depicted as hopelessly closed. They usually do not want, either, to be confronted with 
demands for fundamental reforms in deeply ingrained social usages. The reluctance 
on the part of many Negro and white social scientists to accept the term "caste" to 
describe the white-Negro relationship— and the remarkable charge of emotion invested 
in this minor terminological question — apparently has part of its explanation in the 
common dislike of a term which carries associations of permanency to an institution 
incompatible with the American Creed and in the unwillingness to face a demand for 
fundamental reforms. 

The optimistic bias becomes strengthened, paradoxically enough, by the scientist's 
own critical sense and his demand for foolproof evidence. The burden of proof is 
upon those who assert that things are bad in our society; it is not the other way around. 
Unfortunate facts are usually more difficult to observe and ascertain, as so many of the 
persons in control have strong interests in hiding them. The scientist in his struggle 
to detect truth will be on his guard against making statements which arc unwarranted. 
His very urge to objectivity will thus induce him to picture reality as more pleasant 
than it is. 

(e) The Scale of Isolation-Integration. In the Introduction we pointed out the 
opportune interests and factual circumstances which must make both white and Negro 
scientists inclined to treat the Negro problem in isolation from the total complex of 
problems in American civilization. 11 The maximum integration represents absence 
from bias along this line. Objectivity is reached the more completely an investigator 
is able to interrelate the Negro problem with the total economic, social, political, 
judicial and broadly cultural life of the nation. 

'An illustration on a high level of an adjustment to the general demand for a "happy 
end" is Lord Bryce's famous study of American local and national politics, The American 
Commonwealth, published in 189] and republished in 1910 and 1919. Bryce had to engage 
in a close investigation of many deeply disturbing phases of American public life, and the 
greatness of his work is due largely to his successful effort never to shun the facts and nevei 
to present his conclusions in uncertain terms. But in short paragraphs sprinkled throughout 
his text he played up the reform tendencies somewhat. This became visible when, in later 
editions, he could retain most of his text unchanged — including the optimistic forecasts 
about "impending" tetotma. 

"Introduction, Section 4. 



1040 An American Dilemma 

(f) The Scale of Scientific Integrity. The degree to which a scientist it prepared to 
study unpopular subjects and to state plainly and dearly unpopular conclusions derived 
from his findings depends, naturally, on his own political inclinations, his personal 
courage and the relative freedom awarded him by society. These factors, however, are 
not independent of each other. In communities where academic freedom is low, the 
scientist normally will, in adjustment to the environment where he works, develop, on 
the one hand, a dislike for controversial matters and for clear and bluntly scientific 
statements concerning them, and, on the other hand, an unduly high valuation of agree- 
ment and conformity as such. Quite independent of the favorable or unfavorable judg- 
ment society passes upon such an attitude, it is, of course, detrimental to scientific 
clarity and objectivity and to scientific progress. 

It is apparent that the social and political situation in the South, and particularly 
in the Deep South, is still not very favorable to a disinterested and objective study of 
the Negro problem. Until recently this problem, in spite of its supreme importance to 
the region, was avoided as an object for research. Even at present, and even at the 
academic fortresses where a considerable amount of academic freedom has been realized, 
it requires personal courage on the part of a scientist to investigate objectively such 
aspects of the Negro problem as are heavily loaded with emotions; for example, those 
connected with sex or religion. Similar influences work upon the Negro scientist in 
the South. He will often have to become an artist in interracial diplomacy, which, on 
the whole, will tend to make him rather diplomatic even in his scientific research. The 
interracial situation in the South will thus tend to lay political inhibitions on both white 
and Negro scientists. 

In the North, and particularly at the great and famous institutions, such inhibitions 
are not found. Where there are remnants of inhibitions in social research they will 
rather be applied to other fields — economic and political — more important to the social 
forces in control of universities and other research institutions, than to the Negro 
problem. 

Quite generally it must be remembered, however, that the Negro problem is some- 
thing of a skeleton in the American closet. Objective studies are liable to show up 
situations which are scandalous, not only to the community but also to the nation. A 
certain apprehension is natural. On the whole, however, the American public is remark- 
ably scandd-froof.* But it seems as if the closet has first to be opened, and the scandal, 
so to speak, be publicly "established." Certain scandals arc public, as a matter of tradi- 
tion and convention, and investigations of them do not meet with violent protest. 
Lynching, for example, is such a public scandal in connection with the Negro problem. 
The phenomenon can be investigated and written about rather freely everywhere, 
even in the South. The same is true, to a great extent, of the seamy sides of politics. 
These scandals have become notorious and recognized. The national conscience has 
dissociated itself from them, even if it has not been possible to stamp them out of 
existence. There are, however, other scandals which are not, at least not as yet, "estab- 
lished." It seems to be rather accidental and, to some extent, a result of private 
initiative on the part of an investigator who originally opens the issue, which scandals 

* The extraordinary high degree of openness to criticism which characterizes American 
culture above every other national culture in the Western world is discussed in Chapter i. 



AprENDix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1 041 

are, and which are not, established enough to more the national conscience and leave 
the scientists free for their work.* 

2. Methods of Mitigating Biases in Social Science 

Since Benjamin Franklin's day, American science has quite distinctly leaned toward 
a healthy trust in "hard facts." The inclination to stress empirical "fact-finding" has 
characterized the magnificent rise of American social sciences. As a trend it has become 
accentuated during the last generation by the huge funds made available for research, 
the unprecedentedly rapid growth of universities and research institutions, the equally 
rapid increase of the number of persons engaged in scientific pursuits, and the specializa- 
tion thereby made possible. 

By subjecting popular beliefs and scientific assumptions to the test of facts, specific 
biases in the research on the Negro have time and again been unmasked. The recent 
history of research on racial differences offers excellent examples. Incidentally, it also 
gives a clue as to the direction in which the biases in the Negro problem would tend 
to go if unchecked. Generally speaking, our attempts to eradicate biases by stress on 
factual research have been the more fruitful, the simpler the problems involved are 
from a methodological point of view and the more successfully we have been able to 
utilize controlled research methods such as have been developed in the natural sciences. 

It must be maintained, however, that biases in social science cannot be erased simply 
by "keeping to the facts" and by refined methods of statistical treatment of the data. 
Facts, and the handling of data, sometimes show themselves even more pervious to 
tendencies toward bias than does "pure thought." The chaos of possible data for 
research does not organize itself into systematic knowledge by mere observation. Hy- 
potheses are necessary. We must raise questions before we can expect answers from the 
facts, and the questions mnst be "significant." The questions, furthermore, usually 
have to be complicated before they reach down to the facts. Even apparently simple 
concepts presume elaborate theories. These theories — or systems of hypotheses — contain, 
of necessity, no matter how scrupulously the statements of them are presented, elements 
of a priori speculation. When, in an attempt to be factual, the statements of theory 
are reduced to a minimum, biases are left a freer leeway than if they were more 
explicitly set forth and discussed. 

Neither can biases be avoided by the scientists' stopping short of drawing practical 
conclusions. Science becomes no better protected against biases by the entirely negative 
device of refusing to arrange its result for practical and political utilization. As we shall 
point out, there are, rather, reasons why the opposite is true. 

When perhaps a majority of the foremost social scientists in America have an am- 
bition toward, and take pride in, keeping entirely free from attempting to reach prac- 
tical and political conclusions from their research, part of the explanation is their high 
professional standards. The quest for scientific objectivity is, I believe, more lively, 
and kept more explicit, in America than elsewhere. The position is also more under- 
standable when considered from an historical perspective. Social science in America in 
its modern form developed as a conscious reaction to an earlier highly normative and 
teleological doctrine. Monumental theories were built without resort to the observa- 

' There are other scales along which biased views fall, such as the scales of dogmatism — 
eclecticism, long-run — short-run perspective, practicality — impracticality. They have been 
incidentally taken up in the various chapters. 



IQ44 An American Diuemma 

tion of social facta, and radical change* in social life were demanded withoof^doe 
consideration of the actual forces and processes through which social life exists and 
changes. The reaction' against reformism and philosophical system-building has been 
particularly violent in American sociology where a concerted drive to build a social 
science on the model of the natural sciences is clearly apparent. This tremendous 
reaction is so recent that many of the older generation of present-day sociologists took 
part in it.* Among the less influential social scientists, the old-fashioned "practical" 
doctrine is actually still alive. 

In seeking to explain why American social science avoids conclusions that are prac- 
tical, we must also recall its high degree of specialization. Practical conclusions must 
always draw on a much more comprehensive range of insights into many fields than 
is necessary for good work in most specialties. Many excellent social scientists honestly 
feel incompetent before the broader practical tasks. b Finally, there has been in America, 
until the New Deal at least, a great personal and institutional isolation between the 
scholars and the political agencies of the nation. In America the general public has 
not developed a strong tradition of looking to its academicians for leadership of national 
thought in the broader issues. It has not given them the ear and prestige — and especially 
in the earlier period, not even the freedom — which was due them. 

This attempt at explanation of the fact that most outstanding social scientists 
want to keep strictly to the principle of avoiding practical conclusions does not weaken 

* In a significant sense this advance in social science knowledge was part of the general 
modern trend toward secularization of thought. Many of the earlier sociologists — against 
whose teachings contemporary sociologists are still reacting — were clergymen, as were the 
fathers of some of our outstanding contemporary sociologists. The recenttrend toward facts and 
naturalistic explanations is, therefore, a movement toward emancipation. In both the radical 
wing of previous social speculation — represented by such reform movements as Perfectionism, 
Positivism, and Telesis — and the conservative do-nothing (laissez-faire) wing — Utilitarian- 
ism, Malthusianism, and Social Darwinism — there was an assumption of the freedom and 
rationality of the individual. The reaction of modern sociologists has been against this 
assumption as well as against the similar "freedom of the will" doctrine of their clerical 
predecessors. Such a reaction alone would tend to make social science less interested in the 
practical sphere of its subject matter. 

b Specialization and the handling of the large research funds and of the correspondingly 
large personnel resources also make cooperative work more possible and more necessary. 
Serving on committees of all sorts usually belongs to the responsibilities of the best men in 
every field. American social scientists have broken new paths and carried out huge tasks, 
which earlier could not have been dreamt of, by successfully applying cooperation to research. 
But in committee work it is always the easier to reach agreement on factual aspects of research, 
whereas the more practical aspects — particularly when the matter is controversial — are kept 
out of vision or left open. 

c In this light one also better understands the high emotions contained in such denunciations 
of "pulpit orators," "well-meaning theorists," "arm-chair philosophers," "ardent evangelists," 
"artists," "social reformers," "religionists," "journalists," "promoters," "advertisers," "advo- 
cates," "flag-wavers," "day-dreamers" and "idealists," as are frequently used by social 
scientists when they assert that they are going to be strictly factual and avoid practical con- 
clusions. 

The strong anti-practical inclination to which such denunciations testify is also to be 
understood w * reaction against the particularly "practical" and moralistic culture in which 
the social scientists are living — the reaction itself thereby becoming moralistic. 



Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1043 

the present author's conviction that the principle it arbitrary ai a methodological rule 
and is detrimental to true scientific objectivity in its application. The main reasons 
for this conviction are the following: 

Although the social scientist attempts to make his initial observation of a phenomenon 
as factual as possible, he finds it difficult to adhere strictly to this principle. Our whole 
literature is permeated by value judgments despite prefatory statements to the con- 
trary. To the knowledge of the present writer, there is no piece of research on the 
Negro problem which does not contain valuations, explicit or implicit. Even when an 
author writing on, let us say, Negro education, politics, business, or labor attempts to 
give us only the data he has collected and the analysis he has made, he can rarely refrain 
from value judgments on them. 

These practical judgments are usually relatively simple. They are not presented as 
inferences from explicit value premises plus the data, but rather, in the age-old fashion, 
as being evident from the nature of things: actually as fart of the objective data. They 
are not marked off properly from theoretical knowledge of truth, but are most often 
introduced by loading part of the terminology with valuations, valuations which are 
kept vague and undefined. Sometimes the reader is told what is right or what is wrong, 
desirable or undesirable, only by implication. It should be stressed that this criticism 
often applies even to the most ostentatiously "pure" fact-finding research. Man is, as 
Aristotle told us, a political animal, and social science is a political science, in this 
sense. Valuations are present in our problems even if we pretend to expel them. The 
attempt to eradicate biases by trying to keep out the valuations themselves is a hope- 
less and misdirected venture. 

Attaching importance to the presence or absence of practical conclusions also fosters 
a dangerously superficial view of what biases really are. I have often observed that 
social scientists who are responsible for the publications of other author's works or 
who utilize them in their own writings, when they apprehend biases, believe that 
these can be "edited away," by modifying certain expressions used or cutting out or 
revising certain practical conclusions drawn. Similarly, a general tendency toward 
understatement is observable in most social science literature. When an author has set 
down something which he feels to be unfavorable about a social class or a region, he 
looks for something favorable to say in order to "balance the picture." A "balanced 
view," a colorless drawing, is considered to be more "scientific." Particularly in govern- 
mental investigations great care is usually taken to spare the readers. The deliberate 
attempt that is made in such reports not to offend anyone will often make them diffi- 
cult to use for scientific purposes. This tendency is, of course, not only ineffective 
in mitigating biases, but, even worse, it is itself one of the main types of bias in 
research. 

Biases in research are much deeper seated than in the formulation of avowedly 
practical conclusions. They are not valuations attached to research but rather they 
fermeate research. They are the unfortunate results of concealed valuations that insinu- 
ate themselves into research in all stages, from its planning to its final presentation. 

The valuations will, when driven underground, hinder observation and inference 
from becoming truly objective. This can be avoided only by making the valuations 
explicit. There is no other device for excluding biases in social sciences than to face 
the valuations and to introduce them as explicitly stated, specific, and sufficiently con' 
cretized value premises. If this is done, it will be possible to determine in a rational 



1044 Ak American Dilemma 

way, and openly to account for, the direction of theoretical research. It will fur&er 
be ponible to cleanse the scientific work shop from concealed, bat ever resurgent, dis- 
torting valuations. Practical conclusions may thus be reached by rational inferences 
from the data and the value premises. Only in this way does social engineering, as an 
advanced branch of social research, become a rational discipline under full scientific 
control. 

The method oi working with explicit value premises has a very evident advantage 
in this last respect of laying a rational foundation for practical research. There are 
only two means by which social scientists today avoid practical and political conclusions: 
(l) neglecting to state the value premises which, nevertheless, are implied in the con- 
clusions reached; (2) avoiding any rational and penetrating analysis of the practical 
problems in terms of social engineering (which would too visibly distract from the 
announced principles of being only factual). By the first restraint the doors are left 
wide open for hidden biases. The second inhibition prevents the social scientist from 
rendering to practical and political life the services of which he is capable. 

Regarding the last point, social scientists have become accustomed to answer that 
"very much more detailed factual research is necessary before wise action can be 
planned upon the basis of scientific knowledge." This statement, which, with few 
verbal variations, will be found bo often in our literature, is an expression of scientific 
modesty. But it also expresses escape. Prom the point of view of the practical man and 
of society, the rejoinder must be made: first, that practical action or inaction must be 
decided from day to day and cannot wait until eventually a lagging social science has 
collected enough detailed data for shouldering its part of the responsibility for social 
action; second, that, even with much more money and exertion spent on research, 
social science will, in this complicated and rapidly changing world, probably always 
be able to present this same alibi ; and, third, that the scientist — even if his knowledge 
is only conjectural in certain respects — is in a position to assist in achieving a much 
wiser judgment than the one which is actually allowed to guide public policy. 

The third point is the decisive one. Without doubt we know quite enough in most 
social problems to avoid a great number of wasteful mistakes in practical life and, 
consequently, to have a better world. Even in science, although wc may strive toward 
the absolute, we must always be prepared to deliver the incomplete knowledge we have 
on hand. We cannot plead that wc must wait "until all the facts are in," because we 
know full well that all the facts will never be in.. Nor can we argue that "the facts 
speak for themselves" and leave it "to the politician and the citizen to draw the prac- 
tical conclusions." We know even better than the politician and the ordinary citizen 
that the facts are much too complicated to speak an intelligible language by themselves. 
They must be organized for practical purposes, that is, under relevant value premises. 
And no one can do this more .adequately than we ourselves. 

There is a common belief that the type of practical research which involves rational 
planning — what we have ventured to call "social engineering" — is likely to be emo- 
tional. This is a mistake. If the value premises are sufficiently, fully, and rationally 
introduced, the planning of induced social change is no more emotional by itself 
than the planning of a bridge or the talcing of a census. Even prior to the stage 
of social engineering proper, the research technique of accounting openly for one's 
value premises actually de-emotionalizes research. Emotion and irrationality in science, 
on the contrary, acquire their high potency precisely when valuations are kept sup- 
pressed or remain concealed in the so-called "facts." 



Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1045 

The primary task in the present inquiry on the Negro problem has been to ascer- 
tain relevant facts and to establish the causal relations between facts. The viewpoints 
and, consequently, the principle of selection in regard to both direction and intensity 
of analysis, however, have been determined by certain value premises. In the practical 
sphere it has been our main task to ascertain how situations and trends, institutions 
and policies, have to be judged when a given set of value premises is applied. 

The question of the selection of value premises remains to be settled. Values do not 
emerge automatically from the attempt to establish and collect the facts. Neithei can 
we allow the individual investigator to choose his value premises arbitrarily. The value 
■premises should be selected by the criterion of relevance and significance to the culture 
under study. Alternative sets of value premises would be most appropriate. If for rea- 
sons of practicability only one set of value premises is utilized, it is the more important 
that the reservation is always kept conscious: that the -practical conclusions — and, to an 
extent, the direction of research — have only hypothetical validity and that the selection 
of another set of value premises might change both. 

The formulation of specific valuations to be utilized as instrumental norms in a 
scientific investigation is likely to emphasize the tremendous moral responsibility placed 
upon social scientists. A number of points already made should, however, be borne 
in mind. First, the same responsibility is actually carried by every student, whether 
he chooses to make his value premises explicit or not. Second, if he makes his value 
premises explicit, his responsibility is, in fact, smaller, as he then fixes his readers' 
attention on the matter and thus aids them to criticize his value premises and con- 
clusions. Third, the research part of the work is mainly dependent on the value prem- 
ises as to viewpoints and direction. Fourth, his method means that he has taken precau- 
tions to avoid hidden valuations, that is, biases. 

3. The History and Logic of the Hidden Valuations in Social Science 

In the preceding section we have given our main reasons why social science is 
essentially a "political" science; why practical conclusions should not be avoided, but 
rather be considered as a main task in social research; why explicit value premises 
should be found and stated; and how, by this technique, we can expect both to 
mitigate biases and to lay a rational basis for the statement of the theoretical prob- 
lems and the practical conclusions. The remainder of this note brings together under 
one head what is virtually a series of footnotes to the previous section. It contains 
arguments which are in the nature of digressions from the main argument in the 
text as technical qualifications. 

Probably everyone with mastery of the writings in any large field of social science 
will agree with the description we have given of the present situation. We emphatically 
denounce valuations in social science, but they are constantly creeping into our work. 
Most of us declare just as emphatically that we want to abstain from any practical 
conclusions and to direct our effort wholly to the discovery of the truth of the matter, 
but in spite of this intention we make value judgments in a general, vague, hidden 
and unwitting manner. We have briefly hinted at certain facts in the social situation 
of science and scientists in America which make this situation more understandable.* 

'Professor Robert S. Lynd has discussed the other-worldliness of social science in a 
suggestive manner from a somewhat different viewpoint in his challenging book, Knowledge 
for What? (19*9). 



104*5 An American Dilemma 

In virions degree* thit tendency has characterized social research in all Western obn- 
trie» since its beginning in the eighteenth century. Leaving the question open for a 
moment at to how to cure this methodological confusion, we might point to some of 
its major historical determinants. In this short note we shall hare to be inconclusive.* 
The problems of doctrinal history and the sociology and psychology of science involved 
are, in addition, so complex that we prefer to have our remarks considered as sug- 
gestions. 

Basic to the eagerness in trying to drive valuations underground is the rationalism 
of our Western culture. Even the man in the street, when he wants to appear en- 
lightened, will attempt to avoid expressing primary and personal valuations. He wants 
to be "objective" and to avoid arbitrariness. He will, therefore, give "reasons" for 
his desires, and he tries to make the reasons appear purely "factual" so that they will 
be acceptable to any "rational" man." He wants, in other words, to suppress his 
valuations as valuations and to present them as systems of rational beliefs concerning 
reality. The same tendency has for centuries driven the philosophers in their scholarly 
exertions to base systems of morals and politics upon "the nature of things" and, 
later, upon the "sensations," that is, in this context, upon empirical observations and 
rational inferences. The difference between the various moral philosophies which 
fought and superseded each other is — on this central point — not great. The phi- 
losophies of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries — and, in par- 
ticular, the then perfected systems of Natural Rights and Utilitarianism — became the 
foundations, not only of our later moral and political thinking as it has developed in 
America among other countries, but also of the modern social sciences. The latter 
have, indeed, been a chief expression for the rationalistic desire in our culture to 
eradicate valuations and lay the basis for a factual and objective view of social problems. 

The social sciences thus developed as branches of the philosophies of Enlightenment. 
New philosophical ideas have later been inserted; for instance, the ideas of social 
development attached to the names of Darwin, Hegel, Marx and Spencer. But certain 
central normative and teleological ideas of the philosophies of Natural Rights and 
Utilitarianism have been preserved. One such idea is the thought that there is a 
communum bonum, a "general" or "common welfare," and that it can be ascertained 
by scientific investigation. Another one is the thought that basically human interests 
are in harmony. 

The idea that there is such a thing as a "common welfare," an "interest of society," 
which can be known, has followed us up to present times. It is seldom discussed but 
rather taken for granted. When during the 'twenties the criticism of classical eco- 
nomics in America asserted itself, and the so-called institutionalists apparently fol- 
lowed a tendency to find as many faults as possible with the old school of economists, 
the most central concept of classical economics, the "general welfare," was practically 
never challenged. Most work done in economics even today assumes tacitly the exist- 
ence of such an entity. The availability of this concept makes it easy and natural for 
the economist, and also for other social scientists, to apply a concealed valuation, cov- 

' For a fuller treatment of some of the problems dealt with in this section, we refer to 
the present author's Das Politische Element in der Nationalokonomischtn Doktrinbildung 
(1932), and "Das Zweck-Mitteldenken in der Nationalokonomie" in Zcitschrift fSr National- 
Skonomie (1932), pp. 305 ff. 

* See Appendix 1 



Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1047 

ered only by this vague phrase, directly to hit material or factual data. Statement! that 
something is, or is not, desirable from the viewpoint of "society" will surprisingly 
often appear even in statistical work without any conclusive argument about how such 
a value judgment has been reached and precisely what it means. 

From the beginning of social science the idea of a "harmony of interests" was 
closely associated with the idea of "common welfare." "Social value" was originally 
conceived of as a value common to all participants in a society. The harmony doctrine, 
obviously, made the calculation of the social value out of individual interests so much 
easier, and this fact, undoubtedly, has been an advantage in its use which has given 
it much of its survival strength.* We want to believe that what we hold to be desirable 
for society is desirable for all its members. 

The harmony doctrine is essential to "liberalism" as it has historically developed out 
of the philosophies of Enlightenment (the term "liberalism" is here used in its most 
inclusive sense). From the very beginning liberalism was split into two wings, a 
radical one and a conservative one. The radical wing upheld the opinion that a harmony 
of interests would exist only in a society where the institutions — and primarily the 
distribution of property — were changed so as to accord with the precepts of these 
philosophies. The "natural order" studied by the radical liberals was, therefore, a 
hypothetical society where the "natural laws" functioned undisturbed by "corrupted 
institutions": where, thus, for example, all "natural" titles to property — with Locke 
the "fruits of labor" — were retained, but society was purified of all monopolies and 
privileges and, consequently, from "exploitation." The conservative wing, on the 
other hand, proceeded to apply the harmony doctrine directly to the unreformed 
society (which, incidentally, was a corruption of thought, as they all usually adhered 
to a philosophy which reserved the concepts "natural order" and "social harmony" 
for a society purged as severely as the radicals wanted it). The radical wing became 
the reformers, the visionaries, and the Utopians: it gave birth to various schools of 
communism, socialism, syndicalism and anarchism. The conservative wing profited 
from its "realism." In its practical work it abstained from speculating about a "natural 
order" other than the one that existed; it studied society as it was and actually came 
to lay the foundations for modern social science. For this we have to be grateful to 
conservative liberals. But they perpetuated in modern social science, also, their static 
and fatalistic political bias, a do-nothing liberalism. The harmony doctrine in this 
setting was, of course, even less well founded than the radical liberals' idea that only 
in a vary different "natural order" would human interests be mutually compatible. 

Economics — or "political economy," to use the old-fashioned but much more ade- 
quate term (the attribute "political" has been dropped for convenience and as a 
tribute to the purity of science) — is the oldest branch of social science in the sense 
that it was the earliest to develop into a system of observations and inferences organized 
under the principle of social lawb. b In economics we can most conveniently study 
the influence of the static and fatalistic general bias upon the development of a social 
science discipline. From natural science it early borrowed the concept of "equilibrium." 
This concept, as well as the derived concepts of "balance," "stability," "normal," are 
all often heavily loaded with the static and fatalistic valuations. To an extent these 

' Myrdal, Das Politische Element in der Nationalokonomischen Doktritibildung. 
* History and political science are, of course, older, but they never reached agreement 
upon a system of causation. 



!o*B 



An American Dilemma 



co n ce p t s have taken over the role of the conservative variant of the old harmonjndoc- 
trine. It it, of course, possible to utilize them in a purely instrumental manner and 
the success of generations of economists in gradually perfecting our knowledge of 
economic relations is due to such a utilization of the various notions of social equi- 
librium and disequilibrium. The "assumptions" of economic theory have been useful. 
But their load of inherited static and fatalistic valuations is heavy, and they will often 
tnrn into convenient covers for biases in this direction. 

The direction is loose and general, however. Like "welfare" and "harmony of 
interest," those concepts can be bent considerably. Their role for the underhand 
presentation of practical conclusions is rather the formal one of providing objective- 
sounding, technical terms for the subjective valuations which are actually pressing for 
expression. They thus permit entrance of the biases of a time, a social setting or a 
personality. These biases may be conservative or "radical" (radical in the sense of 
being Marxian). The relation between, on the one hand, the specific biases in research 
and, on the other hand, these value-metaphysical thought-structures forming the 
frame for economic theory and research, is primarily this: that the arbitrariness inherent 
in the structures allows the specific biases room for play which, under the rules of 
scientific strictness, they should not have had. But it is equally important to remember 
that they do not give absolutely free leeway. They are headed in one definite direc- 
tion. As long as economics keeps its valuations implicit and hidden, the utilization of 
those concepts will tend to insert in scientific work a do-nothing bias. 

The younger social sciences have followed much the same track. A few remarks, 
mainly by way of illustration, will be made concerning American sociology, particu- 
larly as it has influenced the study of the Negro problem. 

Few have had more influence on contemporary American social science thinking than 
William Graham Sumner. He was a political economist of strong laissez-faire lean- 
ings before he became a sociologist, and he continued to indoctrinate generations of 
Yale undergraduates with the economic doctrines of Manchester-liberalism.* Sumner 
is usually believed to have had two sides: on the political side he advocated Social 
Darwinism b and was a conservative; on the scientific side he was the great observer 
of "folkways and mores." These two sides were closer than is commonly thought. His 
observations that there were folkways and mores which gave societies a static stability 
buttressed his belief that social change was difficult to achieve. His desires to maintain 
the status quo led him to conclude that there should be no attempt to change the folk- 
ways and mores. The unification of the two streams in Sumner's thinking gives us an 
example of the fallacious attempt to draw practical conclusions from purely factual 
premises: 

The great stream of time and earthly things Trill sweep on just the same in spite of 
us . . . Everyone of us is a child of his age and cannot get out of it. He is in the stream 
and is swept along with it. All his science and philosophy come to him out of it There- 
fore the tide will not be changed by us. It will swallow up both us and our experiments 

"Charles A. and Mary R. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization, Vol. II, (1927), 
pp. 136-237, 429 and 430. 

b Social Darwinism refers to that continuation of the laissez-faire movement after it took 
on the Darwinian terminology of "struggle for existence" and "survival of the fittest." The 
ideological father of Sumner was the founder of Social Darwinism — namely, Herbert Spencer. 



Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1049 

. . . That it why it is the greatest folly of which a man can be capable, to tit down with 
a date and pencil to plan out a new social world.* 

Sumner could not fail to hare a particularly strong influence on social science think- 
ing about the problems of the South and, specifically, about the Negro problem. The 
theory of folkways and mores has diffused from the scientists and has in the educated 
classes of the South become a sort of regional political credo. The characterization of 
something as "folkways" or "mores" or the stereotype that "stateways cannot change 
folkways" — which under no circumstances can be more than a relative truth — is 
used in the literature on the South and on the Negro as a general formula of mystical 
significance. It is expressed whenever one wants to state one's opinion that "what is, 
must be" without caring to give full factual reasons. To a large extent the formula has 
also been taken over by the Negro writers. We may note a recent example of the same 
sort of reasoning on the part of a writer, who, if he had not been influenced by 
Sumner, is in perfect agreement with him. The example is the more striking because 
it is taken from the pages of the radical Negro periodical, The Crisis, and is part of a 
review of a book whose author is trying to improve the lot of the Negro — though per- 
haps in a naive manner. 

It is the belief, on the other hand, of our author and a considerable group of educators, 
largely members of the "social frontier group" at Teachers' College, that education can 
lead in social reform instead of folio-wing in the wake of social trends. This belief is a 
form of wish-fulfillment thinking based upon the assumption that social life can be 
rationalized and that the processus social can be rid of its irrational elements and brought 
under the control of a previously established plan. Res est ri&icula et nimis iocosa. Such 
a belief is not a product of scientific observation, but of the educator's faith, and one as 
naive as any ever inherited by man. If the researches of science have established anything, 
it is that man is at bottom a most irrational animal; a rationalizing rather than a reasoning 
creature. b 

Much less conservative than Sumner but still bound by a similar fatalism have been 
Robert E. Park and some of his followers. Park's influence on the research on the Negro 
problem has been great and direct, as so many of the contemporary students of this 
problem are his pupils or recognize his guidance as their most important inspiration. 
Park is not, as was Sumner, moved by any deeply felt desire to maintain the status quo. 
But his keen observation of social conditions — and, perhaps, also some disillusions from 
his reform activities — have made him realize the tremendous force exerted by "natural" 
influences/' Not observing much in the way of conscious and organized planning in his 

* William Graham Sumner, "The Absurd Attempt to Make the World Over," Essays of 
William Graham Sumner. Edited by A. G. Keller and Maurice R. Davie (1934), Vol. I, 
pp. 105-106. 

D James W. Ivy, review of An Analysis of the Specific References to Negroes in Selected 
Curricula for the Education of Teachers by Edna Meade Colson, in The Crisis (October, 

»94 I )>P-33^ 

* Park, of course, recognizes the possibility of rapid and radical social change. His theory 
concerning such change is centered around the concept of "crisis." This theory was first 
developed by W. I. Thomas, Source Book for Social Origins (1909), pp. 17-i*. 
The theory, simply stated, is that under certain circumstances habits, mores, and folkways 
are recognized by people to be no longer useful as ways of meeting situations and needs, 
and, after a brief period of amoral disorganization, people come together to build up a new 
type of "socially acceptable" behavior, or such a new folkway develops naturally "without 



1050 An American Dilemma 

contemporary America except that which was bungling and ineffective because it did not 
take due account of the natural forces, he built up a sociological system in terms of 
"natural" causation and sequence. Probably because he has no intentional conservative 
bias, it is difficult to find simple statements in Park's writing which exemplify the fallacy 
of drawing practical conclusions from factual premises alone. What we do find is a 
systematic tendency to ignore practically all possibilities of modifying — by conscious 
effort — the social effects of the natural forces.* Occasionally the do-nothing (latum- 
fair*) implications of Park's assumptions are revealed: 

The races of high visibility, to speak in naval parlance, are the natural and inevitable 
objects of race prejudice." 

Accommodation, on the other hand, is the process by which the individuals and groups 
make the necessary internal adjustments to social situations which have been created by 
competition and conflict. . . . Eventually the new order gets itself fixed in habit and 
custom and is then transmitted as part of the established social order to succeeding 
generations. Neither the physical nor the social world is made to satisfy at once all the 
wishes of the natural man. The right9 of property, vested interests of every sort, the 
family organization, slavery, caste and class, the whole social organization, in fact, 
represent accommodations, that is to say, limitations of the natural wishes of the indi- 
vidual. These socially inherited accommodations have presumably grown up in the pains 
and struggles of previous generations, but they have been transmitted to and accepted 
by succeeding generations as part of the natural, inevitable social order. All of these arc 
forms of control in which competition is limited by status.' 

. . . the political process can only proceed in a relatively orderly way in so far as it 
generates a political power and authority capable of enforcing a certain degree of order 
and discipline until a new equilibrium has been achieved and the changes which the new 
programs initiated have been assimilated, digested and incorporated with the folkways 
of the original and historic society. 4 

Race relations . . . might comprise ... all those situations in which some relatively 
stable equilibrium between competing races has been achieved and in which the resulting 
social order has become fixed in custom and tradition. 

Under such circumstances the intensity of the race consciousness which a struggle for 
status inevitably arouses, where it did not altogether disappear, would be greatly dimin- 
ished. The biracial organizations of certain social institutions that have come into existence 
in Southern states since emancipation exhibit the form which such racial accommodations 
sometimes take.* 

discussion and organization." The whole period is called a "crisis." This theory is not very 
clearly presented in Park's published writings, but the nearest thing to a complete statement 
of it may be found in the article on "Collective Behavior" in the Encyclopedia of the Social 
Sciences (193 j), Vol. 3, pp. 63 (-£33. 

'With the same qualifications for the "crisis" theory of social change, it can be said 
that William I. Thomas, who has had a great influence on practically all contemporary 
American sociologists, shows the same lack of interest for problems of induced change. 

' "Behind Our Masks," The Survey (May 1, 1916), p. 136. 

* Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology (1931), 
pp. 510-511. (Italics ours.) 

'Robert E. Park, "Social Planning and Human Nature," Publications of the American 
Sociological Society (August, 1935), p. 28. 

'Robert E. Park, "The Nature of Race Relations," in Edgar T. Thompson (editor), 
Race Rotations and the Race Problem (1939), pp. 4-5. 



Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1051 

Park's naturalistic and, therefore, fatalistic philosophy has been transmitted to tome of 
his students who have been working on the Negro problem. Throughout the writings 
of Edward B. Reuter, for example, we find statements similar to the following taken 
from a recent consideration of race relations: 

It is in the nature of a competitive order, and every natural and social order is com- 
petitive, to place groups and individuals in the position where they can survive, and it 
is in the nature of individuals and groups to develop the characters essential or conducive 
to survival in the natural and cultural area in which they are placed and in which they 
struggle to exist. Whether we consider plants, animals, or human beings we find that, in 
the large, they are in those areas where each is best fitted to thrive and prosper, and that 
each is somewhat nicely adapted in its structures and in its habit system to the special 
conditions of existence in the habitat . . . Adaptation is the price of survival.* 

What has been said of Park could be said also of William F. Ogburn. The tremendous 
social influence of inventions and changes in economic organization and the march of 
social trends have convinced him that man's intentional efforts to do something about 
the world are futile. b 

. . . much of our difficulty is due to the fact that the different parts of our highly inter- 
related civilization are changing at unequal rates of speed, bringing maladjustments and 
social problems that would not occur in a stationary society or in one where the different 
parts moved along simultaneously. When one part of our culture, as for instance, the 
technological-economic organization, changes rapidly while another part, as for instance, 
government, changes more slowly, there comes a time when the maladjustment is suffi- 
ciently serious to occasion a whole series of rapid changes in the lagging institutions. In 
such times and for such changes the word "Revolution" is often used. 

For the future, there is no particular reason to think that the technological inventions 
and scientific discoveries will slow up. Indeed, they are likely to come faster. However, 
we may, perhaps, be able to speed up the changes in other institutions slightly more 
quickly, by greater use of the communication inventions. But on the other hand, the process 
of keeping up with the pace set by technology may be slowed up because of the increasing 
heterogeneity of society and the possible greater number of institutional lags to be caught 
up. Therefore, no prospective integration of state and industry is expected to deliver us in 
the future from grave social disturbances.* 

* E. B. Reuter, "Competition and the Racial Division of Labor," in Thompson, Race 
Relations and the Race Problem, pp. 46-47. 

"It should be noted in passing that the Marxian teleology implied in the materialistic 
conception of history is, from our point of view (however catastrophic the trends are 
pictured) of the do-nothing (laissez-faire) variety; that is, it is biased in the static and 
fatalistic direction as we have used these terms in this note. In his principal writings Marx 
shows — contrary to what is often popularly assumed — no interest whatsoever in social plan- 
ning. He expected "the reign of freedom" in the classless communistic society to arise 
full-fledged by natural force out of a political revolution caused by trends in technology and 
production. The interest in social reforms which he showed particularly in later days were a 
result of an ideological compromise. Modern social engineering has actually had practically 
no inspiration from Marx's "scientific" socialism, actually less than from the early French 
and English socialists whom Marx repudiated as dilettantes and Utopians. 

The liberalistic character of Marxism is easily understood when its ideological roots are 
scrutinized. (It explains why elements of Marxian teleology have had such an easy access 
into modern American sociology and history.) 

'William F. Ogburn, "Man and His Institutions," Publications of tlte American Socio- 
logical Society (August, 1935), pp. 39-40. 



I0J2 An American Dilemma 

The material* of social planning may, in general, be summed up- in toe phrase "isocM 
forces." They are what social planners have to deal with. What social forces may consist 
of does not concern us at the moment, but the effect of social forces is to produce motion. 
In the case of the above illustration the motion is in population growth. In fact, motion 
is the principal characteristic of our age, for we call it the "age of change." Social 
planning deals with changes, either with changes already started, or in planning new 
changes. It is difficult to name a single phase of our contemporary civilization that is 
not undergoing change. Some parts are changing more rapidly than others. It is this 
fact that we are living in a changing world which is the justification for asking the 
question: What is likely to happen? . . . 

Technology enters the analysis at this point because these changes which are taking 
place are in large part instigated by invention. Thus many of the changes in international 
relations are affected by the airplane, just as in an earlier generation changes taking 
place in the relations of warring peoples were affected by gunpowder. Hence the knowl- 
edge of inventions supplies us partly with the answer to the question of what is going 
to happen. The wishes of human beings are relatively stable from age to age insofar as 
heredity or the physiological foundations are concerned. They take different expressions, 
however, because of the different social conditions in which men live. New inventions 
start changes in the behavior of mankind. They are new stimuli to which human beings 
respond.* 

The social scientists we have cited could not hare reached their negative views on 
planned and induced social change unless guided by a set of general assumptions in their 
selection and interpretation of the empirical data. This implies that they have introduced 
valuations along with facts in deriving conclusions relative to what can be and should 
be the nature of man's practical efforts. We all claim that our factual or theoretical 
studies alone cannot logically lead to a practical recommendation. A practical or valua- 
tional conclusion can be derived only when there is at least one valuation among the 
premises. When our premises consist exclusively of facts, only a factual conclusion 
can result. If we proceed otherwise, and if we, further, denounce valuations, we are 
thus constantly attempting the logically impossible: From certain observations con- 
cerning the causation of a social phenomenon we jump to the valuational conclusion that 
we can do nothing to change this phenomenon because it has such and such a causation. 
To illustrate this common fallacy we have chosen examples from the writings of only a 
few leading sociologists. The specific error that is common to these three men — Sumner, 
Park, and Ogburn — has been with social science from the beginning and is still quite 
general in contemporary social science. This specific error is not that of observing a 
deep-rooted and all-pervasive social causation. The observations of such causation made by 
the particular authors chosen for exemplification are rather monumental contributions 
to knowledge of a most significant nature. The specific logical error is that of inferring 
from the facts that men can and should make no effort to change the "natural" out- 
come of the specific forces observed. This is the old do-nothing (laissez-faire) bias of 
"realistic" social science. 

To bring out the nature of this bias and demonstrate the arbitrariness thereby 
inserted into research, we may consider the same facts that have been observed by 
Sumner, Park, and Ogburn and add to them an explicit and dynamic value premise 

* William F. Ogburn, "Technology and Planning," in George B. Galloway and Associates, 
Planning for America (194.1), pp. 179-180. 



Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1053 

{instead of the implicit fatalistic and static one) and from these deduce a quite different 
practical conclusion. Recognizing the folkways and mores,' for example, and having a 
desire to change some of them in one direction or another, we should be interested in 
studying the range and degree of inertia; all the exceptions to the folkways; the 
specialization of groups; the conflicts (between persons and within persons); the 
changes, the flexibilities, and the manageability of some factors in the social system; 
instead of, as Sumner usually b does, stressing and exemplifying the great over-all 
inertia. On the practical plane we should make not only the negative inference that a 
plan for social change should expect to be time-consuming and to meet strong resistance, 
but also the positive inference that it has to direct its attack on certain points where the 
mores are weakest and where people are already beginning to question them (or have 
a divided conscience with respect to them). We should also infer that it should not 
attack them directly but should create situations where the people themselves will strain 
the mores. Similarly, if we recognize the tremendous force of certain processes and 
sequences we might, with a dynamic value premise, deduce that strategy demands a 
redirection or stoppage of processes which contain within themselves a motive power 
in a certain direction, and an effort against individuals coming to "adjust" themselves 
to the processes. Finally, a recognition of the sweep of social trends and of the basic 
role of invention and economic organization in social causation, coupled with a dynamic 
instead of static valuation, would lead one to facilitate the perfection and adoption of 
those inventions which have the greatest promise of moving the society in a desired 
direction and to seek social inventions which would modify economic organization and 
the effects of mechanical inventions. Social scientists are so habituated to using static 
and fatalistic value premises with such facts as the mores, social processes, and social 
trends, and they are so prone to associate radical valuation premises with a complete 
disregard of the facts, that they often do not realize that it is quite possible to couple 
dynamic value premises with factual knowledge of mores, social processes or social 
trends. The static and fatalistic value premises have actually imbedded themselves into 
the data. And it should not surprise us that the great development of social sciences in 
recent decades in America has not been accompanied by any correspondingly important 
development of social engineering. 

In the theory of folkways and mores the heavy load of do-nothing (laissez-faire) 
valuation becomes particularly apparent when Sumner and his many followers' set 

* We stand in critical opposition to these concepts on theoretical grounds, as they tend to 
give an impression of a homogeneous and unproblcmatic valuational background for 
behavior, which wc think is mistaken (see Appendix i, Section 3), but this does not deeply 
concern our present argument. 

b See Appendix t, Section 2. 

* The fact of static and fatalistic valuations in social science research may be accepted even 
though the analysis of its historical causation, presented on previous pages, may be questioned 
by some. 

* Many other sociologists outside the Sumner tradition considered man-made legislation 
aa ineffectual and dangerous. Franklin H. Giddings, the leader of the Columbia School, for 
example, had this to say about "stateways": 

"Because the folkway is adaptive it is variable, and folkways, therefore, become various, 
not only because new ways from time to time arise out of new circumstances and demands, 
but also through differentiation. One has only to call to mind the fluctuations of fashion, 
the changing forms of address and ceremony, the rise and fall of recreations, the fleeting 



1054 An Americas Dzxxmma 

out with the purpose of proving the inefficacy of legislation. With reference to race 
relation* m the Sonth after the Civil War, Sumner arid: 

The two races have not yet made new mores. Vain attempts have been made to control 
the new order by legislation. The only result is the proof that legislation cannot make 
mores. ... It is only just now that the new society seems to be taking shape. There is a 
trend in the mores now as they begin to form under the new state of things. It is not at 
all what the humanitarians hoped and expected. . . . Some are anxious to interfere and 
try to control. They take their stand on ethical views of what is going on. It is evidently 
impossible for any one to interfere. We are like spectators at a great natural convulsion. 
The results will be such as the facts and forces call for. We cannot foresee them. They 
do not depend on ethical views any more than the volcanic eruption on Martinique con- 
tained an ethical element.* 

It should be noted that — in spite of its psychologism, its ethical relativism, its 
modernized terminology, and the abundant anthropological illustrations — this theory 
is nothing else than a reformulation and slight modification of the old laissez-faire 
doctrine of the "natural order" as it was more naively set forth in the Enlightenment 
period: human relations are governed by "natural laws"; "natural laws" are not only 
the right laws but are also, in the main, and in spite of all the interferences of foolish 
governments, actually permeating real life; they do not need to be legalized — if 
legislation adheres to the "natural laws," it is not exactly damaging but useless; if legis- 
lation conflicts with the "natural laws" it will be inefficacious though slightly damaging 

fads in games and sports, to realize the enormous flexibility of folkways. Stateways tend 
toward uniformity. Governments attempt to standardize not only rights at law but also 
legal procedure, administrative rules, and the conduct of citizens. Legislators are intolerant 
of exceptions, bureaucrats abominate them, and courts, while finding precedents for them 
when moral justice or the rule of reason requires, do not otherwise make them. Trial by 
jury, however, which mediates between folkways and stateways, is a venerable if not always 
a venerated defense against the governmentalists, who would dictate and ration our food 
and drink, write our medical prescriptions, cut our clothes, tell us what we may read and 
look at, and send us to bed at curfew. 

"Stateways are instituted by command, backed up by physical force. They are formal, as 
machine-like as they can be made, and relentless. Folkways exert pressure which may be 
resistless, but it is indefinite, elastic, and automatically variable." (Studies in the Theory 
of Human Society [1922], p. 193.) 

•William Graham Sumner, Folkways (1906), pp. 77-78. Other statements by Sumner, in 
his least opinionated book, revealing his attitude toward legislation, are the following : 

"Acts of legislation come out of the mores. . . . Legislation, however, has to seek standing 
ground on the existing mores, and it soon becomes apparent that legislation, to be strong, 
must be consistent with the mores. Things which have been in the mores are put under 
police regulation and later under positive law. It is sometimes said that 'public opinion' 
must ratify and approve police regulations, but this statement rests on an imperfect analysis. 
The regulations must conform to the mores, so that the public will not think them too lax 
or too strict." (Ibid., p. 55.) 

"[The mores] never contain any provision for their own amendment." (Ibid., p. 79.) 

"The combination in the mores of persistency and variability determines the extent to 
which it is possible to modify them by arbitrary action. It is not possible to change them, 
by any artifice or device, to a great extent, or suddenly, or in any essential element; it is 
possible to modify them by slow and long-continued effort if the ritual is changed by minute 
variations." (Ibid., p. 87.) 



Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1055 

M it will disturb somewhat the smooth operation of the "natural laws." This is, for 
instance, the doctrine bade of Adam Smith's well-known dictum that trade barriers, 
though, of course, irrational and cumbersome, will, m the broad overview, not amount 
to much, as the smugglers will pierce them, acting here as the agents of the "natural 
laws" with the same immutability as water seeking its level. The "im wible hand" will 
inevitably guide human activity On this central point, which apparently is much of the 
political purpose of the whole theory of folkways and mores, Sumner simply expresses 
a common American prejudice against legislation which we have discussed in Chapter 
I, Section 5, and in other places. 

The presence of this same static and fatalistic valuation in the hidden ethos of 
contemporary social science is suggested by some of the terminology found throughout 
the writings of many sociologists, such as "balance," "harmony," "equilibrium," "adjust- 
ment," "maladjustment," "organisation," "disorganization," "accommodation," "func- 
tion," "social process" and "cultural lag " While they all — as the corresponding concepts 
in economics, mentioned above — have been used advantigcously to describe empirical!) 
observable situations, they carry within them the tendency to give a do-nothing (lausez- 
fatre) valuation of those situations How the slip occurs is easily understandable When 
we speak of a social situation being in harmony, or having equilibrium, or its forces 
organized, accommodated, or adjusted to each other, there is the almost inevitable impli- 
cation that some sort of ideal has been attained, whether in terms of "individual hippi- 
ness" or the "common welfare " Such a situation is, therefore, evaluated as "good ' 
and a movement in the direction is "desirable " " 1 he negative terms — disharmony, 
disequilibrium, maladjustment, disorganization — correspondingly describe an undcsinbk 

* There is practically no discussion in the literature on the value connotation in the terms 
exemplified in the text When raising the question with lepresentative social scientists, I 
have often met the following reaction first, an acknowledgment that many authors in 
speaking of adjustment, accommodation, disorganization, and so forth, imply valuations of 
"good" or "bad" and that this is unscientific, but, second, that sometimes — even when a 
valuation is implied — this is bo general that it is self-evident "Accommodation, for example," 
it is said, "is a process whereby people are able to cooperate and thereby maintain some 
social order, accommodation grows out of a conflict of intertst and is only established after 
each party to the conflict has accepted a place in the social order and developed appropriate 
or reciprocal attitudes, but there always remains a lattnt conflict The only 'goodness' 
implied in accommodation is that thereby cooperation under social order is maintained " 
Against this argument there are several criticisms to be rused (1) the value given to 
cooperation and social order should be given explicitly rather than implicitly in the con- 
notation of a term, (a) this valuation is certainly not under all conditions self evident 
from the viewpoint of every party involved (to one party a continued conflict can under 
circumstances be preferable, if only for reaching' another and more favorable status of 
accommodation) , (3) this valuation is not, just because it is so general, pi ease enough to 
serve a scientific purpose even if it were made explicit (the sta us to which conflicting 
parties are actually brought to "accommodate" is not given a frtort but is the outcome of a 
social process, the actual result of which becomes condoned because "accommodation" in 
general is condoned, this result could have been different not only because of a prolonged 
conflict but also because of a different type of accommodation behavior by one person or the 
other) In the Negro problem practically every situation, except where a race not is on, can 
be, and is often actually in the literature, described as an "accommodation," and status quo 
in every aspect can thus be, and is, implicitly justified because it preserves cooperation and 
th" social order 



1056 An American Dilemma 

situation, u indicated by the etymological connection of their prefixes to the word "bad." 
A great arbitrariness — allowing for the more specific biases of a personality and a 
cultural setting — is present in deciding upon just what shall be considered as equilib- 
rium and what disequilibrium in a process of social change. The following quotation 
has been chosen to illustrate the working of a political bias through the vehicle of such 
terms, not only because the bias — directed against the Negro as his interests are com- 
monly conceived — is expressed in a particularly blunt form, but also because it happens 
to be from the pen of a Negro sociologist: 

In the face of these opposing views, then, conclusions concerning the effect of education 
upon Negroes during this period may be reserved. If education brought disorganisation 
among the former slaves, it may be counted as a liability. If, on the other hand, it served 
as an outlet for feelings that might otherwise have been directed into politics, where 
discord might have resulted, it may be counted on as an asset. The situation doubtless 
varied in different places at different times — assisting or retarding adjustment in areas 
where the one effect or the other, already mentioned, preponderated.* 

Similarly, if a thing has a "function" it is good or at least essential. b The term "func- 
tion" can have a meaning only in terms of a presumed purpose; if that purpose is left 
undefined or implied to be the "interest of society" which is no further defined, a con- 
siderable leeway for arbitrariness in practical implication is allowed but the main direc- 
tion is given: a description of social institutions in terms of their functions must lead 
to a conservative teleology. If there is a "cultural lag," there is likewise a presumption 
that the elimination of the lag is desirable. While social processes and mores may not 
be good, in terms of certain arbitrary standards, they are believed to exist or develop 
with an inevitability that defies all efforts directed toward their modification. 

These and similar static terms constitute much of the basic descriptive and theoretical 
terminology in all the social sciences. It is certainly an important task of self-scrutiny 
for social science to determine why such terms and not more dynamic ones have been 
given such a strategic position in social science thinking. The present author has sug- 
gested above that the origin of social science out of the philosophies of Enlightenment 
and the greater "realism" of the laissez-faire wing of early liberalism is of centra] 
importance. The very fact that the evaluative nature of these terms has gone almost 
unnoticed suggests that the explanation of their choice must go deep into the roots of 
Western culture. Whatever the reason for their predominance, the fact that such terms 
— without much care to preserve for them a strictly theoretical meaning — are widely 
used to describe much of social life and serve as keystones in theoretical explanations of 
social structure and change, inserts into social science an implicit static and fatalistic 
value premise. The use of such terms makes it appear that a given situation is desirable 
or inevitable without the explicit specification by the social scientist of what he considers 
desirable or of the possibilities of the modification of "inevitability." 

There is nothing to be criticized when a scientist explicitly states that he hopes a 
certain situation will develop, that such a situation is a good one according to certain 
standards which he sets up, or that a certain situation or development is inevitable beyond 

'Bertram W. Doyle, T/ie Etiquette of Race Relations in the South (1937), p. 127. 

* How easily even a radical social scientist may slip over to the expression of approval of 
, something that he says has a function is illustrated by Durkheira's discussion of crime and 
;, punishment: Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Met/tod (1938; first edition, 
' 1895), translated by Sarah A. Solovay and John H. Mueller, pp. 66-70. 



Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1057 

all possibility of modification by any contingency or directed effort whatsoever. What 
is to be criticized is the nse of terms to hide the fact that there is a value premise in a 
value judgment. The observation of the facts of a given existing situation alone will 
never permit the conclusion that such a situation is good or desirable or even that this 
situation is inevitable in the future. In other words, we are making a plea for explicit 
value premises. We are also making a plea for unbiased research. The relation between 
these two desiderata is this, that it is the hidden valuations which give entrance to biases 
in social science. 

The author is well aware that some of his criticisms and suggestions in the preceding 
pages on the history and logic of the hidden valuations in social science are controversial 
and would ask the reader to note that the following remarks on a positive methodology 
for social science as well as Sections I and 2 of this Appendix do not depend on the 
correctness of Section 3. 

It should also be reiterated as a concluding remark that when we have illustrated our 
thesis by citing prominent American sociologists, this is only because American sociology 
has provided the main scientific frame for the scientific study of the Negro problem 
which is our particular concern in this book. The tendencies criticized are, however, 
common in all social sciences in the entire Western world. Too, not all American 
sociologists have a do-nothing {laissez-faire') bias. In earlier generations Lester F. Ward, 
Simon Patten, and many others were reformers, and Ward thought of social science as 
social engineering. Their methodological principles were not clear, however. In the 
present generation Louis Wirth, to mention only one prominent representative of a 
growing group holding a dissenting view, has expressed opinions in fundamental agree- 
ment with this appendix.* 

4. The Points of View Adopted in This Book 

Scientific facts do not exist per se, waiting for scientists to discover them. A scientific 
fact is a construction abstracted out of a complex and interwoven reality by means of 
arbitrary definitions and classifications. The processes of selecting a problem and a basic 
hypothesis, of limiting the scope of study, and of defining and classifying data relevant 
to such a setting of the problem, involve a choice on the part of the investigator. The 
choice is made from an indefinite number of possibilities. The same is true when draw- 
ing inferences from organized data. Everything in the world is connected with every- 
thing else: when shall one stop, and in what direction shall one proceed when establish- 
ing causal relations? Scientific conventions usually give guidance. Rut, first, convention 
itself is a valuation, usually a biased one, and it is the more dangerous as it is usually 
hidden in tacit preconceptions which are not discussed or even known; second, progress 
in science is made by those who are most capable of freeing themselves from the con- 
ventions in their science and of seeking guidance from other sciences and nonscientific 
endeavors. 

'Louis Wirth, "Preface" in Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (1936), pp. xiii-xxxi 
and his article "Ideological Aspects of Social Disorganization," American Sociological 
Review (August, 1940), pp. 472-482. John Dollard's Criteria for the Life History (1935) 
and Caste and Class in a Southern Town (1937) also exemplify a conscious inteiest in 
making biases explicit even if they do not reach a methodology centered on explicit value 
premises. Robert Maclvcr's Social Causation (1942) and Robert Lynd'a Knowledge For 
What? (1939) are other sociological books which are free of implicit value premises. 



7058 Air American Dilemma 

Prior to research, therefore, ire complicated theories. The architecture oi<dteK 
theoriei it arbitrary except when they are intentionally founded npon a definition of 
relevant interest*. This is true no matter how much effort is invested in selecting terms 
of low valuation*! content and no matter how remote from public interest the causal 
analysis is. When one is out to determine such a simple thing as the level of "real wages" 
in a community, for example, he has to rack his soul to decide whether to base his 
calculations on hourly rates or on annual wages: whether to consider articles outside 
of the staple commodities as necessities of consumption, whether to consider certain 
items, the consumption of which is not "customary," as necessities because all dieticians 
think so, and generally speaking, how to decide the weights in the consumption budgets 
used for constructing a cost of living index. In a world of change and variation there 
can be no such thing as an ''ideal index"; in the final analysis, the weights have always 
to be chosen upon the basis of what one's interest in a study is. In comparing Negroes 
and whites, decisions must be taken in such problems as: is it more proper to make 
the comparison directly or to take into account the fact that Negroes are concentrated 
in the lower occupational brackets, in poorer and more backward regions of the coun- 
try, and that they have been discriminated against in education and in other respects? * 
These considerations sound trite to any scientist who is at all aware of his methodol- 
ogy. What we wish to point out, however, is that every choice involves valuations. One 
does not escape valuations by restricting his research to the discovery of "facts." The 
very attempt, so prevalent in recent years, to avoid valuations by doing research that is 
simply factual and without use for practical or political efforts involves in itself a 
valuation. We hasten to explain that wc are not criticizing pure fact-finding. Fact- 
finding is indispensable for the solution of most of the problems — both practical 
and theoretical — that we encounter. The criticism is directed against fact-seeking that 
is done without a problem. The full statement of a problem, including the decision 
of scope, direction, hypothesis, classification principles, and the definition of all terms 
used, renders explicit the valuations necessary in fact-finding research. The author can, 
of course, explicitly disavow any practical interest and declare that he personally finds 
that the topic and the hypothesis appeal to him esthctically — or that he has made all 
his choices at random. If, however, practical usefulness is an aim in science, even 
the direction of research becomes dependent upon much wider valuations concerning 
society. 

It should be stressed that this complication of a science which is not mere "art for 
art's sake" does not in the least decrease the demands upon objectivity in research. On 
the contrary, specification of valuations aids in reaching objectivity since it makes 
explicit what otherwise would be only implicit. Facts may be scientifically recorded and 
analyzed with explicit value premises as well as without them, and this can actually 
be accomplished the better in the former case since the explicit value premises focus 
the investigator's attention upon the valuations which, if hidden, are the roots of 
biases, since they generally set a standard of relevance and significance. This is true 
also when the analysis proceeds to draw practical conclusions. The conclusions must 
simply be remembered to be only as valid as the premises, which is true in all science. 
In fact, only when the premises are stated explicitly is it possible to determine how valid 
the conclusions are. 

* See Richard Sterner and Associates, The Negro's Shore (1943), prepared for this study; 
pp. 3-9. 



Appendix a. Note on Facts and Valuations 1059 

1. Theoretical and Practical Research. Our entire discussion is based upon a distinc- 
tion between two aspects, or stages, of social science research : the "theoretical" and the 
"practical." By "theoretical" research we mean here all the research which is directed 
purely and exclusively toward ascertaining facts and causal relations between facts. By 
"practical" research we mean the logical procedure of relating value judgments to fac- 
tual situations and to actual trends of change and, from their combination, deriving 
scientific plans for policies aimed at inducing alterations of the anticipated social trends 
("social engineering"). 

The relations established in theoretical research are simply causal. In practical research 
the causal relations are transposed into furposeful relations. The sequence in theoretical 
research — from cause to effect — is in social engineering turned into the reverse order 
from ends to means. In practical research the causal relations established by theoretical 
research are taken as facts. 

Theoretical research is primarily concerned with the frtsent situation and the fast 
development. It attempts to establish, out of systematized experience of the present 
and the past, a rational knowledge, in as general terms as possible, of the causal rela- 
tions between elementary factors in the social process. Its final goal is to be able on this 
basis to forecast the future by rational prognoses. 

Practical research is exclusively concerned with the future. Its principal viewpoint is 
that the future represents a set of alternatively possible trends of development. What 
future development will actually occur is, from the practical point of view, a matter 
of choice, in so far as decisions and actions on the part of the citizen and society can 
determine this development. Its final goal, therefore, is the scientific planning of 
"induced changes." 

Between the two .-»pects, or stages, of social research there exist the following main 
relations: 

(a) The directior of theoretical research is determined by the practical purposes held 
in view. In a study of the American Negro problem which i« as predominantly practical 
in its intentions as ours, the frame for all our theoretical research thus consists of certain 
practical questions concerning the future status of the Negro and the future of race 
relations in America. 

(b) Practical problems can, on the other hand, be approached only on the basis of the 
theoretical analysis of actual facts and their causal interrelations. 

(c) On theoretical grounds some practical goals can be shown to be futile; — that is, 
impossible of execution. Theoretical research thus sets the scope of practical research 
by determining what is feasible. 

(d) Knowledge of facts is never enough for posing the practical problems concerning 
what is right, just, desirable and advisable. Practical conclusions are, by logical necessity, 
inferences from value premises as well as from factual premises. 

In our study it is our ambition, first, to keep this distinction between theoretical and 
practical research clear throughout the various specific problems we are dealing with; 
and, third, to treat the practical problems as problems of scientific research. We shall, 
second, not to shun the practical problems but rather make them central in our work; 
therefore, have to devote the closest attention to value premises. 

2. Value Premises. Value premises in research have to satisfy the following criteria: 
(a) They must be explicitly staled and not hidden as tacit assumptions. 



1060 An American Dilemma r 

(b) They mast be a specific and concretized as the valuation of reality in terms of 
factual knowledge requires. 

(c) They cannot be derived directly from factual research hut they will hare to be 
purposhely selected. 

(d) They cannot be a priori, self-evident, or generally valid; they can have only an 
hypothetical character. 

(e) Since incompatible valuations are held in society, the value premiaes should ideally 
be given as a number of sets of alternative hypotheses. The value judgments reached as 
conclusions from factual data and from these value hypotheses consist of a correspond- 
ing number of alternative plans for practical policy. 

(f ) In a scientific treatment of the practical aspects of social problems, the alternative 
sets of hypothetical value premises should not be chosen arbitrarily. The principle of 
selection should be their relevance. Relevance is determined by the interests and ideals 
of actual persons and groups of persons. There is thus no need of introducing value 
premises which are not actually held by anybody.* 

(g) Within the circle of relevance so determined a still more narrow circle of signif- 
icance may be taken to denote such valuations which are held by substantial groups of 
people or by small groups with substantial social power. Realistic research on practical 
problems will have to concentrate its attention upon value premises corresponding to 
valuations which have high social significance or are likely to gain in social significance. 
On the other hand, it is certainly not necessary to adopt only those valuation premises 
which are held by a majority of the population or by a politically dominant group. 

(h) The goals set by the value premises must also be feasible. Some courses of future 
development might be proved — by theoretical investigation of relevant data — to be 
impossible or highly improbable. Valuations bent upon the impossible should, of course, 
not be chosen as valuation premises but be theoretically criticized as unfeasible. This 
theoretical criticism in terms of feasibility of people's actual valuations is, indeed, one 
of the most important tasks of social science. 

(i) The set of value premises selected must not include mutually incompatible ones 
but must be consistent. In this context we must observe that sometimes a balance or a 
compromise in the set of value premises must be worked out and defined (to take an 
over-simplified example, progress may mean a sacrifice of stability and order). Some value 
premises are more inclusive than others and subsume others under them. Some value 
premises stand in a proximate relationship to others (as means to ends). 

If these rules could be observed, the analysis of social problems in theoretical terms 
would become released from arbitrariness in the setting of problems and protected from 
the unconscious effect of biases. The analysis in practical terms would be elevated to 
the rational plane and made specific and realistic. The aim of practical research — start- 
ing out from the data revealed 'by theoretical research and from sets of explicitly stated, 
concretely specified, alternatively assumed, hypothetical value premises which are 
relevant, significant, and attainable — is, in general terms, to show precisely vthat should 
be the practical and political opinions and plans for action from the point of view of 

' This is a rule of economy. There are, of course, no logical reasons why we might not 
anticipate combinations, syntheses, mutual modifications of existing value premises or even 
conjure up new ones and thus enlarge still more our perspective. Certainly we could go 
outside the culture and epoch under study and use the value premises operating there and 
see what would happen if they were in the culture and epoch. 



Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1061 

the various valuations if their holders also hoi the more correct and comprehensive 
factual knowledge which science frovides. 

3. Prognoses and Programs. A study of valuations as they, in the form of interests 
and ideals, are actually held in various racial, regional, economic, and social groups of 
American society is, naturally, an important task in itself in the theoretical exploration 
of social reality. As the future social development will, in part, depend upon the reac- 
tions of the various groups and upon their relative power, the prognoses of future trends 
— which represent the ultimate goal for theoretical research — must include an investi- 
gation of the valuations and of the power behind valuations. 

Prognoses and programs are in this scheme of thinking naturally interdependent: (a) 
the prognoses will partly depend on the actually conceived programs of various individ- 
uals and groups with diverse valuations and with various amounts of power; (b) rational 
programs must, on the other hand, be built upon the prognoses of trends which these 
various groups and individuals intend to bend in one way or the other; (c) even the 
existing programs of individuals and groups are, of course, founded upon ideas about 
future trtnds; (d) practical research tries to rationalize the existing programs by connect- 
ing the valuations basic to those programs with available scientific knowledge ; (e) to the 
degree that practical research is successful in this, and to the extent that the educational 
agencies in society are effective in disseminating knowledge, it will influence trends and. 
consequently, be a cause of change of programs to be considered in theoretical prognoses 

Existing programs arc multiple and conflicting, at least in a democratic society where 
no one group has all the power." Practical research cannot, therefore, proceed on the 
old liberalistic doctrine that there is a "harmony of interest" and that there is only one 
program which is directed toward all the good in the world. Theoretical analysis reveals 
that there is actual struggle and competition between individuals and between groups, 
and that social trends take their form as an outcome of this struggle and competition. 
For practical analysis, therefore, there must be alternative programs. 

4. The Selection of Value Premises. The scheme of principles for selecting value 
premises and introducing them into scientific research, presented in the last two sections, 
represents an ideal for social science. The possibilities of approaching it, however, are 
severely restricted by a number of circumstances: 

(a) The scientific basis for constructing our "field of valuations" is poor. Public 
opinion with respect to the Negro problem has not been studied much, and the studies 
made do not meet our requirements. 11 For the most part we have been forced to base 
our generalizations on impressionistic observations of the values held by different groups 
and individuals. 

(b) Many of the valuations held with respect to the Negro problem have much 

* The more "normal" conditions are, the greater is the number of conflicting programs. 
In a crisis situation — economic, social, or political — there really is an approximation to 
"interest harmony" in society because interests have, for the time being, been taken away 
from long-range objectives and concentrated upon one, mutually shared, short-range objec- 
tive. In a depression both employers and employees can be shown to have a common interest 
in economic expansion, raising volume of credit, demand, prices, production, employment 
and wage-earnings. In war the common interest rising above all other goals is to win 
victory. In a crisis the methodological problem for practical research is, therefore, rela- 
tively simple. 

'See Appendix 10, Section i. 



io6i An American Dilemma 

to i unilinear pro- and anti-Negro scale of valuations. They branch out into the whole 
complex of economic, social, and political problems where the Negro has a stake in 
contemporary American civilization. Valuations which can be observed in behavior and 
opinions are not formed with respect to the Negro in abstraction, but to the Negro 
in specific social relations. This difficulty is, however, somewhat relieved, as there 
apparently is a high degree of correlation between the valuations along various scales. 

(c) Valuations concern not only goals or "ends" in the treatment of the Negro, but 
also the "means" of achieving these goals and the "by-effects" of the achievement. 

(d) We cannot assume that the conflicts of valuation are raging only between individ- 
uals and between groups. It is too significant to overlook that these conflicts are actually 
housed within single individuals.* This makes both the observation of valuations and 
the imputation of power to various valuations a most delicate problem. 

(e) Partly because a single individual may hold several logically incompatible valua- 
tions, a set of valuations is seldom systematized and made self-consistent. 

(f) Another difficulty in extracting value premises arises out of the fact that they 
are bound up with beliefs. 11 People's beliefs represent not only their volitional attitudes 
to social problems but also their incomplete and incorrect views as to the facts of social 
reality. Beliefs may influence valuations, just as valuations influence beliefs. Because we 
can get at only expressed opinions, which are themselves a much modified form of 
complexes of beliefs and valuations, it is a complicated task to detect valuations. From 
behavior and expressed opinions we must infer back to those complexes. Prom them 
we must infer back to basic valuations. This latter step includes the speculation as to 
what people's valuations would be if they were juxtaposed with correct knowledge 
instead of incorrect knowledge. The tracing out of a set of existing valuations, and a 
determination of their relevance and significance, is — for this reason alone — a dif- 
ficult undertaking. 

(g) Aside from all this, the very multiplicity of relevant and significant sets of valua- 
tions will, of course, raise great operational difficulties in research. The number of sets 
of value premises applied will have to be reduced much by way of abstraction. As there 
is a high correlation between valuations along different scales, some main composite axes 
can be defined. On each axis not every point need be represented but only a few, so that 
one can see what difference it makes in scientific approach and practical conclusions when 
one moves to the one extreme or the other. But even after a reduction of the sets of 
value premises to a few, the analysis will tend to be complicated. 

5. The "Instrumental Norm." With these complications and difficulties in view, it 
becomes evident that to try to consider all the existing, relevant, and significant sets of 
valuations with respect to the Negro problem, to relate them to relevant facts, and to 
draw up various sets of practical programs is a task which cannot be accomplished within 
the confines of present research resources. The ideal should, however, be held clearly 
and uncompromisingly before our eyes as the goal for research. 

In this situation we have seen fit to adopt the following solution: that one single set 
of relevant and significant value premises be selected for utilization in a ■preliminary 
analysis tad that other significant sets of value -premises be introduced at a later stage 

* See (he Introduction and Appendix 1. 
*See Appendix i, Section 1. 



Appendix 2. Note on Facts and Valuations 1063 

of the investigation to make pontile judgments in terms of alternative valuations and 
policies. 

The purely technical and instrumental character of the preliminary set of value 
premises must be borne in mind constantly. The valuations of situations and trends, 
institutions and policies reached in terms of the instrumental value premises also are 
only preliminary. 

But we must not deceive ourselves on this point: the selection of the instrumental norm 
has material significance. The whole direction of our theoretical research actually 
becomes determined by this norm. We have given one particular set of valuations a 
strategically favorable position in the study. This is not a characteristic of our study in 
particular but of all research working under the same limits of research resources. It is 
not a bias, as the direction of research has been determined under conscious control and 
by help of explicit valuations. But measured by the standards of our ideal for research 
and keeping in mind all other possible sets of value premises, it is a one-sidedness in 
approach, and we should be fully aware of it. In the present volume time and space 
have, further, prevented the subsequent complementation of our results by applying 
alternative sets of value premises, except at a few points.* 

Under these circumstances the utmost importance must be attached to the choice of the 
instrumental norm. In Chapter I, Section 13, we have given the reasons why we have 
organized this book around a set of valuations which we have called the "American 
Creed." 

6. The Value-Loaded Terms. This very set of dynamic valuations contained in the 
American Creed has actually, to a great extent and despite compromises with the inherited 
static valuations of social science, determined the object and direction of previous 
research on the Negro problem. We arc thus keeping to the tradition, only attempting 
to clarify what we are doing. The scientific work on the Negro in politics has been 
centered upon disfranchisement. This means that the interest has been defined out of 
the notion that the extraordinary thing to be studied is the fact that often in America 
the Negro is not given the right to suffrage as other citizens. In the same vein the work 
on the Negro's legal status has been focused upon the specific disabilities of the Negro 
under the law. Negro education has likewise been studied under the main viewpoint of 
discrimination. The same is true of the research on the Negro as a breadwinner. Negro 
standards of living have been compared with those of the whites. His share in social 
welfare policy has been measured by the standards of equality. Discrimination has been 
the key word for most studies on the Negro problem. This very term — and all its 
synonyms and specifications — and the theoretical approach which it signifies are derived 
out of the precepts of the American Creed. 

It has often been observed that these terms, and a great many other terms of more 
general import for social research, as, for instance, class and caste, arc all value-loaded. 
Many scientists attempt to avoid what they rightly (as they are not specifying the value 
premises involved) conceive of as biases by choosing new terms for the same things 
which do not carry such apparent connotations of valuation. This attempt is in our 
view misdirected. Biases are not so easily eradicated. And in this case they signify — 
though in a concealed and therefore uncontrollable way — valuations necessary for the 
setting of scientific problems. "Without valuations," Professor Louis Wirth write*, 

* See, for example, Chapter zj, Section 6. 



10^4 An American Dilemma 

"we have no interest, no tense of relevance or of significance, and, conseauently, no 
object." ■ 

The value-loaded terms have a meaning and represent a theoretical approach... because 
the theoretical approach itself is determined by the valuations inherent in the govern- 
ing ethos of a society. When this is seen clearly, and when those valuations are made 
explicit and, consequently, the terms are defined in relation to the valuations, then, and 
only then, are we in the position to nse the terms freely without constantly endangering 
the theoretical analysis by permitting biases to slip in. There is thus no sense in 
inventing new scientific terms for the purpose. New terms for old things can only give 
a false security to ourselves and bewilder the general public. In the degree that the new 
terms would actually cover the facts we discussed in the old familiar terms—the facts 
which we want to discuss, because we are interested in them — they would soon become 
equally value-loaded in a society permeated by the same ideals and interests. Scientific 
terms become value-loaded because society is made up of human beings following pur- 
poses. A "disinterested social science" is, from this viewpoint, pure nonsense. It never 
existed, and it never will exist. We can make our thinking strictly rational in spite of 
this, but only by facing the valuations, not by evading them. 

'In > letter to the author, September 29, 1939. 



APPENDIX 3 

A METHODOLOGICAL NOTE ON THE PRINCIPLE 
OF CUMULATION 



In social science we have been drawing heavily on the notions and theories of the 
much farther developed natural sciences, particularly physics. The notion of equilibrium, 
for instance, has been in all our reasoning for centuries. Actually it is present in most 
research of the present day, even when it is not formally introduced. In most social 
research we have restricted our utilization of the equilibrium notion to that simple and 
static variant of it, the stable equilibrium. It is this equilibrium notion which is implicit 
in the sociological constructions of "maladjustment" and "adjustment" and all their 
several synonyms or near-synonyms, where equilibrium is thought of as having a virtual 
reality in determining the direction of change.* We propose the utilization of other 
equilibrium notions besides this simplest one. For dynamic analysis of the process of 
change in social relations, it is highly desirable that wc disengage our minds from the 
stable equilibrium scheme of thinking. The other types of equilibrium notions are often 
better descriptions of social reality than the stable one. 

If we succeed in placing a pencil upright on its end, it is also in equilibrium, but an 
unstable one, a "labile status" of balancing forces, as we easily find if we touch it. No 
"adjustment," "adaptation," or "accommodation" toward the original position will 
follow the application of a push, but only an accelerated movement away from the 
original state of balance. A third type of equilibrium is present when a pencil is 
rolling on a plane surface: it may come to rest anywhere. A fourth type is what we might 
call "created equilibrium," that is, arranging a disordered pile of pencils into a box 
by intelligent social engineering. 

The most important need is to give place in our hypothetical explanatory scheme to a 
rational recognition of the cumulation of forces. In one branch of social science, 
economics, these various types of equilibrium notions have lately been used with great 
advantage. The principle of cumulation has given us, for the first time, something which 
approaches a real theory of economic dynamics. 1 " In Chapter 3, Section 7, we referred 
to the theory of the "vicious circle" as a main explanatory scheme for this inquiry into 
the Negro problem; the scheme reappears in every part of our book. The following 

* These equilibrium concepts have been used also as vehicles for introducing hidden valu- 
ations — i.e., bias — into research} see Appendix 2. Our interest in this appendix is directed 
only upon their usefulness as theoretical tools. To explain these other notions it is convenient 
to think in terms of analogies. The stable equilibrium is like a hanging pendulum, unmov- 
ing, and with no tendency to move unless jolted. 

* For a simplified model of cumulative economic causation, see Gunnar Myrdal, Monetary 
Equilibrium (1939)) pp. 24 ff. 

1065 



io66 An American Dilemma 

brief notes are intended to give an abstract clarification of the theory and a perspective 
on some of its future potentialities as a method of social research. 

In considering the Negro problem in its most abstract aspect, let ns construct a much 
simplified mental model of dynamic social causation. We assume in this model society 
of our imagination a white majority and a Negro minority. We assume, further, that 
the interrelation between the two groups is in part determined by a specific degree of 
"race prejudice" on the side of the whites, directed against the Negroes. We assume the 
"plane of living" of the Negroes to be considerably lower than that of the whites. We 
take, as given, a mutual relationship between our two variables, and we assume this 
relationship to be of such a type that, on the one hand, the Negroes' plane of living 
is kept down by discrimination from the side of the whites while, on the other hand, 
the whites' reason for discrimination is partly dependent upon the Negroes' plane of 
living. The Negroes' poverty, ignorance, superstition, slum dwellings, health deficiencies, 
dirty appearance, disorderly conduct, bad odor and criminality stimulate and feed the 
antipathy of the whites for them. We assume, for the sake of simplicity, that society, 
in our abstract model, is in "balance" initially. By this we mean that conditions are 
static, that our two variables are exactly checking each other: there is — under these static 
conditions — just enough prejudice on the part of the whites to keep down the Negro 
plane of living to that level which maintains the specific degree of prejudice, or the 
other way around. 

If now, in this hypothetically balanced state, for some reason or other, the Negro 
plane of living should be lowered, this will — other things being equal — in its turn 
increase white prejudice. Such an increase in white prejudice has the effect of pressing 
down still further the Negro plane of living, which again will increase prejudice, and 
so on, by way of mutual interaction between the two variables, ad infinitum. A cumula- 
tive process is thus set in motion which can have final effects quite out of proportion to 
the magnitude of the original push. The push might even be withdrawn after a time, 
and still a permanent change will remain or even the process of change will continue 
without a new balance in sight. If, instead, the initial change had been such a thing as 
a gift from a philanthropist to raise the Negro plane of living, a cumulative movement 
would have started in the other direction, having exactly the same causal mechanism. 
The vicious circle works both ways. 

The Negroes' "plane of living" is, however, a composite entity. Let us, while retain- 
ing our major assumptions, approach a more realistic conception by splitting up this 
quantity into components, assuming that the cumulative principle works also in their 
causative interrelations. Besides "relative absense of race prejudice on the side of whites," 
we introduce a number of variables: levels of "Negro employment," "wages," "housing," 
"nutrition," "clothing," "health," "education," "stability in family relations," "man- 
ners," "cleanliness," "orderliness," "trustworthiness," "law observance," "loyalty to 
society at large," "absence of criminality" and so on. All these variables — according to 
our hypotheses— cumulate. In other words, we assume that a movement in any of the 
Negro variables in the direction toward the corresponding white levels will tend to 
decrease white prejudice. At the same time white prejudice is assumed to be, directly 
or indirectly, one of the causative factors effective in keeping the levels low for the 
several Negro variables. It is also our hypothesis that, on the whole, a rise in any 
single one of the Negro variables will tend to raise all the other Negro variables and 
thvs, indirectly as well as directly, result in a cumulatively enforced effect upon white 



Appendix 3. Note on Principle of Cumulation 1067 

prejudice. A rile m employment will tend to increase earnings; raise standards of living; 
and improve health, education, manners and law observance and vice versa; a better 
education is assumed to raise the chances of a higher salaried job, and vice versa; and sn 
all the way through onr whole system of variables. Each of the secondary changes has its 
effect on white prejudice. 

If, in actual social life, the dynamics of the causal relations between the various 
factors in the Negro problem should correspond to onr hypotheses, then — assuming 
again, for the sake of simplicity, an initially static state of balanced forces — any change 
in any one of these factors, independent of the way in which it is brought about, will, 
by the aggregate weight of the cumulative efects running back and forth between 
them all, start the whole system moving in one direction or the other as the case may 
be, with a speed depending upon the original push and the functions of causal inter- 
relation within the system. 

Our point is not simply that many forces are "working in the same direction." 
Originally we assumed that there was a balance between these forces, and that. the 
system was static, until we introduced one push coming in at one point or the other. 
When the system starts rolling, it is true that the changes in the forces — though not all 
the forces themselves — work in one direction; but this is because the variables are 
assumed to be interlocked in such a causal mechanism that a change of any one causes 
the others to change in the same direction, with a secondary effect upon the first variable, 
and so on. 

We may further notice that the "balance" assumed as initial status was not a stable 
equilibrium at all — of the type which is tacitly assumed in the notions of "maladjust- 
ment," "adjustment," "accommodation," "social lag" — and, further, that in our 
scheme of hypotheses there is not necessarily assumed to exist any new "balance," or 
"equilibrium," or "harmony," toward which the factors of the system "adjust" or 
"accommodate." In the utilization of this theoretical model on problems of actual social 
reality, the initial state of labile balance, which we assumed for simplicity in our demon- 
stration, will, of course, never be found. What we shall have to study are processes of 
systems actually rolling in the one direction or the other, systems which are constantly 
subjected to all sorts of pushes from outside through all the variables, and which are 
moving because of the cumulative effect of all these pushes and the interaction between 
the variables. 

The individual factors into which we split the Negroes' plane of living can, of course, 
be split again, and it is the purpose of scientific analysis to do so. The causal relations 
between the sub-factors, and between them and all other factors, will be assumed to be 
ruled by the same cumulative principle. White race prejudice, here assumed as the 
"cause" of discrimination, is not a solid and static factor. To begin with, it depends 
upon discrimination itself. If, for some reason — for example, the demand of the 
employer during a war emergency, or the ruling of a trade union — white workers 
actually come to work with Negroes as fellow workers, it has been experienced that 
prejudice will often adjust to the changed amount of discrimination. White prejudice 
itself can be split into a great number of beliefs and valuations; to a degree, both of 
these two types of factors are dependent upon each other, as we hinted at in Appendix t, 
and, consequently, are under the rule of the cumulative principle. 

Throughout this treatise on the Negro problem the model of dynamic causation — 
and the implied skepticism toward the idea of stable equilibrium — is kept steadily 



io68 An American Dilemma * 

in the hick of our mind. A main viewpoint in our study of every- tingle factor 
in the Negro problem is thus its interrelation with all other factors and their 
cumulative effect upon the status of the Negro. The principle of cumulation allows 
us to see that there is sense in the general notion of the "status of the Negro." We 
shoald, indeed, have liked to present in our study a general index, year by year or at 
least decade by decade, as a quantitative expression of the movement of the entire 
system we are studying: the status of the Negro in America. Such an index would have 
about the same significance as the general indices of production or prices or any other 
complex systems of interdependent variables. The index is an average. It should, for the 
same principal reasons, have to be broken down for regions, classes, and items, 
and this breaking down would have the same scientific function in an analysis. 
It would give quantitative precision to the concept of the general status of the 
Negro — a concept which, because of the cumulative principle, we cannot escape. 
And it 'always clarifies our reasoning to be compelled to calculate a quantitative 
value for a notion we use. Materials for such an index of (relative and absolute) Negro 
status are, to a great extent, available, and the general theory of the index offers a 
methodological basis for its construction. But the work of constructing and analyzing a 
general index of Negro status in America amounts to a major investigation in itself, 
and we must leave the matter as a proposal for further research. 

Our chief task is to analyze the causal interrelation within the system itself as it works 
under the influence of outside pushes and the momentum of on-going processes within. 
The system is much more complicated than appears from our abstract representation. To 
begin with, all factors must be broken down by region, social class, age, sex and so on. 
As what we are studying is a race relation, the number of combinations increases by 
multiples for each classification applied. White prejudice, for instance, varies not only 
with the status of the white man, but also with the Negro's social class and the field 
of Negro behavior in relation to which race prejudice is active. There are also Negro 
prejudices in the system. 

Each factor has its peculiarities and irregularities. White prejudice, for instance, 
changes not only as a reaction to actual changes in Negro plane of living, but also to 
expectations of such changes. The latter reaction may be totally different from the 
former: a higher plane of living among Negroes, when it is actually achieved, may be 
expected to effect a decrease of white prejudice, but the expectation of it for the future 
might increase prejudice, particularly in the South (even if its long-run effects — when 
it actually comes — will be, as we have assumed, a decrease of prejudice). It is possible, 
finally, that certain social classes of whites — say poor whites in the South— even in the 
fairly long-range perspective will react with increased prejudice against the Negro's 
approaching the white man's status. 

The system thus becomes complicated, but the fundamental principle of cumulative 
causation remains. The scientific ideal is not only to define and analyze the factors, 
but to give for each one ol them a measure of their actual quantitative strength in 
influencing the other factors, as well as a measure of their ability to be influenced them- 
selves by outside forces. The time element becomes of paramount importance in these 
formulas. As we have exemplified for the factor of white prejudice, the effects might 
have different signs in the short and in the long run. Even when this is not the case, 
the effects will be spread differently along the time axis. A rise of employment, for 
e, will almost immediately raise some standards of living, but a change in levels 



Appendix 3. Note on Principle of Cumulation 1069 

of education or health are slow to be achieved, and their effects back on the other factors 
are in turn delayed, which slows up the whole process of cumulation. The system regu- 
larly develops under a great multitude of different outside pushes, primarily directed 
against almost every single factor. The actual pushes go in both directions, thus often 
turning the system around on its axis as it is rolling. Ideally, the scientific solution of 
the Negro problem should thus be given in the form of an interconnected series of 
quantitative equations, describing the movement of the actual system under various 
influences. That this complete, quantitative and truly scientific solution is far beyond 
the horizon does not need to be pointed out. But in principle it is possible to execute, 
and it remains as the scientific ideal steering our endeavors. 

This conception of a great number of interdependent factors, mutually cumulative 
in their effects, disposes of the idea that there is one predominant factor, a "basic factor." 
This idea — mainly in the form of a vague conception of economic determinism — has 
been widely accepted in the writings on the Negro problem during the last decade. 
As we see the methodological problem, this one-factor hypothesis is not only theoretically 
unclear but is contradicted by easily ascertainable facts and factual relations. As a 
scientific approach it is narrow.* 

The theoretical system of dynamic social causation we have selected corresponds more 
closely to the practical man's common-sense ideas about things than it does to the appre- 
hension of reality met in many scientific writings on the Negro problem. The social 
scientist tends to icly too much on static notions and a friori to give too dominant a 
role to a "basic factor." The professional philanthropist, the Negro educator, the Negro 
trade unionist, the leaders of Negro defense organizations like the N.A.A.C.P., the 
Urban League, or the Interracial Commission, and, indeed, the average well-meaning 
citizen of both colors, pragmatically applies this same hypothesis. 11 To use once more 

* The usual economic one-factor theory is available in two extreme versions, depending 
upon the type of political teleology involved: (i) a radical Marxist version, where the 
expectation is an economic revolution which will change everything and even eradicate race 
prejudice; (z) a liberalistic version which does not expect an economic revolution and 
which — as the assumption is that no significant change can be brought about except by 
tackling the "basic factor," the economic system — is pessimistic about any type of induced 
change. There are all sorts of intermediary positions and also compromises toward recog- 
nizing that factors other than the economic one have some influence. But the one-factor 
theory always implies a fatalistic tendency and prevents a rational conception of interde- 
pendence and cumulative dynamic causation. See Appendix i, Section 3. 

* The best formulation of our hypothesis available in the literature is, thus, to be found 
in a book by a practical man writing without scientific pretensions but out of lifelong 
experiences: "There is a vicious circle in caste. At the outset, the despised group is usually 
inferior in certain of the accepted standards of the controlling class. Being inferior, members 
of the degraded caste are denied the privileges and opportunities of their fellows and so are 
pushed still further down and then are regarded with that much less respect, and therefore 
are more rigorously denied advantages, and so around and around the vicious circle. Even 
when the movement starts to reverse itself — as it most certainly has in the case of the Negro 
— there is a desperately long unwinding as a slight increase in good will gives a little 
greater chance and this leads to a little higher accomplishment and that to increased respect 
and so slowly upward toward equality of opportunity, of regard, and of status." (Edwin R. 
Embree, Brown America [1931], p. zoo.) To this it should only be added that even if the 
unwinding process is working with time lags so is the opposite movement. In spite of the 
time lags, the theory of the vicious circle is a cause rather for optimism than for pessimism. 
The cumulative principle works both ways. 



1070 An American Dilemma f 

o&r parallel from modern economic theory: when the economist* during the tat two 
decades abandoned the classical static equilibrium approach and went ahead to construct 
a dynamic theory of causal interrelations in a process of change, what they actually did 
was to apply the pragmatic notions of bankers, businessmen, and labor leaders and try 
to systematize them. This revolutionized economic theory and had great importance for 
the scientific planning of economic policy. A rational strategy in the Negro problem also 
assumes a theory of dynamic causation.* 

* Some remarks on this problem are made in Chapter 3, Section 7. 



APPENDIX 4 

NOTE ON THE MEANING OF REGIONAL TERMS AS 
USED IN THIS BOOK 



The word Amenta is used as a synonym for continental United States. 

The word South is not used consistently throughout the whole book, since various 
investigators upon whose work we have drawn have had variant definitions. In each 
case we have tried to make the definition clear by context or footnotes. In a sense the 
geographical boundaries of the South are "ideal-typical," and it is in this sense that 
we shall speak of the South when we are not using statistics. Some have stressed that 
there are many Souths, but in the Negro problem there are also reasons for speaking about 
one South. 

... if it can be said there are many Souths, the fact remains that there is also one South. 
That is to say, it is easy to trace throughout the region (roughly delimited by the 
boundaries of the former Confederate States of America, but shading over into some of 
the border states, notably Kentucky, also) a fairly definite mental pattern, associated 
with a fairly definite social pattern — a complex of established relationships and habits of 
thought, sentiments, prejudices, standards and values, and associations of ideas, which, 
if it is not common strictly to every group of white people in the South, is still common 
in one appreciable measure or another, and in some part or another, to all but relatively 
negligible ones.* 

The roughness of these ideal-typical boundaries for the South is suggested when we 
examine various criteria for defining the South, as in Table I. When we use statistics, 
we refer either to the census definition of the South {16 states and the District of 
Columbia) or to the school-segregat ion-law definition (17 states and the District of 
Columbia). These definitions differ solely by the inclusion of Missouri in the latter. 
Sometimes statistics for all these states are not a\ailable, and we are forced to use an 
aitificially abbreviated definition but without pretense that this includes all of the 
South. 

The North is a residual term, comprising all states not in the South it thus includes 
all Western states in the historical period being discussed Sometimes, in order to call 
special attention to the Western states, we speak of the "North and West." When we wish 
to restrict our discussion to the northeastern quadrant of the country, we speak of "the 
Northern states east of the Mississippi River " 

Many authors have defined different regions wtthtn the South. When we cite them 
we use their definitions. When we use regional terms on our own authority, we follow 
these definitions unless necessity forces us to specify other definitions Lower South, or 

* W. F. Cash, The Mind of the South (1941), p. viii. 

1071 



i<>7£ 



An American Dilemma 



<fr 



Dee? South, includes Florida, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, 
Oklahoma, and South Carolina; Vffer South includes North Carolina, Tennessee, and 
Virginia; Border states inclnde Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, District 
of Columbia and sometimes Missouri. 











TABLE 


I 
















Various Definitions 


or the South 
















.' GO 




V) 


TJ <— . 






e 






State 


ha 

a 
> 

u 


00 

« 

t/J 


prohibiting inte'i 
age (excludin 
rn States) 


C 
O 

« 


and illegal force 
segregation (ex- 
g Western States 


M 


M 

I* 

ie 
u 

w 

u 

a 

en 

I 


8 

a 
s <? 

■J >o 

OS 


M 


E 




1 


JBI 

53 


Bl 'f- 

.3 e 


ii 

U 


1 

u 

U3 
X 


Legal 
school 
cludin 


.5 


u 

.6 


C/3 »J 


S 

e 


i 


Oklahoma 


Choc- 


Not 


X 




X 


X 


X 




X 






taw 


a 






















Nation 


State 




















Texas 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


X 


X 


TJ 


X 


part 


Louisiana 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


Arkansas 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


X 


X 


It 


X 


X 


Mississippi 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


X 


X 


o « 


X 


X 


Alabama 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


X 


X 


X 


X 


Tennessee 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


X 


X 


*■* c 


X 


part 


Florida 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


Georgia 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


X 


X 


*3 en 


X 


X 


South Carolina 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


X 


X 


a > 


X 


X 


North Carolina 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


X 


X 


u g 


X 


part 


Virginia 


X 


X 


X 




X 


X 


X 


X 


5 c 


X 


X 


West Virginia 




Not B 
State 


X 




X 


X 






53 (-1 
o c 


X 




Maryland 




X 


X 




X 


X 


X 




sg 


X 




Kentucky 




X 


X 




X 


X 


X 




"3 J! 


X 




Delaware 




X 


X 




X 


X 


op- 




•i b 


X 




Missouri 




X 


X 




X 


X 


tional 




S3 h 






District of Columbia 




X 






X 


X 






O 

a 


X 




New Jersey 












part 










Indiana 






X 






part 












Kansas 












part 












Illinois 




' 








part 












Ohio 












part 












Pennsylvania 












part 













APPENDIX 5 

A PARALLEL TO THE NEGRO PROBLEM 



In every society there are at least two groups of people, besides the Negroes, who are 
characterized by high social visibility expressed in physical appearance, dress, and patterns 
of behavior, and who have been "suppressed." We refer to women and children. Their 
present status, as well as their history and their problems In society, reveal striking 
similarities to those of the Negroes. In studying a special problem like the Negro 
problem, there is always a danger that one will develop a quite incorrect idea of its 
uniqueness. It will, therefore, give perspective to the Negro problem and prevent 
faulty interpretations to sketch some of the important similarities between the Negro 
problem and the women's problem. 

In the historical development of these problem groups in America there have been 
much closer relations than is now ordinarily recorded. In the earlier common law, 
women and children were placed under the jurisdiction of the paternal power. When 
a legal status had to be found for the imported Negro servants in the seventeenth 
century, the nearest and most natural analogy was the status of women and children. 
The ninth commandment — linking together women, servants, mules, and other property 
— could be invoked, as well as a great number of other passages of Holy Scripture. We 
do not intend to follow here the interesting developments of the institution of slavery 
in America through the centuries, but merely wish to point out the paternalistic idea 
which held the slave to be a sort of family member and in some way — in spite of all 
differences — placed him beside women and children under the power of the pater- 
familias. 

There was, of course, even in the beginning, a tremendous difference both in actual 
status of these different groups and in the tone of sentiment in the respective relations. 
In the decades before the Civil War, in the conservative and increasingly antiquarian 
ideology of the American South, woman was elevated as an ornament and looked upon 
with pride, while the Negro slave became increasingly a chattel and a ward. The 
paternalistic construction came, however, to good service when the South had to build 
up a moral defense for slavery, and it is found everywhere in the apologetic literature 
up to the beginning of the Civil War. For illustration, some passages from Georg" 
Fitzhugh's Sociology for the South, published in 1854, may be quoted as typical: 

The kind of slavery is adapted to the men enslaved. Wives and apprentices are slaves; 
not in theory only, but often in fact. Children are slaves to their parents, guardians and 
teachers. Imprisoned culprits are slaves. Lunatics and idiots are slaves also.' 

A beautiful example and illustration of this kind of communism, is found in the 

'P. 16. 

1073 



1074 Air American Dilemma ,■ 

instance of the Patriarch Abraham. Hit wive* and hi* children, hie men aenrantt and hit 
maid servants, hi* camels and hi* cattle, were all equally hi* property. He could sacrifice 
Isaac or a ram, just a* he pleased. He loved and protected all, and all shared, if not 
equally, at least fairly, in the products of their light labour. Who would not desire to 
have been a slave of that old Patriarch, stern and despotic a* he was? . . . Pride, affection, 
self-interest, moved Abraham to protect, love and take care of his slave*. The same 
motives operate on all masters, and secure comfort, competency and protection to the 
slave. A man's wife and children are his slaves, and do they not enjoy, in common with 
himself, his property?' 

Other protagonists of slavery resort to the some argument: 

In this country we believe that the general good requires us to deprive the whole 
female sex of the right of self-government. They have no voice in the formation of the 
laws which dispose of their persons and property. . . . We treat all minors much in the 
same way. . . . Our plea for all this is, that the good of the whole is thereby most effectu- 
ally promoted. . . . b 

Significant manifestations of the result of this disposition [on the part of the Abolition- 
ists] to consider their own light a surer guide than the word of God, are visible in the 
anarchical opinions about human governments, civil and" ecclesiastical, and on the rights 
of women, which have found appropriate advocates in the abolition publications. ... If 
our women are to be emancipated from subjection to the law which God has imposed 
upon them, if they are to quit the retirement of domestic life, where they preside in stillness 
over the character and destiny of society; ... if, in studied insult to the authority of God, 
we are to renounce in the marriage contract all claim to obedience, we shall soon have a 
country over which the genius of Mary Wolstonecraft would delight to preside, but from 
which all order and all virtue would speedily be banished. There is no form of human 
excellence before which we bow with profounder deference than that which appears in a 
delicate woman, . . . and there is no deformity of human character from which we turn 
with deeper loathing than from a woman forgetful of her nature, and clamourous for the 
vocation and rights of men.* 

. ■ . Hence her [Miss Martineau's] wild chapter about the "Rights of Women," her 
groans and invectives because of their exclusion from the offices of the state, the right of 
suffrage, the exercise of political authority. In all this, the error of the declaimer consists 
in the very first movement of the mind. "The Rights of Women" may all be conceded to 
the sex, yet the rights of men withheld from them. d 

The parallel goes, however, considerably deeper than being only a structural part in 
the defense ideology built up around slavery. Women at that time lacked a number of 
rights otherwise belonging to all free white citizens of full age. 

So chivalrous, indeed, was the ante-bellum South that its women were granted scarcely 
any rights at all. Everywhere they were subjected to political, legal, educational, and 
social and economic restrictions. They took no part in governmental affairs, were without 

' Ibid., p. 397. 

"Charles Hodge, "The Bible Argument on Slavery," in E. N. Elliott (editor), Cotton 
Is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments (i860), pp. 859-860. 

'Albert T. Bledsoe, An Essay on Liberty and Slavery (1857), pp. 123-115. 

*W. Gilmore Simms, "The Morals of Slavery," in The Pro-Slavery Argument (1853), 
p. 248. See also Simms* "Address on the Occasion of the Inauguration of the Spartanburg 
Female College," August 12, 1855. 



Appendix 5. A Parallel to the Negro Problem 1075 

legal right* over their property or the guardianship of their children, were denied 
adequate educational facilities, and were excluded from business and the professions.* 

The same was very much true of the rest of the country and of the rest of the world. 
But there was an especially close relation in the South between the subordination of 
women and that of Negroes. This is perhaps best expressed in a comment attributed 
to Dolly Madison, that the Southern wife was "the chief slave of the harcm." b 

From the very beginning, the fight in America for the liberation of the Negro slaves 
was, therefore, closely coordinated with the fight for women's emancipation. It is inter- 
esting to note that the Southern states, in the early beginning of the political emancipa- 
tion of women during the first decades of the nineteenth century, had led in the grant- 
ing of legal rights to women. This was the time when the South was still the stronghold 
of liberal thinking in the period leading up to and following the Revolution. During 
the same period the South was also the region where Abolitionist societies flourished, 
while the North was uninterested in the Negro problem. Thereafter the two move- 
ments developed in close interrelation and were both gradually driven out of the South. 

The women suffragists received their political education from the Abolitionist move- 
ment. Women like Angelina Grimke, Sarah Grimke, and Abby Kelly began their 
public careers by speaking for Negro emancipation and only gradually came to fight for 
women's rights. The three great suffragists of the nineteenth century— Lucrctia Mott, 
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony — first attracted attention as ardent 
campaigners for the emancipation of the Negro and the prohibition of liquor. The 
women's movement got much of its public support by reason of its affiliation with the 
Abolitionist movement: the leading male advocates of woman suffrage before the Civil 
War were such Abolitionists as William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Ward Beecher, Wendell 
Phillips, Horace Greeley and Frederick Douglass. The women had nearly achieved their 
aims, when the Civil War induced them to suppress all tendencies distracting the federal 
government from the prosecution of the War. They were apparently fully convinced 
that victory would bring the suffrage to them as well as to the Negroes. 1 

The Union's victory, however, brought disappointment to the women suffragists. The 
arguments "the Negro's hour" and "a political necessity" met and swept aside all their 
arguments for leaving the word "male" out of the 14th Amendment and putting "sex" 
alongside "race" and "color" in the 15th Amendment. 11 Even their Abolitionist friends 

* Virginius Dabney, Liberalism in the South (1931), p. 361. 

b Cited in Harriet Martineau, Society m America (1842, first edition 1837), Vol. II, p. 81. 

* Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politict (1913), 
pp. 3* ff. 

"The relevant sections of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution are (under- 
lining ours) : 
14th Amendment 
Section 3. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to 
their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding 
Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of Elector* 
for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the 
executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is 
denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and 
citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, 
or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion 



1076 An American Dilemma 

turned on them, and the Republican party shied away from them. A few Democrat*, 
really not in favor of the extension of the suffrage to anyone, sought to make political 
capital out of the women's demands, and said with Senator Cowan of Pennsylvania, "If 
I have no reason to offer why a Negro man shall not vote, I have no reason why a 
white woman shall not vote." Charges of being Democrats and traitors were heaped on 
the women leaders. Even a few Negroes, invited to the women's convention of January, 
1869, denounced the women for jeopardizing the black man's chances for the vote. 
The War and Reconstruction Amendments had thus sharply divided the women's 
problem from the Negro problem in actual politics.* The deeper relation between the 
two will, however, be recognized up till this day. Du Bois' famous ideological manifesto 
The Souls of Slack Folk* is, to mention only one example, an ardent appeal on behalf 
of women's interests as well as those of the Negro. 

This close relation is no accident. The ideological and economic forces behind the 
two movements — the emancipation of women and children and the emancipation of 

which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens 
twenty-one years of age in such State. 
15 th Amendment 
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or 
abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous con- 
dition of servitude. 

1 While there was a definite affinity between the Abolitionist movement and the woman 
suffrage movement, there was also competition and, perhaps, antipathy, between them that 
widened with the years. As early as 1833, when Oberlin College opened its doors to women 
— the first college to do so — the Negro men students joined other men students in protesting 
(Catt and Shuler, of. tit., p. 13). The Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840 
refused to seat the women delegates from America, and it was on this instigation that the 
first women's rights convention vtas called (ibid., p. 17). After the passage of the 13th, 
1 4.th, and 15th Amendments, which gave legal rights to Negroes but not to women, the 
women's movement split off completely from the Negroes' movement, except for such a 
thing as the support of both movements by the rare old liberal, Frederick Douglass. An 
expression of how far the two movements had separated by 1903 was given by one of the 
leaden of the women's movement at that time, Anna Howard Shaw, in answer to a question 
posed to her at a convention in New Orleans: 

" 'What is your purpose in bringing your convention to the South? Is it the desire of 
suffragists to force upon us the social equality of black and white women ? Political 
equality lays the foundation for social equality. If you give the ballot to women, won't 
you make the black and white woman equal politically and therefore lay the foundation 
for a future claim of social equality?' . . . 

"I read the question aloud. Then the audience called for the answer, and I gave it in 
these words, quoted as accurately as I can remember them- 

" 'If political equality is the basis of social equality, and if by granting political 
equality you lay the foundation for a claim of social equality, I can only answer that you 
have already laid that claim. You did not wait for woman suffrage, but disfranchised both 
your black and white women, thus making them politically equal. But you have done more 
than that. You have put the ballot into the hands of your black men, thus making them 
the political superiors of your white women. Never before in the history of the world 
have men made former slaves the political masters of their former mistresses!'" (Tie 
Story of a Pionee' rigif], pp. 311-311.) 
* 1903. 



Appendix 5. A Parallel to the Negro Problem 1077 

Negroes— have mnch in common and are closely interrelated. Paternalism was a pre- 
industrial scheme of life, and was gradually becoming broken in the nineteenth century. 
Negroes and women, both of whom had been under the yoke of the paternalistic system, 
were both strongly and fatefully influenced by the Industrial Revolution. For neither 
group is the readjustment process yet consummated. Both are still problem groups. The 
women's problem is the center of the whole complex of problems of how to reorganize 
the institution of the family to fit the new economic and ideological basts, a problem 
which is not solved in any part of the Western world unless it be in the Soviet Union or 
Palestine. The family problem in the Negro group, as we find when analyzing the 
Negro family, has its special complications, centering in the tension and conflict between 
the external patriarchal system in which the Negro was confined as a slave and his own 
family structure. 

As in the Negro problem, most men have accepted as self-evident, until recently, the 
doctrine that women had inferior endowments in most of those respects which carry 
prestige, power, and advantages in society, but that they were, at the same time, superior 
in some other respects. The arguments, when arguments were used, have been about the 
same: smaller brains, scarcity of geniuses and so on. The study of women's intelligence 
and personality has had broadly the same history as the one we record for Negroes. 
As in the case of the Negro, women themselves have often been brought to 
believe in their inferiority of endowment. As the Negro was awarded his "place" in 
society, so there was a "woman's plate." In both cases the rationalization was strongly 
believed that men, in confining them to this place, did not act against the true interest 
of the subordinate groups. The myth of the "contented women," who did not want 
to have suffrage or other civil rights and equal opportunities, had the same social function 
as the myth of the "contented Negro." In both cases there was probably — in a static 
sense — often some truth behind the myth. 

As to the character of the deprivations, upheld by law or by social conventions and 
the pressure of public opinion, no elaboration will here be made. As important and 
illustrative in the comparison, we shall, however, stress the conventions governing 
woman's education. There was a time when the most common idea was that she was 
better off with little education. Later the doctrine developed that she should not be 
denied education, but that her education should be of a special type, fitting her for 
her "place" in society and usually directed more on training her hands than her brains. 
Political franchise was not granted to women until recently. Even now there are, in 
all countries, great difficulties for a woman to attain public office. The most important 
disabilities still affecting her status are those barring her attempt to earn a living and 
to attain promotion in her work. As in the Negro's case, there are certain "women's 
jobs," traditionally monopolized by women. They arc regularly in the low salary bracket 
and do not offer much of a career. All over the world men have used the trade unions 
to keep women out of competition. Woman's competition has, like the Negro's, been 
particularly obnoxious and dreaded by men because of the low wages women, with their 
few earning outlets, are prepared to work for. Men often dislike the very idea of having 
women on an equal plane as co-workers and competitors, and usually they find it even 
more "unnatural" to work under women. White people generally hold similar attitudes 
toward Negroes. On the other hand, it is said about women that they prefer men a* 
bosses and do not want to work under another woman. Negroes often feel the same way 
about working under other Nejroes. 



•ittT* . • "-'""",. -V-$h American Dilemma ' ' '■«■'■ ■ 

In personal relation* with both women and Negroes, white men generally prefer a 
lew professional and more human relation, actually a more paternaliitic and pro- 
tective position— somewhat in the nature of patron to client in Roman times, and 
like the corresponding strongly paternalistic relation of later feudalism. As in Germany 
it is said that every gentile has his pet Jew, so it is said in the South that every white 
has his "pet nigger," or — in the apper strata — several of them. We sometimes marry 
the pet woman, carrying out the paternalistic scheme. But even if we do not, we tend to 
deal kindly with her as a client and a ward, not as a competitor and an equal. 

In drawing a parallel between the position of, and feeling toward, women and Negroes 
we are uncovering a fundamental basis of oar culture. Although it is changing, atavistic 
elements sometimes unexpectedly break through even in the most emancipated indi- 
viduals. The similarities in the women's and the Negroes' problems are not accidental. 
They were, as we have pointed out, originally determined in a paternalistic order of 
society. The problems remain, even though paternalism is gradually declining as an 
ideal and is losing its economic basis. In the final analysis, women are still hindered in 
their competition by the function of procreation ; Negroes are laboring under the yoke 
of the doctrine of unassimilability which has remained although slavery is abolished. 
The second barrier is actually much stronger than the first in America today. But the first 
is more eternally inexorable* 

'Alva Myrdal, Nation and Family (1941), Chapter 32, "One Sex a Social Problem," 
pp. 398-426. 



APPENDIX 6 

PRE-WAR CONDITIONS OF THE NEGRO WAGE 

EARNER IN SELECTED INDUSTRIES AND 

OCCUPATIONS' 



I. General Characteristics of Negro Jobs 

Many of the generalizations made in Chapter 1 3 will be corroborated in this Appendix 
by data on conditions in particular lines of work. The selection of industries and occu- 
pations that Wc shall use may be somewhat arbitrary. The reason is that we do not 
intend to give anything like an exhaustive description; our purpose is rather to empha- 
size the fact that general industrial trends, race prejudice, and other factors have worked 
out somewhat differently for different industries and occupations. For that reason, we 
need include only examples on how the Negro has fared in different types of cases. b 
On the one hand, there are the so-called "Negro jobs," i.e., those industries in which, 
as far as the South is concerned, most of the workers are Negro. On the other hand, there 
are those industries which, even in the South, have only a minority of Negro workers. 
Finally, there are industries which are exclusively or almost exclusively for whites. 

* The subsequent "case studies" are based, mainly, on a previously cited series of unpub- 
lished research memoranda on "Negro Labor and Its Problems," prepared by and under the 
direction of Paul H. Norgren. He was assisted by Lloyd H. Bailer (automobiles), James 
Healy (lumber), Herbert R. Northrup (tobacco and longshore work) and Arnold M. Rose 
(service industries exclusive of domestic service and slaughtering and meat packing). Most 
of the data on the Negro in domestic service have been drawn from a memorandum by 
Gladys L. Palmer ("A Memorandum Report on Negroes in Domestic Service") which was 
worked out in conjunction with this series. For more recent information, wc have depended 
in part on an unpublished doctor's thesis by Herbert R. Northrup, "Negro Labor and 
Union Policies in the South" (Harvard University), in which certain parts of Dr. Norgren's 
materials have been supplemented and brought forward to the beginning of 194.2. 

(Editor's Note: Since Dr. Myrdal's book went to press, Dr. Northrup has rewritten his 
thesis for publication by Harper & Brothers under the title, Organized Labor and the Negro.) 

" The length of each section, for the same reason, is not determined by the actual impor- 
tance to the Negro of the various lines of work. 

* Obviously there are no distinct borderlines between these various groups. There are no 
Negro jobs in the sense that the Negro, at least in the South, has a complete job monopoly 
in certain occupations. On the other hand, when Negroes do compete with white workers in 
"non-Negro jobs," there is usually some concentration of Negroes in certain specific occu- 
pations. Even industries excluding Negroes may use Negroes exclusively for work carrying 
a social stigma (charwomen, toilet attendants). The question of what occupations should 
be considered as Negro jobs is to be answered somewhat differently depending upon what 
kind of occupational or industrial classification is used for the analysis. An enumeration of 
"Negro jobs," for these reasons, must be arbitrary to some extent. 

1079 



1080 An American Dilemma 

Even tkoie should be considered, for it is just as important to find out why the Negro 
hat failed to gain a foothold in a particular industry as it is to describe his condition 
in occupations where he has been allowed to work. 

Table I shows the industries in which significant numbers of Negroes are employed. 
A reference to it, as each of the specific industries is taken up, will serve to give basic 
facts relevant to the discussion and to place the industry under consideration in per- 
spective. 

We intend to begin with the "Negro jobs," in which the bulk of the Negro workers 
are concentrated. Those segregated or semi-segregated occupations in which, as far as the 
South is concerned, one-half or more of the workers are Negro, include the following 
principal groups: domestic service; home laundering; certain other service occupations; 
home sewing; lumber milling; turpentine farming and distilling; fertilizer manu- 
facturing; unskilled work in building construction; maintenance-of-way work on rail- 
roads; longshore work; delivery and messenger work; work as helpers and laborers in 
stores; unskilled work in blast furnaces and steel rolling mills; tobacco rehandling and 
other unskilled work in tobacco factories." To this list could be added two traditionally 
Negro jobs which have been expanding rapidly since 1910, but in such a way that the 
Negroes have gained less than the whites, so that their share in the employment has been 
cut to less than one-half. These are unskilled work in building, repairing, and main- 
tenance of roads, streets, and sewers; and work as teamsters, truck drivers and so forth. 
In the South, the proportion of Negro workers in these occupations, by 1 930, was 42 
and 32 per cent, respectively. 11 It is apparent that motorization was the cause both of the 
increase in total numbers thus occupied and of its growing attractiveness to white labor. 
As we shall find, there is a similar development under way in some of the other "Negro 
job" industries as well. In other such industries, Negroes have been able to maintain 
their traditional position, at least up until 1930. 

Virtually all these "Negro job" industries have the common feature that they are 
regarded as undesirable from one or several viewpoints. Many of them carry a social 
stigma, particularly in the South, where they tend to be despised not only because they 
are located at the bottom of the occupational ladder, but also because of the very fact 
that they are traditionally "Negro jobs." The average wage level is low; in the South 
it tends to be even lower in relation to what is paid for skilled work than it is in the 
North. Most of the male Negro jobs call for outdoor work. They arc usually 

. . . characterized by a much greater degree of intermittency in employment than most 
white jobs in the South. . . . Thus, all of the outdoor occupations are subject to frequent 
"layoffs" in rainy weather. Winter cold curtails employment in turpentine extraction and, 
to some extent, also in building work; and seasonal variations in demand seriously affect 
work opportunities in lumber and fertilizer production. Business depressions infringe far 
more heavily on the lumber and construction industries than on textiles, garment-making, 
and most of the other southern industry-sectors where whites hold the bulk of the jobs. 

Moreover, several of the Negro jobs are characterized 

... by a high degree of physical and psychological disutility. Practically all of the 

occupations are "day labor" jobs, involving long and strenuous muscular exertion, 

* Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930. Population, Vol. 4; Table 11 of state 

tables. See also Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Population, Vol. 4; pp. 434- 

534- 
"Idem. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1081 



table i 

NoNAORICULTURAL INDUSTRIES AND SERVICE GROUPS HaVINO 

15,000 Negro Workers or More: 1930 



Industry and 
Service Group* 



Number of Negro 
Workers. 193a 
(in thousands) 



United 
States 



The 
South 



The North 
and West 



Nei 



as per- 
cent of 
All 
Workers, 
1030 



Percent 

Females 

Among 

Negro 

Workers, 

1930 



Number of Workers 

in 1030 to Number 

of Workers in 1010 

Xioo 



All 
Workers 



Negro 
Workers 



Forestry 

Coal mines 

Building industry 

Chemical and allied indus- 
tries 

Fertilizer factories 

Cigar and tobacco factories 

Clay, glass and stone indus- 
tries 

Clothing industries 

Suit, coat, and overall fae- 



Food and allied industries 

Slaughter and packing 
houses 

Iron, steel, vehicle and ma- 
chinery industries 

Automobile factories 

Blast furnaces and steel 
rolling mills 

Car ana railroad shops 

Lumber and furniture in- 
dustries 

Saw and phuiing mills 

Paper, printing and allied 
industries 

Textile industries 

Cotton mills 

Miscellaneous manufactur- 
ing industries 

Independent hand trades 

Turpentine farms and dis- 
tilleries 

Construction and mainte- 
nance of roads, streets, 
sewers and bridges 

Garages, greasing stations 
and automobile laundries 

Postal service 

Steam railroads 

Truck transfer and cab 
companies 

Water transportation 11 

Wholesale and retail trades, 
except automobiles* 

Public service (not else- 
where classified) ' 

Recreation and amusement 

Other professional and semi- 
professional services 

Hotels, restaurants, board- 
ing houses 

Laundries and cleaning, 
dyeing and pressing shops 

Other domestic and par- 
service 1 



26 

58 
i8r 

4* 
• 7 
34 

so 
35 

IS 
57 

IS 

177 
26 



139 
114 

17 
36 
16 

141 
28 

33 



a 
163 

41 

45 

19a 

6a 
35 

13B 

328 

78 

1,174 



25 

46 

97 

31 

IS 

II 

b 
31 



69 
3 



ft i 



13a 
us 



< 
21 
15 



100 
19 



4« 
19 

6 
10s 

b 
b 



16 
103 
"4 

43 
806 



I 
12 
84 



14 
a4 

b 
26 



108 
23 

3 g 

7 
a 

9 
S 



41 
9 



16 

25 
12 

58 

b 
b 

71 

»4 
19 

35 
104 

35 
36S 



13-3 
8.4 
7.0 

7-7 
604 
234 

7-S 
4-4 



5-4 
4.0 

8-5 
7J 

16.1 
25-1 

2.2 

a.i 
3-9 

6.7 
7-8 

75-2 



14.1 

104 
6-3 
10.3 

8.5 
15.0 

3-D 

5<9 
7.9 

4-7 

16.8 

18.6 

38.6 



1.1 
.1 

.1 

1.9 

■7 

54-0 

3.6 
48.0 

16.7 

30.8 

7-6 

1.0 
I.t 

.6 
.8 

2.4 
M 

12.3 

24-4 
18.0 

22.4 
76.2 



-4 
3.3 
I.I 

j6 
•7 

84 

5-6 
16.0 

48.1 

46-4 

65.3 

83.6 



109 
103 
101 

270 

301 

77 
101 

116 

83 
109 

187 

183 
606 

155 
174 

108 
97 

161 
133 
118 

130 
43 



191 

b 
I67 
102 

131 
135 

150 

'"b 

b 

b 

h 
b 



100 
143 

77 

241 
220 
135 

101 
303 

158 
278 

349 

368 
4.551 

991 
368 

no 

102 

30a 
331 
226 

114 

53 

103 



174 



b 
301 
175 

OS 
139 

158 

"b 

o 
b 
h 
b 



Sources: Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. 3. Part 1, p. 23, and Vol. 5, PP. 
408-587. Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Population. Vol. 4, pp. 302-433. 

• Heterogeneous sub-groups, such as "other iron and steel and machinery factories," are not listed, even 
when they had more than 15,000 Negro workers in 1930. 

b Data not available. 

■ Includes 20,000 Negro seamstresses. 

d Largest group of Negro workers were longshoremen and Btevedores (25.000). 

• Includes truck drivers, delivery men, laborers, porters, and helpers in stores (100,000 Negro workers) 
' Largest group of Negro workers was 33,000 "other laborers." 

s Includes 35,000 Negro clergymen and 54,000 Negro school teachers. 
► Figures available only for laundries: all workers — 199; Negro workers— 395- . 

1 Largest groups of Negro workers were: cooks (206.000) ; other servants (494.000) ; home launderers and 
laundresses (270,000). 



io8a An America* Dilemma r 

usually in the form of "identical motion*," continuously repeated. The high (objective 
mtdewmbility of such work) as compared with even the moat monotonous factory produc- 
tion-machine job, i* universally acknowledged. In addition, there are other "disagree- 
aoleness factors" attached to the conditions of work in particular Negro jobs which push 
them even farther down in the utility scale. In logging it is chiefly risk of accident and 
disease) in sawmills, accident risk and noise % in fertilizer plants, dust and disagreeable 
odors t in road construction, excessive exposure to the elements, and so on.* 

Before we go farther in our description of the male "Negro jobs" we should con- 
sider the one occupation which is most important of all to the nonfarm female Negro: 
domestic service. 

2. Domestic Service 

The range of job opportunities, as previously stated, is more limited for Negro 
women than for Negro men. There is a similar sex differential in the white population, 
but the hardship worked on Negro women is much more pronounced. We have already 
emphasized the fact that, in 1930, as many as 1,150,000 Negro women earned their 
living as workers in domestic service and other service industries. This means that only 
one in seven of all Negro female workers gainfully occupied in nonagricultural pursuits 
worked in manufacturing, commerce, trade or any other nonservice occupation. The 
largest group among the female Negro service workers consisted of those employed by 
private households. They numbered 690,000 and thus constituted somewhat more than 
half of all Negro female workers in nonagricultural pursuits. Including males, there were 
about 750,000 Negroes working as servants of private families, which means that almost 
40 per cent of all workers in this field were Negro. b It was much lower, however, for 
certain groups of higher and "intermediate" servants like "housekeepers and stewards" 
(8 per cent) and "nurses, not trained" (11 per cent) than for cooks and other house- 
hold servants, of which almost half were Negro. 

About two-thirds of the Negro servants reside in the South and one-third in the North 
and West. c The South had shown an increase of over 4.0 per cent from 1910 to 1930, 
but outside the South there were between two and three times more Negro servants 
in 1930 than in 1910. Indeed, more than half the total increase occurred in the North 
and the West. fl There were seven Northern states, where one-fourth or more of the 

'Paul H. Norgren and Associates, "Negro Labor and its Problems," unpublished manu- 
script prepared for this study (1940), Part 1, pp. 6-7. 

'U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1920-1032, pp. 303 and 3x5- 
316. See also Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. 5 s pp. 4.11-587. 
It is somewhat difficult to ascertain which service workers can be considered as employees of 
private households. The following groups were included in the figure cited in the text: 
cooks, other servants, housekeepers, and stewards which were not employed by hotels, 
restaurants, etc., and nurses (not trained) . 

° The census definitions of North, South and West are used throughout this Appendix. 

* Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. 4, State Table 1 1 5 Negroes 
in the United States: 1920-1032, pp. 303-309; and Thirteenth Census of the United States: 
toto, Population, Vol. 4, pp. 434-534. The comparison is not quite exact. In the first place 
the Census designation "servants" includes not only employees in private families but also 
cooks, maids, etc. (but not waiters and waitresses), in hotels, restaurants, eating places and 
lodging houses; housekeepers and nurses, on the other hand, are not included. Second, data 
for 1910 and 1930 are nor quite comparable. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1083 

•errata were Negro. The percentage of Negroes mi trill higher in the South} 
in ten states it was 85 per cent or more, and there were four Southern state* 
where only one servant out of twenty was a white person. 

The gain in employment of Negro servants in private families, which may hare 
amounted to more than 300,000 new jobs, was due to several factors. One was the 
enlargement of the market for the Negro domestic servant brought about by the north- 
Ward migration of Negroes, and the simultaneous decline in the number of young 
immigrant girls in the North. A second was a general expansion in the field. It has been 
estimated that the total number of domestic workers in private families has increased 
by about one-third from 1910 to 1930.* It seems that but a small part of this increase 
was for white workers; most of the expansion was a Negro gain. b 

It should be noted, however, that this general expansion was only half as great, pro- 
portionally, as the increase in number of nonfarm families.' This circumstance should 
be considered, for it may serve as a warning against any exaggerated hopes that the 
Negroes, even if they fail to get a real place in other parts of the nonagricultural econ- 
omy, can always be assured of having an increasing number of job opportunities as 
servants to private families. True, we have reason to assume that the increase in the 
number of nonfarm families will continue for a long time and that there will be a 
smaller number of white girls willing to work as domestics. If the Negro population 
becomes more dispersed over the entire North and West — which probably will happen 
gradually, but only in so far as some jobs can be found also for Negro men — this, too, 
will increase the opportunities for Negro domestics. Yet, it should never be overlooked 
that the proportion of families having full-time servants is probably shrinking, owing 
to a number of factors: smaller number of children; higher wages for domestics; 
mechanization of home work and increased use of processed foods; transfer of service 
work from homes to specialized service establishments. These trends will limit the job 
opportunities for Negro women particularly where they now have a near-monopoly on 
this kind of work. As for the North and the West, we should not take it for granted 
that the chances of Negro domestics will increase in exact proportion to the difficulties 
of finding white workers. Many housewives outside the South have a prejudice against 
using Negro women in their homes, partly because they believe them to be less depend- 
able, partly because they shun the contact with an alien race. It is quite probable that 
the opening up of a public discussion on venereal diseases during recent years has increased 
the reluctance of many white women to have colored help. Those who do use Negro 
domestics are increasingly insisting on "health cards." The prevalence of such attitudes 
has never been adequately studied, but we have reason to assume that such attitudes con- 

* David Weintraub and Harry Magdoff, "The Service Industries in Relation to Employ- 
ment Trends," Econometrica (October, 1940), p. 304. These authors made these computa- 
tions from data in Daniel Carson, assisted by Henrictte Liebman, Labor Supply and Employ- 
ment, Preliminary Statement of Estimates Prepared and Methods Used, W.P.A. National 
Research Project (November, 1939). 

* At this writing there are no data on household servants available from the 1940 Census 
which could be compared with those in the 1930 Census. It seems, however, that the propor- 
tion of Negroes among the domestic workers in the South has been declining (see Chapter 
13, Table 3). 

"There were about 14,000,000 nonfarm families in 1910 and over 23,000,000 in 1930. 
{Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. 6j p. n.) 



1084- An American Dilemma 

ititnte a factor of tame significance. The depression of the 'thirties seems to have brought 
about a great decline in household employment. A survey of subscribers to Fortune 
magazine revealed that half the families who had had a servant in 1933 had none in 

It must be considered that the market for domestic service is much more restricted 
in the North and West than it is in the South. According to the Study of Consumer 
Purchases for 1 935-1936, no less than 61 per cent of the nonrelief white families in a 
sample of Southeastern villages had some expenditure for household help. For a sample 
of small cities in the North Central region, on the other hand, the corresponding pro- 
portion was only 22 per cent, and it was but 17 per cent for a group of villages in the 
Middle Atlantic and North Central areas. 1 * Large cities also show a similar differential 
between the South and the rest of the country. It is particularly interesting to find that, 
in the South, among families with an income of less than $1,000, or even less than 
$500, there is a significant number who have domestics (Table 2). Among well-to-do 

TABLE 2 

PERCENTAGE OF NONRELIEP WHITE FAMILIES, IK SELECTED IkCOME GrOVPS, WHO HAD 

Expenditure for Household Help: 1935-1936 















Middle 












North 


Atlantic 










South- 


Central 


and North 


Income 


Atlanta 


New York 


Chicago 


eastern 


small 


Central 


group 








villages 


cities 


villages 


% joo- 749 


8 






23 


4 


8 


750- 999 


20 


.. 




39 


7 


9 


1,000-1,249 


17 
99 


3 

22 

89 


5 
15* 

78 


57 
80 

ICO 


10 
34 
89 


11 


2,000-3,499 


29 


5fl°°-7A99 h 


70 



Chicago, 
"(iMO.). 

,„ ... 36; "Family Expenditure in Three Southeastern Cities, 1035-36" (194"). Bulletin 

No. 647, Vol. 1, p. 39, and United States Department of Agriculture, Famiht Expenditure for Housing and 
Household Operation, Miscellaneous Publication No. 43a, Urban and village Series (1041). pp. 50-51. 

* Approximate figure. 

b For the three last columns: $5,000-0,000. 

families in the South, the practice of having hired help is almost universal. In the North 
and West, on the other han'd, there are quite a few households in the higher income 
brackets which get along without any servants, and it is extremely rare that low income 
families have any expenditures for outside assistance in their homes. Moreover, it seems 
that in the South, oftener than elsewhere, servants are hired on a full-time basis. 
According to the samples for small cities and villages, half the Northern families having 

'"The Servant Problem," Fortune, March, 1938, p. 114 This figure and other references 
iz> this section to the Fortune article are quoted by permission of Fortune magazine. 

* U.S. Department of Agriculture, Family Expenditure for Housing and Household 
Operation, Miscellaneous Publication No. 432, Urban and Village Series (1941), pp. 50-51. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1085 

servants hired them for only a few hours a day, or a few days a week, but in the South 
more than two-thirds of these families had full-time domestics.* 

These findings are highly significant. They confirm the impression that there is a limit 
to farther increases in the employment of Negro domestics. In the South, where such 
a large part of the demand comes from families in the middle, or even lower, income 
groups, the situation must be characterized as unstable. Any decline in family income or 
any improvement in working conditions that add to the expense of having a servant 
may actually bring about a curtailment of the job opportunities for servants. And it is 
particularly in the South that the working conditions for domestics need to be improved. 
According to the previously quoted village and small city samples from the Consumer 
Purchases Study, cash wages for domestics showed a marked tendency to be low when 
the income of the family they worked for was low. b 

By and large, domestic work is a low wage industry. The estimates of the state employ- 
ment offices, for instance (Table 3), indicate that wages as low as $3-5 per week occur 
even in the North. Some of the largest Northern cities, however, have "typical" wage 
rates of $15-20, but these figures do not indicate a uniform level. Even in New York 

TABLE 3 

Rance Between Local Wage Rates for Domestic Work, in Selected States, According 

to Estimates by State Employment Offices: January, 1939 



State 



Cooks 



Resident 



Board Only 



General Maids 



Resident 



Board Only 



New York 

Illinois 

Minnesota 

North Carolina 

Georgia 

Alabama 



$5.00-21.00 
4.00-15.00 
5.00-10.00 
3.00- 7.00 
1.75- 5.00 
2.00- 7.00 



$5.00-20.00 
4.00-1 5.00 

■ 

3.00- 6.50 
2.50- 5.00 
3.00- 5.00 



$4.00-12.00 
4.00-12.00 
3.00- 6.00 
3.00- 5.00 
2.75- 5.00 
2.50- 6.00 



$4.00-15.00 
4.00-13.00 
3.00- 5.50 
3.00- 8.00 
2.75- 6.00 
2. jo- 5.00 



Source: Gladys L. Palmer, "A MemorandumReport on Negroes in Domestic Service," unpublished manu • 
script prepared for this study, (1040), pp. 349-351. Based on reports to U.S. Employment Service. The 
State Employment Offices had indicated the wage rate most typical in about 6 to la different places in each 
state which were considered as representative of the various labor market situations existing within the State 

* Complete data not available. 



wages are often low. It is a well-known fact that the wages at the "slave-markets" 
for Negro domestics in the Bronx and other places are frequently far below what is 
considered to be typical for the better organized part of the domestic service market in 
New York. In the South, however, wages are low much more generally, and there are 
even localities where the usual wage is scarcely $2 per week. 

There are few data on wages for Negro and white domestics separately. Nevertheless, 
since Negroes are largely concentrated in the South, there is no question but that on the 
average they receive lower wages than whites. They do have some representation, how- 

m Idtm. 
"Idsm. 
'Carl Offord, "Slave Markets in the Bronx," The Nation (June 29, 1940), pp. 780-781. 



tO%6 An American Dilbmma 

«rex» junong the better paid servants, but a* Dr. Palmer finds, partly on die basis of the 
same survey, they do not get their proportionate share of the more worth-while jobs." 

The fact that wages are seldom higher, and are sometimes lower, for servants who 
live in their own homes than for domestics who get living quarters in addition to the cash 
wage and meals makes the real wage of the Negro household employees lower than that 
of their average white colleagues. Negroes seldom have "live-in" jobs. This may be due, 
in some measure, to race prejudice on the part of their employers. One major reason 
for it is the fact that only a minority of the Negro servants are single. In 1930 no less 
than 70 per cent of the Negro servants were married, widowed, or divorced, whereas 
the corresponding figure for native white servants was 46 per cent. b The fact that 
Negro domestics seldom leave their occupation after having married explains why their 
average age is so much higher than that of white domestics. About one-fourth of the 
Negro domestics were under 2; years of age, as compared to almost half the native 
white domestics. This means that the average Negro servant should have more experience 
than most white domestics. It means, further, that they are in greater need of adequate 
wages, since they more often have to contribute to the family income. Yet their average 
wages are lower rather than higher than those of the young white girls. 

It is a well-known fact that hours of work often tend to be long in domestic service 
—something which is of particular importance when the servant has a family of her 
own. Dr. Palmer quotes a study covering many sections of the country, according to 
which the general average would be around "72 hours a week, with many instances of 
80 or more weekly hours." Fortune's study of upper class servants gave somewhat lower 
averages, but several other studies cited by Dr. Palmer tend to confirm the higher 
estimates. 4 It is evident, particularly from the Fortune study, that hours of work tend 
to be particularly long in the South, which means that Negroes, by and large, have a 
longer working week than white servants. According to the Fortune sample, twice as 
many Negroes as whites work long hours. "On the other hand, it is held by some persons 
that the two o'clock dinner hour, usual in small towns throughout the South, shortens 
the day for servants. Cooks may come at the 'crack of dawn' but they are free to leave 
after that early dinner." 6 The fact that Negro servants seldom live with their employers 
means that they do not have to be "on call" after ordinary working hours. 

Domestic service is an unorganized industry. The elimination of exploitative condi- 
tions of work has lagged in this occupation compared with the development in manu- 
facturing industries. Adequately performed, domestic work requires a rare combination 
of various skills and social talents. Yet it has a social stigma which places it far below 
most unskilled occupations in people's appreciation. For this reason, it cannot offer any 
appeal to the ambition of those who want to make a career, and this affects the quality 

' "A Memorandum Report on Negroes in Domestic Service," unpublished manuscript 
prepared for this study (1940), pp. 194-204. 

k U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: ioio-to3», p. 334. Fifteenth 
Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. 5, p. 299. 

'Dorothy P. Wells, article in Occupations, February, 1938, quoted in Palmer, of. eit^ 
p. 206. 

'Palmer, of. tit., pp. 207-212. 

* Ibid., p. 207. 



Appendix 6. Condition* op Negro Wage Earner 1087 

of the worken and their performance in a way which perpetuates the low status of the 
occupation. Domestic service ii not covered by any federal laws about social security, 
minimum wages and maximum hours. The Employment Service sometimes sets unofficial 
wage minima by refusing to refer registrants to employers who pay salaries below 
a certain scale. Relief agencies often consider the value of a job offer before deciding 
whether or not a client should be offered the alternative of either accepting it or being 
taken off the relief rolls. Several of the Northern states have made some efforts to 
improve the situation by introducing protective legislation, but this legislation is not 
extensive and it has not been adequately enforced* In the South there is still less 
legal or administrative protection. Because so many middle income and low income 
families in the South have domestic servants, the problem of improving the conditions 
of work in this occupation without endangering the work opportunities is much more 
difficult in the South than anywhere else. 

Among the most constructive efforts are the attempts to give adequate vocational train* 
ing to an increased number of white and colored girls. The Work Projects Administration 
has been training thousands of girls every year. Local organizations, such as the 
Y.W.C.A., have sponsored a number of training centers. Negro vocational institutions 
have done their bit. So far these attempts are minimal compared with the size of the 
market. Also, there is no guarantee that the best trained students will work as domestics; 
they may prefer such jobs as cooking in restaurants. Even at best, the chances to improve 
the conditions of workers and the status of the occupation appear rather slim ; it goes 
without saying that only in those families which are able and willing to pay adequate 
wages can domestic work become "professionalized" in this way. The number of such 
families may increase, particularly because of the rising proportion of gainfully occupied 
married women in the white population. This trend cannot fail to increase both the 
need for reliable and competent domestic workers and the ability to pay high salaries to 
such workers. Some of the underlying forces — such as the higher employment rates of 
the housewives — will precipitate the trend toward greater dependence on specialized 
service industries such as commercial laundries, cleaning and dyeing shops, processed 
food production, child nurseries, hotels and restaurants. And this change, as we shall 
see, may tend to put the Negro in a still more disadvantageous position. 

3. Other Service Occupations 

The most significant example of how the Negro has lost out through the "industriali- 
zation" of service work is the displacement of the Negro home laundress by commercial 
laundries. This group of Negro service workers, the second largest among all groups, has 
declined from 368,000 in 1910 to 271,000 in I930. b Since in 1930 not much more 
than one-tenth of these workers resided in the North and West, where there had been 
about as many in 1910, it is evident that the northward migration failed to give the 
Negro laundress any new job opportunities which could compensate for the displacement 
in the South, The main reason for this is probably that commercial laundries are 
particularly well developed in the large Northern centers; the competition of the 

* Ibid, pp. 225-232. 

b U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1920-1933, p. 326. Thirteenth 
Census of the United States: if 10, Population, Vol. 4, pp. 4.30-431. Some of the Negro 
home laundresses may work as employees of private households. It is probable, however, 
that the majority of them did the laundering in their own homes. 



io98 An American Dilemma 

Chinese latmdryman and the home washing machine may have been an additional factor; 
the pattern of Negro residential segregation in cities like New York and Chicago, 
finally, may have made it more difficult for the Negro home laundress to solicit patrons. 
The commercial laundries, on the other hand, have increased their Negro labor forces 
from 15,000 in 1910 to 60,000 in 1930. Compared to this four-fold increase for 
Negroes, the number of white workers only doubled. Yet even this gain was small com- 
pared with the loss. 

Dressmakers and seamstresses (not in factories)* constitute a similar case. The number 
of Negro workers in this group declined from 38,000 in 1910 to 20,000 in 1930. 

It is extremely difficult to get an idea of the development in most of the other service 
industries, since the census statistics are seldom quite comparable from one decade to 
another, and few adequate studies have been made. In 1930, 228,000 Negro workers, 
constituting 17 per cent of all workers in the industry, were employed in hotels, 
restaurants, and boarding houses, the majority of them as porters, waiters, cooks and 
other servants. 1 * All these occupations have experienced a rather rapid growth during the 
last few decades, but the Negroes have had but a small share in these gains. The conse- 
quence, in the case of waiters and waitresses, is that the proportion of Negroes has 
declined from 22 per cent in 1910 to 15 per cent in 1930. What little part the Negro 
had in the general increase was mainly in the North, where, by 1930, there were more 
Negro waiters than in the South. Negro waitresses made somewhat more progress than 
the waiters but were nevertheless much fewer than their male counterparts by 1930. 
In the white group, too, it was the women who made the largest gains. Thus, the loss 
of the Negro male waiters was largely the gain of the white waitresses. During the 
'thirties Negroes continued to lose in relative position. In the South, in 1930, 40 pei 
cent of the workers in hotels, restaurants, and similar places were Negroes, but in 1940 
only 32 per cent were Negroes. 3 Negro bell-boys, too, have lost out, at least relatively. 
Travelers in the South often have occasion to observe that, nowadays, the most modern 
and busiest hotels and restaurants tend to have white bell-boys and white waitresses, 
whereas the old-fashioned places tend to have Negro servants. In hotels and restaurants, 
generally, it seems that workers behind the scenes — cooks, porters, and so forth — are 
often Negro, even when those who come into direct contact with the customers are 
white. 

The barbershop and hairdressing occupations have undergone a tremendous develop- 
ment since 1910, particularly in the female branch, the beauty shop business. The total 
number of workers in the whole group of occupations almost doubled between 1910 and 
1930, but the Negro gain was only about 50 per cent. The Negro barber has lost most 
of his white business in the South. His gains have been restricted to the segregated 
Negro neighborhoods, where the beauty shops have experienced a faint counterpart to 

* U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1930-1932, p. 310) Thirteenth 
Census of the United States: 1910, Population, Vol. 4, pp. 31a and 313. Most of these 
Negro seamstresses usually work in their own homes. Some may work in homes of white 
families where they are temporarily employed. 

"U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1930-1931, p. 358. 

'Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Population, Vol. 4, pp. 430-433; 
Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. 5, pp. 411-587. 

' See Chapter 1 1. Table 3. 



Appendix 6. Conditions op Negro Wage Earner 1089 

<he boom in white areas. Under such circumstances, there it nothing surprising in the 
fact that almost half the Negro workers are in the North. 

The most important group among other service occupations from the viewpoint of 
Negro employment were the janitors and sextons. No less than 78,000 Negro workers 
were enumerated under this heading in 1930. It appears that there had been a big 
increase in this work since 1910, and slightly more so for Negroes than for whites. 
Among elevator tenders, on the other hand, there was a decreasing proportion of 
Negroes. Among charwomen and cleaners the Negro maintained his relative position 
pretty well; and among bootblacks he improved it. 

Such is the story we can read in the census reports. It is not encouraging. By and 
large, the displacement of work from homes to service and manufacturing industries 
brings a definite loss to the Negro, The main reason for this seems to be that it makes 
the work more pleasant, and thus more attractive to the white worker. When there is 
an expansion, the Negro usually fails to get his full share of it, except in particularly 
lowly occupations. Sometimes there is an actual decline in the number of Negro 
workers. Had more complete data from the 1 940 Census been available at this writing, 
we should probably have been able to document these conclusions even more convinc- 
ingly. For, because of the unemployment among white workers during the 'thirties, 
these trends, if anything, must have become more pronounced. 

4. Turpentine Farms 

Turpentine farms and distilleries are not a large industry, but they have the highest 
proportion of Negroes in the whole nonservice group. Of the total labor force of 43,000 
in 1930, no less than 75 per cent was Negro. It is almost entirely a Southern industry, 
mainly located in Georgia and Florida. At present it is experiencing a pronounced war 
boom. Otherwise it has been almost stationary for several decades. Turpentine, which 
is used mainly for making paint, has been increasingly substituted for by petroleum 
products. There is, however, a growing demand for rosin, formerly considered only 
as a by-product of turpentine manufacture, so that it has become more valuable than the 
turpentine itself. 1 Certain technical innovations have made the existence of the ordinary 
turpentine farms rather difficult. Norgren points out that: 

There has been developed in recent years a new method of producing turpentine, 
known as the wood distillation process. This process consists in removing and pulping 
the stumps of pine trees in "logged-over" areas, and distilling the pulp in large centrally- 
located stills. Since modern labor-saving devices are used throughout, the number of 
man-hours required to produce a given quantity of product by this method is only a small 
fraction of what it is in the average gum-turpentine establishment; and it is consequently 
not surprising to learn that wood turpentine has become a serious competitor of the 
gum-distilled product. 1 * 

There are obvious reasons why the turpentine industry employs predominantly Negro 
workers. It is located in rather isolated rural areas. The work is strenuous. The main 
part of it Is "chipping," which means cutting of V-shaped gashes through the bark 
with a heavy knife. A normal day's work may mean cutting some 1,000 to 1, 500 tree* 
in this way during 8 to 1 2 hours. Other chores are performed by children. Wages are 

* Norgren and Associates, of. at., Part 1, p. 106. 

* Ibid., Part 1, p. 108. 



1090 An American Dilemma 

low. On the basis of field work and various spot studies,* Norgren estimated the normal 
wage at between 90 cents and $1.2$ per day; the annual wage income, because of slack 
work during the winter and daring rainy days, is probably little more than $200. 
Housing facilities in the camps are often extremely unsatisfactory. The commissary 
system is widely used, just as on Southern plantations. Prices are kept high, and workers 
easily become indebted to the employers. Not even Negroes are. easy to get under such 
conditions. There is a general complaint among employers that labor is scarce. Such a 
situation must tempt employers to indulge in practices of peonage, and there are definite 
reports to the effect that these temptations have not always been resisted. It has even 
happened that workers have been induced to come to the camps under false pretenses 
and then forced into contracts and debts and thereby retained as workers. 

Labor is recruited for these camps by a man, usually a Negro, who makes glowing 
speeches of high wages and easy hours. But soon the unsuspecting Negro youth, who 
thought he was getting on a truck headed for a distant city, finds he is headed toward a 
turpentine or lumber camp. Once there he gets into debt and can leave only upon threat 
of a six months' chain gang sentence, For, according to the law, jumping a debt is defined 
as "intent to injure and defraud."" 

The claim that the Florida peonage law was sponsored by turpentine farm interests 
sounds plausible. 

The turpentine farm workers have no protection from any federal labor legislation, 
as the turpentine industry, except for the distilleries, is considered part of agriculture. 
Employers receive, for the same reason, certain benefits under the new agricultural 
programs. Indirectly, the workers may have received some part of these benefits. Yet, by 
and large, the gum industry is characterized by extraordinarily exploitative conditions 
of work, and it has an uncertain future. The implications of the situation are especially 
serious lor Negroes because this industry employs mostly Negroes. 

5. Lumber 

Next to building construction and the iron and steel industries, lumber is the most 
important of all manufacturing industries from the point of view of the number of 
Negroes employed. The lumber industry proper had in 1930 almost 140,000 Negro 
workers. In addition, there were about 26,000 Negro forest workers, most of whom 
were registered as "lumbermen, raftsmen and woodchoppers." a A large part of theso 
were employed by the rapidly growing Southern paper and pulp industry. In this work, 
however, it is only the wood-cutting activity which is a Negro occupation. In the paper 
and pulp mills themselves there were less than 8,000 Negro workers in 1930.° These 

* See, for example, Work Projects Administration, Part-Time Farming in the Southeast, 
Research Monograph 9 (1937), pp. 211-213. 

b Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," unpublished manuscript prepared for this 
study (1940), p. 186. 

"Arthur Raper (idem) quotes an article by Orland K. Armstrong (New York World, 
November a6, 1929), according to which the man, who was president of the Florida Senate 
when the peonage bill was passed, acknowledged that "the influence behind the passage of 
this law was the naval stores and lumber operators of this state." 

'U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1930-1032, pp. 337-359- 
According to the 1940 figures, which are not quite comparable, there were in the South 
156,000 Negro workers employed in logging, sawmills and planing mills, manufacturing 
of furniture, store fixtures and miscellaneous wooden goods. (Chapter 13, Table 3.) 

'V.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1920-1932, p. 348. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 109 i 

were mainly in laboring jobs, at wages which were lower, compared with the pay of 
skilled and semi-skilled workers, than was trne in other parts of the country.* The wage 
level is still lower for wood cotters; prior to 1938, the average was less than $1 for a 
day of 10 to 14 hours. It is not clear whether the Wages and Hours Law has brought 
any significant improvement. The employers have succeeded fairly well in postponing 
its enforcement. An industry committee, set up in 1940 for the purpose of regulating 
labor conditions under the law, even excluded production of pulpwood from the paper 
and pulp industry, which means that the wood cutters cannot get any benefit from the 
minimum wage of 40 cents an hour decided upon by the committee. 1 * 

Only a small minority of the 140,000 Negroes in the lumber and woodworking 
industry proper were in processing work. Furniture and piano factories had few Negro 
. workers (8,000), but bos factories and miscellaneous plants had a somewhat greater 
number (17,000). The bulk of the Negro workers, or 114,000, were employed by saw 
and planing mills, where they constituted one-fourth of the national, and one-half of 
the Southern, labor force. 

This situation, of course, is rather unfortunate for the Negroes. The saw and planing 
mills have been a stationary, sometimes even a regressive, industry since about 1910. The 
expansion in the Pacific, and particularly in the Northwestern areas, has made it still 
more difficult for the Southern mills. Moreover, Southern pine timber stands have been 
exploited in a rather shortsighted manner, causing serious denudation. The increased 
use of iron, steel, cement, and bricks in building construction, the substitution of barbed 
wire for wood in farm fencing, of fiber for wood in boxes and crates, the use of mesh- 
bags instead of boxes for packing of fruits, as well as other similar changes, have brought 
about serious limitations in the demand. Nevertheless, there may be some hope for the 
future. Timber stands in other parts of the country may become so exhausted that the 
rapid growth in the Southern climate will give the Southern industry a competitive 
advantage. New uses for the product (e.g., plywood-built airplanes) may bring about 
an increased demand. 

During the early 'thirties lumber production in the South was reduced by almost 
two-thirds, and the recovery was very slow. c Owing to the present war emergency, the 
production is large for the time being, but this boom, of course, is not going to last. 
The insecurity in the situation is further enhanced by the fact that mechanization, 
which has proceeded rather far in other areas, has been less pronounced in the South, 
mainly because low wages prevailed until recently. For this reason, and also because of 
the denudation of many Southern timber stands, the productivity of the worker in the 
Northwestern region has been estimated to be about 60 per cent higher than that of the 
Southern worker. 4 Mechanization has not always caused displacement of labor; in some 
cases, it is claimed, mechanization has increased job opportunities by making it possible 

'Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 1, pp. 1 00-101. The section on the lumber indus- 
try in Norgren's manuscript was written by James Healy. 

* Ibid., Part t, pp. 101-104.. Information on prevailing wages based on an interview, 
May 30, 1940, with Mr. Richter, Field Investigator in the Wage and Hour Division, U.S. 
Department of Labor. 

'Ibid., Part 1, p. 26s based on data from the Biennial Census of Manufactures. Also pp. 
31-32 and letter from Paul H. Norgren, August 16, 194.2. 

'ibid., pp. 60-63. Information based on brief submitted to Office of National Recovery 
Administration, Division of Review, Yost et al, "Economic Problems of the Lumber^ajid 
Timber Products Industry" (March, 1936), Work Materials #79, p. 151. 



109a An American Dilemma 

to ntilize stands of timber which otherwise would hfve been economically inaccessible. 
Still, the regional differential in this regard constitutes a constant threat to the job 
opportunities for Negroes. It is hard to see how an equalization of labor conditions could 
fail to encourage such technological changes as would curtail employment in the South.* 

The insecurity of the individual worker is made still greater because of the loose 
structure of the Southern lumber industry. A large part of the production comes from 
small, marginal mills with a high bankruptcy rate. They employ a somewhat greater 
proportion of Negroes than do the large mills, partly because they have to depend on 
cheap labor, bnt also because they cannot always afford to segregate white and Negro 
workers in the mill towns. b These conditions contribute to the extremely high labor 
turnover; the separation rate in 1934 was as high as 88 per cent. The rapid labor turn- 
over must also be seen in conjunction with the fact that the number of working days ( 
per year ranges around 200 days, according to a survey for 1939.' The lumber industry 
is really nothing but an outgrowth of agriculture. Labor flows continually back and forth 
between these two industries. 

The wage structure has long been characterized by a great differential between 
skilled workers, such as sawyers, who are predominantly white, and unskilled laborers, 
most of whom, in the South, are Negroes. Various studies quoted by Norgren and 
Associates indicate that, in the South, sawyers (head, band) during the 'twenties and 
early 'thirties, earned more than three times and sometimes almost four times as much 
per hour, on the average, as did laborers. In the Far West, on the other hand, sawyers 
earned somewhat more than twice the average wage of laborers." The wage level,, 
further, has been particularly low and unstable in the South. The average hourly earn- 
ings for all workers in Southern logging camps and sawmills, according to certain 
sample studies, seem to have decreased from roughly 30 cents in 1928 to 18 cents in 
1932. It was about twice as high in the Northwest in 1928, and the regional differential 
was even greater in 1932 in that the relative decrease was more pronounced in the 
South than in the Northwest.' 

The Wages and Hours Law, in conjunction with the business recovery, had brought 
about a great improvement by 1 939-1 940. The whole wage structure in the Southern 
lumber mills seems to have become somewhat more concentrated; sawyers (head, band) 
earned "only" about two-and-a-half times more than the low wage labor groups." Even 

* See Work Progress Administration, National Research Project, "Mechanization in 
Lumber" (March, 1940), Report No. M-5, pp. 79-93. 

k Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part i, pp. 21-26 and 69. 

'Ibid., p. 47, and Monthly Labor Review (May, 1935), pp. 1285-1287. 

'Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 1, p. 46. 

*A. Berglund, et at., Labor in the Industrial South (1930), p. 41. Bureau of Labor 
Statistics, "Wages and Hours of Labor in the Lumber Industry in the United States: 1932" 
(1932), Bulletin #586, pp. 24-33. Quoted in Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 1, p. 59. 

* See Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Wages and Hours of Labor in the Lumber Industry in 
the United States: 1928" (1928), Bulletin #497, and "Wages and Hours of Labor in the 
Lumber Industry in the United States: 1932" (1932), Bulletin #586. Several other studies 
quoted by Norgren (of. cit., Part I, p. 64) confirm the impression of the low wage level in 
die South 1 some averages are even lower than those quoted in the text. 

'Bureau of Labor Statistics, unpublished tabulations, September 16, 1941. The writer 
is indebted to Acting Commissioner of Labor Statistics, A. F. Hinrichs, for permission to 'use 
these data, and to Dr. Norgren for certain suggestions concerning their interpretation. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1093 

TABLE 4 

Averaob Earnings and Hours or Work for Lumber Workers ik the South by Type and 

Branch or Industry ano by Color; 1939-1940 



Type and Branch 
of Industry 



Number of 
Worker* 



Average Hourly 
Barninss 



Awut Weekly 



nnw 
Hours 



Avenge Weekly 

Earnings 



Negro White Negro White Negro White Negro 



White 



Establishments with 20 or 

more employees: 

Logging branch 

Sawmill branch 

Maintenance and service 
occupations 

Establishments (small 
logging camps) with 
fewer than ao employ- 



3.835 
10.350 

3.366 



555 



2.766 
4.335 

3.»73 



415 



to .31 
O.30 

O.30 



O.34 



tO.37 
040 

041 



0.28 



35.B 

384 

43.1 



37-6 



39-3 
41.1 



45.0 



38.8 



til 
II 



•33 Sia.Sft 
.60 16.05 

ia.8o 1846 



9.0a 



IO.99 



Sourer: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unpublished tabulations, September, ro4i. (Permission to 
publish tables obtained from Acting Commissioner A. P. Hinrichs.) 

more important is the fact that the average wage level had been brought up above the 
pre-depression level (Table 4). The high proportion of workers earning exactly 30 
cents an hour (Table 5) indicates that this improvement is due to a great extent to the 
Wages and Hours Law. At the same time it is evident that the law was still evaded 
frequently, particularly by small mills and in the case of Negroes." This evasion is not 
always illegal, however; many small mills have simply withdrawn from interstate com- 
merce. Rut other small mill owners fail to comply, pointing to their inability to pay 
higher wages. The Wages and Hours officials have found it practical to abstain from 



TABLE 5 

Percentage Distribution ot I^iooino and Sawmill Workers bv Average Hourly 

Earnings, by Type and Branch or Indus iry and by Color, in the South: 19,39-1940 





: 


Establishments with 20 
or More Employees 




Establishments with fewer 
than 2u Employees 

Logging Sawmil 




Hourly Earnings 


Logging 


Sawmuiing 


ling 




Negro 


White 


Negro 


White 


Negro 


White Negro 


White 


Total 
Under ao.n cents 
20.0-29.9 cents 
Exactly 30.0 cent? 
30.0-39.0 cents 
40 cents and over 


100.0 
3.3 

2.8 

5a.8 
32.5 
8.7 


100.0 
1.3 
3.4 
25.9 
41.4 
28.1 


100.0 
4-3 
4.0 
64-0 
23.8 
3.9 


100.0 

1.8 
4.4 
3»-5 
316 
29-7 


100.0 

27.6 

24.1 

40.2 

7.a 

0.9 


100.0 100.0 
1 1.4 34* 
26.3 17.8 
40-4 44.1 
14-7 3.4 
7.a 0.5 


100,0 
18.7 
24.8 
36.2 
10.5 
9.8 



Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unpublished tabulations, September, 1041. (Permission to 
publish table obtained from Acting Commissioner A. P. Hinrichs.) 

* The problem has been stated succinctly in a memorandum of a Wages and Hours inspec- 
tor in the Southern area: "The lumbei industry in this area is perhaps our big|fwt headache 
as an industry. . . , Wages in the southern branch of the industry have been traditionally sub- 
standard and 25 and 30 cents an hour minus the privilege of gettting 15 cents of it back 
through the commissary devices, necessitated greater adjustments than in many other industries. 
. . . Also, ... the scene of operation is more or less isolated, which condition doesn't con- 
tribute towards cooperation in working out of problems that confront the industry." 
(Memorandum prepared by Robert K. Miller, Inspector, Atlanta, Georgia [May 10, 1940], 
p. 1. Quoted by Norgren, of. cit., Part 1, p. Si.) 



1094 



An American Dilemma 



wing forceful means against such financially weak operators* and hare, for the most 
part, concentrated their efforts on the larger mills — with great success, as we see from 
the statistics. 

There is no evidence concerning the extent to which there has been any displacement 
of labor because of the wage increase. Owing to the present war boom, employment has 
so far increased rather than decreased. What is going to happen after the war, however, 
u a different matter entirely. Unless this wage increase is wiped out by inflation — 
which may well happen — it is hard to visualize how it could fail to bring about, even- 
tually, considerable mechanization as well as elimination of financially weak establish- 
ments. 

The hourly earnings tended to be somewhat lower for Negro than for white lumber 
workers. Such a difference usually appears even when Negroes and whites in the same 
occupational sub-group are compared (Table 6). This does not prove, however, that 



TABLE 6 

Occupations in Lumber Mills (Sawmills, Logging, Maintenance and Service Branches) by 

Avsraob Hourly Earnings or White Workers, and Difference Between 

Average Earninos or White and Neoro Workers, in the 

South: 1 939-1 940 

(The original data are based on establishments with 20 or more employees.) 





All 

occupa- 
tions" 




Number of occupations which avera 
Negroes were: 

Lower than 
Equal to . b r "P* 5 
earnings 0.5- 2,0- 
of 1.9 3.9 
whites cents cents 


ge hourly 


earnings for 

of whites 
ints 

6.0- 
7-9 

cents 




Average hourly 

earnings of 
white workers 
by occupation 


Higher 
than 
for 

whites 


eamtnKS 
ified amoe 

4.0- 

5-9 
cents 




S.o 

cents & 

over 


Total 

Under 35.0 cents 
J5-O-30.0 cents 
40.0-44.9 cents 
45 cents or more 


60 

38 

12 

5 

5 


5 
5 


3 
3 


SI 

IP 

2 


11 
to 

I 


6 

! 

5 


4 

3 

1 


10 

1 
4 
5 



Source: Adapted from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unpublished tabulations, September, 1041. (Per- 
mission to publish table obtained from Acting Commissioner A. P. Hinrichs ) 

• Only occupations which had 25 or more Negro and 25 or more white representatives in the sample were 
included 

Negroes are paid less on an hourly basis when performing the same duties as white 
workers in the same establishments. It is possible that these wage differentials in specified 
occupational groups are caused by the tendency of low wage establishments to hire a 
greater proportion of Negroes than do high wage establishments. Besides, in most of 
the cases, these differences are rather small, except — and this is rather significant — in 
occupations where wages are far above the general average. The only chance for a Negro 
to get into a high wage occupation usually is to accept a wage considerably lower than 
that paid to white employees for the same kind of work. Yet, the main reason why 
Negroes, by and large, have lower pay than whites is that they are relatively more 
concentrated in low wage work. b The proportion of Negroes is particularly low in 

'Ibid,, Part i, pp. 84-85. 

" In part, there is a reversed causation. The wage differential between "high" and 'low" 
occupations, as we have seen, is more pronounced in the South than elsewhere. In other words, 
the wages for unskilled work are particularly low in the South became most of the unskilled 
workers are Negroes. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1095 

maintenance and service occupations, which include such groups as electricians, 
machinists, mechanics, millwrights and sawfilers. If we classify all the occupations by 
the average hourly wages for all workers, we find that the proportion of Negroes dimin- 
ishes regularly as the average earnings increase, from 69 per cent in occupations paying 
less than 35 cents an hour to 6 per cent in work paying 50 cents or more.* 

Earnings per week differ more than wages per hour, due to the fact that the working 
week is somewhat shorter for Negro than for white workers. Even so, it must be said 
that the $9-13 earned per week by Negro lumber workers — as against the $11-18 
earned by whites — is not so bad compared to what they have been used to before. The 
main problem is how much work they will have when the war boom is over. 

Lumber mills located in isolated areas have to provide housing for their workers. In 
these "mill villages" Negroes are usually segregated, and the accommodation for them 
tends to be inferior to that offered to whites. Most of the workers have to pay rent for 
their housing facilities. There is a commissary system, but nowadays it does not seem 
to be used for the purpose of exploiting the workers, except in unusual cases. Peonage, 
by the same token, is reported to be rarc. b Increases in rents and commissary prices, 
however, have been used, in some instances, as one of the devices for evasion of the 
Wages and Hours Law, but Wages and Hours officials arc gradually wiping out practices 
of this kind. e 

There have been several attempts to unionize the Southern lumber mill workers, but, 
so far, unions have little power in this field. There are four principal reasons for this: 
The pronounced anti-union attitudes of most Southern employers, together with the 
political impotency of the workers; the great number of small establishments, many 
of which have an isolated location ; the high labor turnover and the constant inter- 
change of labor between agriculture and lumber camps; and the presence of the Negro. 
The Brotherhood of Timber Workers, organized in 1910 and soon affiliated with the 
International Workers of the World, worked among both Negroes and whites in 
Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. The employers defeated it, capitalizing on the race 
issue. d The International Timber Workers' Union, an A.F. of L. affiliate, entered the 

'The complete series was: 
Occupations classified by Percentage 0/ 

average hourly earnings Negro workers 

Under 35.0 cents 69. 3 

35.0-39.9 " 3«-> 

40.0-44.9 " 18.3 

45.0-49.9 " ia.6 

50.0-cents & over 5.8 

All occupations 59.9 

Adapted from: IT. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unpublished tabulations for sawmill 
and logging workers in establishments having 20 or more employees. Figures made 
available through the courtesy of Acting Commissioner A. F. Hinrichs. 
*Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 1, pp. 69-72. 

* Ibid., Part 1, p. 86, and Wage and Hour Reporter (May »7, 1940), p. 223. 

* That Southern employers have long been aware of the value of the race issue in the fight 
against unions is suggested by the following statement: 

" '. . . if the labor organizations pursue their policy of injustice and disturbance, the time 
will come when the industries of the South . . . will be filled with Negroes.' In Negro 



X096 Ax American Dilemma 

field in 1919* organizing both Negroes and whites, bat this onion, too, had no success 
in spite of an offer of the white leaders to "sell the Negroes oat." During the N.RjV 
period, the A.F. of L. made some new attempts to organize Southern lumber workers. 
A C.I.O. union, the International Wood Workers of America, which has come into 
existence during recent years, seems to have been more successful. It has several locals 
in many Southern states and has even obtained some contracts. Yet it is safe to say that 
the overwhelming majority of the Southern lumber workers are still unorganized/ 

6. The Fertilizer Industry 

The fertilizer industry differs from the turpentine and lumber industries in that it 
is a comparatively new industry which has been expanding during recent decades. The 
number of Negro workers more than doubled between 1910 and 1930, whereas the 
white labor force increased to a somewhat smaller extent. The reason for this difference 
is that the expansion was particularly pronounced in the South, which has the bulk of 
all fertilizer factories in the country . b In 1930 about 60 per cent of all workers and 81 
per cent of the unskilled workers were Negro; in the South, of course, only a small 
minority of the workers were white. Even the North has a large proportion of Negro 
workers.* 

The Negro's predominant position in the Southern branch of the industry is probably 
due to the unpleasantness of the work. The odors are bad, the atmosphere dusty and, 
in all likelihood, unhealthy. Employment for most workers is seasonal, the period of 
highest activity occurring prior to the planting in the spring. Then, too, it is a low 
wage industry, at least in the South, and especially for Negroes. According to a 
sample study for 1938,* the average hourly earnings for Negro workers in the South 
were 25 cents, as against 37 cents for white workers. In the North, on the other hand, 
there was but a small wage differential and a much higher general level (49 and 52 
cents, respectively). Even in specific occupations the earnings of Negro workers in the 
South were markedly lower than those of white workers. Skilled workers earned twice 
as much as unskilled workers in the South, whereas the corresponding difference in the 
North was not much over 50 per cent. Whereas in the North virtually all workers 
received wages in excess of the legal minimum, 2 per cent of those in the Upper South 
and no less than 43 per cent of those in the Lower South received wages lower than 2 ; 
cents an hour, which was the minimum wage at that time according to the Wages and 

labor lies the panacea for the wrongs frequently committed by organized labor, and a 
reserve force from which can be supplied any needed number of workers when the time 
shall come that they will be needed '. . . [The Negro] is absolutely loyal to his employer; 
he is not given to strikes; he does his work faithfully, and can be depended on.' He 
[Mr. Coffin] believes that labor agitation can be largely kept out of the South because 
the Southern manufacturers will 'Negroize' their industries rather than submit to unjust 
domination by the unions." U. S. Industrial Commission Rt forts (1900), Vol. 7, statement 
of Mr. Coffin, p. 6a. 

* Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 1, pp. 50-54. 

k According to the 1937 Census 0/ Manufacturers, 73 per cent of all workers in the 
fertilizer industry were in the South. 

* Fifteenth Census of the United States: '030, Population, Vol. 4, pp. 27-28. 

'Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Wages and Hours in the Fertilizer Industry 1938," 
Monthly Labor Review (March, 1939), pp. 666-681. 
•Idem. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1097 

Hoars Law. This figure, however, does not necessarily indicate widespread noncompli- 
ance; since the fertilizer factories work for local markets to a great extent, it is probable 
that many of them seldom enter interstate trade. In spite of this condition, it seems 
most likely that the subsequent rise in the legal minimum, as well as the enforcement 
work of the Wages and Hours Division in the Department of Labor, has brought about 
a certain increase in the average Southern wage since 1938.* 

7. Longshore Work 

The Negro longshoreman has a somewhat different position from that of the workers 
in most other Negro jobs. b His wages are comparatively high, although much less so 
on an annual than on an hourly basis. There is an old union tradition in this trade 
which includes racial collaboration. While such collaboration is by no means perfect, 
it is far superior to anything that can be found in most other typical Negro jobs. The 
Negro has even managed to get an increased proportion of these jobs. In those South 
Atlantic ports of Virginia, South Carolina, and Florida where he has traditionally had 
at lease nine out of every ten jobs, he has maintained that proportion. He has even 
improved his position as indicated by the following figures: 

TABLE 7 
Percentage of Negroes Among Longshoremen and Stevedores in Selected States: 

I9IO AND I930 

State 1910 1930 State 1910 1930 



New York 
New Jersey 
Pennsylvania 
Maryland 


6.0 

a-7 
40.5 
65.0 


15.2 

32.2 

ji.8 
68.6 


Alabama 
Louisiana 
Texas 


80.5 
59-8 
35-3 


95-8 
74.3 
69.8 



Sources: Thirteenth Census of the United Stales: 1010, Population, Vol. 4. Stats Table 7. 
Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. 4. State Table 11. 

The total number of Negro longshoremen and stevedores increased from 1 6,000 in 
1910 to over 25,000 in 1930, or from one-fourth to one-third of the total national 
labor force in the occupation. All of this increase occurred between 1910 and 1920 
when there was a general boom in port activities. During the 'twenties, on the other 
hand, there was a decline in employment which hurt the white workers more than the 
Negroes. There was a decline during the 'thirties, of course, and both racial groups 
must have suffered heavily from it, but Northrup, during his fieldwork, gained the 
definite impression that the relative position of the Negro workers had not been 
impaired, at least not in the South. The only possible exception would be New Orleans." 

There are definite reasons why the Negro does not have his usual inferior position 
in water-front work. No great differences exist between various skilled groups. All that 

" All data in this paragraph have been drawn from Norgren and Associates, of. eh., 
Part 1. 

'This section is based on Herbert R. Northrup, "Negro Labor and Union Policies in the 
South," unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University (194*)- Some preliminary work for 
this thesis was done for our study. 

'Northrup, of, cit., p. 117, 



tOQ8 Am American Dilemma 

counts is physical strength and endurance w well as certain training in the art of apply- 
ing it. The popular beliefs in Negro inferiority never refer to his physical condition, 
so it is quite natural that they have hampered him less in this field than in moat others. 
In only a few cases have white workers been able, for a time, to monopolize higher 
jobs; this happened with respect to cotton screwmen in New Orleans, but the white 
monopoly was broken at the beginning of this century, and the whole craft was eventu- 
ally eliminated through technological development.* Racial competition, in the main, 
has been a question of sharing jobs of the same type or, at least, of about the same 
general status. In the South the Negro had from the outset sucb a numerical superiority 
that it soon proved difficult not to treat him as an equal or near-equal. Then, too, the 
big expansion during the First World War was accompanied by ? farcify of white 
labor. There was no way of stopping the Negro from making gains. 

There are disagreeable aspects of this occupation which have made h unattractive to 
white workers. The work is extremely strenuous. There is little chance fot the older 
worker. Accident risks are high. Job opportunities are irregular and subject to severe 
business cycle fluctuations. Periods of idleness are broken by hours and days of rush 
work. Those who have a job try to keep it in order to make full use of it. This, at 
times, makes them work as much as 36 hours at a stretch, which increases the accident 
risk. 

Moreover, most ports have the so-called "shape-up" system of hiring b which means 
that there is no even distribution of work opportunities. The Workers become entirely 
dependent on the hiring agents and foremen. This leads to favoritism. It opens the way 
to discrimination against the Negroes, who, for the most part, work in separate gangs 
and often have been segregated in separate positions when working on the same ship 
with whites. It also leads to "kick-backs" to hiring agents and foremen and to other 
forms of corruption, graft and sometimes plain racketeering on the water front. Some 
of the labor unions have become undemocratic because of the power of the foremen. 

The trade union history of the longshoremen is long and turbulent, full of racial 
strife, with whites attempting to exclude Negroes or Negroes breaking the strikes of 
whites. But almost from the very beginning there were some successful attempts to 
organize racial cooperation on a basis of mutual solidarity and equality. There was a 
strong Negro union in Charleston, South Carolina, in the i86o's, and during the 1870's 
at least two noteworthy Negro unions were formed, one in New Orleans and one in 
Baltimore. In 1865 Negro and white longshoremen collaborated in a strike in New 
Orleans,* and there was a much bigger strike in the 1880's in which workers of both 
races participated. About that time a noted foreign observer commented on how "despite 
occasional outbreak of racial antipathy," the unions in New Orleans had been able to 
"harmonize the opposing factors, and have undertaken, through the recognition of 
black labor, a problem in civilization whose solution they will probably not live to see."" 

The International Longshoremen's Association (I.L.A.), organized during the 1890*6, 

* Sterling Spero and Abram L. Harris, The Black Worker (1931), pp. 185-187. 

k In this system of hiring, the worker must find out for himself where work is available 
each day and there is no assurance that the foreman will select him. 

'Ibid., p. 197. 

*Ibid,, pp. 182-183. 

*A. S. von Waltershauaen, Die Nordamerikatuschen Gewerkschaften unter dem Emjlusi 
der fortschreitenden ProduktionsUcAnik (1886), p. 94) quoted in Spero and Harris, of. 
tit., p. 184. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1099 

hat dominated the field during the last decades and it still the most important organ* 
ization, except on the West Coast where the longshoremen's locals have Joined the 
C.I.O. Negroes and whites are usually organized in separate locals. It is asserted that 
even Negroes like it better this way, in that it gives them the opportunity to work 
under foremen of their own race and also to bring organized pressure against the white 
part of the unions.* Negroes arc heavily represented in the national leadership of the 
union. This does not mean, however, that discrimination and racial antagonism have 
been eliminated. It is frequently charged that the white workeis get more and better 
work opportunities than Negro workers. Writing about present-day conditions in New 
Orleans, Northrup states that the 800 members of the white local get more steady 
work than the 2,100 members of the Negro local. b In Houston the work is divided 
evenly between the white and the Negro locals, in spite of the fact that they are of 
different size (300 and 4.00 members, respectively). Similar arrangements with similar 
results exist also in other ports. Negroes have been hampered by the fact that unions in 
most Southern ports were more or less crushed during the early 'twenties and remained 
comparatively powerless until the New Deal. Some Southern Negro locals are still suffer- 
ing from internal strife, graft, and corruption, even sometimes from the embezzling 
of union funds by unfaithful leaders. The national union directed by a powerful 
machine has taken a clear position on the race issue but has done little to tackle the 
basic problem of work distribution. The main reason is probably that a rotation system 
would necessitate a limitation in the number of workers and, hence, in the dues-paying 
membership; also, it would hurt the vested interests of those now favored. Only in a 
few of the Negro-dominated port*, like those in Texas (where the unions managed to 
remain strong throughout the 'twenties), on the West Coast, and, to a certain extent, 
in Baltimore, have rotation systems been introduced. The C.I.O. unions on the Pacific 
Coast seem to be the only ones which have gone the whole way on the race issue. 
Negroes are completely unsegregated, and the unions support them in every way, even 
going so far as to make water-front restaurants accept Negro union member; as patrons. 
Only a handful of Negro longshoremen, however, work on the Pacific Coast." 

The ordinary hourly wage rate in work for deep-sea traffic, as of April, 1942, was 
$1.20 in the Northern ports and in Norfolk, $.70 in Charleston and Savannah, $.9; in 
Mobile, and $1.10 in New Orleans and Galveston. The North-South differential is due 
to the weakness of most Southern unions during the 'twenties and early 'thirties. 11 The 
employment opportunities certainly must be good at the present time; we have no data 
on the extent to which the Negro longshoreman has been able to improve even his 
relative position because of the war boom. The future prospects, however, must be 
extremely doubtful in this work with its pronounced booms and depressions, 

8. Building Workers 

Except for agriculture and domestic service, there is no industry which gives employ* 
xnent to as many Negroes as does building construction and related work, such as con- 

% IbU., pp. 72-73. 

*0f. cit., pp. 175 and 178. 

' Interviews with union leaders in San Francisco made by Gunnar Myrdal, March, 194.0. 

'Northrup, of. cit* p. 1*9. The data for 194a are based on information from the Inter- 
national Longshoremen's Association (letter from John R. Owens, Secretary-Treasurer, 
January 30, 1942). 



I ZOO An American Dilemma 

(traction and maintenance of highways, streets, railroads. In 1930 there were 181,000 
Negro workers in building construction alone, almost half of them in the North and 
the West. In construction and maintenance of roads, streets, sewers, and bridges, there 
were 64,000 Negro workers, four-fifths of whom lived in the South. Finally, there 
were 98,000 Negro laborers employed by steam railroads, most of them in the roain- 
tenance-of-way departments.* This last group will be discussed in the next section. 

It has been pointed out already that the Negro, in spite of migration to the North, 
has lost in relative position both in ordinary building construction (which had about 
the same total number of workers in 1930 as in 1910) and in construction and main- 
tenance of streets, highways, and so forth, which is an expanding industry. The almost 
complete cessation of residential and factory construction during the 'thirties has 
hastened the elimination of the Negro building worker in that white competitors 
became still more eager to monopolize whatever job opportunities were left. In the 
South less than one-fifth of all persons employed in construction work in 1940 were 
Negroes.* 

The situation is somewhat different in skilled and unskilled building trades. In the 
laboring jobs the Negro workers are still in the majority in the South, even if their 
numbers have been decreasing for a long time. In 1910 almost three-fourths of the 
building laborers and helpers in ten Southern states were Negro, but this proportion had 
declined to less than two-thirds by 1930. Among Southern street and highway workers 
the proportion of Negroes decreased from over three-fourths in 1 910 to somewhat 
more than one-half in 1930,° although in this case there was a considerable increase in 
actual numbers even for Negroes. It seems that Negroes have smaller chances than 
whites to secure employment with municipalities. Unpublished data from the United 
States Bureau of Employment Security, quoted by Norgren, indicate that while 73 per 
cent of "private" placements of building and construction laborers in six Southern 
states during the period from mid-1937 to mid-1938 were of Negroes, the corre- 
sponding proportion for "public" placements was considerably lower — 60 per cent. a 
Yet, there is no doubt but that this is still a "Negro job" in the South. 

There are many Negroes in skilled building occupations as well. Indeed, in 1930 
there were some 80,000 of them, which means that about half of all Negro skilled 
workers are in the building trades. But not even in the South did they dominate these 
skilled occupations. On the contrary, most of them had by 1 930 become predominantly 
"white jobs" even in the South; in only one of them did the Negro have more than 
half the work opportunities. 6 We can take it for granted that the situation has further 
deteriorated since that time. 

This condition is the result, of a long development. Although occupational census 
data were not tabulated by race until 1890, it is generally believed that "in the antc- 

■ Fifteenth Census 0/ the United States: tg$o, Pofulatioft, Vol. 4, State Table 11. 

k Chapter 13, Table 3. 

" Norgren and Associates, of, cit., Part 1, p. 5. Based on the decennial censuses. 

'Ibid., p. 15a. 

'Ibid., Part 3, p. 289, based on census data. It should be emphasized that the Negro's 
•hare in employment in the skilled building trades was certainly smaller than this informa- 
tion indicates, in that the proportion of skilled workers who were either unemployed or ha" 
to accept unskilled work was greater among Negroes than among whites. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negko Wage Earner iioi 

helium South the bulk of the building work was . . . performed by Negroes." * The 
South was eren more rural then than now. Plantations were self-sufficient economic 
entities, and the only way to get construction work done was to train a few slaves for it. 
Even in the cities the white building workers suffered from competition with free 
Negroes and Negro slaves who were hired out by their owners or allowed to work 
independently on the condition that they give the owners part of their earnings. It goes 
without saying that the white workers protested against this state of affairs, but as long 
as the politically most powerful class had a considerable interest in letting Negroes have 
a large share of the work, there was no way for the white worker to drive the Negro out. 
A survey for 1 86;, made under the auspices of the federal government, indicated that 
80 per cent of all skilled mechanics (including building tradesmen) in the South were 
Negroes. b 

The end of slavery meant the end of this protection of the Negro worker. It also 
meant that plantation owners and other employers lost much of their interest in giving 
training to Negroes, for they were no longer assured of retaining the services of Negro 
workers whom they had trained. The change, of course, was not completed in one stroke. 
The Black Codes, and particularly the laws about apprenticeship, still gave employers a 
vested interest in Negro labor for a long time. d This only cushioned the effects of 
Emancipation. Negroes moved about as they had never done befoic, and the old master- 
servant relationship meant much less than it had during slavery. 

Already by 1890 the white workers were in the majority in the skilled building 
occupations in the South. e Only one-fourth of the carpenters, for example, were Negro 
at that time, and among the painters the proportion of Negroes was even lower. The 
corresponding proportion for 1930 for these two groups had declined to 17 per cent. 
The Negro has never had a chance to enter the ranks of the electricians, a comparatively 
new occupation; by 1 930, less than 2 per cent of the electricians in the South were 
Negroes. Plumbing, which has been a rapidly expanding trade, has likewise given but 
few opportunities to Negroes; in 1930 only 12 per cent of all plumbers in the South 
were Negroes. Negroes also managed to maintain their relative position in plastering 
and bricklaying jobs, at least until 1930; no less than 44 per cent of the bricklayers and 
61 per cent of the plasterers in the South in 1 930 were Negro. Yet if we add the 
number of workers for all these six trades together, we find that the Negro's relative 
position in the South had become much worse during the period 1910-1930, in that 
the whites had got almost all the benefit of the big general expansion which occurred 
during this period. That the Negroes received a smaller share than did whites of the 
dwindling job opportunities during the 'thirties is indicated by several studies. Ana- 
lyzing data from the United States Employment Service for five Southern states in 

* Ibid., p. 285. See also Lorenzo J. Greene and Carter C. Woodson, The Negro Wage 
Earner (1930), pp. 14-17; Spero and Harris, op. tit., pp. 5-10; Raymond B. Pinchbeck, 
The Virginia Negro Artisan and Tradesman (1926), pp. 17-54- 

"Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 3, p. 286, Norgren's main sources are: Charles H. 
Wesley, Negro Labor in the United States, t&s°->9'$ (>9»7)> P- >4*» The Freedmnfs 
Record (July, 1 868), pp. 108-109; and The New Era (January 13, 1870). 

Northrup, of. cit., p. 28. 

a See Chapter 10. 

' Norgren and Associates, of. cit., p. 289 and Northrup, of. cit. See also Walter F. Will- 
cox, "Negro Criminality." Journal of Social Science (December, 1899), pp. 85-86. 



II02 Aw American Dilemma 

1937-1938, Norgren found thu the proportion of Negroes among the ^placements" 
was invariably much lower thin the corresponding proportion among thoie registering 
for work. For carpenters, they were $ and to per cent, respectively; for bricklayers, 35 
and 44 per cent; for painters, 9 and 12 per cent; for plumbers, 9 and to per cent; 
and for plasterers, 53 and 75 per cent* The same data show that the skilled Negro 
building worker has great difficulty in getting employment in the increasingly important 
public building projects. 1 * It is believed that plasterers, who have allowed Negroes a 
better position than has any other building craft, are threatened, more than the rest, by 
competition from pre-fabricatcd materials, such as plasterboard. 

There is no doubt that the decline in the relative position of the skilled Negro 
building worker it due largely to the attitude of white workers. 

The intense anti-Negro sentiment which arose in the South during and immediately 
after the Reconstruction Period was . . . undoubtedly the most significant factor in 
displacing Negroes from the building crafts.* 

Many employers have come up from the ranks of the white workers and share their 
views. Trade unions, however, had little to do with the big displacement of Negro 
skilled workers which occurred between the end of the Civil War and the 'nineties, for 
until that time they remained rather powerless in the South. They are largely responsible, 
on the other hand, for the fact that the Negro has been kept from sharing in the 
expansion of the building trades which occurred in the South during this century. The 
discriminatory attitude of the organized building crafts is the more significant at the 
present time, since they dominate the American Federation of Labor — a circumstance 
which is behind the reluctance of this organization to take any definite action against 
exclusionist and segregational practices. 

All building crafts are not equally bad. The leaders of the Bricklayers, Masons and 
Plasterers' International Union as well as the Operative Plasterers' and Cement Finishers' 
International Association have fought discriminatory practices in a rather consistent 
way.* This, no doubt, is the principal reason why Negroes have fared much better in 
these crafts than in other skilled building trades. We can also, in all probability, assume 
that the basic reason for the favorable behavior in the organized trowel trades toward 
the Negro was the fact that the Negro had managed to maintain a substantia] position 
in these occupations before the time when the unions started to become powerful in the 
South. Consequently, it was difficult to disregard him.' However that might be, it 
remains a fact that it was in the 1 890's that the national leadership of the bricklayers' 
union started to take strong action against locals which excluded Negroes. Sometimes 
it uses the separate Negro local, but, according to Northrup, mainly "as a club with 
which to force local unions to admit colored bricklayers." Out of 28 Southern and 

* Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 3, p. 293. The five states were Alabama, Georgia, 
Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina 

* /We!, Part 3, p. 3*5. 

* Northrup, of. cit., pp. 91-92. 

'Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 3, pp. 287-28$. 

'Ibid., Part 3, p. 321, and Northrup, of. cit., pp. 80-96. 

'"The extent of the opposition of the labor unions toward the black mechanics . . . 
varied in inverse proportion to the numerous strength of the Negroes in the trades." 
(Greene and Woodson, of. cit., pp. 188-1891 see also Northrup, of. cit., pp. 96-98.) 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Nbgro Wage Earner 1103 

Border cttiet studied by Norgren, Northrop, and others, in 1940-1941, 12 had mixed 
locale, 3 (Atlanta, Richmond, and Charleston, South Carolina) had separate Negro and 
white locals, and 3 (St. Louis, Baltimore, and Tampa) had white locals indulging in 
various degrees of exclusionist policies. It is said that the race relations are usually good 
in the mixed Southern locals." The plasterers' union shows similar conditions. Of 26 
Southern and Border cities surveyed by Northrop in 1 940-1941, only 2 (Birmingham 
and St. Louis) had separate locals for Negroes and whites; 2 had exclusively white 
locals; whereas the remaining 22 cities had unscgregated local unions (in 12 of these 
unions Negroes were in the majority). Discriminatory tendencies appear here and there, 
but the national leadership takes strong action against them. b 

These examples show that there is nothing inherently "natural" in the exclusionist 
and segregational attitudes dominating other organized building crafts, except that the 
Negro worker was so powerless to begin with in these other trades that it was compara- 
tively easy to ieep him out. The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, for 
over forty years representing the most important of all the building crafts, usually 
organizes Negroes and whites into separate locals — that is, in so far as Negroes are 
allowed to belong to the union. In the South there seems to be no exception to this 
rule, and it is often practiced in Northern cities as well. This segregation works consid- 
erable hardship on the Negro worker, for there seems to be little attempt to divide the 
work evenly between the Negro and the white locals. In the South, white locals are 
often allied with the municip.il political machines, and this is one of the reasons why 
it is so much easier for white workers to secure employment on public construction 
projects; the political bosses know, of course, that white workers can vote, and that 
Negroes cannot. Also, it is easier for white than for the colored locals to be in constant 
contact with private contractors. It even happens that white locals import white workers 
from other cities rather than allow Negroes to get a share of especially attractive work 
opportunities. Sometimes they have excluded Negroes altogether from work in white 
neighborhoods, which means that Negro carpenters are restricted to maintenance and 
repair work and the building of small unpretentious homes; they seldom get any share 
of the work on larger projects. It is extremely hard for the colored workers, under such 
circumstances, to maintain their skills. There are Southern cities where few, if any, 
Negro craftsmen are competent to use newer techniques and newer materials. During 
the 'thirties a great number of Negro locals disappeared, whereas the white locals 
usually managed to survive. As a consequence, in many Southern cities colored workers 
are completely excluded. During the latter part of the 'thirties and the present war 
boom, a reversal in this trend has been brought about, thanks to the efforts of the 
federal government. In spite of these efforts, Northrup did not find more than 18 
colored locals in 33 Southern and Border cities in 1940- 1 94 1, and most of those seemed 
to depend entirely on the protection of the federal government. 11 

The Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators, and Paper-hangers seems to be even worse 
than the Carpenters. Negro workers arc not often organized even in separate locals. 

* Northrup, of. cit., pp. 8 j-8j. 
b Ibid., pp. 94-96. 

'All data in this paragraph are based on Northrup, of. cit., pp. 50-57. Concarning the 
efforts of the federal government, see Chapter tg, Section 3. Norgren and Associates, of. 
cit., pp. 314-316, and S. 

* Northrup, of. cit., p. 65. 



1 104 An American Dilemma 

When Negroes tend to undercut the going union rate, the white locals sometimes allow 
Negroes to organize a local of their own ; bnt they then make contracts with the former 
employers of Negro labor, thereby depriving Negroes of many of the work oppor- 
tunities they formerly had. Recently, certain changes hare been adopted in the constitu- 
tion of the nnion which give the greater power to the national leadership; this may 
facilitate the setting up of more auxiliary Negro locals, but it may not mean that 
Negroes will get a larger share of the work.* 

Yet even the Painters are relatively liberal when compared with the Electricians and 
the Plumbers, which exclude Negroes almost completely. Norgren, writing in 1940, 
had not found any single Negro local in the South, whereas a few of the Northern cities 
had a handful of colored members in white locals. Moreover, these unions, particularly 
the Plumbers, have backed state and municipal legislation establishing public licensing 
boards. Since the unions are usually represented on these boards, they have been able 
to restrict the granting of licenses almost exclusively to white plumbers and electricians 
in all localities where this set-up is functioning. 1 * We have seen the results of these 
exclusionist practices: Negroes have never been able to get any significant representation 
among the electricians; even in the South Negro plumbers are a very small and decreas- 
ing minority. 

According to the general rule that Negroes are less discriminated against where they 
had a substantial portion of the work at the time when union activities began, the union 
for building laborers treats Negroes rather well. The International Hod Carriers', 
Building and Common Laborers' Union had a total membership in 194.1 of 250,000, 
of which some 70,000 were Negroes. c With few exceptions, Negroes and whites are 
organized in the same locals. There are certain complaints that many locals are admin- 
istrated by the national union rather than by the members themselves, but there seems 
to be no evidence that this state of affairs would work any particular hardship on Negro 
members. Negroes are represented in the national leadership." 1 

The federal government, as mentioned earlier, has, during recent years, attempted to 
secure for Negroes a share of the work on public housing projects for Negroes. During 
1933-1937 these projects were built by the Public Works Administration; and from 
1937 to 1942 they were built under the auspices of the United States Housing Author- 
ity. The proportion of Negroes employed is the same as the proportion of Negroes in 
the population of the locality where the project is built, and it applies to workers of all 
kinds. The contractors have not had any difficulty in filling their "Negro quota" of 
unskilled workers and of such skilled workers as bricklayers, plasterers, and so forth, but 
when it comes to the other skilled workers, either they usually declare themselves unable 
to find enough competent Negro skilled workers; or the opposition of the white unions 
was so strong that the U.S.H.A. had to permit the application of a "blanket" quota for 
the whole project rather than of a specific quota for each occupation. Even if the claims 
about the nonexistence of competent Negro craftsmen were exaggerated, they were 
probably well founded in many instances; we have to remember that Negro craftsmen 

* Ibid,, pp. 67-79. 

"Spero and Harris, op. cit., pp. 59-601 Norgren and Associates, op. tit., Part 3, pp. 312- 
3131 Northrup, op. cit., pp. 49-50. 

'Ibid., p. in. Information based on American Federation of Labor, Report of Proceed- 
ings, 1041, p. 491. 

"Northrup, op. cit., pp. 113-114. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1 105 

had been rather systematically kept out of the larger construction projects where they 
could have learned newer techniques. Until the end of 1940 Negroes received 13 per 
cent of the total payroll on the U.S.H.A. projects, but only 5 per cent of the payroll 
for (killed work.* Even so, it helped Negro workers in the South to maintain unions 
which otherwise would have disappeared and even to revive some unions which had 
disappeared during the previous depressions. 

9. Railroad Workers 

In 1930 there were 163,000 Negro workers employed by steam railroads, constituting 
slightly more than 10 per cent of the total labor force in the industry. About 98,000 of 
these Negroes were designated as laborers; 37,000 were porters, waiters, and cooks; less 
than 11,000 were firemen, brakemen, switchmen, and flagmen; and most of the rest 
belonged to minor categories of unskilled workers. Less than 200 were conductors or 
locomotive engineers. 1 * 

Railway service expanded during the First World War but declined afterward, owing 
to competition with motor traffic. The end result, by 1930, was that the total number 
of employees was about the same as in 1910. The number of Negro workers had 
increased by 25 per cent, but this was due to their inroads in the North. The number 
of laborers, for instance, increased from about 8,000 to 24,000 in the North and West, 
but declined from 78,000 to 73,000 in the South. Most other categories, such as 
locomotive firemen and brakemen, had fewer Negro workers in 1930 than in 1910. 
In the South, particularly, the decline in the proportion of Negroes employed in such 
occupations was very noticeable. The development during the 'thirties meant that the 
Negro's opportunities for advancement became still more insignificant than before; also, 
the groups in which Negroes were concentrated were severely hit by the depression and 
by competition with motor traffic. The total number of maintenance-of-way employees 
in the South declined by more than 50 per cent from 1928 to 1938, 11 and since 
Negroes constituted about three-fourths of this labor force in the South, it must have 
meant a tremendous loss in Negro employment. The census data show that in the South 
Negroes constituted only 21 per cent of the railroad workers in 1940, as compared with 
25 per cent in 1930.* This decrease is, of course, in addition to the decrease in actual 
numbers of Negro railroad workers. 

Most of the railroad brotherhoods are among the leaders in Negro exclusionism. The 
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Order of Railway Conductors have been 
almost completely successful in keeping the Negro out. The Brotherhood of Locomotive 
Firemen and Enginemen is equally exclusionistic. Until the beginning of this century, 
however, the fireman's job was generally considered too dirty for a white man in the 

* Robert C. Weaver, "Racial Employment Trends in National Defense," Phylon (Fourth 
Quarter, 1941), p. 347. Sec also Norgren and Associates, op. cit., Part 3, pp. 331-335. 

* U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1020-1037, pp. 353-3541 
Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030, Population, Vol. 4, State Table 11. 

*U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1930-1032, pp. 303-3091 
Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Statistics, Vol. 4, pp. 434-534. These figures 
do not include female workers, who numbered only about 1,000 in 1930. 

'interstate Commerce Commission, Annual Statistical Report tor 1928 and 1938. Quoted 
by Norgren and Associates, op. cit., Part 1. p. 119. 

* See Chapter 13, Table 3. 



1 to6 An American Dilemma * 

Sooth, but technical developments won made it more attractive.* The removal of racial 
wage differential! in 1918 made the employer* lose their interest in having Negro fire- 
men, which, of course, hastened the elimination of Negroes. 1 * Few, if any, Negroes are 
getting into rach occupations at the present time. It is possible, however, that the present 
war boom has brought about a temporary change in this situation. Some Negroes are 
even being driven ont, and the probability is that the Negro, before long, will have but 
a handful of representatives in these groups. This process of elimination has been 
accompanied by physical intimidation and even murder. Charles S. Johnson has found 
trustworthy accounts and records of no less than zi shootings and murders of firemen 
and brakemen during the short period 1931-1934,° 

The Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and 
Station Employees (A.F. of L.), which formerly excluded Negroes, changed its policy 
in 1940 by accepting segregated Negro "auxiliaries," directed by white officers." Even 
more unfavorable to Negroes is the fact that a similar policy is followed by the Brother- 
hood of Maintenance of Way F.mployees (A.F. of L.), which represents the occupation 
including the balk of the Negro railroad workers. This union was orginally started by 
the foremen who are still dominating it. Since the foremen are always white, the Negro 
workers feel that the organization serves the purpose of keeping them subjugated under 
their white bosses." This condition is the more deplorable since maintenance-of- 
way workers are the largest low wage group in the railway industry.' In 1935 over two- 
thirds of them earned 35 cents per hour or less in the South and almost one-fifth 
received 20 cents or less.* Thanks to the Wages and Hours Act, there have been 
improvements since then, at least for those lowest down on the wage scale. The average 
in 1939 for 15 Southern states was 33 cents, as against 47 cents in the "Eastern 
district." * The application of the Wages and Hours Law has been delayed, in some 
cases, because of evasion. At least one great Southern road used the device of charging 
their workers undue amounts for rent and other expenses, but was forced, through 
court action, to refrain from such practices. 1 The wage increases, on the other hand, are 
encouraging mechanization, particularly in the South where, so far, there has been 
comparatively little mechanization and where the rise in wage cost counts most. 1 After 
the present war boom the Negro railroad worker, more likely than not, will have even 
less employment than he had before this emergency. 

* Charles S. Johnson, "Negroes in the Railway Industry, Part 2," Phylon (Second Quarter, 
«94*)» p. 104. 

'Northrop, of. tit*, pp. 348-349. 

' "Negroes in the Railway Industry, Part 2." 

'Northrup, of. tit., p. 353. 

'Ibid., pp. 357-358. 

' Charles S, Johnson, "Negroes in the Railway Industry, Part 1," p. 6. 

* Federal Coordinator of Transportation, The Extent of Low Wages and Long Hours in 
the Railroad Industry (November, 1936), quoted in Norgren and Associates, of. tit., Part 
1, pp. 140-142. 

*Ibid., p. 141. Information secured from Wages and Hours .Division, Department of 
Labor. The "Eastern District" encompasses New England, the Great Lakes region and the 
Central East. 

1 Ibid., pp. 141-143. 

1 Ibid., pp. 144-145, and Charles S. Johnson, "Negroes in the Railway Industry, Part 2," 
■ pp. 196-198. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1107 

One group of Negro railroad workers stands aomewhat apart: the Pullma.i porters, 
dining car waiters, redcaps, and other railroad service workers. In spite of the fact that 
total railroad employment was no larger in 1930 than in 1910, the number of Negro 
railroad service workers doubled during this period, and the absolute number of Negro 
workers in the group (37,000) was larger than is to be found in most manufacturing 
industries. The reason is that Negroes have a near-monopoly on these jobs, even though 
there has been some competition from Mexicans and Filipinos during recent years, and 
even from whites in certain cities.* 

This has been the field of the most successful independent Negro unionism. After 
trying in vain for more than a decade to institute an efficient organization, the Pullman 
porters, nnder the leadership of A. Philip Randolph, finally succeeded in 192; in 
organizing the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which now has about 10,000 
members. In 1936 it got an international A.F. of L. charter, and after great difficulties, 
because of the unwillingness of the Pullman Company to recognize it as bargaining 
agent for the porters, it succeeded in 1937 in making the company sign a contract in 
which certain improvements in the conditions of work were granted. The wage rates 
for Pullman porters now vary between $89.50 and $114 per month, depending on 
years of service and type of work. Extra pay is received when the working time 
exceeds 240 hours a month. In addition, porters receive tips. 1 * Another powerful Negro 
union is the United Transport Workers of America which includes redcaps, dining car 
waiters and others. 

10. Tobacco Workers 

There have been two opposing trends affecting the Negro's position in the tobacco 
industry. From a national viewpoint, he has often gained, but only for the reason that 
Southern manufacturing, both absolutely and relatively, has become more important. 
On the other hand, in those Southern states where the majority of the Negro tobacco 
workers are occupied, white workers have, at times, made substantial gains at the 
expense of the Negro. 

Let us consider, first, the national trend during the last decades. The tobacco industry 
underwent a rapid expansion during the First World War, but during the 'twenties 
there was a tremendous decline in employment due, largely, to mechanization. The net 
effect was that the total number of workers dropped 23 per cent between 1910 and 
1930.* The depression in the 'thirties, of course, brought about further declines. 
According to the Census of Manufacturers, the tobacco industry had 25 per cent fewer 
workers in 1939 than in 1929. 

In 1930 there were 34,000 Negroes in the industry, only one-tenth of whom resided 
outside the South. The Negro had had a larger share in the employment gains during 
the First World War and a smaller share in the subsequent losses than the white worker. 
By 1930 there were 35 per cent more Negro workers in the industry than in I9'0» and 

* Charles S. Johnson, "Negroes in the Railway Industry, Part a," p. aoa. Interview by 
Gunnar Myrdal with white "redcap" Kansas City, Kansas, March ao, 1940. 

""A Brief History of the Organizing of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, an 
International Union," undated typescript issued by the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 
See also, Charles S. Johnson, "Negroes in the Railway Industry, Part a," pp. 203-104. 

" Florence Murray (editor), Tie Negro Handbook (194a), P- 1 i 6 - 

* Thirteenth Census of the United States: 191a, Population, Vol. 4> p. J9<- 



rio8 Am American Dilemma 

the proportion of Negroes in the industry had increased from 13 per cent to 23 per 
cent.* This difference, however, was entirely dne to the condition that those states 
where the Negro is predominant in the tobacco industry (principally North Carolina, 
Virginia, and Kentucky) hare fared much better than most of the others. The Negro 
has but few representatives among the cigar makers in Florida, Pennsylvania, New 
Jersey, and elsewhere, a group which constituted more than half of all tobacco workers 
in 1939, and has suffered more than most other groups, partly because of the mechaniza- 
tion, but also because of the declining relative importance of cigar consumption. More- 
over, part of the Northern tobacco industry has migrated to the South — a trend which, 
of course, would tend to improve the Negro's relative position. 11 

Let us now turn our attention to the Southern scene. It is believed that originally 
almost all the tobacco workers in the South were Negro slaves, but from 1850 on there 
is evidence of Negroes being displaced by whites. This trend was precipitated, after 
the Civil War, by the development of a new type of production which did not have 
the tradition of being a "Negro job" industry: cigarette manufacturing. The introduc- 
tion of machinery was another factor encouraging the hiring of white workers, in that 
it made the work less strenuous, less dirty and, generally, more attractive. Negroes were 
retained as tobacco sfemmers, however, and in all sorts of common labor jobs, whereas 
most other processing work was handled by white operatives/ Yet, by 1890, the first 
year for which census data on occupations by race are available, about two-thirds of all 
tobacco workers in Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina were Negro. It seems, also, 
that a certain stabilization in the apportionment of jobs between the two races had been 
attained at that time, for the same two-thirds ratio was maintained until I930. d The 
number of Negro workers almost doubled between 1910 and 1920. There was a decrease 
by one-fourth between 1920 and 1930. 

Concerning the development during the 'thirties, it may be noted that the total 
number of tobacco workers in Virginia and North Carolina was more than one-tenth 
higher in 1939 than in 1929." The fact that the development was so much more 
favorable in these states than for the nation as a whole should, of course, make for a 
further improvement of the Negro's relative position in the tobacco industry. It is 
possible, however, that the proportion of Negro workers has declined in Virginia, North 
Carolina, and Kentucky; for, during the 'thirties, there has been a definite tendency 
to mechanize tobacco stemming, which previously has been much less affected by 

* Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Pofulation, Vol. 5, p. 440. 

'Northrup, of. cit., pp. 194-195. Information based on J. P. Troxell, "Labor in the 
Tobacco Industry," unpublished Ph. D. thesis, University of Wisconsin (1931) j and U.S. 
Women's Bureau, The Effect on Women of Changing Conditions in the Cigar and Cigarette 
Industries, Bulletin No. 100, p. 20. 

'Northrop, of. cit., pp. 1S1-186. See also, Pinchbeck, op. cit., pp. 54-59; and Joseph C. 
Robert, The Tobacco Kingdom (1938). 

'Northrup, of. cit,, p. 190. Information based on the decennial censuses. It is possible that 
the data for 1900 and 1910 are not quite comparable with those for 1920 and 1930, bu* 
the possible error in the comparison seems not to be significant. 

'Sixteenth Census of the United States, Census of Manufactures, 1930, Tobacco Manu- 
facturers Grouf, p. 3 j and Fifteenth Census of the United Stales, Census of Manufactures, 
1919, Vol. 2, pp. 388 and 537. The figures for 1939 include cigarette workers only) those 
for 1929 include both cigar and cigarette workers. Parallel data for Kentucky are not yet 
available. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1109 

mechanization than have other operations. The main reason for this is the wage increase 
which has been brought about under the N.R.A., the Fair Labor Standards Act, and 
through the efforts of trade unions.* 

A trend in this direction has been under way, but there seems to be little statistical 
evidence available at this writing on how far it had proceeded before it became sub- 
merged in the present war boom. So far, the main effect seems to have been that the 
Negro has received a somewhat smaller share than the white workers in the employment 
gains brought about through an increased demand. The number of colored workers in 
Virginia tobacco manufacturing increased by 27 per cent between 1 93 1 and 1938; the 
corresponding figure for whites was somewhat higher, or 33 per cent. b There is reason 
to believe that the trend became more pronounced after 1938.° Prior to that year, the 
independent stemmeries which during the peak season of 1 939 gave employment to an 
estimated 40,000 workers, predominantly Negroes (whereas the average for the whole 
year was less than 19,000) had been exempt from all minimum wage regulations. 11 The 
failure of these independent stemmeries to be excluded from the wages and hours 
regulations brought about a considerable increase in the earnings of their workers; the 
average for 11 stemmeries was 16 cents in 1935 and 33 cents in 19401941." A 
similar wage increase had already occurred in the stemmery departments of the cigarette 
factories between 1933 and 1935, because of N.R.A. regulations, and there arc several 
cases known when this has caused such plants to mechanize their stemmery departments.' 

In spite of these wage increases, Negroes still receive much lower wages than whites. 
Worse than that, the work season is much shorter in rehandling work, where almost all 
the workers are Negro, than in other operations. In Virginia rehandling plants ii 
averaged only 153 days (1939) whereas it was 234 days in cigar and cigarette manu- 
facturing where two-thirds of the labor force was white. Although both labor groups 
were of about the same size during the time of operation, the rehandling worker 1 
received a total annual payroll less than half as large as that received by cigar and 
cigarette workers.* It is a well-known fact that female Negro tobacco workers have to 
supplement their factory earnings by doing domestic work during off seasons. 

The Tobacco Workers' International Union was organized in the 1 890*8. It was 
a Weak union most of the time until the late 1930's. Except for short periods, such a:. 
the First World War, it has seldom, until lately, taken a strong stand against employers, 
nor made any rigorous efforts to organize more than limited sections of the industry. 

" Northrup, of. cit., pp. 197-207. 

* Manuscript table based on the annual reports by the Virginia State Department of Labor 
and Industry. Courtesy, Dr. Lorin A. Thompson, Virginia Population Study. 

" From 1938 to 1939 the number of white tobacco workers in Virginia increased by 8 pe- 1 
cent and the number of Negro tobacco workers by 3 per cent. {Ibid., and Department of 
Labor and Industry, Commonwealth of Virginia, Labor and Industry in Virginia, 43rd An- 
nual Report, year ending September 30, 1940 L I 94 1 ]> P> 3 l 

4 U.S. Department of Labor, Wages and Hours Division, "The Tobacco Industry" 
(mimeographed, 1941) p. 11. Quoted in Northrup, of. cit., p. 203. 

'"Hours and Earnings of Employees of Independent Leaf-Tobacco Dealers," MontMy 
Labor Review (July, 1941), p. 7. Quoted in Northrup, op. at., p. 206. 

'Ibid., pp. 200-201. Wage data based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Earnings in 
Cigarettes, Snuff, and Chewing- and Smoking-Tobacco Plants, 1933-1935," Monthly Laboi 
Review (May, 1936), pp. 1322 and 1331. 

'Department of Labor and Industry, Commonwealth of Virginia, op. cit., p. 27. 



1 1 io An American Dilemma 

let main strategy aeemi to hxrt been to tell the right of wing the onion label to a few 
employers, who did not have to pay a high price for getting their conditions of work 
accepted by the nnion. Then, too, it haa been one of the most consistently undemocratic 
of all American organized labor groups. Between the years 1900 and 1939 there was not 
a single national convention, and the leadership was fundamentally the same during this 
whole time. The leaders would not retire even because of old age; the rank-and-file 
membership had to institute prolonged legal proceedings to reintroduce democracy and 
establish a new, more liberal and more efficient leadership. Before this certain significant 
successes had been won in the form of increased membership and contracts with large 
employers, particularly after the Supreme Court had upheld the National Labor Rela- 
tions Act in 1937. The change in leadership strengthened this trend still further.* 

It is evident that the Negro could not expect any great advantages from the nnion 
as it functioned before this reorganization. Where Negroes were organized, they were, 
and still are, for the most part kept in segregated locals. This system, of course, may 
appear as much more "natural" in the tobacco industry than in many other lines of 
work, since there is a strict occupational race segregation in tobacco, but it has made 
racial cooperation more difficult. The new regime has been much more friendly to 
Negroes than the old one. For the first time since 1900 a Negro has been elected vice- 
president. Negroes and whites are to be organized in the same locals "whenever 
possible" and, in actual practice, this policy has been followed in at least one case 
(Memphis). In the Virginia-North Carolina area there is a "joint shop committee" 
representing white and colored locals. These beginning interracial efforts may promise 
something for the future, but so far there has not been any complete understanding, 
nor grounds for the hope that the union will help the Negro in breaking up the occu- 
pational pattern of segregation in the tobacco industry. In some places, particularly in 
Richmond, it has been difficult to make the white local leaders interest themselves in the 
Negro. Few attempts were made to get Negroes organized, and this made Negro workers 
at some of the local stemmeries start a series of successful strikes on their own in 1937- 
1938. They were encouraged by the C.I.O., which helped them organize themselves 
independently. A group of white workers, n.embers of the Amalgamated Clothing 
Workers (C.I.O.), at one time joined their picket line. The C.I.O. has competed with 
the T.W.I.U. in other places, and this threat has helped to make the local leadership 
of the A.F. of L. union more aware of the necessity of admitting the Negro to mem- 
bership. 1 ' 

11. Textile Workers 

We shall consider the textile industry, not because it is a major "Negro industry," 
bat — quite the opposite — because it is the main Southern industry excluding Negroes. 
It is the largest of all manufacturing branches in the South, yet it fails to use any Negro 
labor, except for limited menial purposes, such as sweeping, cleaning and yard labor. 
The Southern textile industry underwent a continued expansion during the 'thirties 
but Negroes derived little, if any, gain from it. The proportion of Negro workers in 

'Northrop, of. tit., pp. 307-135. Northrup haa brought together his material on the 
tobacco workers onion in an article, 'The Tobacco Workers International Union," The 
Quarterly Journal of Economics (August, 194a), pp. 606-616. The references here, how- 
ever, are to the thesis. 

* Idem., tad Federal Writers' Project, The Negro in Virginia (1940), pp. 308-311. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner iiii 

Southern textile mills and clothing factories declined from 7 per cent in 1920 to 4 
per cent in 1940. The absolute number of employed Negro workers in the South was 
26,000 in 1940.* 

Before the Civil War the textile industry in the South was unimportant. It was 
largely manned by Negroes, and often owned by planters who used their own slaves. 
It was not until about a decade after the Civil War that the real growth began. This 
growth, however, was not a matter of an expansion of the old plants. Instead, there 
were new plants built, mainly in the upper Piedmont area, where there is a big supply 
of white labor. Yet around many of the new textile mills there was a large potential 
Negro labor force as well. Norgren, on the basis of the 1880 Census, finds that Negroes 
constituted about one-third of the population in the upland counties of Georgia, 
Alabama and the two Carolinas. Yet no appreciable share of the jobs was given to the 
Negro. b 

The explanation of this phenomenon seems to be that the origin of the cotton indus- 
try in the South was not a matter of individualistic enterprise alone. Regular "cotton 
mill campaigns" were organized by "citizens' committees" which often raised funds for 
the purpose. The entrepreneurs depended on the moral and financial backing of their 
white fellow citizens and had to consider their viewpoints, which were colored by the 
anti-Negro sentiments bred during the Reconstruction period." The very fact that the 
industry was a new one and not a descendant of the pre-war textile plants was enough 
to leave the Negro out. Only in rare instances has the Negro had a chance in any 
Southern industry where he had not become entrenched before or just after the Civil 
War, when the moneyed whites had a direct financial interest in him. 

As soon as this exclusionist pattern was established, the white working population 
acquired a vested interest in it which was difficult to remove. That the majority of the 
white workers are women, while the majority of the Negro workers arc men, may have 
contributed to the resistance. There is an even greater reluctance against allowing Negroes 
of either sex to work with white women than there is against letting Negro men work 
with white men. Some employers have tried to employ more Negroes, but have met 
with such vigorous protests that they have had to abandon the idea. d The Negro, thus, 
has been unable to share in the benefits of the spectacular rise of the Southern textile 
industry. Although it has hurt the working population in the New England and Middle 
Atlantic states, it has not helped the Southern Negro to any appreciable extent. 

An energetic unionization campaign in the South was inaugurated in 1937 by the 
Textile Workers' Union. Like other C.I.O. unions, it admits Negroes on a basis of 
equality, and membership in this union often protects the Negro from losing the few jobs 
that he now has in the Southern textile mills. It is not likely, however, that the union 
will ever do anything positive in order to help the Negro get a share in the ordinary 
production jobs. Even if unionism in Southern textile mills is based on a working class 

'Chapter 13, Table 3. 

k Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 3, pp. 254-261. Norgren's description of the 
historical development of the Southern textile industry is largely based on Broadus Mitchell, 
The Rise of Cotton Mills in the South (1921)} and Broadus Mitchell and George S- 
Mitchell, The Industrial Revolution in the South (1930). 

* Ibid., Part 3, pp. 262-265. 

* Ibid., Part 3, p. 269, and Greene and Woodson, of. dt., pp. 146-148. 



1 1 12 An American Dilemma 

ideology, one can scarcely expect the membership to accept major sacrifice* in order to 
help the Negro. 11 

12. Coal Miners 

Bituminous coal mining,* except for a temporary recovery during the present war 
boom, has been a declining industry for the past few decades. This is due to over- 
expansion during the First World War, mechanization, and increased use of fuel 
substitutes, particularly oil and electricity. Nevertheless, the Negro is better off in this 
occupation than in most others. Writing before the present war boom, Norgren says: 

Considered as a source of employment, bituminous coal mining is decidedly a declining 
industry. During the past two decades, the number of persons earning their livelihood in 
this branch of economic activity has decreased by more than 200,000 or approximately 
one third*; and there is little prospect of any reversal of the trend in the near future. 

Despite this fact, there are good grounds for the contention that Negro coal miners 
constitute one of the more favorably situated groups in the colored working-class world. 
In the first place, while total employment has shrunk drastically, employment of Negroes 
has decreased only to a minor extent. Secondly, the occupational status of the Negro coal 
mine worker has always been, and still is, practically on par with that of the white 
worker — a state of affairs almost unknown outside of this industry. And, finally, as we 
have already intimated, he is afforded the protection of a union organization which 
proclaims, and adheres to, a policy of full racial equality. 1 

In 1930 there were 58,000 Negro coal miners,* or 43 per cent more than in 1910, 
whereas the number of white workers was about the same as in 1910. The bulk of the 
Negro workers was in West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. Most of 
the Negro miners in Pennsylvania had come there after 1910, often as strike-breakers, 
and since total employment in the Pennsylvania mines decreased between 1 910 and 
1 930, they had actually displaced some white workers. In spite of this northward migra- 
tion, the number of Negro miners remained insignificant in the North. In no Northern 
state did they constitute as much as 3 per cent of the labor force in the coal mines, 
and about four-fifths of them were still in the South in 1930. Negroes had been able 
to better their relative position because the Southern fields had gained much at the 
expense of Northern mines (even to the extent of having more mine workers in 1930 
than in 1920, whereas the country as a whole showed a loss in employment during 
this period). The Southern mines had been unimportant around 1900, but by 1927 
the coal production in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia alone temporarily sur- 
passed that of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. These gains were partly due to 
improvements in the transportation facilities in the South and to technical factors. 

A third and very significant reason was the regional wage differential. The South, most 
of the time, had nonunion labor, whereas Northern operators had to pay higher union 
rates. As a result, the number of days worked per year was usually higher in the South 
than in the North, where it dwindled to 1 30-140 days during the depressions of the 

'Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 3, pp. 270-271. 

* There are but few Negroes employed in anthracite coal mining. 

* Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 4, p. 396. Norgren'* reference (*) is to: National 
Labor Relations Board, The Effect of Labor Relations in the Bituminous Coal Industry 
ufon Interstate Commerce (1938), Bulletin No. 2, p. 59. 

'Anthracite coal mining included. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1113 

early 'twenties and 'thirties. In 1927, the Northern employers managed to get rid of 
the union contract and were able to cnt their wage costs so that they regained a large 
part of their previous losses to the Southern fields. They have been able to maintain this 
position. When the New Deal brought about new wage minima and gave new power to 
the unions, the regional wage differential was kept small a and, in 1941, it was virtually 
eliminated. 

By and large, the Negroes failed to get their proportionate share of the employment 
gains in the South. Therefore, the proportion of Negroes among the Southern coal mine 
workers declined from 3; per cent in 1910 to 19 per cent in 1930, whereas the North- 
ern coal fields accepted a somewhat increased proportion of Negro workers. During the 
'thirties there was a continual loss in relative position for Negro miners in the South. 
About 46,000 Negro workers (including unemployed persons) were registered as coal 
miners in the 1930 Census, and they constituted 19 per cent of the total. In 1930 
there were 35,000 employed Negro coal miners in the South, making up 16 per cent of 
the total. There was only a small difference between the corresponding absolute num- 
bers for white workers. 11 

The outlook for the Negro is doubtful. It is possible that the general long employment 
trends will not go as steeply downward as they did during most of the period 1 920-1 940. 
On the other hand, the South has lost the competitive advantage of a nonunion wage 
scale. Since the increase in wages has been greater in the South than elsewhere, it is 
likely that mechanization will be particularly pronounced in the South. Norgren and 
Northrup have noticed a tendency to mechanize the loading operations in Southern coal 
fields. It will probably hurt Negroes more than whites for several reasons: first, because 
Negroes are concentrated both in the South and in the hand-loading jobs; second, 
because whites are usually selected as operators of mechanical loaders. (One factor in 
this selectivity is that mechanical loading is crew work while hand loading is a highly 
individualized occupation.) The United Mine Workers Union, which otherwise pro- 
tects Negroes, has been reluctant to resist such favoritism. The present war boom may 

'Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 4., pp. 406-417. 

The wage level in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia declined from an average of 
82 cents an hour in 1921-22 to 70 cents in 1924, whereas the Northern fields (Pennsyl- 
vania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) almost maintained their level of 1921-1922 (89 cents) 
up until about 1927, when union conditions were abolished in most of them. The average 
ivage, by 1933, hit a low of 37 cents in the Upper South, as against 46 cents in Illinois, 
Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Then followed an increase under the New Deal. By 
1936 the averages were 77 cents in the North and 74 cents in the Upper South. In 1941 
a basic daily wage rate of $7 was adopted for both Northern and Southern Appalachian 
area. The rate in Alabama, however, is lower ($j), partly because this state does not 
compete with the others, but probably also because it has the highest proportion of Negro 
workers in the coal mines. (See: F, E. Berquist and Associates, Economic Survey of the 
Bituminous Coal Industry under Free Competition and Code Regulation [mimeographed], 
National Recovery Administration, Work Materials No. 69 [1936], 2 vols. Also, Table 4 
in Norgren, of. cit., Part 4, p. 436, and Northrup, of. cit., p. 290.) 
"Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030, Po filiation, Vol. 3, Part 1, p. 135 Six- 
teenth Census of the United States: 1040 Pofulation, Second Series, State Tables 18a and 
lib. 

'Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 4, pp. 417-419, and letter from Paul H. Norgren, 
August 16, 1942. See also Northrup, of. cit., pp. 296-301. 



II 14 An American Dilemma 

counteract this tread temporarily} h it possible that the scarcity °f white labor will give 
the Negroes an increased dure of the job*. On the other hand, there it the danger of 
overexpaniion which will increaie the general pott-war unemployment. It is impossible 
to »j anything definite on these important matters. « 

Aa previously mentioned, unionism, until the New Deal era, was much weaker in the 
South than in the North. Yet there have been determined attempts since the 1880's to 
unionize the Southern coal industry. These attempts were sometimes successful, but 
only for short periods. Time and again the union was defeated by employers, who 
utilized all sorts of brutal tactics. In this they were usually supported by groups of 
white citizens who were incited by the race issue.* These defeats, as well as the subse- 
quent abolishment of union contracts in the northern Appalachian area, could not fail 
to weaken the United Mine Workers, but the organization was by no means crushed. 
It had been fighting hard and from the very beginning had developed a technique of 
equalitarian collaboration between white and black labor which turned out to be highly 
useful. The continued wage cuts during the Great Depression of the 'thirties, the 
unemployment which eventually brought great numbers of mine workers to starvation, 
as well as memories of the previous fight, all prepared the ground for a determined 
comeback. The opportunity came with the New Deal. With the institution of the 
N.R.A. a big organizing campaign was launched, North as well as South. The response 
was impressive. Within a few months the overwhelming majority of mine workers was 
unionized. The employers tried to play up the race issue, and they spread ramors to the 
effect that either Negroes or whites would lose everything by putting the union into 
power. This time it failed. Then, too, the mine operators were weak. Many of them 
were impoverished, and some had come to realize the futility of using the wage-cut 
method as a competitive instrument. Pressure from the government aided the union. 
Almost the whole field is now covered by contracts. Negroes and whites are organized 
in the same locals, often with a white president and a Negro vice-president — an arrange- 
ment which has been adopted in order to have a white representative to contact employers 
and yet give the Negroes a voice in the decisions whenever they constitute an appreciable 
proportion of the workers. There may still be a small amount of bad racial feeling, but 
the leadership takes energetic action against any local which does not recognize the 
principle of racial equality and collaboration. The policy of "gradualism" adopted by 
the union has given results. At the beginning, when employers had to get used to the 
idea of discussing work problems with representatives of labor, the unions were 
sometimes reluctant to include Negroes among their representatives at these discussions. 
Today, even in Alabama, Negroes take part in all such discussions and argue quite as 
freely as whites. They probably have gained more than whites through the collective 
settlement of all sorts of petty grievances, since they were formerly more easily sub- 
jected to arbitrary treatment by foremen. Then, too, more than whites, they are con- 
centrated in piece-rate work, where there is need for constant adjustments because 
of the variation in yield of different work places. These policies seem to have brought 
about an increased mutual understanding between the two racial groups. Speaking 
of the conditions in Birmingham, Norgren says: 

Informants among both leaders and rank-and-file members testify that social intercourse 
between worker* of the two races is much more common to-day than it was prior to the 

* Spero and Harris, of. cit., pp. 357-375. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1115 

advent of organization. Colored unionists contribute freely to discussions at onion 
business meetings j white delegates shake hands with Negro delegates at district council 
assemblages without displaying repugnance or embarrassment i Negroes and whites ride 
toetther in the mine cages. Only in social gatherings is the "jim crow" custom retained 
unchanged.' 

Perhaps still more important is the fact that seniority rules — regardless of race — 
have been adopted in both the dismissal and the rehiring of workers. 1 * 

13. Iron and Steel Workers 

The iron, steel, vehicle, machinery, and other metal industries had, in 1930, 177,000 
Negro workers, over 60 per cent of whom resided outside the South. Except for the 
building industry, no other manufacturing branch had as many Negro workers. The 
increase since 1 910 was tremendous; the number of Negro workers was between three 
and four times greater in 1930 than two decades earlier; whereas the number of white 
workers had not even doubled. Still, Negroes constituted but 5 per cent of the total 
labor force in the iron, steel and vehicle industries.' 

The largest industries in the group, from the point of view of Negro employment, 
were blast furnaces and steel rolling mills, which had 53,000 Negro workers in 193O; 
automobile factories '(26,000); and car and railroad shops ( 1 6,000). d In this section, 
we focus our attention on the first group, and we shall consider the second one in a 
following section. 

The condition of the Negro in the basic steel industry is rather similar to that in the 
coal mining industry. Both are "heavy" industries, in need of great numbers of 
unskilled workers and subject to pronounced business cycle variations. Of great practical 
importance for the Negro is the somewhat accidental fact that the present union leaders 
have been recruited from United Mine Workers officials and, therefore, are more 
likely to adhere to a philosophy of racial cooperation. There are also striking dissimilar- 
ities: whereas most Negro mine workers are in the South, no less than 72 per cent of 
the Negro steel mil] workers were employed in the North and West in 1930. More 
important is the fact that the occupational pattern in the steel mills is much more 
heterogeneous than in the mine fields. There are marked wage differentials between 
various skilled groups. This made it more difficult to organize white and black labor on 
the basis of equalitarianism. This fact, in conjunction with the great power of the 
large concerns dominating the production of steel, has made it difficult to organize any 
union at all." 

Steel production, except for cyclical fluctuations, is an expanding industry. There- 
fore, to achieve equality in the steel industry would be worth more to the Negro than 
the progress he has made as a mine worker. By 1910 there were almost as many Negro 
workers in basic steel plants in the North as in the South, where the steel industry was 
unimportant. The number of Negro workers in Northern steel plants was between four 

'Norgren and Associates, of. at., Part 4., p. 445. 

'The last three paragraphs are based on ibid., Part 4, pp. 441-448, and Northrup, of. at,, 
pp. 280-301. 

'Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. 5, pp. 408-411. 

'Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030, Population, Vol. 3, Part 1, p. *U U.S. 
Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1010-1031, pp. 343-346. 

"Norgren and Associates, of, cit,, Part 4, pp. 451-452. 



11x6 An American Dilemma 

and five time* greater in 1920 than in 1 910, largely because of the expansion of the 
steel industry during the First World War. In the South, Negroes gained much less, or 
about 80 per cent, although the general expansion in blast furnaces and steel rolling 
mills was mnch more pronounced than in the North. Negroes, however, got sogaewhat 
more than their proportionate share of the new jobs in Southern mills. The 'twenties 
brought a general decline in the basic steel industry. Again, Negroes fared better in the 
North, where they had almost the same number of steel workers in 1 9 30 as in 1920. 
In the South, the decrease was somewhat more pronounced for Negro than for white 
workers. During the 'thirties, also, the Negro lost in relative position in the South. 
If we add together the figures for both basic steel production and manufacturing of 
machinery and transportation equipment (except automobiles), we find that, in 1940, 
the number of employed white workers in the South was almost as high as the number 
of both employed and unemployed white workers in 193O; for Negroes there was a 
substantial difference between the two figures. The 40,000 Negro employed workers 
in 1 940 constituted only 1 5 per cent of the total in the South ; whereas the proportion 
of Negroes among those registered as gainful workers in steel and machinery production 
in 1930 had amounted to 19 per cent.* 

More than three out of every four Negro workers in blast furnaces and steel rolling 
mills were classified as unskilled in 1 930. One in seven was a semi-skilled worker, and 
one in fourteen a skilled worker. On the other hand, about one-half of the native 
whites and one-fourth of the foreign-born whites were skilled, clerical or managerial 
workers. The Negroes had a higher representation in the skilled crafts than they had in 
most other industries, but this was largely a result of the composition of the labor force 
in this industry. In relation to other groups, their position was about as unfavorable as 
in most other industries. The skilled Negro workers are largely concentrated in hot and 
disagreeable work, such as furnace jobs. There is reluctance to use Negroes in such 
skilled work as machinists do; little more than I per cent of those workers were 
Negroes. The situation, if anything, seems to have deteriorated rather than improved. 
There had been a slightly greater proportion of skilled craftsmen among Negro steel 
workers in 1 910 and a lower proportion of semi-skilled workers. The proportion that 
Negro workers constituted of all workers had more than doubled in the unskilled and 
semi-skilled categories from 1910 to 1930, but increased only to a small extent for 
skilled and higher groups. Indeed, the major part of the increased need for common 
laborers had been met by hiring more Negro workers. But the general expansion in 
unskilled occupations was much smaller than that in higher categories, so that the habit 
of using Negroes predominantly in the lower jobs put a limit to their chance of increas- 
ing their share in the total employment. 11 

The wage level in the steel industry, as previously noted, is characterized by great 
differences in earnings between skilled and unskilled workers. This is particularly true 
in the South, where the general level is comparatively low, especially for common 

* Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. 3, Part 1, p. 23. Sixteenth 
Census of the United States: 1040, Population, Second Series, State Tables 18a and 18b. 
Norgren and Associates, op. eit., Part 4, p. 456. 

* U.S. Bureau of the Census, Alba M. Edwards, Social-Economic Grouping of the Gainful 
Workers of. the United States, 1030 (1938), pp. too and 130. Thirteenth Census of the 
United States: to to, Population, Vol. 4, Table 6. Norgren and Associates, op. tit., Part 4, pp. 
471 and 473. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1117 

laborers. There has been some equalization of both the regional and the occupational 
wage differentials; at the same time the general level has been raised considerably.* 
Most of the traditional characteristics of the wage structure still persist, however, and 
theytfre behind the racial wage differentials mirrored in the following figures for April, 
1938: 

Negro White Differential 



North $.74 $.86 $.12 

South .54 .75 .21 



Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Earnings of Negro Workers in the Iron and Steel Industry 
April. 1938". Monthly Labor Review, (November, 1940), p. 1140. 

Comparing these figures with an earlier sample study for 1935, one finds that there 
has been a genera] increase in wages for both Negro and white workers. The Negro- 
white differential seems to have become somewhat smaller in the South even in terms 
of cents per hour but has remained almost unchanged in the North. b The main impres- 
sion conveyed by these data, however, is that, in spite of all racial injustice in the 
apportionment of jobs, the Negro steel worker, particularly in the North, enjoys 
relatively high wages compared with other Negro wage earners. It should be kept in 
mind that the increase in cost for unskilled labor may influence mechanization trends 
in a way which may be unfavorable to the Negro. He cannot be assured of any real 
future in the steel industry unless allowed the benefit of a wider range of occupational 
opportunities. 

Behind the wage increases during the 'thirties were the new federal minimum wage 
regulations and the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (S.W.O.C.) — later called 
The-United Steel Workers of America. This union has been the first which has consist- 
ently given real protection to the Negro. There was a long and hard struggle to 
organize this union, and during the early stages Negroes were excluded. The only time 
before the 'thirties when the Negro was shown any real consideration was in 1918, 
when the first noteworthy attempt was made to organize unskilled steel workers in 
Alabama; employers, playing up the race issue and using violence and intimidation, 
managed to defeat the unions completely .* In 1 91 9 an attempt was made to organize 
the whole steel industry on a broad basis under the leadership of a joint committee 
representing several unions in the field. The unions were disastrously defeated in this 
year, and thereafter the Amalgamated was completely inactive. Negroes were frequently 

' U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Earnings and Hours in Bar, Puddling, Sheet-Bar, Rod, 
Wire, and Sheet Mills, 1933 and 193s," Monthly Labor Review (July, 1936), p. 1 »7> 
"Earnings and Hours in the Iron and Steel Industry, April, 1938," Monthly Labor Review 
(August, 1940), pp. 421-442; "Earnings and Hours in the Iron and Steel Industry," Part 
a, Monthly Labor Review (September, 1940), pp. 709-726; "Annual Earnings in the Iron 
and Steel Industry, 1937," Monthly Labor Review (October, 1940), pp. 823-833; "Earn- 
ings of Negro Workers in the Iron and Steel Industry, April, 1938," Monthly Labor Review 
(November, 1940), pp. 1 139-1149. 

'U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Earnings of Negroes in the Iron and Steel Industry," 
Monthly Labor Review (March, 1937), p. 566. Quoted in Norgren and Associates, of. at.. 
Part 4, p. 476. 

* Spcro and Harris, of. at., pp. 147-251. 



iii8 An American Dilemma 

used in strike-breaking in the steel industry. It it nld that the employers used tame 
30,000 Negro strike-breakers in the 1919 strike, and although the union gave some 
attention to obtaining Negro support, no considerable number of Negroes was ever 
organized. **> 

The N.R.A. brought about an extremely rapid increase in unionism, but the leader- 
ship of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers (A.F. of L.) 
failed to give this movement much encouragement and even showed some hostility to it. 
A decision of the A.F. of L. convention of 1934 to organize the iron and steel industry 
was sabotaged by the A.F. of L. leadership, which permitted craft unions to "raid" 
newly organized units dividing the workers among the various crafts. In 1936 the 
C.I.O. organized the Steel Workers' Organizing Committee (S.W.O.C.), which 
started an energetic and successful membership drive. In 1937 it won its most spectac- 
ular victory when the United States Steel Corporation signed a contract.* Now nearly 
all major steel plants are covered by union contracts. 

This new unionism in steel meant a change in the position of the Negro. He had 
been taken in as an equal by many of the company unions during the N.R.A. period, 
and also by communist and independent local leaders. The fact that the leadership of 
the S.W.O.C. was largely recruited from the Mine Workers meant that his position 
became even more secure. Negroes in most cases responded enthusiastically to unioniza- 
tion efforts. Wherever Negroes constitute a large part of the workers they get some 
representation in the local leadership, often, as in the Alabama district, a vice-presidency. 
The employers in the South have tried to play up the race issue and they encouraged 
some municipalities to pass city ordinances forbidding joint meetings of white and 
Negro workers; this time it availed little. 1 * 

The standard S.W.O.C. contract stipulates that seniority shall be followed for 
dismissals and in rehiring." It is doubtful whether a similar principle will be adhered 
to in the case of promotions even though the contract contains a clause to that effect. 
Norgren points to the heterogeneous occupational pattern in the steel industry which 
makes it difficult to induce the white workers to go the whole way in racial equalita- 
rianiam. He adds: 

If this problem [abolishment of racial discrimination in promotion] does not iron 
itself out in the local unions — and it is hardly probable that it will — it would seem to 
fall to the national union leaders to lead the way in solving it. As far as the writer has 
been able to learn, the heads of the S.W.O.C. have not, up to now, given the question 
serious consideration. This neglect is probably justified to a considerable extent, since the 
steel union has as yet scarcely developed beyond the organization stage. There is little 
doubt, however, that sooner or later the problem will come to the fore. And the manner 
in which it is handled should provide an acid test of the workability of the racial equality 
idea in the union movement,' 

In 1940 an A.F, of L. union succeeded in winning an election at a Birmingham 
flant by promising the Negro workers help in getting promoted.* This seems to indicate 

*Norgien and Associates, of. at., Part 4, pp. 490-502. 
k Northrop, of. tit., p. 326. 

' Norgxen and Associates, of. tit., Part 4, p. 505, and Horace R. Cayton and George S. 
Mitchell, Black Workers and tht Neva Unions (1939), pp. aoi-na. 

* Norgren and Associates, of. tit., Part 4, p. 506. 

* Northrop, of. tit., p. 34a. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner ii 19 

that the problem hat made itself felt rather severely in tome places. Even if the union's 
present policy of "gradualism" in this matter • can easily be understood, there is no 
doubt that the issue will soon have to be faced. It is obvious that Negro workers need 
a larger (hare of the semi-skilled and skilled jobs to minimize their risk of technological 
displacement. 

14. Automobile Workers 1 ' 

In 1930 there were 26,000 Negro workers in the automobile industry, constituting 
4 per cent of the total number of workers. The automobile industry does not, there- 
fore, constitute a major source of Negro employment. It is, however, one of the few 
industries in which the Negro has managed to get a foothold since the Civil War. 
Even if the Negro's gains in the automobile industry arc not spectacular, it is remarkable 
that he has done as well in this Northern industry as he has in the Southern textile mills. 

The explanation of this phenomenon is not difficult to find. It was during the First 
World War, with its accompanying scarcity of labor, that the automobile industry 
started to become of major importance in American manufacturing. Recruiting of labor 
was a major problem, particularly in Detroit where there was no large local labor supply 
to begin with. That almost 60 per cent of all Negro automobile workers were employed 
in Michigan in 1930 and that some concerns which have plants in several places give 
no employment to Negroes except in or around Detroit confirms the contention that 
it was because of an initial shortage of labor in Detroit that the Negro was able to 
make so much headway in the automobile industry. It should not be overlooked that 
Southern whites have come in even greater numbers to Detroit. 

It is common today for automobile factory employment officials to estimate that any- 
where from 20 to 60 per cent of their employees are Southern whites while Negroes 
seldom exceed more than 10 per cent except in individual foundry establishments." 

Not only are the Negro automobile workers distributed geographically in an uneven 
way but also the distribution among various concerns and plants is anything but propor- 
tionate. This, of course, suggests that the Negro gains may be accidental. Negroes 
constitute a rather high proportion among the employees of the parts manufacturers 
which are subject to severe price competition and cannot afford to pay high wages. 
The leading employer of NegroeB among the main manufacturers is the Ford Motor 
Company which, at the beginning of 1940, had almost 10,000 Negro workers in 
Michigan. Almost all of them were employed in the River Rouge plant, where they 
constituted almost 1 2 per cent of the labor force. Next came the Briggs Manufacturing 
Corporation which had 3,000 Negro workers in the Detroit area, where they constituted 
more than one-fifth of the total labor force. General Motors Corporation, on the other 
hand, had a much smaller proportion of Negro workers, about 2,500, or 2.5 per cent of 

* Herbert R. Northrup has certain scattered and impressionistic evidence to the effect that 
the union actually has helped Negroes get promoted in several Northern plants (ibid., p. 

344>- 

"The extensive material on the Negro in the automobile industry contained in Norgren 
and Associates, of. cit., Part 4, pp. 5 1 3-642, was collected by Lloyd H. Bailer, who, under 
the supervision and guidance of Dr. Norgren, conducted an extensive series of interviews in 
Detroit, and wrote the main part of the chapter. 

'Norgren and Associates, op, cit., Part 4, p. 534. See, also, pp. 533, 541-544- 



1 1 20 An American Dilemma 

all iti worken in Michigan and Indiana. Chrysler had 2,000 Negroes, miking up 4 per 
cent of its Detroit labor force.* 

Nearly three-fourths of all Negro workers in the automobile industry in 1 930 were 
in unskilled occupations; the corresponding proportion for white workers was less than 
one-fifth. One-eighth of the Negro workers, but almost one-half of the white workers, 
were in skilled and clerical occupations. The range of job opportunities for Negro 
automobile worken is usually narrower than these figures suggest, Negroes are invari- 
ably concentrated in service jobs, foundries and paint departments. 11 Some of the Negro 
foundry workers and painters are in skilled jobs, but Norgren and Bailer say: 

Negro operatives and skilled workers in these departments ... are almost invariably 
employed in such hazardous occupations as shear operators, heaters, spraymen, chippen, 
rough snag grinders and sand blasters and in other operations undesirable because they 
are dirty, dusty, extremely hot, or are accompanied by fumes.* 

An inquiry among company officials and workers suggested that the main reason for this 
condition was the opposition of the white workers — many of whom are Southerners — 
to collaboration with Negroes. Concerning the attitudes of employers' representatives, 
there are certain data assembled by Norgren and Bailer. Most employers' representatives 
who had any appreciable experience with Negro workers seemed inclined to think that 
Negroes were about as efficient as whites, although some added qualifications to the 
effect that Negroes compared "favorably with whites on the work they perform." * 
Several officials believed, of course, in the general stereotype that Negroes are particu- 
larly able to stand hot work.* One employers' representative pointed to the difficulty of 
Negroes' getting training as skilled workers. He believed, in addition, that it was 
possible to secure a higher percentage of skilled workers from a group of white workers 
than from a group of Negro workers; for this reason, he explained, employers preferred 
to get their craftsmen from the whites, although there are individual Negroes who are 
potentially just as good. Another informant gave this very interesting viewpoint: 

It seems to me the average colored worker is more loyal to his boss than to his job. 
If he likes his boss, he will work himself to death, but if he doesn't like him he won't 
do a thing. The white worker is different. I've known white workers who simply hated 
their foremen but they did good work out of loyalty to the job itself/ 

The River Rouge plant of the Ford Motor Company, which has the largest propor- 
tion of Negroes of all major Detroit automobile factories, differs in other respects from 
the general pattern. The Negro has a share of the jobs in almost all departments. Me 

* Ibid., Part 4, pp. 526 and 539-545. 

k U. S. Bureau of the Census, Alba M. Edwards, Social-Economic Groufing of the Gainful 
Workers of the United States, 1030 (1938), pp. 98-99. 

* Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 4, p. 549. The statement is backed up by a detailed 
analysis of job specifications in several of the major Detroit plants (ibid., pp. 552-559 and 
649-652). 

'Ibid., Part 4, pp. 572-589. 

* Such a capacity has been attributed to all marginal groups of workers such as South 
Europeans, Negroes, and Mexicans who have had to content themselves with such jobs as 
appeared unattractive to the dominant group. (Glen E. Carlson, "The Negro in the Indus- 
tries of Detroit," unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan (1929). Quoted 
in Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 4, p. 573.) 

'Hid., Part 4, P- J 74- 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1121 

doe* not, however, hare full equality of opportunities; the occupational status of the 
Negro worker at the Ford plant differs only in degree from that of Negro workers in 
other plants. In 1937 about half the Negro workers were in the foundry of the River 
Rouge plant, where they constituted 47 per cent of all the workers. In the tool rooms 
scarcely 1 per cent of the workers were Negro. Still, the Negroes have a better chance 
to advance in this factory than they have almost anywhere else* 

This difference between the River Rouge plant and other major automobile factories 
is not accidental. In 1921, when layoffs occurred because of the post-war depression, 
some Negro leaders approached Henry Ford asking him not to dismiss Negroes in any 
discriminatory manner. Ford then set down the policy that Negroes should make up the 
same proportion of the workers as corresponded to their proportion in the population 
of Detroit, and that they should be represented in all departments of his company. He 
has appointed some Negro officials in his personnel department who do the hiring of 
Negroes and have the right to interfere should any discriminatory practices occur. 
It is claimed that these Negro personnel officials have put pressure on the workers in 
political matters and, until Ford gave in to the union in 1 94 1, in matters of labor 
organization. Although conditions even in other respects are not ideal, they are far 
better than in other automobile plants, and Negro leaders generally characterize them 
in this way. b Negro and white Ford workers are not segregated in the work rooms, 
which sometimes happens in other factories. White workers may object to this condition, 
but the opposition is not nearly as widespread nowadays as it used to be in the early 
'twenties when Negroes started to become a prominent part of the Ford labor force. 
The fact that the company's policy on this issue is well known makes the white workers 
realize that opposition would be of little avail. The Ford training school was, until 
about 1940, the only major automobile trade school in Detroit which admitted Negro 
workers. e 

Daily wage rates are comparatively high in the automobile industry, but work has 
been insecure. There arc seasonal variations in the need for labor. Since the beginning 
of the 'thirties, the cyclical variations have been worse. The drive for efficiency has put 
a premium on youth. It is frequently claimed that new workers arc being hired while 
good, well-trained workers are walking the streets." 1 

The automobile industry was not well organized until the C.l.O. organized the 
United Automobile Workers' Union in 1936-1937. The United Automobile Workers' 
Union (now the United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implements Workers' 
Union) includes the Negro on a basis of equality. Negroes have been represented in the 
leadership from the beginning. Yet for a long time the Negro was a poor union mem- 
ber. Bailer, when making a survey of all U.A.W. locals in Detroit in 1940, found that 
more than three-fourths of the white workers, but not much more than one-half of the 
Negroes, in plants under the jurisdiction of these locals were organized by that time. 
Moreover, there were general complaints about Negroes showing less interest than 
whites in union work. Some Negroes served as strike-breakers at a Dodge walk-out in 
1939, and the same thing happened in the Ford factories in 1941. The reasons for this 
condition are obvious. Negroes have been unaccustomed to union work. As long as Ford 

* Ibid., Part 4, pp. 559-570 and 649-651. 
b Ibid., Part 4, pp. 589 and 599-652. 
'Ibid., Part 4, pp. 589 and 599-624. 
*Ibid., Part 4, pp. 5*7-«»- 



it 32 An American Dilemma 

held oat against unionism, it w quite understandable tlut many Negroes were reluctant 
to join in the fight. The high proportion of white Southerner* in the Detroit labor 
force made the union members disinclined to accept the equalitarian philosophy of the 
leaders. Segregation in social affairs of workers had been customary. It could not be 
abolished immediately, partly because real estate and restaurant owners who catered to 
union social affairs often supported segregational practices. Bailer found, however, in 
1940 and again in 1 942, that conditions were constantly improving. Ford's surrender to 
the unions has probably precipitated this development.* 

The problem of promotion remains a major difficulty. White workers would probably 
not object to the granting of departmental seniority rights to the Negro. In order to get 
full equality of opportunity the Negro must have a chance for promotion not only 
within departments, but also from one department to another. In 1940, according to 
Bailer, the white workers objected so much to the granting of such rights to Negroes 
that it seemed impossible that they would get them in the near future. 1 * Definite 
progress has been made during the present war boom. It is reported that Negroes have 
been moved from foundry shop in one establishment to skilled work in other depart- 
ments of other establishments.* 

This description of the conditions in the automobile industry is largely historical. 
The conversion to war use has brought about an entirely new situation, which, at the 
present time, is rather difficult to survey. Elsewhere we have assembled some scattered 
information on this development.' 

1 5. The Slaughtering and Meat-Packing Industrv 

The slaughtering and meat-packing industry had 18,000 Negro employees in 1930, 
constituting 1 I per cent of its total labor force. It is not of great importance as a source 
of employment to Negroes, and yet it is the only food industry which has any appre- 
ciable number of Negro workers. The story of labor in the slaughter and packing 
houses is full of racial strife. It is a good illustration of how race prejudice, while 
usually limiting opportunities for the Negro, sometimes helps him. 8 

About three-fourths of the Negro workers in 1 930 were employed outside the South, 
and one-third of the Northern workers were in Illinois, where they constituted roughly 
30 per cent of the total unskilled and semi-skilled labor force. The proportion of 
Negroes among such workers was as high or almost as high in some of the secondary 
Northern slaughtering centers located in Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska. Among the 
skilled workers, Negroes generally had few representatives, and at each occupational 
level they tended to be more concentrated in heavy or distasteful work than were white 
employees.' 

This, however, is less surprising than is the fact that the Negro makes up such a large 

* Ibid., Part 4, pp. 626-639. Interview with Lloyd H. Bailer, August 3, 194a. 
"Idem. 

* Interview with Lloyd H. Bailer, August 3, 194a. 
'See Chapter 19. 

* The chapter on the slaughtering and meat-packing industry in Norgren and Associates, 
of. cit., Part 4, pp. 653-698, was written by Arnold M. Rose. The basic sources were census 
reports, Alma Herbst, The Negro in the Slaughtering and Meat-Packing Industry in Chicago 
(*93 2 )> and Carton and Mitchell, of. cit., pp. 228-279. 

'Norgren and Associates, of. cit., Part 4, pp. £59-671. 



Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1123 

part of the labor force in some of the Northern centers. This was not so originally. 
Kansas and Missouri had an appreciable proportion of Negro workers in 1910, bat the 
increase during the First World War was such that by 1920 this proportion had become 
two or three times higher. Even more spectacular was the development in Chicago. 
Negroes had been used as strike-breakers in 1894 and, particularly, in 1904. Few of 
these Negro strike-breakers were allowed to stay, and by 1910 there were only about 
500 Negro workers in the Chicago stockyards. The subsequent increase was due to three 
factors: (1) the scarcity of labor during the First World War; (2) the interest the 
packers had in keeping the labor force heterogeneous when a unionization drive was 
started in 1916 and 191 7 by the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen, 
and the Stockyards Labor Council; and (3) the fact that, while some unions did accept 
Negroes, there were several others which "drew the color line sharply" or discriminated 
against them in other ways, and this alienated many Negro workers.* In other words, 
the packers made a definite policy of increasing the proportion of Negro workers, and 
the equivocal stand of the unions on the race issue ensured them of success. The unions 
could not fail to see this danger, and an energetic attempt was made to win the Negro 
workers over. It met with some response from the Negroes, but the race riot of 19 1 9, 
due in part to the increase in the proportion of Negro workers in the stockyards and 
to "the conflict between union workers and packing house employers for the allegiance 
of Negro workers," made these attempts fail. 1 * During a strike in December, 1921, and 
January, 1922, Negroes were used as strike-breakers. The workers were completely 
defeated, and unionism in the Chicago stockyards was practically eliminated for a 
decade." 

During the 'twenties Negroes lost in relative position in some of the secondary 
Northern meat-packing centers. In Chicago, on the other hand, they continued to gain, 
in that the actual number of Negro workers was slightly increased between 1 920 and 
1930, although the total labor force in the stockyards showed some decrease. 11 When 
unionism returned to the Chicago packing houses during the New Deal, Negroes 
continued to be rather "poor union material." There was a three-cornered battle among 
company unions, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen (A.F. of L.) 
and the Packing House Workers' Industrial Union (C.I.O.) The Amalgamated was 
still unable to go the whole way on the Negro issue ; often there was racial segregation 
in social affairs, and the representation of Negroes among the leaders was not high 
enough to appeal to the Negroes. The Packing House Workers are said to have been 
dominated (at least formerly) by communist leaders. Employers continued to intimi- 
date union members to such an extent that Negroes, who had always gained more by 
siding with the employers, were reluctant to join the independent unions in large 
numbers.** Recently, there have been reports that the C.I.O. union has become a dom- 
inant influence in the major Chicago plants,' and this may have increased the prospects 
for a final victory for the kind of unionism which will appeal to Negro workers. 

* Cayton and Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 142-246. 
b Ibid., p. 247. 

* Norgren and Associates, op. cit., Part 4, p. 676. 
"Ibid., Part 4, pp. 661-665. 

'Ibid., Part 4, pp. 689-694. Cayton and Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 262-279. 
'Information from Howard D. Gould of the Chicago Urban League (letter of May ai, 
1942). 



1 1 24 An American Dilemma 

Concerning the wage level, we may refer to the following average figures contained 
in a study in 1937 by the Department of Labor. 









Males 






Section and Race 


Total 


Skilled 


Semi-skilled 


Unskilled 


Females 


The North 












Negroes 


*7i 


$.84 


J.7I 


$.63 


».J3 


Whites 


.69 


.82 


.67 


.60 


. -s i 


The South 












Negroes 


*6 


■Si 


•49 


.40 


m 


Whites 


•53 


.67 


.50 


•45 


.38 



■Soaro.- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Earnings and Hours in the Meat-Paclring Industry. December 
1037." Monthly Labor Raiew (October, 1930). p. 053. 

• Number of workers in sample too small for computing of average. 

We find that the wage structure is characterized by a rather large differential between 
North and South. In Northern states there is the rather exceptional phenomenon that 
Negroes at each occupational level and also in general, earned slightly more per hour 
than did whites. This is probably due to the fact that Negro workers, more than whites, 
arc concentrated in some of the largest plants. In the South, on the other hand, Negroes 
usually earned less than whites, not only generally but also at each occupational level. 



APPENDIX 7 

DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO RESIDENCES IN 
SELECTED CITIES 



This description of the distribution of Negro residences in selected cities should be 
read in connection with the description of residential segregation in Chapter 29, 
Section 3. 

There have been Negroes in New York for hundreds of years." At first they tended 
to live in close proximity to the homes of the wealthy whites in whose residences they 
were employed as servants. This caused them to live in little concentrations in several 
sections of the city. Some of these nests still persist, bat the new migrants to New York 
tended to live together in a section which moved northward on Manhattan Island in 
the wake of the upper class whites. About 1900 the main Negro center was in the 
vicinity of West Fifty-third Street and was no longer a satellite community to that of 
the rich whites. It contained "three rather well-appointed hotels" b and was as much 
an independent community as can be found among any ethnic group in New York 
except the Chinese. At the same time, the large Brooklyn Negro community also was 
developing. The last and biggest shift was from the middle of Manhattan to Harlem. 
Commerce and industry were moving uptown, and new residential opportunities opened 
to Negroes in Harlem after 1900: 

Harlem had been overbuilt with large, new-law apartment houses, but rapid trans- 
portation to that section was very inadequate — the Lenox Avenue Subway had not yet 
been built — and landlords were finding difficulty in keeping houses on the east side of the 
section filled. Residents along and near Seventh Avenue were fairly well served by the 
Eighth Avenue Elevated. A colored man, in the real estate business at this time, Philip A. 
Paytun, approached several of these landlords with the proposition that he would fill their 
empty or partially empty houses with steady colored tenants. The suggestion was accepted, 
and one or two houses on One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street east of Lenox Avenue 
were taken over. Gradually other houses were rilled. The whites paid little attention to 
the movement until it began to spread west of Lenox Avenue; they then took steps to 
check it. They proposed through a financial organization, the Hudson Realty Company, 
to buy in all properties occupied by colored people and evict the tenants. The Negroes 
countered by similar methods. . . . 

* This description of the distribution of Negroes in New York is taken largely from the 
following two sources: 

James Weldon Johnson, "Harlem: the Culture Capital," in Alain Locke (editor), Tht 

New Negro (1915), pp. 301-311. 

E. Franklin Frazier, "Negro Harlem: An Ecological Study," American Journal of Soci- 

ohgy (July, 1937), pp. 7Z-88. 

k James Weldon Johnson, op. cit., p. 302. 

1125 



1 126 An American Dilemma 

The titration now resolved itself into an actual contest. Negroes not only continued ti 
occupy available apartment houses, but began to purchase private dwellings betweei 
Lenox and Seventh Avenues. Then the whole movement, in the eyes of the whites, tool 
on the aspect of an "invasion"; they became panic-stricken and began fleeing 1 as from 1 
plague. The presence of one colored family in a block, no matter how well bred am 
orderly, was sufficient to precipitate a flight. House after house and block after Mod 
was actually deserted. It was a great demonstration of human beings running amuck 
None of them stopped to reason why they were doing it or what would happen if the; 
didn't. The banks and lending companies holding mortgages on these deserted house 
were compelled to take them over. For some time they held these houses vacant, preferring 
to do that and carry the charges than to rent or sell them to colored people. But value 
dropped and continued to drop until at the outbreak of the war in Europe property in thi 
northern part of Harlem had reached the nadir. 

In the meantime the Negro colony was becoming more stable; the churches were being 
moved from the lower part of the city; social and civic centers were being formed; am 
gradually a community was being evolved. Following the outbreak of the war in Europi 
Negro Harlem received a new and tremendous impetus.* 

The Great Migration from the South greatly expanded b and stabilized the Harlem area 
To a limited extent, Negroes bought houses — often fine old mansions — as well a 
rented them, and opened their own stores as well as traded with local white store- 
keepers. With the continuing migration of Negroes into New York, Harlem is stil 
expanding, but not in proportion to the increase in its population. Outside pressure 
and the growth of a well-to-do Negro class has forced and permitted the building oi 
large structures containing many small apartments. 

It is difficult and hazardous to make predictions. If, as is generally assumed, New 
York's commerce and industry do not expand to any considerable extent in the future 
Negroes are not likely to be pushed out of Harlem. Harlem can grow spatially also 
Harlem has a glamour of its own which will continue to attract Negroes from all ovei 
the country even if employment opportunities are not too bright, and they migh' 
become better off than they were during the 'thirties, particularly if the New Yorl 
Negroes can more effectively use their political power to break down economic discrim- 
ination. The newcomers will, as usual, be forced to seek residence in established Negrc 
communities. The Brooklyn settlement is growing, but so is Harlem, and it is likely 
that Harlem will remain the center of New York's Negro population and, in a sense 
the cultural capital of all American Negroes. Aside from the couple of other large 
Negro communities in the metropolis, and the half dozen small communities whidi 
have developed in vacant land at the outskirts of the city, c the few Negroes who live 
in scattered sections of New York represent the older pattern which prevailed wher 
Negroes were few in number and engaged in serving wealthy whites. 

Negroes have been living in Chicago" since the city was incorporated in the 1830's 

'James Weldon Johnson, of. cit., pp. 303-305. 

"The center of Harlem was 135th Street and 7th Avenue. The expansion was outwarc 
from this center. See Frazier, op. tit., pp. 74-75. 

"There is, for example, the Jamaica area of Queens, and three or four small Negrc 
areas in the Bronx. 

'This description of the Negro community in Chicago is based on personal observatior 
by Arnold Rose and on a large number of historical sources, including a collection ol 
unpublished interviews with old residents (in possession of the Social Science Researct 
Committee of the University of Chicago). 



Appendix 7. Distribution of Negro Residences 1127 

They were few in number until the meat-packing industries brought them up from 
the South during the stockyards strikes of 1 894 and 1 904, and even then they formed 
an insignificant proportion of the population until the war industries' boom, beginning 
»n 191 5. Before 1915 Chicago Negroes lived in practically every section of the city, 
usually in small concentrations at the edge of areas inhabited by wealthy whites. It is 
interesting to observe that, except for a few settlements at the very outskirts of the 
city, the Negroes have not been able to get into any new areas in the rapidly growing 
city since 1910, despite a more than six-fold increase in the Negro population since 
that time. The South Side area — largest in 19 10 — has expanded enormously in a thin 
strip, which has come to be known as Chicago's "Black Belt," and the other areas also 
have expanded slightly, but no new areas within the city proper have been opened to 
Negroes. As in the case of New York, segregation has been increasing: even the upper 
class Negroes whose ancestors lived in Chicago on terms of almost complete social 
equality with their white neighbors are now foTccd into the Negro ghettos and are 
hardly differentiated from the impoverished Negro just arrived from the South. 

The history of the expansion of the Chicago South Side Black Belt has exhibited the 
full gamut of Negro housing problems. The constant immigration of Southern Negroes 
into this segregated area caused doubling-up of families, the taking in of lodgers, the 
conversion of once spacious homes and apartments into tiny flats, the crowding of an 
entire family into a single room, the rapid raising of rents, the use of buildings which 
should be condemned. The careless attitude of the health and sanitary inspection au- 
thorities toward Negroes and toward poor people generally is especially serious where an 
ignorant population took over the homes abandoned by another population group. 
Light industry, wholesale commercial establishments, gambling and vice resorts have 
been pressing the poorer Negroes southward from the direction of the downtown area. 
The holding of land for speculation, the high cost of building, the lack of capital have 
left huge gaps of vacant land in the midst of the most over-crowded Negro areas in 
the northern half of the Black Belt. The west boundary of the section is sharply deline- 
ated by a series of railroad tracks which cut off the Negroes from their poorer white 
neighbors. The southward expansion has been marked by bitter conflict between the 
dispossessed whites and the harassed Negroes. Organizations have been set up to prevent 
any white owners from selling or renting to Negroes; Negroes who succeeded in getting 
a foothold, or whites who seemed inclined to give them one for large sums of money, 
were terrorized and physically maltreated; bitter fear and h.itred has marked many of 
the other contacts between whites and Negroes because of the whites' beliefs that the 
Negroes were dangerous to their persons and property. There has been practically no 
expansion to the east despite all Negro pressures and needs. The housing difficulties 
of the Negroes in Chicago are apparent at every point, and yet neither the City Council 
nor any other white group has been willing to do anything about it. 

Southern cities usually have such a large Negro population that when the Negro 
community grows, it is near enough to the outskirts of the city that it can expand into 
vacant land and not simply inherit white areas. Many Southern cities have traditionally 
had their Negro communities at the edge of town. This is not true of Washington, 
D.C., however, for this rapidly expanding city has many of the segregation patterns 
and problems of the typical Northern cities with large Negro populations, though in 
Washington the locations of the Negro districts are more scattered. Nor is it true of the 
old Southern cities, like Charleston, South Carolina, or Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where 



1 128 An American Dilemma 

Negro residences are so interspersed among white residences that it is difficult to find 
a large Negro community as a spatial unit." 

While Birmingham, Alabama, has received the major part of its Negro population 
since the Civil War, the Negro population of the city is not concentrated in a few 
areas. b Negroes, however, are not distributed at random throughout the city either, but 
rather are to be found in a large number of small segregated areas. This may be simply 
explained by the fact that the city developed out of twelve originally separate towns, 
each of which had its one or two Negro areas, with some scattering of Negro families 
throughout. 

In Nashville, Tennessee, Negroes are concentrated in a half dozen or so commu- 
nities adjacent to white lower class or lower middle class areas. In upper class areas, 
a few Negro servants occupy quarters provided by their employers. There are practically 
no Negroes in the white upper middle class areas of West End, Hillsboro and Belle 
Meade. In the white lower middle class area east of the Cumberland River there are 
two adjacent but distinctly defined Negro communities. In the white lower class area 
of South Nashville, there arc large Negro communities with poorly denned boundaries. 
North Nashville, too, has a large Negro community surrounded by white lower class 
areas. According to Johnson, Negroes in Nashville (unlike Negroes in Northern cities) 
do not separate themselves into economic groups. 

* While 45 per cent of Charleston's population is Negro, only 5 per cent of the Negroes 
there live in blocks with 100 per cent Negro occupancy, and nearly 40 per cent live in 
blocks with less than 50 per cent colored occupancy. See Federal Housing Administration, 
The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighborhoods in American Cities (1939), pp. 
66-67. 

k For the facts of the distribution of Negroes in Birmingham, see Mabel L. Walker, Urban 
Blight and Slums (1938), pp. 43-44. 

* For the facts of the distribution of Negroes in Nashville, see Charles S. Johnson, Pat- 
terns of Negro Segregation, prepared for this study (1943), Chapters 1 and z. Also see 
materials on Nashville gathered for this book (available in Schomburg Collection). 



APPENDIX 8 

RESEARCH ON CASTE AND CLASS IN A 
NEGRO COMMUNITY 



We have presented only the barest outlines of the Negro class structure. Like all 
outlines, and like all descriptions in terms of "the average" and "the typical," the 
description is somewhat distorted. There are exceptions to every statement. For fuller 
descriptions, the reader is referred to the community studies made in recent years.* 
While these studies are excellent, further research is necessary to get an adequate picture 
of the Negro class system. We shall append a few suggestions for further research. 

"What constitutes the race problem," observes Charles S. Johnson, "is not the fixed 
character of the relations, but their dynamic character. There would be no race problem 
if the Negro group uniformly accepted the status assumed for it. The present patterns 
of these relations are, in the large, different from what they were fifty years ago or 
even twenty years ago. They vary with localities and backgrounds and with social 
classes within the Negro and white groups." b Moreover, in this process of social 
change the class and caste structures are themselves changing. The studies of the Negro 
class structure so far have been, on the whole, of a static type and have contributed 
little to our knowledge of the social dynamics actually involved. Even when viewed 
as cross-sectional investigations, a general weakness of those studies has been that the 
correlation between the factors giving status — occupation, income and wealth, education, 
family background, complexion and so on — have been observed and recorded only in a 
vague and general way and, in any case, no attempt has been made to weight them 
quantitatively. From the point of view of social dynamics, this is serious since we do 
not have a basis for forecasting trends in social mobility, and we cannot properly make 
certain practical proposals we should like to make. 

* See footnote 9 in Chapter 30, and footnote 5 in Chapter 31. 
b Groining uf in the Hack Belt (1941), p. 276. 

* Charles S. Johnson gives the broad outline of the dynamic problem as it appears to 
the individual: 

"In the present situation of the Negro in the South, the two values within control of an 
individual which can do most to facilitate class mobility are wealth and education. Ancestry 
and color, which are sometimes associated with social status, are factors beyond the control 
of living individuals struggling for status. Wealth is theoretically possible of control, but 
actually a remote possibility. Education is within reach and, consequently, it is invested with 
almost magical properties by both the ambitious parents and the youth." (Ibid., p. 77.) 

What we want to know in some detail is how this causal mechanism actually functions, 
and how it determines change in the social class system. In a sense the things mentioned by 
Johnson represent the "causes and conditions" of social stratification. 

1 129 



1 130 An American Dilemma 

The ideal community study should start out from a careful statistical analysis of vital, 
social, and economic data concerning the individuals and families making up the 
community being studied. The less measurable data on attitudes, cultural traits, behavior 
patterns in which social stratification is expressed, and the "feeling" of social status or 
toward social status on the part of members of the various groups, should then be 
observed and the results integrated into the framework of statistical knowledge. Only 
when so treated do they reveal their full meaning. The entire analysis should be 
dominated by the recognition that the Negro class structure is rapidly changing. The 
dynamics of the problem do not consist merely in the tensions, frictions and movements 
within the class structure. Even more important is the resultant movement of the whole 
class structure and, incidentally, the actual import of a position in this structure for 
Negroes in various social classes. 

In such an approach it is of importance to keep clear at the outset that our class 
concepts have no other reality than as a conceptual framework. They should, therefore, 
be given instrumental definitions (in relation to the questions asked and the instruments 
used for observations). Fundamentally we arc studying a series of continua — on the one 
side, incomes, occupations, educational levels, complexions, and so on; on the other side, 
family organization, ambition, moral standards, regard for respectability, social prestige, 
class and caste attitudes, and so on. Wc know that there are monopolistic elements in the 
social situation. Because of a causal mechanism — which constitutes the very problem of 
class dynamics to be investigated — there is a specific, but changing, correlation between 
all these various series, and we attempt to observe the result of this correlation in terms of 
social classes. But neither the particular series themselves nor the integration of the 
series into a composite "social status" reveal any gaps from which we can infer "natural" 
classes." If there are gaps in some of the scries, they can be assumed, in a rapidly 
changing society, to vary from community to community and from one time to another. 
We must choose our class lines arbitrarily to answer certain specific questions. 

Further, as usual, we must observe the differences in social stratification between 
South and North, rural and urban districts, and city communities of varying size and 
age. It is true that every Negro community — no matter how small, and no matter how 
insignificant are the apparent differences in wealth, education, and color — has its social 
cleavages. But the differences between different Negro communities are so great that 
* The authors of the Warner group — to whom American social science is indebted, not 
only for much of the recently acquired detailed knowledge about the Negro class structure, 
but also for the impetus to overcome the popular American theory of the absence of class in 
this country — often give the reader the impression that they believe that there are in reality 
clearly demarcated social classes: ". . . well-defined upper, middle, and lower social classes 
exist within each caste. Each of these classes has its distinctive pattern of familial, recrea- 
tional, and general social behavior." (Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. 
Gardner, Deep South [1941], p. 49, footnote.) 

Because of this misconception — which is sometimes called reification — these authors 
became tempted to give us a somewhat oversimplified idea about social stratification in the 
Negro community. The fault is not the simplification, which is an almost necessary method 
when dealing with complicated social relations, but the reluctance to admit it and to make 
adequate reservations. What they are actually presenting is an ideal-typical — and, therefore, 
over-typical — description, based on much detailed observation which is all organized under 
the conceptual scheme applied. By unduly insisting upon the realism of this analysis, how- 
ever, they come to imply a rigidity in the class structure which is not really there. 



Appendix 8. Research in a Negro Community 1131 

the application of a too hard and fast conceptual frame of daw structure will do violence 
to the facta. When only a single community can be studied, it should not be assumed 
to be typical nor should the question of its uniqueness or typicality be ignored. Rather, 
the investigator must attempt to place it in the Southern scene, or in the American 
scene, or even in the whole Western civilization scene, by comparing it with the average 
and range in many significant respects. This he will be enabled to do by his general 
knowledge and — more important — by the great volume of census and other existing 
bodies of statistical data. In the same way he should make use of the often great volume 
of historical, descriptive, and statistical material, so that he can place the community 
in time and see its dynamics. A community is in constant flux, and a cross-sectional 
picture involves a distortion. 

Caste and class are never the only bases for cleavage in a community. A community is 
a complex thing. Social life occurs in the form of human experience and is not neatly 
boxed according to the criterion in which the social scientist studies it. No two persons 
are alike, and the range of variation in many respects is great. Except for a few things 
like sexual differentiation, human beings do not divide themselves into "natural" 
classes. Not only must the social scientist abstract from social reality, note variation in 
his abstractions, and classify within the variations before he can begin to draw conclu- 
sions, but he must also make a decision as to what abstractions, variations and classifica- 
tions are significant. All these actions of the scientist arc ultimately arbitrary. When wc 
choose "caste" and "class" as tools to organize our observations and conclusions about 
American communities, wc must be on our guard lest we put blinders on our observations. 

While we do believe the concepts of caste and class are important tools for the study 
of American communities, there are other ordering concepts which arc significant and 
which must be related to caste or class to make even their role clear. Such traits as age, 
sex, "personality," "race philosophy," rural or urban background, and perhaps others, 
are important to the study of any Negro community. For the purposes of illustration, 
we may indicate briefly how "age" is an important concept for the study of such a 
community. The continuous advancement of education and related factors of change 
make the younger Negroes different from the older ones. Age differentials are a basis 
of solidarity and create tension within the class structure. As time passes, the young 
become the old and move the entire class structure. Taking a cross-sectional view, the 
constellation of caste, class and age may give a configuration like the one which Hor- 
tense Powdermaker compresses in the following statement: 

The White aristocrats are the least, and the Poor Whites are the most, hostile toward 
the other race. Among the Negroes the upper class is the most, and the lower class the 
least, antagonistic toward the Whites. Again, the older generation of Whites are the ones 
in whom most affect is aroused by the inter-racial situation, while the younger generation 
is inclined to view the problem more casually. The reverse is true for the Negroes: the 
older generation shows the tolerance and calmness traditionally associated with age, while 
the young people are the ones who feel most intensely on racial issues.* 

Such a situation is, of course, fraught with impending changes for the fundamental 
class and caste relations. Taking a long-range view, the Negro class structure of today 
is only the passing arrangement of a society in transition. 

* After Freedom (19 J9), p. J14. 



1x32 An American Dilemma 

We cannot close this description of what a study of a Negro community should be 
without calling attention to the study which best meets our requirements, a study which 
is now all but forgotten. We ref« to W. E. B. Dn Bois, The PMUielfkia Negro, 
published in 1899. 



APPENDIX 9 

RESEARCH ON NEGRO LEADERSHIP 



The study of leadership and followership should not start out from an attempt to 
define on a priori grounds the two principal concepts involved. In this tangled and 
uncultivated field of study such an attempt would almost inevitably land the investigator 
in hollow and doctrinal squabbles on the meaning of words. We have only to settle that 
uie are discussing the role and importance of individual persons in the sphere of social 
and folitical power and — as a power basis for these individuals as well as a concept for 
contrast — the role of the masses. This statement of the problem has to be made more 
definite by a realistic conception of the general pattern of leadership and followership 
in American culture as a whole. 

The general American pattern has to be assumed to be modified considerably in the 
Negro people because of caste. In this problem, caste particularly implies two things: 
First, that the identification on the part of Negroes with the American nation as a whole 
and with national groups of various types, as, for instance, the workers, becomes abnor- 
mally weak or totally lacking." Second, that Negroes, because of their subordinate caste 
position, find all their power relations confined to the narrow orbit of accommodation 
or protest, or to a compromise between accommodation and protest. Besides this realistic 
axis of behavior in power relations, there are unrealistic outlets in extrovert or introvert 
aggression and in psychological and ideological escapism. As we saw in Chapter 38, 
Negro popular theories generally, because of caste, become fixated, negatively or 
positively, on white theories on the Negro; outside the Negro problem these popular 
theories become amorphous and unstable. 

The primary effect of the caste situation on Negro leadership — compared with a 
"normal" American situation — is to enhance tremendously the importance of Negro 
leaders as liaison agents between the two groups. Negro leaders have a "function" to 
fulfill for both castes. As the Negro class structure is also closely determined by caste, 
there is a relation to be investigated between class and leadership. The Negro leaders 
should be viewed from the standpoints of the two castes and their interests. The white 
caste has an interest in supporting those Negro leaders who can transfer their influence 
upon the lower caste. The Negro caste has two interests: one, to express the Negro 
protest as far as it does not damage its immsdiate welfare; two, to get as much as 
possible from the whites. The partly contradictory interests of the Negro community 
can be taken care of by the same individual leaders or by several different leaders in a 
division of responsibility. 

A most important problem, which, to be solved, would require much more factual 
research, concerns the operation of the selective social mechanism by which Negro 

The chapter on Negjo ideologies enlarges upon this topic (Chapter 38). 



1 1 34 An American Dilemma 

leaden are chosen and permitted to exercise influence. It is apparent to the observer that 
the white caste controls the appointment and eventual dismissal of a number of Negro 
leaders and greatly promotes or hinders the rise of most of the others. This is partly 
a matter of tradition, but to a greater extent it corresponds to real interests of the 
whites. There are also, of course, other forces in action: partly "objective" ones, such 
as individual merit, Negro class monopolies, and the factor of change, and partly 
subjective attitudes held by the Negro masses. 

The way to study this important aspect of our problem is to analyze — against the 
background of a survey of the entire social milieu in which Negro leaders develop and 
operate — the factors actually responsible for the elevation of a selected sample of 
Negroes to prominence in church, education, business, politics, and also in vice and 
racketeering. This would, incidentally, because of the close relation between class and 
leadership in the Negro community, also reveal much of the internal dynamics of the 
Negro class structure. 

We might be allowed to illustrate the type of study suggested by formulating a 
number of questions, some of which have been given a conjectural answer in Chapters 
34 to 37. How does the selective mechanism operate differently in the various fields of 
social activities? in rural and urban districts? in the South and the North? on the local 
and the national plane? What are the trends of change? 

To what extent, specifically, and by what means, do white caste interests interfere? 
What are the specific interests in Negro leadership of white politicians, planters, mer- 
chants, bankers, manufacturers, philanthropists, in a given community? What rewards 
do they hold out for Negro leaders and what effective demands do they make upon 
them? How tractable must those leaders be in order to become successful? What 
demands upon the Negro leaders, and with what effectiveness, are raised by the Negro 
community? How is a compromise struck between submission and aggression, accommo- 
dation and protest? What are the chances under various circumstances for a really 
independent Negro leadership? In other words, we should want a full analysis of the 
'social controls operating on the individual Negro who is attempting to rise to prom- 
inence. 

What effect do the various influences on the selective social mechanism determining 
the rise of Negro leaders have on the racial, social and political attitudes of the Negro 
masses? What is the effect of the masses — through their partial influence on the 
selective mechanism and as the object for leadership influence — on the behavior and 
the popular theories of the leaders? How far down in the Negro class structure do 
various Negro leaders reach by their influence and from how far down in the masses 
do influences emanate upon the leaders? What influence do Negro leaders have on 
white leaders with whom they are in immediate contact? 

These questions open up the problems of the interrelations between functioning 
Negro leaders and the white community leaders, on the one hand, and between Negro 
leaders and Negro followers, on the other hand. More specifically we want to know, 
how much influence and what sort of influence do those prominent Negroes have? In 
what circles of the white and the Negro population is the influence exerted? What 
deliveries to the whites and to the Negroes do they promise, and which do they actually 
make? 

How does the Negro leader operate? To what extent and how does he utilize the 
white and the Negro press, the Negro organizations and the various "fronts"? To what 



Appendix 9. Research ok Negro Leadership 1135 

extent does the Negro leader become pressed into a dual standard of behavior in order 
to serve his two constituencies: the white leaden and the Negro community? How does 
he make a choice among necessary compromises, advantageous compromises and plain 
selling out of the Negro interests? How does he strike a balance between personal and 
group opportunism? What techniques of adaptive manipulation docs he develop? 

To what extent does the peculiar situation of the Negro leader in the American 
caste system further corruption and destructive personal rivalry? What does the Negro 
community think of its leaders? How docs that influence the Negro leaders? 

These problems are hardly touched upon in our tentative analysis in the text. They 
lend themselves well to a treatment in terms of "leadership types." 



APPENDIX 10 



QUANTITATIVE STUDIES OF RACE ATTITUDES 



I. Existing Studies of Race Attitudes 

Quantitative studies of race attitudes are summarized in a monograph prepared for 
this study by Eugene L. Horowitz.* In this Appendix we shall briefly indicate the 
direction of work that has been done and offer a few suggestions as to the type of 
attitude studies which would be in accord with the methodological principles presented 
in Appendix I. 

One of the early classic efforts to measure race attitudes was that of Emory S. 
Bogardus. b His questionnaire offered a list of races and nationalities and a list of seven 
degrees of social intimacy (e.g., proximity of residence, marriage). The interviewee 
was to check off the degree of social intimacy to which he would be willing to admit 
a member of each race or nationality. By this means Bogardus could present a rank 
order of races and nationalities according to the degree of preference for them by 
a given group of Americans. The problem of degree of friendliness toward the Negro 
and of comparative friendliness toward various races and nationalities became a major 
concern for those interested in the quantitative approach to the study of attitudes, 
especially after L. L. Thurstone introduced a series of major technical improvements 
into the measuring process. In 1929, E. D. Hinckley devised a scale of attitudes toward 
the Negro which prcsumabl;' could be administered to any group of whites. 11 

With techniques developed for measuring the degree of friendliness or social distance 
toward the Negro, students began to investigate differences in attitudes as measured by 
the scales. There have been studies correlating the scores on these scales with region, 
rural-urban residence, age, sex, church affiliation, social class, intelligence, general 
education, general social and political outlook. The scales have also been used to measure 
the effect of experiments: students were given courses in. race relations or were brought 
into social contact with Negroes, and the change in their performance on the attitude 
test was noted. 

* " "Race' Attitudes" in Otto Klineberg (editor) , Characteristics of the American Negro, 
prepared for this study, to be published. 

""Race Friendliness and Social Distance," Journal of jiff lied Sociology (January- 
February, 1927), pp. 272-287. 

*The first article in the series on race attitudes by Thurstone was "An Experimental 
Study of Nationality Preferences," The Journal of General Psychology (July-October, 

1928)1 PP- 405-4*5- 

d E. D. Hinckley, "The Influence of Individual Opinion on the Construction of ao 
Attitude Scale," The Journal of Social Psychology (August, 1912), pp. 282-29$. 

*0n this point, see, in addition to Horowitz {op. cit., manuscript pages 214-218), 
Maphew Smith, "A Study of Change of Attitudes toward the Negro," Journal of Negro 
Education (January, 1939), pp. 64-70. 

1 136 



Appendix io. Studies of Race Attitudes 1137 

The studies correlating friendliness toward the Negro with educational status and 
with experience regarding Negroes do in a general way what certain other studies do in 
a more specific way. These latter studies attempt to find out whether the possession of 
certain information or misinformation about Negroes in a given situation affects a white 
person's attitudes toward Negroes in that situation. There are relatively few studies of 
this type. Related to these studies are those which attempt to find out whether race 
prejudice is a general attitude which applies to most situations or whether it is a group 
of attitudes each of which applies only to a specific situation. An interesting study of 
this sort was that by Bolton in which the conclusion was drawn that a "group of 
Southern students are much more liberal toward the economic, the political and the 
educational rights of the Negro than towards social intermixture with the race," and, 
therefore, that the latter should be measured as a distinct attitude.* 

2. The Empirical Study of Valuations and Beliefs 

The paramount importance attached to observing and measuring valuations and 
beliefs in the Negro problem by means of scientifically controlled research must be 
clear from the Introduction and Appendix I of this book. Unfortunately the results 
of quantitative studies of opinions and attitudes regarding this aspect of the Negro 
problem arc meager. The most general conclusion from a survey of the existing studies 
regarding the relation between valuations and beliefs is that they have not added any- 
thing significant to our knowledge. 11 They have not yet succeeded in quantifying our 
general common-sense notions on the subject. The main explanation is undoubtedly 
that, until now, not much work has been done in this particular field. c 

Another general defect is that the studies which have been made usually have been 
planned in isolation from both the general social study of the Negro and the political 
battle about his status. They have, therefore, not had a perspective which gives relevance 
to the questions asked, and they have not been prepared by the working out of consistent 
schemes of scientific hypotheses. This is the more natural and, indeed, the more defen- 
sible, since the studies carried out have usually had an experimental character and have 
been more concerned with perfecting the tools of measurement than with the conclu- 
sions to be obtained. In the main this holds true also of the mass public opinion polls. 
Particularly when asking Negroes for their opinions — but also when asking whites for 
theirs on the Negro problem — there are a number of purely technical difficulties which 
as yet have not been overcome. 

Instead of indulging in further negative criticism, we shall develop briefly certain 
positive suggestions for opinion research as they have arisen in our study of the Negro 
problem. At the outset it should be remembered that an average opinion in regard to 
the Negro problem, as does every other opinion, contains two elements which are of 
different character: (1) beliefs concerning reality which can be true or untrue, com* 

' Euri Relle Bolton, "Measuring Specific Attitudes towards the Social Rights of the 
Negro," The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology (January-March, 1937), p. 396. 

b A summary and evaluation of these studies has been made for our study by Horowitz 
of. cit., manuscript pages 115, 123-148. 

* It should be clear that our statement does not apply to the whole range of attitude and 
public opinion measurement, but solely to this activity regarding the Negro problem. The 
measurement of attitudes and public opinion has contributed much both to scientific and to 
practical knowledge outside the Negro problem, and is now showing amazingly rapid 
advancement in present achievement and tremendous possibilities for future achievement. 



I 138 An American Dilemma 

plete or incomplete; (x) valuations of an actual or hypothetical reality which can vary 
in intensity, clarity, and homogeneity bat in themselves are neither complete nor incom- 
plete, neither true nor untrue. There are, of course, opinions, which are only beliefs 
or only valuations. But more usually, opinions are combinations of both: on the one 
hand, beliefs are, as we have seen, nearly always influenced by the valuations for which 
they serve as rationalizations (which in logical terms means that they are "biased"), and, 
on the other hand, beliefs influence valuations. 

Reacting to the earlier schools of rationalistic psychology, we became several decades 
ago so impressed by the fact that people did not act and think rationally that something 
of a tradition became established not to split opinions into two components relating to 
the cognitive and to the volitional sides of mental processes. This is part of the back- 
ground for the present loose usage of the word "attitude" as a scientific term." In many 
questionnaires one finds questions concerning knowledge, concerning almost pure valua- 
tions, and concerning both combined — all these three types mixed together without 
much distinction. And the subsequent analysis docs not take into account the difference 
between them. Such a differentiation is of great importance, however, since a study 
of people's beliefs throws light not only on what they know or do not know but, in 
addition, on the structure of their entire valuation sphere. 

The fact that people's beliefs, unlike their valuations, can be directly judged by the 
objective criteria of correctness and completeness offers us a cine for analyzing scientif- 
ically the complexes of struggling valuations that exist in the minds of people. It is a 
sound hypothesis that, since the beliefs of men serve an opportunistic function, both 
the direction and the degree of their deviation from "objective" knowledge will tell 
ns how people arc trying to reconcile their valuations on a lower plane, implicit in their 
daily behavior, with the more general valuations which are recognized as morally higher 
in our society. From this point of view, it becomes of great importance to chart quanti- 
tatively people's knowledge and ignorance on controversial subjects. For this purpose 
the questions to be utilized in certain types of opinion studies should be purged as far 
as possible of all valuations; they should only test the respondent's conception of this 
particular part of reality. It is fairly easy to prepare a standard norm of what represents 
objective knowledge; in the many problems where we are still ignorant or hesitant, 
consciousness of our ignorance constitutes true knowledge. For testing knowledge as to 
its degree of completeness, some sort of graduated scale can be worked out with the 
help of available techniques. 

If properly carried out, such a study of factual knowledge regarding the Negro 
problem — differentiated in relation to certain main axes: white-Negro, North-South, 
urban-rural, social class, education, sex, age — would be revealing. Its practical impor- 
tance for education is obvious. It will also have great theoretical importance in explain- 
ing white people's behavior with respect to Negroes. The hypothesis is that we are not 
facing a question merely of more or less meager and incorrect knowledge. There is an 
emotional load of valuation conflicts pressing for rationalization, creating certain blind 
spots — and also creating a desire for knowledge in other spots — and in general causing 
conceptions of reality to deviate from truth in determined directions. If such an 
analysis of the degree of knowledge and ignorance and also of their localization and 

* As used by Thomas and Znaniecki in The Polish Peasant, the term "attitude" was a 
part of tfca reaction to the complete irrationalism emphasized by the instinctivist and 
behaviocist schools. 



Appendix io. Studies of Race Attitudes 1139 

concrete character h carried out, the valuations and their conflicts can be recorded, 
indirectly but quantitatively — just as the heat of distant stars is measured by observing 
their spectra. From our inquiry of the Negro problem we are convinced that ignorance 
is not always simple; it is often opportune.* 

Bat the valuations should, of course, also be studied directly. For this purpose ques- 
tions should be selected which relate to opinions that do not contain any reference to 
reality. A main consideration in the analysis of answers to such questions should be that 
valuations are complex and ordinarily conflicting, and that an individual's focusing of 
attention in the valuation sphere may be opportune. In most cases the indirect analysis 
of the valuation sphere, through the study of the deviations of beliefs from true 
knowledge, is likely to reach deeper than does the direct analysis. An individual contin- 
ually tends to arrange his valuations so that they may be presented in an acceptable 
form. But in his beliefs concerning social reality — which are shaped to give the 
appearance of rational organization to his morals — he reveals himself. 

3. "Personal" and "Political" Opinions 

When studying valuations there is another distinction the observance of which is of 
utmost significance in the Negro problem as in other problems where human valuations 
are sharply conflicting, namely, the distinction between a person's "private," or 
"personal," opinion and his "public," or "political," opinion on the same question. 1 * 
They do not need to agree; in fact they seldom agree. This, in itself, is a reason for a 
clear distinction to be upheld, since otherwise a major source of systematic error is 
contained in the observations. A further reason is that the very registration and measur- 
ing of this difference is an important part of an opinion analysis. 

A man's opinion as to the desirable size of a normal family might be totally different, 

* As examples of how opportune ignorance and knowledge may be, it might be pointed 
out that Negroes are amazingly sophisticated with respect to the incidence of indirect taxa- 
tion and the environmental influences on intelligence test scores. Even ordinary Negroes with 
little formal schooling can explain to the satisfaction of the economist just how taxes on 
real estate are passed on to the tenant, and can often do better than the trained psychologist 
in revealing just how lack of incentive and intellectual stimulation can keep intelligence 
tests from revealing "innate ability." It is apparent that the reason Negroes know these 
things is that they have been victimized by indirect taxation and the intelligence tests — that 
is, it is claimed that Negroes pay practically no taxes, because they pay practically no direct 
taxes, and that they are biologically inferior because their I.Q. scores are lower. It is appar- 
ent, too, that whites — especially the dominant ones, the ones who pay direct taxes and who 
have, or think they have, high I.Q. scores — have an opportune ignorance with respect to 
these things. Even when simple facts are presented to ruffle their ignorance, they reject them. 

b There has been much discussion about the distinction between "opinion" and "attitude," 
with the assumptions that the former is measurable while the latter is not and that the 
former is a mere verbalization while the latter directs action. Our distinction between 
personal and political opinions is different, and should not be confused with the distinction 
between opinion and attitude. It is no easier to measure political opinions than personal 
opinions; both direct action — although different kinds of action; and one is not more a 
mere verbalization than is the other. 

Schanck has attempted to investigate statistically the distinction between public and 
private attitudes, although without relation to the Negro. (R. L. Schanck, "A Study of a 
Community and Its Groups and Institutions Conceived of as Behaviors of Individuals," 
Psychological Monografhs [193a]*) 



1 140 An American Dilemma 

on the one hand, when he facet the problem as a citizen taking a stand on the population 
issue if this is brought to the political forefront and, on the other hand, when he faces 
his own family limitation problem.* Exactly this same thing is true in the Negro 
problem. Many white people would be prepared to stand for and practice changed 
relations to Negroes *'/ they were made the common rule in society, while they are not 
prepared to practice them as exceptions to the rule. Some of the apparent confusion and 
contradiction in nearly every individual's attitude to the Negro problem becomes 
explainable by applying this distinction. 1 * 

Part of the actual differences between personal and political attitudes is rational. 
The very aim of a person's political opinion is to ask for and, eventually, to cause such 
institutional changes in society that the circumstances under which he lives and forms 
his personal opinions are modified, and, consequently, to change his personal behavior 
and attitudes also. A positive stand on the political population question — say a demand 
that the average nonsterile marriage produce four children — may be the center of a 
complex of political opinions demanding legal and economic changes in the family 
institution. There is no contradiction between a four-child norm in one's political 
opinion and, say, a two-child norm in one's personal opinion and actual family limitation 
behavior. 

Similarly in the Negro problem. In numerous conversations with white Americans 
in the North and in the South, the observer is informed by the man he talks to that he 
himself would be prepared to act in such and such a way different from his ordinary 
behavior if society, the local community, or "public opinion" would not react in such 
and such a way; and, second, that he would favor this and this social change implying 
such and such alterations of the caste relations in society, although he is not prepared 
to live up to those alterations as an individual unless the social changes are first carried 
out. It should be noticed that political opinions are thus regularly of a conditional 
character and that they usually refer to a more distant future. There are few white 

* See Gunnar Myrdal, Pofulalion: A Problem for Democracy (194.0), Chapter 5, 
"People's Opinions," particularly pp. 106 ff. and 115 ft". 

"The distinction between public and private attitudes also comes out with regard to 
what one will or will not admit with respect to the Negro. Baker tells a story which illus- 
trates this aspect of the distinction. It is from "... the discussions of the Alabama legislature 
then in session. A compulsory education bill had heen introduced; the problem was to pass 
a law that would apply to white people, not to Negroes. In this connection I heard a signifi- 
cant discussion in the state senate. I use the report of it, for accuracy, as given the next 
morning in the Advertiser: 

" 'Senator Thomas said ... he would oppose any bills that would compel Negroes to 
educate their children, for it had come to his knowledge that Negroes would give the 
clothing off their backs to send their children to school, while too often the white man, 
secure in his supremacy, would be indifferent to his duty. 

" 'At this point Senator Lusk arose excitedly to his feet and said : 

" ' "Does the Senator from Barbour mean to say that the Negro race is more ambitious 
and has more aspirations than the white race?" 

" ' "The question of the gentleman ... is an insult to the senate of Alabama," replied 
Senator Thomas deliberately. "It is an insult to the great Caucasian race, the father of all 
the arts and sciences, to compare it to that black and kinky race which lived in a state of 
black and ignorant savagery until the white race seized it and lifted it to its present posi- 
tion." '" (Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color Line [1908], p. 248.) 



Appendix io. Studies of Race Attitudes 114.! 

Americans even in the South who do not declare themselves in favor of much more 
equality for the Negro in politics, education, and everything else — but they want them 
far in the future when certain conditions are changed. (The inconsistency in their 
attitudes often consists only in their being unwilling to do anything — not even in the 
political sphere and often least of all there — to change those conditions.) Generally, 
it can be assumed that being able to keep more of a rational and conscious distinction 
and relation between one's personal and political opinions is a function ( I ) of education 
and intelligence on the part of the individual, (2) of his identification with society 
(being a "good citizen"), and (3) of his training to think of himself as a would-be 
legislator, that is, as a participant in inducing the social change. 

But part of this difference between personal and political opinions is irrational, and 
there is then inadequate intellectual connection between the two. In many countries, 
again to use an illustration from the population problem, it is possible to prove statis- 
tically that a large number of people, who publicly condemn birth control as immoral 
and who back legislative measures to prohibit it, must practice it privately. In the Negro 
problem there are equally flagrant contradictions between people's opinions about how 
society ought to be and the opinions whereby they defend their own daily behavior. 

4. The Practical Study of Race Prejudice 

In a footnote on page 52, in Chapter 3, wc indicated that we preferred to use the 
word "discrimination" rather than "race prejudice." ■ Discrimination is generally 
considered to be the objective aspect of prejudice, and in many areas of life we could 
objectively observe discrimination. Race prejudice is a much more controversial subject; 
many persons who practice discrimination, consciously or unconsciously, claim they hare 
no race prejudice. We have not neglected, however, the subjective aspect of discrim- 
ination, even though we have not associated our analysis with the term "race prejudice." 
In Chapter 28, for example, we presented the theory of "no social equality" which, 
in a sense, is a theory of a certain type of race prejudice. 

In this section we shall use the term "race prejudice" as a conceptual tool for 
analysis of the motivation of white people's negative attitudes toward Negroes. We 
believe it necessary to continue the practice followed in most attitude measurement 
studies, of measuring variations in rare prejudice and relating this variation to variations 
in other significant variables. We should like to suggest an innovation in these studies: 
that the assumption be made that there arc several types of race prejudice, types which 
are differentiated from each other for practical reasons. It may be discovered that two 
white persons, having an equal degree of race prejudice according to an attitude scale, 
have different motivations for this prejudice, in such a manner that a given program of 
action will reduce the prejudice of one but not of the other. If such be discovered, 
we may claim to have a pragmatic classification of race prejudice. Presumably a judicious 
choice of questions on an attitude measurement scale would classify white people accord- 
ing to the type of prejudice they hold toward Negroes. 

Many psychological theories of race prejudices have been advanced." Implicit 
throughout our book has been the theory that it is useful to consider race prejudice as 

* We have occasionally used the term "race prejudice" in a common-sense way, not in an 
analytic way. 

" For an excellent brief summary of these theories, see Henry A. Davidson, "The Anatomy 
of Prejudice," Common Ground (Winter, 1941), pp. 3-iz. 



1 142 An American Dilemma 

of three type*, which we have described as that of the white Southerner, that of the 
white Northerner, that of the Negro. In holding this theory, we do not claim that other 
theories are incorrect or that no other classification of race prejudice is useful. It is 
merely that we happen to find this theory and this classification most useful, and we 
have organized our book around them. Our description and classification are, of course, 
based on impression and need to be verified and modified by further research. Further, 
we do not claim that all white Southerners have the kind of prejudice which we 
characterize as being typical of prejudiced white Southerners, or that no Northerners 
have this kind of prejudice. It is merely that we find the race prejudice characteristic 
of most prejudiced Southern whites different, on the average, from that characteristic 
of most prejudiced Northern whites. Similarly, we believe that the prejudice of most 
Negroes is to be analyzed in different terms. 

The prejudice of the white Southerner has a complex basis. The Southerner holds 
that all Negroes are inferior to all whites, and he has a great variety of racial and social 
beliefs to support this valuation. The character of his prejudice is revealed in his "rank 
order of discriminations": * It is surely significant that the white Southerner is much 
less willing to permit intermarriage or to grant "social equality" than he is to allow 
equality in the political, judicial and economic spheres. b The violence of the Southern- 
er's reaction to equality in each of the spheres rises with the degree of its relation to the 
sexual and the personal, which suggests that his prejudice is based upon fundamental 
attitudes toward sex and personality. An attempt to reduce race prejudice of this sort 
requires a profound strategy. Attitude measurement devices could not only get at the 
specific character of the race attitudes but could also help to test various experimental 
devices used in attempting to modify these attitudes. 

The race prejudice of the typical Northerner seems to be of a much simpler charac- 
ter. It is based mainly on ignorance, both simple and opportune, and is much less bound 
up with fundamental conceptions of society and self. The Northerner seldom gets a 
chance to see the Negro's good points, and he docs not understand the social back- 
ground of the Negro's bad points. The Southerner's prejudice also has much of 
ignorance in it, but the Southerner's ignorance is more opportune because it is tied to 
fundamental motives. The Northerner has little of the Southerner's rank order of 
discriminations: he favors equality in justice and politics, and he finds the etiquette of 
race relations obnoxious. The Northerner is against intermarriage and equality in the 
economic sphere. But even here his motives seem to be largely different from those of 
the Southerner: he avoids intermarriage mainly for reasons of social status and personal 
antipathy, not because he believes that intermarriage will disrupt society ; e he is against 

* See Chapter 3, Section 4. ' 

* See Chapters 28 and 29. 

* "Potential equality is of the essence of democracy. Extirpate 'race prejudice' in a democ- 
racy and social communion and intermarriage are bound to follow. One of the reasons why 
Northerners fail to understand this is their aesthetic antipathy to the negro. Most Southerners 
like individual negroes that 'keep their place' — and I daresay that the negroes, like all 
more or less primitive folk, are likable. The Northerner is protected from social communion 
and intermarriage by his feelings; the Southerner is protected by what he calls his principles 
—the superiority of the whites, and the like." (Thomas P. Bailey, Race Orthodoxy in the 
South [1914], P- 63) 



Appendix io. Studies of Race Attitudes 1143 

economic equality largely out of ignorance of the Negro's capacities.* These hypotheses 
need to be tested by attitude questionnaires. If we are correct in judging the North- 
erner's prejudice to be based so largely on ignorance, and if a distinction is made 
between questions of belief and questions of valuation, 15 the attitude measuring process 
can itself serve as an experiment. If two similar groups of Northerners are presented 
with the same set of valuation questions, and one group is also given relevant factual 
information, there should be a noticeable difference in their performance , c 

The Negro's prejudice toward whites or toward other Negroes seems to be a secondary 
reaction. Because he has taken over American culture, the average Negro has also taken 
over something of the white American's attitude toward the Negro. d There is nothing 
of the "rank order" in the Negro's prejudice but something of ignorance. There is also 
much in it of considerations of personal social status. It may also be that some of the 
hostility felt toward the whites is deflected from them to the Negro group. 

The Negro's negative attitude toward the white man may better be described as 
hatred or fear rather than prejudice. It is the hatred or fear toward those who humiliate 
him and deprive him of many of the good things of life. If the deprivation or humil- 
iation were to cease, the hatred and fear also would cease. This is even true of the 
anti-Semitism found among Negroes: It happens that Jews are the leading retail 
merchants in many Negro neighborhoods and are the leading employers of Negro 
servants in Northern cities. The natural dislike of the dominant person by the subor- 
dinate person in an unequal economic bargain thus seems to be the cause of any striking 
anti-Semitism that appears in certain Negro groups. Negroes practically never feel that 
whites are inferior, and they do not connect racial equality with sexual and personality 
fears. Negro prejudice toward whites is based partly on ignorance, but it is much more 
a matter of fear and hatred of the oppressor. This secondary character of the NcgroV 
race prejudice could be tested by wisely administered questionnaires. 

'Probably both the Northern employer and the Southern employer are ignorant of the 
Negro's economic potentialities. But where the Northern employer would like to know of 
them, the Southerner employer would not. 

b See Section 2 of this Appendix. 

" Our distinction between the Southerner's and the Northerner's prejudices implies that 
two similar groups of Southerners would not manifest such a difference in performance due 
merely to the administration of simple, direct, factual information. 

d Du Bois describes the prejudice of Negroes toward other Negroes: 

"Negroes, particularly the better class Negroes, are brought up like other Americans 
despite the various separations and segregations. They share, therefore, average American 
culture and current American prejudices. It is almost impossible for a Negro boy trained in 
a white Northern high school and a white college to come out with any high idea of his 
own people or any abiding faith in what they can do : or for a Negro trained in the segre- 
gated schools of the South wholly to escape the deadening environment of insult and caste, 
even if he happens to have the good teachers and teaching facilities, which poverty almost 
invariably denies him. He may rationalize his own individual status as exceptional. He . . . 
cannot ordinarily believe that the mass of Negro people have possibilities equal to the 
whites." (W. E, B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn [1940], p. 191.) 



LIST OF BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, PERIODICALS AND OTHER 
MATERIAL REFERRED TO IN THIS BOOK 



Book* and manuscripts prepared for this study are listed in the "Author's Preface." 

Abbott, Grace, From Relief to Social Security: the development of the new fublic 
welfare services and their administration. Chicago: The University of Chicago 
Press, 1 94 1. 

Adams, James Truslow, America's Tragedy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934. 

Adams, James Truslow, The Epic of America. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 

1931. 

Adams, James Truslow, "Our Lawless Heritage," Atlantic Monthly, vol. 142, no. 6; 
December, 1928; pp. 732-740. 

"Africa." The Encyclopaedia Britannica, eleventh edition; vol. I; pp. 325-330. 

Alilunas, Leo, "Legal Restrictions on the Negro in Politics." The Journal of Negro 
History, vol. 25, no. 2; April, 1940; pp. 152-202. 

Allen, James S., The Negro Question in the United States. New York: International 
Publishers, 1936. 

The American Academy of Political and Social Science, The Annals. Vol. 124, "Legal 
Aid Work." March, 1926. 

American Federation of Labor, Report of Proceedings of the Sixty-First Annual Con- 
vention. October, 1 94 1. 

Ames, Jessie Daniel, The Changing Character of Lynching. Atlanta: The Commis- 
sion on Interracial Cooperation, Inc., July, 1942. 

Ames, Jessie Daniel, Democratic Processes at Work in the South, Report of Commis- 
sion on Interracial Cooperation, 1939-1941. Atlanta: The Commission on Inter- 
racial Cooperation, Inc., October, 1941. ' 

Andrews, H. L., "Racial Distinctions in the Courts of North Carolina." Unpublished 
M.A. thesis, Duke University, 1933. 

Anonymous, Lynching Goes Underground. January, 1940. 

Anthony, David W., "The Cranbury Terror Case." The Crisis, vol. 46, no. 10; 
October, 1939; pp. 295-296, 314-315- 

Archer, William, Through Afro-America; an English reading of the race problem. 
London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1910. 

Arneson, Ben A., "Non-Voting in a Typical Ohio Community." The American Politi- 
cal Science Review, vol. 19, no. 4; November, 1925; pp. 816-825. 

Asendio, James, "History of Negro Motion Pictures." International Photographer, vol. 
3, no. 12; January, 1940; p. 16. 

Ashby, William M., "No Jim Crow in Springfield Federal Housing." Opportunity, 
vol. 20, no. 6; June, 1942; pp. 170-171, 188. 

1 144 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1145 

Ay*r, N. W., and Son's Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals. Philadelphia: N. W. 

Ayer and Son, Inc., 1942. 
Babcock, J. W., "The Colored Insane." Alienist and Neurologist, vol. 16; 1895; pp. 

423-447. 
Bailey, Thomas Pearce, Race Orthodoxy in the South and Other Aspects of the 

Race Question. New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 191 4. 
Baker, J. N., "Alabama's Program for Planned Parenthood." Address delivered at the 

Third Southern Conference on Tomorrow's Children, Nashville, Tennessee: 

October 31, 1941. 
Baker, Paul E., Negro-White Adjustment ,■ an investigation and analysis of methods 

in the interracial movement in the United States; the history, philosophy, program, 

and techniques of ten national interracial agencies. Methods discovered through 

a study of cases, situations, and projects in race relations. New York: Association 

Press, 1934. 
Baker, Ray Standard, Following the Color Line; an account of Negro citizenship in 

the American democracy. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 

1908. 
Bakwin, Harry, "The Negro Infant," Human Biology, vol. 4, no. 1 ; February, 1932; 

PP- 1-33- 
Baldwin, W. H., "Present Problems of Negro Education." Journal of Social Science, 

vol. 37; December, 1899; PP- 48-64. 
Ballagh, James C, A History of Slavery in Virginia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins 
University Press, 1902. (Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Politic' 
Science.) 
Bancroft, George, "Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln 
Delivered at the Request of Both Houses of the Congress of America, Before 
Them, in the House of Representatives at Washington on the 12th of February, 
1866." Washington, D. C, 1866. 

Bancroft, H. M., Retrospection, Political and Personal. New York: Bancroft Company, 
1912. 

Barker, Tommie Dora, Libraries of the South; a report on developments, 1030- 
1935. Chicago: American Library Association, 1936. 

Bates, Ernest S., American Faith; Us religious, political, and economic foundations. 
New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1940. 

Bean, Robert B., "Some Racial Peculiarities of the Negro Brain." American Journal 
of Anatomy, vol. 5, no. 4; September, 1906; pp. 353-432. 

Beard, Charles, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. 
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913. 

Beard, Charles A. and Mary R., The Rise of American Civilization. 2 vols. New 
York: The Macmillan Company, 1933. (First vol., 1927.) 

Benedict, Ruth, Race: Science and Politics. New York: Modern Age Books, 1940. 

Bentley, Isaac Madison and E. V. Cowdry (editors), The Problem of Mental Dis- 
order. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1934. 

Berclvnd, Abraham, and Associates, Labor in the Industrial South; a survey of wages 
and living conditions in three major industries of the new industrial South. Univer- 
sity, Virginia: The Institute for Research in the Social Sciences, 1930. (Institute 
Monograph no. 9.) 



1 146 An American Dilemma Jfc 

Bekls, Adolph A. and Gardiner C. Means, The Modem Corporation and Private 

Property. New York: Commerce Clearing House, Inc., 1932. 
Blaine, Jams* G., Twenty Years of Congress: from Lincoln to Garfield. With a review 
of the events which led to the political revolution of i860. 2 vols. Norwich, Con- 
necticut: H. Bill Publishing Company, 1884-1886. 
Blaine, James G. and Others (Symposium) "Ought the Negro to be Disfranchised? 
Ought He to Have Been Enfranchised?" The North American Review, vol. 128s 
March, 1 879; pp. 225-283. 
Blayton, Jesse B., "Are Negro Banks Safe?" Opportunity, vol. 15, no. 5; May, 1937; 

pp. 139-141. 
Blayton, Jesse B., "The Negro in Banking." The Bankers Magazine, vol. 133, no. 6; 

December, 1936; pp. 511-514.. 
Bledsoe, Albert Taylor, An Essay on Liberty and Slavery. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippin- 

cott and Company, 1856. 
Boas, Franz, U. S. Immigration Commission, Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants 

of Immigrants. Washington, D. C: 1910. (Senate Document 208.) 
Boas, Franz, "The Half-Blood Indian, an anthropometric study." The Popular Science 

Monthly, vol. 45; October, 1894; pp. 761-770. 
Boas, Franz, The Mind of Primitive Man. New York: The Macmillan Company, 

191 1. (Also 1938 edition.) 
Boas, Franz, "The Mind of Primitive Man." The Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 

14, no. 52; January-March, 191 1 ; pp. 1-11. 
Bocarous, Emory S., "Race Friendliness and Social Distance." Journal of Applied 

Sociology, vol. 11, no. 3; January-February, 1927'; pp. 272-287. 
Boie, Maurine, "An Analysis of Negro Crime Statistics for Minneapolis for 1923, 

1924 and 1925." Opportunity, vol. 6, no. 6; June, 1928; pp. 171-173. 
Bolton, Euri Relle, "Measuring Specific Attitudes towards the Social Rights of the 
Negro." The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 3, no. 4; January- 
March, 1937; pp. 375-397. 
Bond, Horace Mann, The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order. 

New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1934. 
Bond, Horace Mann, "Should the Negro Care Who Wins the War?" The Annals of 
the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 223 5 September, 1 942 ; 
pp. 81-84. 
Bowen, Trevor, Divine White Right; a study of race segregation and interracial co- 
operation in religious organizations and institutions in the United States. With a 
Section on "The Church and Education for Negroes" by Ira DeA. Reid. New 
York: Harper and Brothers, 1934. (Published for the Institute of Social and 
Religious Research.) 
Brandt, Earl, "Fallacious Census Terminology and Its Consequences in Agriculture." 
Social Research: An International Quarterly of Political and Social Science, vol. 
5, no. i; February, 1938; pp. 19-36. 
Bricham, Carl C, "Intelligence Tests of Immigrant Groups." Psychological Review, 

vol. 37, no. 2; March, 1930; pp. 138-165. 
Brioham, Carl C, A Study of American Intelligence. Princeton: Princeton Univer- 
sity Press, 1923. 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1147 

Bmnton, Hugh P., "Negroet Who Run Afoul the Law." Social Forces, vol. 1 1, no. I ; 

October, 1 93 2; pp. 96-101. 
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, "A Brief History of the Organizing of the 

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, an International Union." Undated typescript. 
Brown, Earl, "American Negroes and the War," Harfer's Magazine, vol. 184, no. 

1103; April, 1942; pp. 545-55*- 
Brown, Earl and George R. Leighton, The Negro and the War. Public Affairs 

Pamphlets no. 71; 1942. 
Brown, Sterling A., The Negro in American Fiction. Washington, D. C: The 

Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1937. (Bronze Booklet no. 6.) 
Brown, Sterling A., "Negro Character as Seen by White Authors." Journal of Negro 

Education, vol. 2, no. 2; April, 1933^ pp. 179-203. 
Brown, W. O., "Rationalization of Race Prejudice." The International Journal of 

Ethics, vol. 43, no. 3; April, 1933; pp. 294-306. 
Brown, William Montgomery, The Crucial Race Question. Little Rock: The Arkansas 

Churchman's Publishing Company, 1907. 
Bryant, Carolyn, "The Cincinnati Clinic." The Birth Control Review, vol. 16, no. 

6; June, 1932! p. 177. 
Bryant, Ira B., Jr., "News Items about Negroes in White Urban and Rural News- 
papers." Journal of Negro Education, vol. 4, no. 2; April, 1935 ; pp. 169-178. 
Bkyce, James, The American Commonwealth. New York: The Macmillan Company, 

1893- 
Bryce, James, The Relations of the Advanced and the Backward Races of Mankind. 

Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1902. (Romanes Lecture.) 
Buck, Paul H., The Road to Reunion, 1865-1000. Boston: Little, Brown and Com- 
pany, 1937. 
Buck, Pearl, American Unity and Asia. New York: The John Day Company, 1942. 
Buckmaster, Henrietta (Henrietta Henkle), Let My People Go ; the story of the 

underground railroad and the growth of the abolition movement. New York: 

Harper and Brothers, 1941. 
Bunche, Ralph J., "The Negro in the Political Life of the United States." Journal 

of Negro Education, vol. 10, no. 3; July, 1941 ; pp. 567-584. 
Burgess, Ernest W., "Residential Segregation in American Cities." The Annals of the 

American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 140, no. 229; November, 

1928; pp. 105-115. 
Burgess, Ernest W., "The Romantic Impulse and Family Disorganization." The 

Survey, vol. 57, no. 5; December I, 1926; pp. 290-294. 
Burns, Robert E., / Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang. New York: The 

Vanguard Press, 1 93 2. 
Cable, George W., The Negro Question. New York: American Missionary Associa- 
tion, 1888. 
Cable, George W., The Silent South, together with the freedman's case in equity 

and the convict lease system. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1885. 
Campbell, Sir George, White and Black in the United States. London: Chatto and 

Windus, 1879. 
Canady, Herman G., "The Effect of 'Rapport' on the I. Q.: A New Approach to the 



1 148 Am American Dilemma 

Problem of Racial Psychology." Journal of Negro Education, vol. 5, no. 2; April, 

1956; pp. 209-219. 
Cantor, Nathaniel, "Crime and the Negro." The Journal of Negro Hittorj, vol. 

16, no. 1 ; January, 1931 ; pp. 61-66. 
Carey, Henry C, The Slope Trade, domestic and foreigm why k exists, and hote it 

may be extinguished. Philadelphia: A. Hart, 1853. 
Carlyle, Thomas, Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question. London: T. Bosworth, 

1853. 

Carnegie Institution of Washington, Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to 
America. Washington, D.C., 1 930-1 93 5. (Carnegie Institution Publication no. 
409, 4 vols.) 

Carpenter, Marie E., The Treatment of the Negro in American History School 
Textbooks; a comfarison of changing textbook content, x8a6 to 1039, with 
developing scholarship in the history of the Negro in the United States. Menasha, 
Wisconsin: George Banta Publishing Company, 1941. 

Carpenter, Niles, "The New American Immigration Law and the Labor Market." 
The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 45, no. 4; August, 1931 ; pp. 720-723. 

Carter, Elmer A., "Eugenics for the Negro." The Birth Control Review, vol. 16, no. 
6; June, 1932; pp. 169-170. 

Carter, Elmer A., "Shadows of the Slave Tradition." Survey Graphic, vol. 31, no. 
II; November, 1942; pp. 465-467, 553-555. 

Casey, Albert E., "Research Activity and the Quality of Teaching in Medical Schools." 
Science, vol. 96, no. 2483; July 31, 1942; pp. no-ill. 

Cash, Wilbur J., The Mind of the South. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941. 

Catt, Carrie Chapman and Nettie Rogers Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politics; 
the inner story of the suffrage movement. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1 923. 

Cayton, Horace R., "Fighting for White Folks?" Nation, vol. 155, no. 3; September 
26, 19425 pp. 267-270. 

Cayton, Horace R., "The Morale of the Negro in the Defense Crisis." Paper read 
to the Twentieth Annual Institute of the Society for Social Research, The Univcr- ■ 
sity of Chicago, August 15, 1941. 

Cayton, Horace R. and George S. Mitchell, Black Workers and the New Unions. 
Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1939. 

Chamberlain, Bernard P., The Negro and Crime in Virginia. Charlottesville: 
University of Virginia, 1936. 

Chambliss, Rollin, What Negro Newspapers of Georgia Say about Some Social Prob- 
lems, 1033. Published M.A. thesis, University of Georgia, 1934. (Phelps-Stokes 
Fellowship Studies no. 13.) 

The Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago. Chicago: The 
University of Chicago Press, 1922. 

Cobb, W. Montague, "The Negro as a Biological Element in the American Popula- 
tion." Journal of Negro Education, vol. 8, no. 3; July, 1939; pp. 336-348. 

Cobb, W, Montague, "Physical Anthropology of the American Negro: Status and 
Desiderata." Unpublished manuscript, Department of Anatomy, Howard Univer- 
sity. Washington, D. C: 1942. 

Cobs, W. Montague, "The Physical Constitution of the American Negro." Journal 
of Negro Education, vol. 3, no. 3; July, 1934; pp. 340-388. 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1149 

Collins, Henry Hill, Jr., America's Own Refugees; our 4,000,000 homeless 

migrants. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941. 
Collins, Winfield H., The Truth about Lynching and the Negro in the South, in 

which the author pleads that the South be made safe for the white race. New 

York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1918. 
The Commission on Interracial Cooperation, The Interracial Commission Comes of 

Age. Atlanta: The Commission on Interracial Cooperation, Inc., February, 1942. 
The Commission on Interracial Cooperation, The Mob Still Rides, a review of the 

lynching record, 1931-1935. Atlanta, Georgia: 1936. 
The Commission on Interracial Cooperation, A Practical Approach to the Race Problem. 

Atlanta: The Commission on Interracial Cooperation, Inc., October, 1939. 
The Commission on Interracial Cooperation, The Southern Frontier, vol. 3, no. 6; 

June, 1942. 
Committee on Africa, the War and Peace Aims, The Atlantic Charter and Africa from 

an American Standpoint. 1 942. 
Contemporary China. Reference Digest, published by Chinese News Service, Inc.j 

vol. 2, no. 6; August 10, 1942. 
Cooley, Charles Horton, "Genius, Fame, and the Comparison of Races." The Annals 

of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 9; May, 1897; pp. 

3*7-358. 
Cooley, Charles Horton, Social Process. New York: Charles Scribncr's Sons, 191 8. 
Cooper, George M., "Birth Control in the North Carolina Health Department." 

Worth Carolina Medical Journal, vol. I, no. 35 September, 19405 pp. 463-466. 
Cooper, George M., F. R. Pratt, and M. J. Hagood, "Four Years of Contraception 

as a Public Health Service in North Carolina." American Journal of Public Health, 

vol. 31, no. 12; December, 1941; pp. 1248-1252. 
Council for Democracy, The Negro and Defense. Democracy in Action Pamphlets, no. 

3i 1941. 
Council on Medical Education and Hospitals, "Hospitals and Medical Care in Mis- 
sissippi." Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 12, no. 22; June 3, 

19395 pp. 2317-2332. 
Crane, A. L., "Race Differences in Inhibition." Archives of Psychology, no. 63 ; March, 

1923. 
The Crisis, Editorial, vol. 46, no. 7; July, 1939; p. 209. 
The Crisis, Editorial, vol. 46, no. 9; September, 1939; pp. 271-272. 
The Crisis, "Iron Ring in Housing." Vol. 47, no. 7; July, 1940; pp. 205-2 10. 
Crosswaith, Frank R., and Alfred Baker Lewis, "Discrimination Incorporated." 

Social Action, vol. 8, no. 1; January 15, 1942; pp. 4-37. 
Dabney, Vikginius, Below the Potomac, a book about the new South. New York: D. 

Appleton-Century Company, Inc., 1942. 
Dabney, Virginius, Liberalism in the South. Chapel Hill: The University of North 

Carolina Press, 1932. 
Daniels, Jonathan, A Southerner Discovers the South. New York: The Macmillan 

Company, 1938. 
Daniels, Josephus, Tar-Heel Editor. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina 

Press, 1939. 
Davenport, Charles B., and A. G. Lov*, Army Anthropology, based on observations 



ti$o An American Dilemma 

made on draft recruit/, 1917-1918, and on veterans at AemobUtaUion, 1919. The 
Medical Department of the U. S. Army in the World War. Vol. IS* Statistics. 
Part I. Washington, D. C: 1921. 

Davenport, Charles B. and M. Steggerda, Race Crossing in Jamaica. Washington, 
D. C: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1929. 

Davidson, Henry A., "The Anatomy of Prejudice." Common Ground, vol. 1, no. 2; 
Winter, 1941 ; pp. 3-12. 

Davis, Allison, and John Dollard, Children of Bondage; the personality develop- 
ment of Negro youth in the urban South. Washington, D. C: American Council 
on Education, 1940. (Prepared for the American Youth Commission.) 

Davis, Allison, Burleigh B. Gardner and Mary R. Gardner, Deef South; a social 
anthropological study of caste and class. Chicago: The University of Chicago 
Press, 1 941. 

Day, Caroline Bond, A Study of Some Negro-White Families in the United States. 
Cambridge: Peabody Museum of Harvard University, 1932. 

Dedrick, Calvert L., and Morris H. Hansen, The Enumerative Check Census. 
Vol. 4 of The final Report on Total and Partial Unemployment, 1937. Censut 
of Partial Employment, Unemployment, and Occupations. Washington, D. C: 

1938. 

De Leeuw Hendrik, Sinful Cities of the Western World. New York: J. Messner, 
Inc., 1934. 

Detroit Bureau of Governmental Research, The Negro in Detroit. Detroit: Detroit 
Bureau of Governmental Research, Inc., 1926. 

Detweiler, Frederick G., The Negro Press in the United States. Chicago: The 
University of Chicago Press, 1922. 

Dewey, John, "The Determination of Ultimate Values or Aims through Antecedent or 
A Priori Speculation or through Pragmatic or Empirical Inquiry." The Thirty- 
Seventh Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Part II, 
"The Scientific Movement in Education." 1938; pp. 471-486. 

Dewey, John, Freedom and Culture. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1939. 

Dewey, John, "Interpretation of Savage Mind." The Psychological Review, vol. 9, no. 
3; May, 1902; pp. 217-230. 

Dickinson, Robert L., and Woodbridce E. Morris, Techniques of Conception Con- 
trol. New York: Birth Control Federation of America, Inc., 1 94 1. 

Dodd, William E., The Cotton Kingdom, a chronicle of the Old South. New Haven: 
Yale University Press, 1 91 9. 

Dodd, William E., "Freedom of Speech in the South." Communication to the Editor 
of Nation, vol. 84, no.' 2182; April 25, 1907; pp. 383-384. 

Dodd, William E., Statesmen of the Old South; or, from radicalism to conservative 
revolt. New York: The Macmillan Company, 191 1. 

Dollard, John, Caste and Class in a Southern Town. New Haven: Yale University 

Press, 1937. (Published for the Yale Institute of Human Relations.) 
Dollard, John, Criteria for the Life History, with analyses of site notable documents. 
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935. (Published for the Institute of Human 
Relations.) 
Dollard, John and Associates, Frustration and Aggression. New Haven: Yale Univer- 
sity Press, 1939. (Published for the Institute of Human Relations.) 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1151 

Donaldson, W> T., "Compulsory Voting." National Municipal Review, vol. 4, no. 3 ; 
July, 1915; pp. +60-465. 

Donnan, Elizabeth, "The Slave Trade into South Carolina before the Revolution." 
The American Historical Review, vol. 3 J, no. 45 July, 1928; pp. 804-828. 

Douglass, Frederick, "The Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Considered." An 
address before the Literary Societies of Western Reserve College, at Commence- 
ment, July 12, 1854. Rochester: Lee, Mann, and Company, 1854. 

Douglass, Frederick, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, written by himself. 
Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske and Company, 1895. (Expanded from Narrative of the 
Life of Frederick Douglass, published in 1845.) 

Doyle, Bertram Wilbur, The Etiquette of Race Relations in the South. Chicago: 
The University of Chicago Press, 1937. 

Doyle, Bertram Wilbur, "Racial Traits of the Negro as Negroes Assign Them to 
Themselves." Unpublished M.A. thesis, The University of Chicago, 1924. 

Drake, J. G. St. Clair, "Churches and Voluntary Associations in the Chicago Negro 
Community." W.P.A. District 3, Chicago: project under the supervision of Horace 
R. Cayton, December, 1940. (Mimeographed.) 

Dubin, Robert, "Factors in the Variation of Urban Occupational Groups." Unpub- 
lished M.A. thesis, The University of Chicago, 1940. 

Dublin, Louis I., Health and Wealth, a survey of the economics of world health. New 
York: Harper and Brothers, 1928. 

Dublin, Louis I., and Alfred J. Lotka, Twenty-Five Years of Health Progress, a 
study of the mortality experience among the industrial policyholders of the Metro- 
politan Life Insurance Company, 1911 to 1035. New York: Metropolitan Life 
Insurance Company, 1937. 

Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, "Black Folk and Birth Control." The Birth Control 
Review, rol. 16, no. 6; June, 1932; pp. 166-167. 

Du Bois, W. K. Burghardt, Black Folk, Then and Now, an essay in the history and 
sociology of the Negro race. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1939. 

Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, Black Reconstruction, an essay toward a history of the 
part which black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America, 
1860-1880. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1935. 

Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, Darkwater; voices from within the veil. New York: 
Harcourt, Brace, and Howe, 1920. 

Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, "Does the Negro Need Separate Schools?" Journal of 
Negro Education, vol. 4, no. 3; July, 1935; pp. 328-335. 

Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, Dusk of Dawn; an essay toward an autobiography of a 
race concept. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1940. 

Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt (editor), Economic Cooperation among Negro Americans. 
Report of a social study made by Atlanta University. Atlanta, Georgia: The Atlanta 
University Press, 1907. 

Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, Editorial, The Crisis, vol. 19, no. 3; January, 1920; p. 
106. 

Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, "The Hosts of Black Labor." Nation, vol. 116, no. 
3018; May 9, 1923; pp. 539-541- 

Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, The Negro. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1915. 
(Home University Library of Modern Knowledge, no. 91.) 



1 152 An American Dilemma 

Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, "A Negro Nation within the Nation." Current History, 

vol. 45, no. 4$ Jnne, 1935; p. 265. 
Du Bon, W. E. Burghardt, The Philadelphia Negro: a social study. Together with a 
s fecial re fort on domestic service, by I. Eaton. Philadelphia: The University of 
Pennsylvania Press, 1899. Publications of The University of Pennsylvania series 
in Political Economy and Public Law, no. 14. 
Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt (editor) , Some Efforts of A mtriean Negroes for their Own 
Social Betterment. Atlanta, Georgia: Atlanta University Press, 1898. (Atlanta 
University Publication, no. 3.) 
Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago: A. C. McClurg and 

Company, 1903. 
Ducgan, I. W., "Cotton, Land and People: A Statement of the Problem." Journal of 

Farm Economics, vol. 22, no. I; February, 1 940; pp. 1 88- 1 97. 
The Duke Endowment, Fourteenth Annual Re fort of the Hospital Section, 103S. 

Charlotte, North Carolina: The Duke Endowment, 1939. 
Durkheim, Emile, The Rules of Sociological Method. (Translated by Sarah A. Solovay 
and John H. Mueller.) Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1938. (First 
French edition published in 1895.) 
East, Edward M., Heredity and Human Affairs. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 

1927. 
Eckenrode, Hamilton J., Jefferson Davis, President of the South. New York: The 

Macmillan Company, 1923. 
Eddy, Walter A. and Gessner G. Hawley, We Need Vitamins. New York: Reinhold 

Publishing Company, 1 941. 
Educational Policies Commission, Education and Economic Well-Being in American 
Democracy. Washington, D.C.: Educational Policies Commission, National Educa- 
tion Association of the United States and the American Association of School 
Administrators, 1940. 
Ehjott, E. N. (editor), Cotton Is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments. Augusta, Georgia: 

Pritchard, Abbott and Loomis, i860. 
Embree, Edwin R., Brown America: the story of a new race. New York: The Viking 

Press, 193 1. 
Embree, Edwin R., Julius Rosenwald Fund: Review of Two Decades, igiy-1036. 

Chicago: 1936. 
Embree, Edwin R., Julius Rosenwald Fund: Review for the Two-Year Period 1040- 

1042. Chicago: 1942. 
Eppse, Merl R., The Negro, Too, in American History. Chicago: National Educa- 
tional Publication Company, Inc., 1939. 
Ethridge, Mark, "About Will Alexander." The New Republic, vol. 105, no. 12; 

September 22, 1941; pp. 366-367. 
Ferebee, Dorothy Bouldinc, "Planned Parenthood as a Public Health Measure for 
the Negro Race," Address at Annual Meeting of the Birth Control Federation of 
America. New York: January 29, 1942. 
Ferguson, G. O., "The Psychology of the Negro, an experimental study." Archives of 

Psychology, no. 36; April, 1916. 
Fisher, Constance, "The Negro Social Worker Evaluates Birth Control." The Birth 
Control Review, vol. 16, no. 6;. June, 1932; pp. 174-175. 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other. Material 1153 

FirzHUGH, George, Sociology for the South: Failure of Free Society. Richmond: 

A. Morris, Publisher, 1854. 
Florant, Lyonel C, "Memorandum re: Negro Housing in Norfolk, Virginia." 

Unpublished manuscript, Population Study, Virginia State Planning Board; June 

3. 194*. 
Ford, Nick Aaron, The Contemporary Negro Novel, a study in race relations. Boston: 

Meador Publishing Company, 1936. 
Fortune, T. Thomas, Answer to speech of W. H. Baldwin, "The Present Problems of 

Negro Education." Journal of Social Science, vol. 37; December, 1899; pp. 64-68. 
Fortune, "Fortune Quarterly Survey: XIII." Vol. 18, no. I; July, 1938; pp. 36-37, 

74-80. 
Fortune, "Fortune Quarterly Survey: XXVII." Vol. 21, no. 2; February, 1940; pp. 14, 

20, 28, 133-136. 
Fortune, "Harlem." Vol. 20, no. 1 ; July, 1939; pp. 78, 168-170. 
Fortune, "The Negro's War." Vol. 25, no. 6; June, 1942; pp. 77-80, 157-164. 
Fortune, "The Servant Problem, Women's Labor Problem." Vol. 1 7, no. 3 ; March, 

1938, pp. 81-85. 
Fowles, George Milton, Down in Porto Riro. New York: Eaton and Mains, 1910. 
Fraenkel, Osmond K., "Restrictions on Voting in the United States." The National 

Lawyers' Guild Quarterly, vol. I, no. 2; March, 1938; pp. 135-143. 
Frazier, E. Franklin, "Children in Black and Mulatto Families." The American 

Journal of Sociology, vol. 39, no. i; July, 1933; pp. 12-29. 
Frazier, E. Franklin, The Free Negro Family. Nashville, Tennessee: Fisk University 

Press, 1932. 
Frazier, E. Franklin, The Negro Family in Chicago. Chicago: The University of 

Chicago Press, 1 93 2. 
Frazier, E. Franklin, The Negro Family in the United States. Chicago: The Univer- 
sity of Chicago Press, 1 939. 
Frazier, E. Franklin, "Negro Harlem: An Ecological Study." The American Journal 

of Sociology, vol. 43, no. I; July, 1937; pp. 72-88. 
Frazier, E. Franklin, Negro Youth at the Crosstvays, their personality development 

in the middle states. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1940. 

(Prepared for the American Youth Commission.) 
Frazier, E. Franklin, "The Pathology of Race Prejudice." The Forum, vol. 77, 

no. 6; June, 1927; pp. 856-862. 
Frazier, E. Franklin, "Review of The Myth of the Negro Pott." Nation, vol. 1 54, 

no. 7; February 14, 1 942; pp. 195-196. 
Fry, C. Luther, The U.S. Looks at Its Churches. New York: Institute of Social and 

Religious Research, 1 930. 
Gabriel, Ralph H., The Course of American Democratic Thought. New York: The 

Ronald Press Company, 1 940. 
Gallagher, Buell G., American Caste and the Negro College. New York: Columbia 

University Press, 1938. 
Galloway, George B„ Postwar Planning in the United States. New York: The 

Twentieth Century Fund, 1942. 
Galloway, George B., and Associates, Planning for America. New York: Henrv 

Holt and Company, 1941. 



1 1 54 An American Dilemma 

Gallop, George, and Saul Forbes Rae, The Pulse of Democracy. New York: Simon 

Schuster, 1940. 
Gardner, William J., A History of Jamaica. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1909. 
Garth, Thomas R., Race Psychology; a study of racial mental differences. New York: 

McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1931. 
Garvey, Amy Jacques (editor), Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Vol. I. 

New York: The Universal Publishing House, 1923. 
Giddings, Franklin H., Studies in the Theory of Human Society. New York: The 

Macmillan Company, 1922. 
Gist, Noel P., "The Negro in the Daily Press." Social Forces, vol. io, no. 3; March, 

1932; pp. 405-411. 
Gist, Noel P., "Racial Attitudes in the Press." Sociology and Social Research, vol. 17, 

no. I; September-October, 1932 j pp. 25-36. 
Gleason, Eliza Atkins, The Southern Negro and the Public Library. Chicago: The 

University of Chicago Press, 1941. 
Goodell, William, The American Slave Code in Theory and Practice. New York: 

American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1853. 
Goodrich, Carter, and Associates, Migration and Economic Offortunity ; the report 

of the study of population redistribution. Philadelphia: The University of Penn- 
sylvania Press, 1936. 
Gosnell, Harold F., Getting Out the Vote; an experiment in the stimulation of 

voting. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1927. 
Gosnell, Harold F., Negro Politicians, the rise of Negro politics in Chicago. Chicago: 

The University of Chicago Press, 1935. 
Gosnell, Harold F., "The Negro Vote in Northern Cities." National Municipal 

Review, vol. 30, no. 5; May, 1941; pp. 264-267. 
Gosnell, Harold F., and Norman N. Gill, "An Analysis of the 1932 Presidential 

Vote in Chicago." American Political Science Review, vol. 29, no. 6; December, 

»9355 PP- 9&7-984- 
Gould, Charles W., America: A Family Matter. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 

1920. 
Grady, Henry W., The New South. New York: Robert Bonner's Sons, 1890. 
Granger, Lester B., "The Negro Congress — Its Future." Opportunity, vol. 18, no. 6; 

June, 1940; pp. 164-166. 
Granger, Lester B., "Negroes and War Production." Survey Graphic, vol. 3 1, no. II; 

November, 1942; pp. 469-471, 543"544- 
Grant, Madison, The Passing of the Great Race. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 

1916. 
Graves, John Temple, "The Southern Negro and the War Crisis." Virginia Quar- 
terly Review, vol. 18, no. 4; Autumn, 1942; pp. 500-517. 
The Greater New York Federation of Churches, The Negro Churches of Manhattan. 

New York: The Greater New York Federation of Churches, 1930. 
Green, H. M., "Hospitals and Public Health Facilities for Negroes." Proceedings of 

the National Conference of Social Work. Chicago: The University of Chicago 

Press, 1928, pp. 178-180. 
Greene, Harry W., Negro Leaders. Institute, West Virginia: West Virginia State 

College, November, 1936. West Virginia State College Bulletin, series 23, no. 6. 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1155 

Greens, Lorenzo J. and Carter G. Woodson, The Negro Wage Earner. Washing- 
ton, D.C.: The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Inc., 1930. 

Groves, Ernest R., and William F. Ocburn, American Marriage and Family Rela- 
tions. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1928. 

Hailey, Malcolm. An African Survey; a study of -problems arising in Africa south of 
the Sahara. London: The Oxford University Press, 1938. 

Hamilton, Horace C, "The Social Effects of Recent Trends in the Mechanization 
of Agriculture." Rural Sociology, vol. 4, no. I j March, 1939; pp. 3-25. 

Hamilton, James A., Negro Suffrage and Congressional Rtfresentation. New York: 
The Winthrop Press, 1910. 

Hampton, Wade and others (Symposium) : "Ought the Negro to Be Disfranchised? 
Ought He to Have Been Enfranchised?" The North American Review, vol. 128; 
March, 1879; pp. 225-283. 

Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Refort of the Hampton Normal and 
Agricultural Institute for the Fiscal Year Ending June $0, 1875. Hampton, Vir- 
ginia: Normal School Steam Press, 187$. 

Hankins, Frank H., The Racial Basis of Civilization; a critique of the Nordic 
doctrine. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926. 

Harper, Chancellor William, Memoirs on Slavery. Paper read before the Society 
for the Advancement of Learning of South Carolina, annual meeting at Columbia, 
South Carolina, 1837. Charleston: James S. Burgcs, 1838. 

Harris, Abram L., The Negro as Capitalist: a study of banking and business among 
American Negroes. Philadelphia: The American Academy of Political and Social 
Science, 1936. 

Hart, Albert Busiinell, The Southern South. New York: D. Appleton and Com- 
pany, 1 910. 

Hart, Horn ell Norris, Selective Migration as Factor in Child Welfare in the United 
States with S fecial Reference to Iowa. Iowa City: The University of Iowa, 1921. 

Hastie, William, "The Negro in the Army Today." Typewritten public statement. 
War Department; August, 1942. 

Hauser, Philip M., "Differential Fertility, Mortality, and Net Reproduction in 
Chicago, 1930." Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, The University of Chicago, 1938. 

Hayes, Laurence J. W., The Negro Federal Government Worker. Washington, D.C.: 
The Graduate School, Howard University, 1941. (Howard University Studies in 
the Social Sciences, vol. 3, no. I.) 

Heckscher, Eli F., Mercantilism. (Translated by Mendel Shapiro.) London: G. 
Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 193$. (First published, 193 1.) 

Helper, Hinton, The Impending Crisis of the South: how to meet it. New York: 
Burdick Brothers, 1857. 

Henderson, Elmer W., "A Study of the Basic Factors Involved in the Change in the 
Party Alignment of Negroes in Chicago, 193 2-1 938." Unpublished M.A. thesis, 
The University of Chicago, 1939. 

Herbert, Hilary A. (editor), Why the Solid South? or, Reconstruction and its results. 
Baltimore: R. H. Woodward and Company, 1890. 

Herskovits, Melville J., The American Negro, a study in racial crossing. New 
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. 



it $6 An American Dilemma 

Herskovtts, Melville, J., The Anthropometry of the American Negro. New York: 

Columbia University Press, 1930. 
Hemkovits, Melville J., "On the Provenience of the New World Negroes." Social 

Forces, vol. 12, no. 2; December, 1933; pp. 247-262. 
Hemkovits, Melville J., "Review of The Negro Family in the United States." 

Nation, vol. 150, no. 4; January 27, 1940; pp. 104-105. 
Hemkovits, Melville J., V. K. Cameron, and H. Smith, "The Physical Form of 

Mississippi Negroes." The American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol. l6, 

no. 2; October-December, 1931 ; pp. 193-201. 
Hicks, John D., The Populist Revolt; a history of the Farmers' Alliance and the 

People's Party. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1931. 
High, Stanley, "How the Negro Fights for Freedom." Reader's Digest, vol. 41, 

no. 243 j July, 1942; pp. 113-118. 
Hill, Robert T., Cuba and Porto Rico, with the other islands of the West Indies; 

their topography, climate, flora, products, industries, cities, people, political condi- 
tions, etc. New York: The Century Company, 1898. 
Himes, Norman, "Clinical Service for the Negro." The Birth Control Review, vol. 16, 

no. 6; June, 1932; pp. 176-177. 
Hinckley, E. D., "The Influence of Individual Opinion on the Construction of an 

Attitude Scale." The Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 3, no. 3; August, 1932; 

pp. 283-295. 
Hoffman, Frederick L., Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro. New 

York: The Macmillan Company, 1896. 
Holmes, Samuel Jackson, "The Negro Birth Rate." The Birth Control Review, 

vol. 16, no. 6; June, 1932; pp. 172-173. 
Holmes, Samuel Jackson, The Negro's Struggle for Survival, a study in human 

ecology. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1937. 
Hoot, John Weldon, "Lynch Law, the Practice of Illegal Popular Coercion." Unpub- 
lished Ph.D. thesis, The University of Pennsylvania, 1935. 
Horst, Paul, and Associates, The Prediction of Personal Adjustment. New York: 

Social Science Research Council, 1941. (Social Science Research Council Bulletin 

no. 48.) 
Hoshor, John, God in a Rolls Royce; the rise of Father Divine, madman, menace, or 

meisiah. New York: Hillman-Curl, Inc., 1936. 
Hrdlicka, Ales, The Old Americans. Baltimore: The Williams and Wilkins Com- 
pany, 1925. 
Hrdlicka, Ales, "The Full-Blood American Negro." American Journal of Physical 

Anthropology, vol. 12, no. 1; July-September, 1928; pp. 15-53. 
Hughes, Henry, Treatise on Sociology, Theoretical and Practical. Philadelphia: the 

author, 1854. 
Hughes, LaNgston, The Big Sea, an autobiography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 

1940. 
Huro, John Codman, The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States. Boston: 

Little, Brown and Company; vol. 1, 1858; vol. 2, 1862. 
Humton, Zora Neale, Mules and Men. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 

1935- 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1157 

Hurston, Zoka Nkalk, Tell My Hone. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 

1938. 
Hurston, Zora Neale, Their Eyes Were Watching God: a novel. Philadelphia: J. B. 

Lippincott Company, 1937. 
Huxley, Julian S., and A. C. Haddon, We Europeans. New York: Harper and 

Brothers, 1936. 
Irish, Marian D., "The Southern One-Party System and National Politics." Journal 

of Politics, vol. 4, no. I; February, 1942; pp. 80-94. 
Ivy, James W., "Review of An Analysis of the Specific References to Negroes in 

Selected Curricula for the Education of Teachers by Edna Meade Colson." The 

Crisis, vol. 48, no. 10; October, 1941; p. 331. 
Jackson, L. P., "Elizabethan Seamen and the African Slave Trade." The Journal of 

Negro History, vol. 9, no. ij January, J924; pp. 1-17. 
Jaffe, A. J., "Population Growth and Fertility Trends in the United States." Journal 

of Heredity, vol. 32, no. 12; December, 1941; pp. 441-445. 
Jaffe, A. J., "Urbanization and Fertility." American Journal of Sociology, vol. 48, 

no. J ; July, 1942, pp. 48-60. 
James, William, On Some of Life's Ideals; on a certain blindness in human beings; 

what makes a life significant. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1912. 
James, William, "The Will to Believe," The New World: A Quarterly Review of 

Religion, Ethics, and Theology, vol. 5, no. 18 j June, 1896; pp. 327-347. 
Jar-vis, J. Antonio, Brief History of the Virgin Islands. St. Thomas, Virgin Islands*. 

The Art Shop, 1938. 
Jefferson, Thomas, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, 

correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings official and private. 

Vols. 1 and 8. (H. A. Washington, editor.) Washington, D.C.: Taylor and Maury, 

1853-1854. 
Jenkins, William Sumner, Pro-Slavery Thought in the Old South. Chapel Hill: The 

University of North Carolina Press, 1935. 
Jenks, Albert Ernest, "The Legal Status of Negro-White Amalgamation in the 

United States." The American Journal of Sociology, vol. 21, no. 5; March, 1916; 

pp. 666-678. 
Jernegan, Marcus Wilson, Laboring and Dependent Classes in Colonial America: 

i6oj-i?8$; studies of the economic, educational, and social significance of slaves, 

servants, apprentices, and poor folk. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 

1931- 
Johns, Elizabeth D., "The Role of the Negro Newspaper in the Negro Community." 

Unpublished manuscript, 1940. 
Johnson, Charles S., Growing up in the Black Belt; Negro youth in the rural South. 

Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1941. (Prepared for the 

American Youih Commission.) 
Johnson, Charles S., "The Negro." The American Journal of Sociology, vol. 47, 

no. 6; May, 1942; pp. 854-864. 
Johnson, Charles S., The Negro in American Civilization; a study of Negro life 

and race relations in the light of social research. New York: Henry Holt and 

Company, 1930. 



1 1 58 An American Dilemma 

Johnson, Charles S., TAs Negro Collage Graduate. Chapel Hill: The University of 

North Carolina Press, 1938. 
Johnson, Charles S. t "The Negro Public Schools." Section 8 of Louisiana Educational 
Survey: Survey of Elementary and Secondary Education, vol. 4. Baton Rouge: 
Louisiana Educational Survey Commission, 1942. (Mimeographed.) 

Johnson, Charles S., "Negroes in the Railway Industry." Part I. PAylon, vol. 3, no. 1 ; 
First Quarter, 1942; pp. 5-14. Part II. PAylon, vol. 3, no. 2; Second Quarter, 
1942; pp. 196-204. 

Johnson, Charles S., Shadow of the Plantation. Chicago: The University of Chicago 
Press, 1934. 

Johnson, Charles S., and Horace M. Bond, "The Investigation of Racial Differ- 
ences Prior to 1 910." Journal of Negro Education, vol. 3, no. 3; July, 1934; 
pp. 3*8-339. 

Johnson, Charles S., Edwin R. Embree and W. W. Alexander, The Collapse of 
Cotton Tenancy. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1935. 

Johnson, Guion Griffis, "The Impact of War upon the Negro." Journal of Negro 
Education, vol. 10, no. 3; July, 1941; pp. 596-611. 

Johnson, Guy B., "Commencement Address." Virginia State College Gazette, vol. 45, 
no. 3; December, 1939; pp. 10- 1 6. 

Johnson, Guy B., "The Negro and Crime." TAe Annals of the American Academy of 
Political and Social Science, vol. 217; September, 1941; pp. 93-104. 

Johnson, Guy B., "Negro Racial Movements and Leadership in the United States." 
The American Journal of Sociology, vol. 43, no. 1 ; July, 1937; pp. 57-71 . 

Johnson, Guy B., "Some Factors in the Development of Negro Social Institutions in 
the United States." The American Journal of Sociology, vol. 30, no. 3; Novem- 
ber, 1934; pp. 329-337. 

Johnson, James Weldon, Along This Way; the autobiography of James Weldon 
Johnson. New York: The Viking Press, 1933. 

Johnson, James Weldon, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. Boston: Sher- 
man, French and Company, 191 2. 

Johnson, James Weldon, Black Manhattan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930. 

Johnson, James Weldon, Negro Americans, What Now? New York: The Viking 
Press, 1934. 

Johnson, James Weldon, "A Negro Looks at Politics." The American Mercury, vol. 
18, no. 69; September, 1929; pp. 88-94. 

Johnston, Sir Harry H., The Negro in the New World. London: Methuen and 
Company, Ltd., 19 10. 

TAe Journal of Negro History, vol. 27, no. 1, January, 1942. 

Katz, Daniel, and Kenneth Braly, "Racial Stereotypes of One Hundred College 
Students." The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 28, no. 3; 
October-December, 1 93 3; pp. 280-290. 

Keller, Albert G., and Maurice R. Davie (editors), Essays of William Graham 
Sumner. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934. 

Kennedy, John B., "So This Is Harlem." Collier's, vol. 92, no. 18; October 28, 
1933; pp. 22 and 50-52. 

Kennedy, Louise V., The Negro Peasant Turns Cityward; Effects of Recent Migra- 
tion to Northern Centers. New York: Columbia University Press, 1 930. 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1159 

Kbnnby, John A., "The Inter-Racial Committee of Montclair, New Jersey." Journal 

of the National Medical Association, vol. 23, no. 3; July-September, 1931; pp. 

97-109. 
Kester, Howard, Revolt among the Sharecroppers. New York: Covici, Friede, 1936. 
Key, V. O., Jr., Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups. New York: Thomas Y. CroweD 

Company, 1942. 
Kingsbury, Susan M., Hornell Hart and Associates, Newspapers and the News, an 

objective measurement of ethical and unethical behavior by representative news- 
papers. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1937. 
Kiplinger, Willard M., Washington Is Like That. New York: Harper and Brothers. 

1942. 
Kiser, Clyde V., "Birth Rates and Socio-Economic Attributes in 1935." The Milbank 

Memorial Fund Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 2; April, 1939; pp. 128-151. 
Riser, Clyde V., "Fertility of Harlem Negroes." The Milbank- Memorial Fund 

Quarterly, vol. 13, no 3; July, 1935; PP- 2 73"*8s. 
Kiser, Clyde V., Sea Island to City, a study of St. Helena Islanders in Harlem and 

other urban centers. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932. 
Klineberc, Otto, Negro Intelligence and Selective Migration. New York: Columbia 

University Press, 1935. 
Klineberg, Otto, Race Differences. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1935. 
Krout, Maurice H., "Race and Culture: A Study in Mobility, Segregation, and 

Selection." The American Journal of Sociology, vol. 37, no. 2; September, 1931 ; 

pp. 175-189. 
Kurtz, Russell H. (editor), Social Work Yearbook: 1041. New York: Russell Sage 

Foundation, 194 1. 
Lamar, L. Q. C. and others (Symposium) : "Ought the Negro Be Disfranchised f Ought 

He to Have Been Enfranchised? " The North American Review, vol. 1 28 ; March, 

1879; pp. 225-283. 
La Piere, Richard T., Collective Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 

Inc., 1938. 
Lester, Richard A., Economics of Labor. Seattle, Washington: The Washington 

Book Store, 1940. (Mimeographed; now printed.) 
Lester, Robert M., Corporation Grants for Education of the Negro. Carnegie 

Corporation of New York pamphlet, privately printed, 1 941. 
Lewinson, Paul, Race, Class, and Party ; a history of Negro suffrage and white politics 

in the South. London: The Oxford University Press, 1932. 
Lewis, Julian H., The Biology of the Negro. Chicago: The University of Chicago 

Press, 1942. 
Lewis, Matthew G., Journal of a West India Proprietor, 1813-17. Boston: Houghton 

Mifflin Company, 1929. 
Leyburn, James G,, The Haitian People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941. 
Life Magazine, vol. 12, no. 11; March 16, 1942; pp. 40-41. 
Liohtfoot, Robert M., Negro Crime in a Small Urban Community. Charlottesville: 

University of Virginia, 1934. (Phelps-Stokes Fellowship Paper of the University 

of Virginia No. 12.) 
Lincoln, Abraham, "Speech at New Haven, March 6, i860." The Complete Works 



n6o An American Dilemma 

of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 5 (John G. Nicolay and John Hay, editors). New 

York: Francis D. Tandy Company, 1894. 
Litchfield, Edward H., "A Case Study of Negro Political Behavior in Detroit." 

The Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 2 j June, 1 941 ; pp. 267-274. 
Locke, Alain, Negro Art: Past and Present. Washington, D.C.: The Associates in 

Negro Folk Education, 1936. 
Locke, Alain, The Negro and His Music. Washington, D.C.: The Associates in Negro 

Folk Education, 1936. 
Locke, Alain, The New Negro: an interpretation. New York: Albert and Charles 

Boni, 192$. 
Locke, Alain, "Who and What Is a Negro." Opportunity, vol. 20, no. 2; February, 

1942; pp. 36-41. 
Logan, Rayford W. (editor), The Attitude of the Southern White Press toward Negro 

Suffrage: 1012-1040. Washington, D.C.: The Foundation Publishers, 1940. 
Lorimer, Frank, Ellen Winston and Louise K. Riser, foundations of American 

Population Policy. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940. 
Love, A. G., and C. B. Davenport, "A Comparison of White and Colored Troops in 

Respect to Incidence of Disease." Proceedings of the National Academy 

of Sciences, vol. 5, no. 3; March, 1919; pp. 58-67. 
Lynd, Robert S., Knowledge for What? The place of social science in American' 

culture. Princeton: Piinceton University Press, 1939. 
McAlpin, Alice S., "Changes in the Intelligence Quotients of Negro Children." 

Journal of Negro Education, vol. I, no. I ; April I, 1932; pp. 44-48. 
McCarroll, E. Mae, "A Report on the Two-Year Negro Demonstration Health 

Program of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc." A talk delivered 

at the annual convention of the National Medical Association, Cleveland, August 

17, 1942. 
McCuistion, Fred, Graduate Instruction for Negroes in the United States. Nashville: 

George Peabody College for Teachers, 1939. 
McDougall, William, The Group Mind, a sketch of the principles of collective 

psychology. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1920. 
McDougall, William, Is America Safe for Democracy? New York: Charles Scrib- 

ner's, 1 92 1. 
MacIver, Robert M., Social Causation. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1942. 
MacIver, Robert M., Society; Its Structure and Changes. New York: Ray Long and 

Richard R. Smith, Inc., 1931. 
McKay, Claude, Harlem: Negro Metropolis. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 

Inc., 1940. 
McKay, Claude, A Long Way from Home. New York: L. Furman, Inc., 1937. 
McKay, Claude, " 'Segregation' in Harlem?" Column Review, vol. 13, no. 4; Decem- 
ber, 19415 pp. 5-7. 
Maguire, John MacArtmur, "Legal Aid." Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences; 

vol. IX; pp. 319-324. 
Mall, Franklin P., "On Several Anatomical Characters of the Human Brain, Said to 

Vary according to Race and Sex, with Especial Reference to the Weight of the 

Frontal Lobe." The American Journal of Anatomy, vol. 9, no. 1 ; February, 1909; 

pp. I-32. 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material ii6i 

Mangum, Charles S., Jr., The Legal Status of the Negro. Chapel Hill: The Univer- 
sity of North Carolina Press, 1 940. 

Manincton, George, The West Indies with British Guiana and British Honduras. 
London: L. Parsons, 1925. 

Mannheim, Karl, Ideology and Utopia, an introduction to the sociology of knowledge. 
London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubncr and Company, Ltd., 1936. 

Martineau, Harriet, Society in America, 2 vols. New York: Saunders and Otley, 

i837- • ' 

The Mayor's Commission on Conditions in Harlem, "The Negro in Harlem: A Report 

on Social and Economic Conditions Responsible for the Outbreak of March 19, 

1935." New York: 1936. (Typescript.) 
Mays, Benjamin E., "The Negro Church in American Life." Christendom, an ecu- 
menical review, vol. 5, no. 3; Summer, 1940; pp. 387-398. 
Mays, Benjamin E., The Negro's God as reflected in his literature. Boston: Chapman 

and Grimes, Inc., 1938. 
Mays, Benjamin E., and Joseph W. Nicholson, The Negro's Church. New York: 

Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1933. 
Mead, Margaret, Coming of Age in Samoa, a psychological study of primitive youth 

for Western civilization. New York: W. Morrow and Company, 1928. 
Mecklin, John M., Democracy and Race Friction: a study in social ethics. New York: 

The Macmillan Company, 1914. 
Merriam, Charles E., "The Meaning of Democracy." Journal of Negro Education, 

vol. 10, no. 3; July, 1941; pp. 309-317. 
Merriam, Charles E., and Harold F. Gosnei.l, Non-Voting; causes and methods of 

control. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1 924. 
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Statistical Bulletin, vol. 20, no. 6; June, 1939. 
Miller, Delbert C, "Effect of the War Declaration on the National Morale of 

American College Students." American Sociological Review, vol. 7, no. 5 ; October, 

1942; pp. 631-644. 
Miller, Kelly, "Government and the Negro." The Annals of the American Academy 

of Political and Social Science, vol. 140, no. 229; November, 1928; pp. 98-104. 
Miller, Kelly, Out of the House of Bondage. New York: The Neale Publishing 

Company, 1914. 
Miller, Kelly, Race Adjustment — Essays on the Negro in America. New York: The 

Neale Publishing Company, 1908. 
Mims, Edwin, The Advancing South, stories of progress and reaction. Garden City, 

New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1926. 
Mitchell, Broadus, The Rise of Cotton Mills in the South. Baltimore: The Johns 

Hopkins Press, 1 92 1. 
Mitchell, Broadus, and George S. Mitchell, The Industrial Revolution in the 

South. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1930. 
Mitchell, H. L., "The Southern Tenant Farmers Union in 1 94 1 ." Report of the 

Secretary, 1942. (Mimeographed.) 
Modern Industry, "Found: A Million Manpower." Vol. 3, no. 5; May 15, 1942; pp. 

28-31. 
Moffat, R. Burnham, "The Disfranchisement of the Negro, from a lawyer's stand- 
point." Journal of Social Science, vol. 42; September, 1904; pp. 31-62. 



ntSa An American Dilemma 

Montagus, Ludwbll Lxb, Haiti end the United States, 1714-1938. Dnrham: Duke 

University Press, 1940. 
Moore, Wilbert E., and Robin M. Williams, "Stratification in the Ante-Bellnm 

South." American Sociological Review, vol. 7, no. 3; June, 1942; pp. 343-351. 
Moton, Robert Russa, Finding a Way Out; an autobiografhy. Garden City, New 

York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1921. 
* Moton, Robert Russa, What the Negro Thinks. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 

Doran and Company, Inc., 1929. 
Mowrer, Ernest R., Family Disorganization; an introduction to a sociological analysis. 

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1927. 
Murchison, Carl A. (editor), A Handbook of Social Psychology. Worcester, Mas- 
sachusetts: Clark University Press, 1935. 
Murphy, Edgar Gardner, The Basis of Ascendancy, a discussion of certain principles 

of public policy involved in the development of the Southern states. London: 

Longmans, Green, and Company, 1 909. 
Murphy, Edcar Gardner, Problems of the Present South, a discussion of certain of 

the educational, industrial, and political issues in the Southern states. New York: 

The Macmillan Company, 1904. 
Murray, Florence (editor), The Negro Handbook, 1042. New York: Wendell 

Malliet and Company, 1942. 
Myers, Gustavus, America Strikes Back: a record of contrasts. New York: Ives Wash- 
burn, Inc., 1935. 
Myrdal, Alva, Nation and Family, the Swedish experiment in democratic family and 

population policy. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1941. 
Myrdal, Alva and Gunnar, Kontakt Med Amerika. Stockholm: Albert Bonnier, 1941. 
Myrdal, Gunnar, Monetary Equilibrium. London: W. Hodge and Company, Ltd., 

1939- 
Myrdal, Gunnar, Das Politische Element in der Nationalokonomischen Doktrinbild- 

ung. Aus dem Schwedischen Ubersetzt von Gerhard Mackenroth. Berlin: Junker 

und Dunnhaupt, 1932. 
Myrdal, Gunnar, Population, a problem for democracy. Cambridge: Harvard Univer- 
sity Press, 1940. 
Myrdal, Gunnar, "Das Zweck-Mitteldenken in der Nationalokonomie." Zeitchrift 

fur Nationatokottomie, bund IV. Vienna, Austria: 1932. 
Nation, "Prostitution in New York City." Vol 142, no. 3690; March 25, 1936; p. 369. 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "Bulletin." New York: 

June, 1942. (Mimeographed.) 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NA.A.C.P. Annual 

Report for 1941. New York: National Association for the Advancement of Colored 

People, 1942. 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "Press Service." New 

York: December 12, 1941. (Mimeographed.) 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "Press Service." New 

York: February 13, 1942. (Mimeographed.) 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "Press Service." New 

York: February 27, 1942. (Mimeographed.) 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1163 

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "Press Service." New 

York: July 17, 1942. (Mimeographed.) 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "Press Service." New 

York: July 31, 1942. (Mimeographed.) 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Teacher? Salaries in 

Black and White. A Pamphlet for Teachers and Their Friends. New York: 

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, September, 1941. 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Thirty Years of Lynch- 
ing in the United States, 1809-1018. New York: National Association for the 

Advancement of Colored People, 191 9. 
National Education Association of the United States, Research Division, Research 

Bulletin. Vol. 18, no. 5; November, 1940. 
National Industrial Conference Board, The Economic Almanac for 1042-1043. New 

York: National Industrial Conference Board, 1942. 
The National Urban League, "Report of Progress in the War Employment of Negro 

Labor." July, 1942. (Mimeographed.) 
Neff, Lawrence W., Race Relations at Close Range; watching the Negro problem 

settle itself. Emory University, Georgia: Banner Press, 1931. 
Netteis, Curtis P., The Roots of American Civilization: a history of American 

colonial Life. New York: F. S. Crofts and Company, 1938. 
The New Republic, "The Revolt of the Evil Fairies." Vol. 106, no. 14; April 16, 

1942; pp. 458-459- 
New York Herald Tribune, October 16, 1 94 1, p. 5. 
New York Herald Tribune, March 13, 1942, p. 10. 
New York Herald Tribune, April 5, 1942, p. 3. 
New York Herald Tribune, May 10, 1942. 
New York Herald Tribune, June 10, 1942. 
New York Post, January 20, 1939. 
New York Post, November 9, 1939. 
New York Times, January II, 1939. 
New York Times, May 26, 1941. 
New York Times, April 3, 1942. 
New York Times, Editorial, April 3, 1942. 
New York Times, May 26, 1942, p. 20. 
New York Times, July 20, 1942. 
New York Times, September 2, 1942, p. 3. 
New York City's Welfare Council, "Report of the Sub-Committee on Crime and 

Delinquency of the City-Wide Citizens' Committee on Harlem." New York: 

1942. (Mimeographed). 
Newsweek, vol. 12, no. 5; August 1, 1938; pp. 7-8. 
Nixon, Herman Clarence, Forty Acres and Steel Mules. Chapel Hill: The University 

of North Carolina Press, 1938. 
Norfolk Journal and Guide, February 28, 1942. 
Northrup, Herbert R., "Negro Labor and Union Policies in the South." Unpublished 

Ph. D. thesis, Harvard University, 1942. 
Northrup, Herbert R., "The Tobacco Workers International Union." The Quarterly 

Journal of Economics, vol. 56, no. 4; August, 1942; pp. 606-626. 



X164 An American Dilemma 

Notrstein, Frank W., "Differential Fertility in the East North Central States." The 
Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, vol, 16, no. 2; April, 1938; pp. 171-191. 

Noltrse, Edwin G., Joseph S. Davis and John D. Black, Three Years of the Agri- 
cultural Adjustment Administration. Washington, D. C: The Brookings Institution, 

»937- 
O'Connor, William Barnes, "The Use of Colored Persons in Skilled Occupations." 

The Conference Board Management Record, vol. 3. no. 12; December, 1941; 

pp. 156-158. 
Odum, Howard W., Social and Mental Traits of the Negro ; research into the condi- 
tions of the Negro race in Southern towns, a study in race traits, tendencies and 

frosfects. New York: Columbia University, 1 910. 
Odum, Howard W., and Harry E. Moore, American Regionalism; a cultural-histori- 
cal affroach to national integration. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1938. 
Offord, Carl, "Slave Markets in the Bronx." Nation, vol. 150, no. 26; June 29, 

194.O; pp. 780-781. 
Ocburn, William F., "Man and His Institutions." Publication of the American 

Sociological Society, vol. 29, no. 3; August, 1935; pp. 29-40. 
Olmsted, Frederick L., The Cotton Kingdom-, a traveller's observations on cotton 

and slavery in the American slave states, 2 vols. New York: Mason Brothers, 

1 861-1862. 
Offortunity, "The Vanishing Mulatto." Vol. 3, no. 34.; October, 1925; p. 291. 
Osborn, Frederick, Preface to Eugenics. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940. 
PM, February 10, 1942, p. 20. 
PM, February 13, 1942, p. 14. 
PM, May 7, 1 942. 
PM, June 23, 1942, p. 22. 
PM, August 16, 1942, p. 17. 
PM, September 15, 1942. 
PM, September 22, 1942. 
Page, Thomas Nelson, The Negro: The Southerner's Problem. New York: Charles 

Scribner's Sons, 1904. 
Panunzio, Constantine, "Intermarriage in Los Angeles, 1924-1933." The American 

Journal of Sociology, vol. 47, no. 5; March, 1942; pp. 690-701. 
Park, Robert E., "The Bases of Race Prejudice." The Annals of the American 

Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 140, no. 229; November, 1928; pp. 

1 1-20. 

Park, Robert E., "Behind Our Masks." The Survey: Graf hie Number, vol. 56, no. 3; 

May 1, 1926; pp. 135-139- 
Park, Robert E., "Collective Behavior." Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences; vol. Ill ; 

pp. 631-633. 
Park, Robert E., The Immigrant Press and Its Control. New York: Harper and 

Brothers, 1922. 
Park, Robert E., "Social Planning and Human Nature." Publication of the American 

Sociological Society, vol. 29, no. 3; August, 1935; pp. 19-28. 
Park, Robert E., and Ernest W. Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology 

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1921. 
Parrington, Vernon L., Main Currents in American Thought. New York: Harcourt 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1165 

Brace and Company; vol. I, The Colonial Mind, i6»o-t8oo; vol. 2, Romantic 
Revolution in America, 1800-1860; vol. 3, The Beginnings of Critical Realism 
in America, 1860-1920 (completed to 1900 only), 1927-1930. 

Payne, George E., "Negroes in the Public Elementary Schools of the North." The 
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 140, no. 229; 
November, 1928; pp. 224-233. 

Pearl, Raymond, "Fertility and Contraception in Urban Whites and Negroes." 
Science, vol, 83, no. 2160; May, 1936; pp. 503-506. 

Pearl, Raymond, The Natural History of Population. London: The Oxford Univer- 
sity Press, 1939. 

Peirce, Paul S., The Freedmen's Bureau. A Chafter in the History of Reconstruction. 
Iowa City: The University of Iowa, 1904. 

Penn, Irvine Garland, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors. Springfield, Mas- 
sachusetts: Willey and Company, 189 1. 

Phillips, Ulrich B., American Negro Slavery; a survey of the supply, employment 
and control of Negro labor as determined by the plantation regime. New York: 
D. Appleton and Company, 1918. 

Pierce, Bessie L., Public Opinion and the Teaching of History in the United States. 
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926. 

Pierce, Claude C, "State Programs for Planned Parenthood." Address read at the 
Conference of State and Provincial Health Authorities of North America. Wash- 
ington, D.C.: March 23-24, 1942. 

Pinchbeck, Raymond B., The Virginia Negro Artisan and Tradesman. Richmond: 
The William Byrd Press, Inc., 1926. 

Pinckard, George, Notes on the West Indies, including observations relative to the 
Creoles and slaves of the western colonies, and the Indians of South America ; 
interspersed with remarks upon the seasoning or yellow fever of hot climates, 
2 vols. London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, second edition, 18 16. 

Pintner, Rudolph, Intelligence Testing — Methods and Results. New York: Henry 
Holt and Company, 1923. 

Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., "Distribution of Birth Control 
Centers and Services." New York: July, 1942. (Mimeographed.) 

Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., "The Legal Status of Contraception." 
New York; July, 1942. (Mimeographed.) 

Poindexter, H. A., "Special Health Problems of Negroes in Rural Areas." Journal of 
Negro Education, vol. 6, no. 3; July, 1937; pp. 399-412. 

Pollock, H. M., "Frequency of Dementia Praecox in Relation to Sex, Age, Environ- 
ment, Nativity, and Race." Mental Hygiene, vol. io, no. 3; July, 1926; pp. 
596-611. 

Porter, Kenneth W., "Notes Supplementary to 'Relations Between Negroes and 
Indians.'" The Journal of Negro History , vol. 18, no. 3; July, 1933, pp. 282-321. 

Porter, Kenneth W., "Relations Between Negroes and Indians Within the Present 
Limits of the United States." The Journal of Negro History, vol. 17, no. 3; 
July, 1932, pp. 287-367. 

Pound, Roscoe, Criminal Justice in the American City — A Summary. Cleveland: The 
Cleveland Foundation, 1922. (Part 7 of the Cleveland Foundation Survey of 
Criminal Justice in Cleveland.) 



1 1 66 An American Dilemma 

Powdermaker, Hortense, After Freedom; * cultural study in the deaf South. New 

York: The Viking Pros, 1939. 
Pro-Slavery, the argument as maintained by the most distinguished writers ef the 

southern states. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, and Company, 1853. 
The Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 3, no. 4; October, 1939; pp. 586-587, 592. 
The Public Ofinion Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 1 ; March, 1940; pp. 91 ; no. 35 September, 

I9+05 p. 547- 

The Public Ofinion Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 3; Fall, 1941; p. 477. 

Puckett, Newbell N., Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro. Chapel Hill: The Uni- 
versity of North Carolina Press, 1926. 

Ptus, W. H., "The Learning Capacity of Negro Children." The Psychological Bul- 
letin, vol. 13; 1916; pp. 82-83. 

Quillin, Frank U., The Color Line in Ohio; a history of race frcjudice in a typical 
northern state. Ann Arbor: George Wahr, 191 3. (University of Michigan His- 
torical Series.) 

Raleigh News and Observer, May 3, 1942. 

Randolph, A. Philip, Address, March on Washington Movement, in Madison Square 
Garden. June 16, 1942. (Mimeographed.) 

Randolph, A. Philip, The World Crisis and the Negro People Today. Speech to the 
Third National Negro Congress. Washington, D.C.: April, 1940. 

Rapek, Arthur F., Preface to Peasantry; a tale of two black belt counties. Chapel 
Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1936. 

Raper, Arthur F., The Tragedy of Lynching. Chapel Hill: The University of North 
Carolina Press, 1933. 

Reddick, Lawrence D., "A New Interpretation for Negro History." The Journal of 
Negro History, vol. 22, no. I; January, 1937; pp. 17-28. 

Reddick, Lawrence D., "Racial Attitudes in American History Textbooks of the 
South." The Journal of Negro History, vol. 19, no. 3; July, 1934; pp. 225-265. 

Redding, J. Saunders, "Playing the Numbers." The North American Review, vol. 
238, no. 6; December, 1934; pp. 533-542. 

Reedy, Sidney V., "The Negro Magazine: A Critical Study of Its Educational Signif- 
icance." Journal of Negro Education, vol. 3, no. 4; October, 1934; pp. 598-604. 

Reid, Ira DeA., In A Minor Key; Negro Youth in Story and Fact. Washington, D.C.: 
American Council on Education, 1940. (Prepared for the American Youth Com- 
mission.) 

Reid, Ira DeA., Social Conditions of the Negro in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. 
Pittsburgh: General Committee on the Hill Survey, 1930. 

Reuter, E. B., The American Race Problem', a study of the Negro. New York: 
Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1927. 

Reuter, E. B., The Mulatto in the United States: including a study of the role of 

the mixed-blood races throughout the world. Boston: R. G. Badger, 191 8. 
Reuter, E. B. (editor), Race and Culture Contacts, New York: McGraw-Hill Book 

Company, Inc., 1934. 
Reuter, E. B., Race Mixture, studies in intermarriage and miscegenation. New York: 

Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 193 1. 
Rice, John Andrew, I Came Out of the Eighteenth Century. New York: Harper and 
Brothers, 1942. 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1167 

Richards, Henry I., Cotton and the AAA. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institu- 
tion, 1936. 

Richmond News Leader, "The New* Leader Forum." December 6, 194 1. 

Rinchon, Dieudonne, pere, Le Trafic Nigrier, d'apres let Ikires de commerce du 
capitame Gantois Pierre-lgnace Liivm van Alstein. V organisation commtrciale de 
la traite des noirs. Uccle Bruxelles: Les Editions Atlas, 1938' 

Rivers, W. H. R., "Observations on the Senses of the Todas." The British Journal of 
Psychology, vol. 1, part 4; December, 1905; pp. 321-396. 

Robert, Joseph C, The Tobacco Kingdom; plantation, market, and factory in Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina, 1800-1860. Durham: Duke University Press, 1938. 

Robertson, William J., The Changing South. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927. 

Rogers, Joel A., This Mongrel World, a study of Negro-Caucasian mixture through- 
out the ages, and in all countries. New York: J. A. Rogers, publisher, 1927. 

Roman, Charles V., American Civilization and the Negro; the Afro-American in 
relation to national progress. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Company, 1916. 

Rosenstein, Joseph, "Government and Social Structure in a Deep South Community," 
Unpublished M.A. thesis, The University of Chicago, 1 941. 

Rosenthal, Solomon P., "Racial Differences in the Incidence of Mental Disease." 
Journal of Negro Education, vol. 3, no. 3; July, 1934; pp. 484-493. 

Ross, F. H., and L. V. Kennedy, A Bibliography of Negro Migration. New York: 
Columbia University Press, 1934. 

Rousseve, Charles Barthelemy, The Negro in Louisiana, aspects of his history and 
his literature. New Orleans: The Xavier University Press, 1937. 

Royce, Josiah, Race Questions, Provincialism and Other American Problems. New 
York: The Macmillan Company, 1908. 

Russell, John H., The Tree Negro In Virginia, 1610-1865. Baltimore: Johns Hop- 
kins Press, 1913. (Studies in History and Political Science, series 31, no. 3), 

Sait, Edward McChesney, American Parties and Elections. New York: The Century 
Company, 1927. 

"A Salary Study for the Lexington Public Schools." Bulletin of the Bureau of School 
Service, vol. 7, no. 3; University of Kentucky, March, 1935. 

Sanger, Margaret, Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography. New York: W. W. Norton 
and Company, 1938. 

Sanger, Margaret, My Fight for Birth Control. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 
1931. 

Schanck, R. L., "A Study of a Community and Its Groups and Institutions Conceived 
of as Behaviors of Individuals." Psychological Monographs, vol. 43, no. 19;; 1932. 

Schmidt, Carl T., American Farmers in the World Crisis. New York: The Oxford 
University Press, 1 941. 

Schrieke, B., Alien Americans, New York: Viking Press, 1936. 

Schurz, Carl, "For the Great Empire of Liberty, Forward!" Speech delivered at 
Concert Hall, Philadelphia, September 16, 1864. Washington, D.C.: Union 
Congressional Committee, 1864. 

Schuyler, George S., "Views and Reviews." The Pittsburgh Courier, May 9, 1942. 

Schuyler, George S., "Views and Reviews." The Pittsburgh Courier, June 13, 1942. 

Schuyler, George S., "The Negro-Art Hokum." Nation, vol. 121, no. 3180s 
June 16, 1926; pp. 662-666. 



n68 An American Dilemma 

Schuyler, George S., "Quantity or Quality." The Birth Control Review, vol. 1 6, 

no. 6; June, 1932; pp. 165-166. 
Schuyler, George S., "Who is 'Negro'? Who is 'White'?" Common Ground, vol. 1, 

no. I; Autumn, 1940; pp. 53-56. 
Scott, EmmETt J., Scott's Official History of the American Negro in the World War. 

Chicago: Homewood Press, 1919. 
Scott, Emmett J., and Lyman Beecher Stowe. Booker T. Washington, Builder of 

a Civilization. Garden City, New York: Doublcday, Page and Company, 1916. 
Seibels, Robert, "The Integration of Pregnancy Spacing into a State Maternal Wel- 
fare Program." Southern Medicine and Surgery, vol. 102, no. 4; May, 1940; pp. 

230-241. 
Seibels, Robert, "A Rural Project in Negro Maternal Health." Human Fertility, 

vol. 6, no. 2; April, 1941; pp. 42-44. 
Shaler, Nathaniel S., The Neighbor-, the natural history of human contacts. Boston: 

Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1904. 
Shapiro, Harry L., Migration and Environment; a study of the fhysieal characteristics 

of the Japanese immigrants to Hawaii and the efects of environment on their 

descendants. New York: The Oxford University Press, 1939. 
Shaw, Anna Howard, The Story of a Pioneer. New York: Harper and Brothers, 191 5. 
Shaw, Clifford R., and Henry D. McKay, Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas. 

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1942. 
Shaw, George Bernard, Man and Superman, A Comedy and Philosophy. New York: 

Brentano's, 1904. (First edition, 1 903). 
Shay, Frank, Judge Lynch, his first hundred years. New York: Ives Washburn, Inc., 

1938. 

Shufeldt, Robert W., America's Greatest Problem: The Negro. Philadelphia: F. A. 
Davis Company, 1 91 5. 

Siegfried, Andre, America Comes of Age, A French Analysis. (Translated by H. H. 
and Doris Hemming.) New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1927. 

Sim kins, Butler, "Ben Tillman's View of the Negro." The Journal of Southern 
History, vol. 2, no. 2; May, 1937; pp. 161-174. 

Simms, W. Gilmore, Address on the Occasion of the Inauguration of the Spartanburg 
Female College, August 12, 1855. Spartanburg: Published by the Trustees, 1855. 

Simpson, George Eaton, The Negro in the Philadelphia Press, Philadelphia: Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1936. 

Sinckler, Edward G., The Barbados Handbook. London: Duckworth and Company, 
1914. 

Smith, Mapheus, "A Study of Change of Attitudes toward the Negro." Journal of 
Negro Education, vol, 8, no. 1; January, 1939; pp. 64-70. 

Smith, Reginald Heber, Justice and the Poor, a study of the present denial of Justice 
to the poor and of the agencies making more equal their position before the law, 
toith particular reference to legal aid work in the United States. New York: Car- 
negie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1919. (Bulletin, no. 13.) 

Smith, Samuel Denny, The Negro in Congress 1870-1901. Chapel Hill: The 
University of North Carolina Press, 1940. 

Smith, Thomas Lynn, The Sociology of Rural Life. New York: Harper and Brothers, 
194O. 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1169 

Social Science Research Committee of the University of Chicago, "History of Doug- 
hs." Unpublished document, no. 15. 

Social Science Research Committee of the University of Chicago, "History of Grand 
Boulevard." Unpublished document, no. 7. 

Southern Tenant Fanners' Union, "History of S.T.F.U." Memphis, no date. (Mime- 
ographed). 

Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, The Tenant Farmer. 

Spero, Sterling D., and Abram L. Harris, The Black Worker; The Negro and the 
Labor Movement. New York: Columbia University Press, 1931. 

Spier, Leslie, Growth of Japanese Children Born in America and in Japan. Seattle, 
Washington: University of Washington Press, 1929. 

Steiner, Jesse F., and Roy M. Brown, The North Carolina Chain Gang; a study of 
county convict road work. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 

1927. 
Stephens, Oren, "Revolt on the Delta." Harper's Magazine, vol. 183, no. 1098; 

November, 194.1 ; pp. 656-664. 
Stephenson, Gilbert T., Race Distinctions in American Laze. New York: D. Apple- 
ton and Company, 1910. 
Stewart, J., A View of the Past and Present State of the Island of Jamaica; with 

remarks on the moral and physical condition of the slaves and on the abolition of 

slavery in the colonies, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1823. 
Stoddard, Lothrop, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy. 

New York: Charles Scribncr's Sons, 1920. 
Stone, Alfred Holt. Studies in the American Race Problem. Garden City, New 

York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1908. 
Stonequist, Everett V., The Marginal Man; a study in- personality end culture 

conflict. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937. 
Stoney, George E., "Suffrage in the South, Part II: The One Party System." Survey 

Graphic, vol. 29, no. 3; March, 1940; pp. 163-167, 204-205. 
Storey, Moorfield, Problems of To-day. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920. 
Strong, Edward K., The Second-Generation Japanese Problem. Stanford University, 

California: Stanford University Press, 1934. 
Strong, Samuel M., "The Social Type Method: Social Types in the Negro Com- 
munity of Chicago." Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, The University of Chicago, 1940. 
Stroud, George M., A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States 

of the United States of America. Philadelphia: Kimber and Sharpless, 1827. 
Sumner, William, Folkways. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1906. 
Sumner, William, What Social Classes Otoe to Each Other. New York: Harper and 

Brothers, 1883. 
Sutherland, Edwin H., "White-Collar Criminality." American Sociological Review, 

vol. 5, no. 1} February, 1940; pp. 1-12. 
Sutherland, Robert L., Color, Class, and Personality. Washington, D.C.: American 

Council on Education, 1942. (Prepared for the American Youth Commission.) 
Taeuber, Conrad and Irene B., "Negro Rural Fertility Ratios in the Mississippi 
Delta." TAe Southwestern Social Science Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 3; December, 
194O; pp. 210-220. 



1 1 70 An American Dilemma 

Tannenbaum, Frank, Darker P fusts of the South. New York: G. P. Pntnam'i Sons, 

19*4- 

Tarxington, Booth, Penrod, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page and Com- 
pany, 1914. 

Tatlor, A. A., "Historians of the Reconstruction." The Journal of Negro History, 
vol. 23, no. 1; January, 1938; pp. 16-34. 

Thomas, Norman, "How Democratic are Labor Unions?" Harper's Magazine, vol. 
184, no. 1104; May, 1942; pp. 655-662. 

Thomas, William H., The American Negro, A Critical and Practical Discussion. 
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1901. 

Thomas, William I., Sex and Society. Studies in the Social Psychology of Sex. Chicago: 
The University of Chicago Press, 1907. 

Thomas, William I., Sourcebook for Social Origins. Ethnological materials, psy- 
chological standpoint, classified and annotated bibliographies for the interpretation 
of savage society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1909. 

Thomas, William I., and Florian Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and 
America; Monograph of an Immigrant Group, 5 vols. Chicago: The University 
of Chicago Press; vol. 3, Boston: R. G. Badger, 191 8-1920. 

Thompson, Charles H., "The Conclusions of Scientists Relative to Racial Differ- 
ences." Journal of Negro Education, vol, 3, no. 3; July, 1934; pp. 494"5'2. 

Thompson, Charles, H., "The Status of Education Of and For the Negro in the 
American Social Order." Journal of Negro Education, vol. 8, no. 3; July, 1939; 
pp. 489-510. 

Thompson, Edcar T., "Population Expansion and the Plantation System." The 
American Journal of Sociology, vol. 41, no. 3; November, 1935; pp. 314-326. 

Thompson, Edgar T., (editor), Race Relations and the Race Problem, A Definition 
and An Analysis. Durham: Duke University Press, 1939. 

Thoreau, Henry David, A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers. 
(Sophia Thoreau and W. E. Channing, editors.) Boston: J. R. Osgood and Com- 
pany, 1878. 

Thurstone, L. L., "An Experimental Study of Nationality Preferences." The Journal 
of General Psychology, vol. 1, nos. 3 and 4; July-October, 1928$ pp. 405-425. 

Time, vol. 22, no. 9; August 28, 1933, p. 32. 

Time, vol. 38, no. 8; August 25, 1941 ; p. 8. 

Time, vol. 38, no. IO; September 8, 1941; p. 13. 
'Time, vol. 40, no. 4; July 27, 1942, p. 17. 

Time, vol. 40, no. II; September, 14, 1942; p. 46. 

Tingsten, Herbert, Political Behavior; studies in election statistics. London: P. S. 
King and Son, Ltd., 1937. 

Tocqueville, Alexis de, Democracy in America. (Translated by Henry Reeve). 
2 vols. New York: The Colonial Press, 1899. (First edition, 1835.) 

Tooo, T. W., "Entrenched Negro Physical Features." Human Biology, vol. 1, no. 1 ; 
January, 19295 pp. 57-69. 

Todd, T. W., and Anna Lindala, "Dimensions of the Body: Whites and American 
Negroes of Both Sexes." American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol. 1 2, no. 
i; July-September, 1928; pp. 35-119. 



List of Boom, Pamphlets and Other Material 1171 

Tolhai, B. B., "Abortions and the Law." Nation, vol. 14.8, no. 161 April 1$, 1939; 
pp. 424-4*7- 

Turner, Frederick Jackson, The frontier in American History. New York: Henry 
Holt and Company, 1920. 

Turner, Frederick Jackson, "The Significance of the Frontier in American His- 
tory." Address delivered at the forty-first annual meeting of the State Historical 
Society of Wisconsin, December 14, 1893. Madison, Wisconsin: The State 
Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1 894, pp. 79-1 1 t. 

Twelve Southerners, Pll Take My Stand: the South and the agrarian tradition. New 
York: Harper and Brothers, 1930. 

The Twentieth Century Fund, Facing the Tax Problem. New York: The Twentieth 
Century Fund, 1937. 

Underhill, Edward B., The West Indies: their social and religious condition. 
London: Jackson, Walford and Hodder, 1862. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Births, Stillbirths and Infant Mortality Statistics: 1036. 
Washington, D. C: 1938. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Agriculture: 1035, vol. 3. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Manufactures: 1037. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, A Century of Population Growth in the United States: 
1700-1900. Washington, D.C.: 1909. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Alba M. Edwards, Social-Economic Groufing of the Gain- 
ful Workers of the United States: 1930. Washington, D.C.: 1938. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Eleventh Census of the United States: 1890. Population, 
vol. 2. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Eleventh Census of the United States: i8go. Refort on 
Crime, Pauperism and Benevolence in the United States, Part. 2. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030. Agriculture, 
vols. 2, 3, and 4. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030. Manufac- 
tures: 1020, vol. 2. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030. Population, 
vols. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930. Unemploy- 
ment, vol. 2. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920. Population, 
vol. 3. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negro Population in the United Slates: 1790-1915. 
Washington, D.C.: 1 91 8. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1020-1932. Washington, 
D.C.: 1935. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Prisoners in State and Federal Prisons and Reformatories: 
1939. Washington, D.C.: 1941. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Religious Bodies: 1936. 2 vols. Washington, D.C.: 1941. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940. Agriculture. 
United States Summary, First Series and United States Summary, Second Series. 

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940. Manu- 
factures: 1939, Tobacco Manufacturers Grouf. 



1 1 1% An American Dilemma 

U.S. Borons of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940. Population. 

First Series; Second Series; and Preliminary Releases, Series P-4, nos. 4, 5, 8; 

Series P-4«, nos. 14, 16; Series P-5, nos. 3, 4, 10, 13, 14, 16; Series P-10, 

nos. I, 6, 8, 17. 
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940. Retail Trade. 

Retail Negro Proprietors hi \p — The United States — 1939. Preliminary Release, 

August 29, 1941. 
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1938. Washington, 

D.C.: 1939. 
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1941. Washing- 
ton, D.C.: 1942. 
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 19x0. Agriculture, 

vol. 5. 
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910. Population, 

vol. 4. 
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census of the United States: 1900. Agriculture, 

vol. 5. 
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics: S fecial Reports: 1940. Vol. 14, no. 2; 

Washington, D.C.: 1941. 
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics-Special Reports, Mortality Summary for 

U.S. Registration States: Suicide. Washington, D.C.: September 19, 1942. 
U.S. Census Office, Agriculture of the United States in i860: Compiled from the 

Original Returns of the Eighth Census. Washington, D.C.: 1864. 
U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States: i860. Vol. I. 
U.S. Census Office, Statistics of the United States in i860. Washington, D.C.: 1866. 
U.S. Committee on the Costs of Medical Care, C. Gebhard, Funeral Costs. Washing- 

ton.D.C: 1930. (Miscellaneous Contributions on the Costs of Medical Care, no. 3.) 
U.S. Committee on Discrimination in Employment, "History of the Committee on 

Discrimination in Employment." Washington, D.C.: August 14, 1942. (Mimeo- 
graphed.) 
U.S. Committee, on Negro Housing, Charles S. Johnson (editor), Negro Housing. 

Washington, D.C.: 1932. (Report of the Committee on Negro Housing to the 

President's Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership.) 
U.S. President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice, Negro Employment and 

Training Branch, Labor Division, O.P.M., Minority Groups Branch, Labor 

Division, O.P.M., Minorities in Defense. Washington, D.C.: October, 15, 1942 
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics: 1940. Washington, D.C.: 1941. 
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics: 1941. Washington, D.C.: 1942. 
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, The Agricultural 

Situation. Vol. 26, no. 3, March, 1942; no. 4, April, 1942; no. 8, August, 1942. 
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics, Consumer Purchases 

Study, Farm Series, Urban and Village Series., and Urban, Village and Farm 

Series. Washington, D.C.: 194 1. 
U.S. Department of Agriculture, M. R. Cooper and Associates, "The Causes: Defects 

in Farming Systems and Farm Tenancy." Yearbook of Agriculture: 1938. Wash- 
ington, D.C.: 1938, pp. 137-157- 
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Crop and Markets. Washington, D.C.: July, 1942. 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1173 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, "Extension Work With Negroes." Washington, D.C.: 

no date. (Mimeographed.) 
U.S. Department of Agriculture, J. C. Folsom and O. E. Baker, A Graphic Summary 

of Farm Labor and Population. Washington, D. C: November, 1937. (Miscellane- 
ous publication, no. 26$.) 
U.S. Department of Agriculture, E. L. Langsford and B. H. Thibodeaux, Plantation 

Organization and Operation in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Area. Washington, 

D. C: 1939. (Technical Bulletin, no. 682.) 
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Yearbook of Agriculture: 1038. Washington, D. C: 

1938. 
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Yearbook of Agriculture: 1040. Washington, D. C: 

1940. 
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Cause 

of Negro Insurance Company Failures. Washington, D. C: 1937. (Bulletin, no. 

1 5-) 

U.S. Department of Commerce, Consumer Use of Selected Goods and Services, By 

Income Classes. Washington, D. C: 1935-1937. (Market Research Series, no. 5.) 
U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports 

for the United States and Its Possessions. Fourth Quarterly Bulletin, 1940, vol. 

11, no. 4; January, 1941. 
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Earnings and Hours in Bar, 

Puddling, Sheet-Bar, Rod, Wire, and Sheet Mills, 1933 and 1935." Monthly 

Labor Review, vol. 43, no. 1 ; July, 1936; pp. 113-149. 
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Earnings in Cigarette, Snuff, and 

Chewing-and-Smoking-Tobacco Plants, 1933-35." Monthly Labor Review, vol. 

42, no. 5; May, 1936; pp. 1322-1335. 
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Earnings in the Iron and Steel 

Industry, 1937." Monthly Labor Review, vol. 51, no. 4; October, 1940; pp. 

823-833- " 
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Earnings and Hours in the 

Iron and Steel Industry, April, 1938." Monthly Labor Review,*vo\. 51, no. 2; 

August, 1940; pp. 421-442. 
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Earnings and Hours in the Iron 

and Steel Industry, April, 1938." Part 2. Monthly Labor Review, vol. 51, no. 3; 

September, 1940; pp. 709-726. 
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Earnings and Hours in the 

Meat-Packing Industry, December, 1937." Monthly Labor Review, vol. 49, no. 

4; October, 1939; pp. 936-959. 
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Earnings of Negro Workers in 

the Iron and Steel Industry, April, 1938." Monthly Labor Review, vol. 51, no. 

;; November, 1940; pp. 11 39-1 149. 
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Labor Turnover in the Saw- 
mill Industry, 1933 and 1934." Monthly Labor Review, vol. 40, no. 4; May, 

'935! PP- 1285-1287. 
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Wages and Hours in the Fer- 
tilizer Industry, 1938." Monthly Labor Review, vol. 48, no. 3; March, 1939; 

pp. 666-681. 



1 1 74 An American Dilemma 

U.6. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistic*, Study of Consumer Purchases, 

Urban. Series end Urban Technical Series. Washington, D. C: 1939-1941. 
U.S. Department of Labor, Wage* and Hoars Division, Wage and Hour Reporter, May 

27, 1940. 
U.S. Farm Security Administration, Report of the Administrator: 1941. Washington, 

D. C: 1942. 
U.S. Federal Emergency Relief Administration, Harold Hoffsommer, "Landlord- 
Tenant Relations and Relief in Alabama." Washington, D. C: 1935. (Division 
of Research, Bulletin, series 2, no. 9, mimeographed.) 
U.S. Federal Emergency Relief Administration, Monthly Report, May j, through May 

31, 1934. Washington, D. C: 1934. 
U.S. Federal Housing Administration, Eighth Annual Report. Washington, D. C: 1942. 
U.S. Federal Housing Administration, Homer Hoyt, The Structure and Growth of 

Residential Neighborhoods in American Cities. Washington, D. C: 1939. 
U.S. Federal Housing Administration, Seventh Annual Report. Washington, D. C: 

1941. 
U.S. Federal Housing Administration, Successful Subdivisions. Washington, D. C: 

1 941 (Land Planning Bulletin, no. 1). 
U.S. Federal Housing Administration, Underteriting Manual: With Revisions to 

February, 1038. Washington, D. C: 1938. 
U.S. Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, Bureau of Employment Security, 

The Labor Market. May, 1 94 2. 
U.S. Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, Bureau of Employment Security, 

The Labor Market, June, 1942. 
U.S. Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, Bureau of Employment Security, 

The Labor Market, September, 1942. 
U.S. Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, Bureau of Employment Security, 
"Negro Workers and the National Defense Program." Washington, D. C: Septem- 
ber 16, 1 941. (Mimeographed.) 
U.S. Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, Bureau of Employment Security, 
"Survey of. Employment Prospects for Negroes." Washington, D. C: no date. 
(Mimeographed.) 
U.S. Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, Bureau of Employment Security, 
"USES Operations Bulletin." No. C-45. Washington, D. C: July 1, 1942. 
(Mimeographed.) 
U.S. Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, Bureau of Employment Security, 
"Vocational Training Activities of Public Employment Offices." Washington, D. C: 
January, 1942. (Mimeographed.) 
U.S. Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, Wayne F. Caskey, "Workers with 
Annual Taxable Wages of Less than $200 in 1937-39." Social Security Bulletin, 
vol. 4, no. IO; October, 1 941; pp. 17-24. 
U.S. Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, Old Age and Survivors Insurance 
Statistics, Employment and Wages of Covered Workers, 1038. Washington, 
D. C: 1940. 
U.S. Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, "Operation of the Employment 

Security Program." Social Security Bulletin, vol. 4, no. 10 ; October, 1941. 
U.S. Federal Works Agency, Second Annual Report. Washington, D. C: 194.1. 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1175 

U.S. Homing Authority, What Does the Housing Program Cottt Washington 
D. C: 1940. 

U.S. Industrial Commission, Reports. Vol. 8. Washington, D. C: 1 900-1 902. 

U.S. National Emergency Council, Refort on Economic Conditions of the South. 
Washington, D. C: 1938. 

U.S. National Recovery Administration, F. E. Berquist and Associates, "Economic Survey 
of the Bituminous Coal Industry Under Free Competition and Code Regulation." 
2 vols. Washington, D. C: 1936. (Work Material, no. 69, mimeographed.) 

U.S. National Resources Committee, Consumer Incomes in the United States: Their 
Distribution in 1935-36. Washington, D. C: 1938. 

U.S. National Resources Committee, Farm Tenancy, Refort of the Presidents Com- 
mittee. Washington, D. C: 1937. 

U.S. National Resources Committee, Our Cities; Their Role in the National Economy, 
Washington, D. C: 1937. 

U.S. National Resources Committee, The Problems of a Changing Population; Refort 
of the Committee on Pofulation Problems to the National Resources Committee. 
Washington, D. C: 1938. 

U.S. National Resources Committee, Sufflementary Refort to Our Cities. Vol. 1, 
Urban Govermnent. Washington, D.C.: 1939. 

U.S. National Resources Committee, Warren S. Thompson and P. K. Whelpton, "Esti- 
mates of the Future Population of the United States — 194.0-1980." Pofulation 
Statistics. 1. National Data. Washington, D. C: 1937. 

U.S. National Resources Planning Board, National Resources Development, Refort for 
1942. Washington, D. C: 1942. 

U.S. Office of Education, Advisory Committee on Education, The Federal Government 
and Education. Washington, D. C: 1938. 

U.S. Office of Education, Advisory Committee on Education, Federal Relations to Edu- 
cation, 2 vols. Washington, D. C: 193 1. 

U.S. Office of Education, Advisory Committee on Education, Clarence Heer, Federal 
Aid and the Tax Problem. Washington, D. C: 1939. (Staff Study, no. 4.) 

U.S. Office of Education, Advisory Committee on Education, Refort of the Committee, 
February, 1938. Washington, D. C: 1938. 

U.S. Office of Education, Advisory Committee on Education. Doxey A. Wilkerson, 
Special Problems of Negro Education. Washington, D. C: 1939. (Staff Study, 
no. 12.) 

U. S. Office of Education, Biennial Survey of Education in the United States: 1934-36. 
Washington, D. C: 1938. (Bulletin, 1938, no. 2.) 

U.S. Office of Education, David T. Blose and Ambrose Caliver, Statistics of the Educa- 
tion of Negroes, 1933-34 and 1935-36. Washington, D. C: 1939. (Bulletin, 
1938, no. 13.) 

U.S. Office of Education, Ambrose Caliver, Rural Elementary Education Among Negroes 
Under J canes Supervising Teachers. Washington, D. C: 1933. (Bulletin, 1933, 
no. 5.) 

U.S. Office of Education, Ambrose Caliver, Vocational Education and Guidance of 
Negroes. Washington, D. C: 1938. (Bulletin, 1938, no. 38.) 

U.S. Public Health Service, The National Health Survey 1935-36, Bernard D. Karpinos, 



1 1 76 An American Dilemma 

The Socio-Economie and Employment Status of the Urban Youth of the United 
Statu 1935-1936. Washington, D. C: 1941. 
U.S. Public Health Service, The National Health Survey, 1935-36. Preliminary Reports. 
Adequacy of Urban Housing in the United States As Measured by Degree of 
Crowding and Tyfe of Sanitary Facilities. Washington, D. C: National Institute 
of Health, 1939. (Sickness and Medical Care Series, Bulletin, no. 5.) 
U.S. Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration in Cooperation with the Writers' 
Program of the Work Projects Administration, Puerto Rico, A Guide to the Island 
of Boriquen. New York: The University Society, Inc., 1940. 
U.S. Senate, Second Session on S. Res. 266. Violations of Free Speech and Assembly and 
Interference With Rights of Labor. Report of LaFollette Committee. Hearings 
before a Sub-committee of the Committee on Education and Labor. Washington, 
D. C: 1936. 
U.S. Senate, Seventy-sixth Congress, first session on S. 1 970. Oppressive Labor Practices 
Act. Report of the LaFollette Committee. Hearings before a Sub-committee of the 
Committee on Education and Labor. Washington, D. C: 1939. 
U.S. War Production Board, Statistics Division, "State Distribution of War Supply and 
Facility Contracts, June, 1940 through May, 1942." Washington, D. C: 1942. 
(Mimeographed.) 
U.S. Works Progress Administration. R. H. Allen and Associates, Part-Time Farming in 

the Southeast. Washington, D. C: 1937. (Research monograph, no. 9.) 
U.S. Works Progress Administration, Anne E. Geddes, Trends in Relief Expenditures, 
1010-1935. Washington, D. C: 1937. (Division of Social Research, monograph, 
no. 10.) 
U.S. Works Progress Administration, Margaret Loom is Stecker, Intercity Differences 
in Costs of Living in March, 103s, 59 Cities. Washington, D. C: 1937. (Research 
monograph no. 12.) 
U.S. Works Progress Administration, Margaret Loomis Stecker, Quantity Budgets of 
Goods and Services for a Basic Maintenance Standard of Living and for Operation 
under Emergency Conditions. Washington, D. C: 1936 (Research bulletin, scries 
1, no. 21.) 
U.S. Works Progress Administration, Thomas J. Woofter, Jr. and Associates, Land- 
lord and Tenant on the Cotton Plantation. Washington, D. C: 1936. (Research 
monograph, no. 5.) 
U.S. Work Projects Administration, William C. Holley, Ellen Winston, and Thomas 
J. Woofter, Jr., The Plantation South, 1934-1937. Washington, D. C: 1940. 
(Division of Research, monograph, no. 22.) 
U.S. Work Projects Administration, Roman L. Home and Eugene G. McKibben, 
Changes in Farm Pouter and Equipment, Mechanical Cotton Picker. Philadelphia: 
1937. (National Research Project on Re-employment Opportunities and Recent 
Changes in Industrial Techniques. Studies of Changing Techniques and Employ- 
ment in Agriculture, Report A, no. 2.) 
U.S. Work Projects Administration, Mechanization in Lumber. Washington, D. C: 

1940. (National Research Project, Report no. M-5.) 
U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Projects, The Negro in Virginia. 
New York: Hastings House, 1940. 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1177 

U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers* Projects, These Are Our Lives. 
Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1939. 

Vance, Rupert B., "Cotton and Tenancy." Problems of the Cotton Economy. Dallas, 
Texas: Southern Regional Committee of the Social Science Research Council, 
1936. (Proceedings of the Southern Social Science Research Conference. New 
Orleans, Louisiana, March, 1935.) 

Vance, Rupert B., Human Factors in Cotton Culture; a study in the social geography 
of the American South. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 
1929. 

Vance, Rupert B., Human Geography of the South: a study in regional resources and 
human adequacy. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1932. 

Vance, Rupert B., "The Regional Approach to the Study of High Fertility." The 
Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, vol. 19, no. 4.; October, 1941 ; pp. 356-374. 

Van Dsusen, John G., The Black Man in White America. Washington, D. C: 
Associated Publishers, Inc., 1938. 

Veblen, Thorstein, The Theory of the Leisure Class; an economic study in the 
evolution of institutions. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1899. 

Virginia Department of Labor and Industry, Forty-Third Annual Report; Industrial 
Statistics, Calendar Year, 1530. Richmond, 1941. 

Virginia Department of Labor and Industry, Thirty-Fourth Annual Report; Industrial 
Statistics, Calendar Year, 1030. Richmond: 1932. 

Vollmer, August, The Police and Modern Society. Berkeley, California: University 
of California Press, 1936. 

Walker, Harry J., "Negro Benevolent Societies in New Orleans." Unpublished manu- 
script, Fisk University, 1936. 

Walker, Ira De., and Associates, Thus Be Their Destiny. Washington, D. C: Ameri- 
can Council on Education, 194 1. (Prepared for the American Youth Commission.) 

Walker, Mabel L., Urban Blight and Slums; economic and legal factors in their 
origin, reclamation and prevention. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938. 

Wallace, Henry, "The Price of Free World Victory." Speech before Free World 
Association, 1942. (Mimeographed press release from the Office of the Vice- 
President.) 

Walsh, John Raymond, C.I.O.: industrial unionism in action. New York: W, W. 
Norton and Company, 1937. 

Ware, Caroline F., Greenwich Village, 1020-1030; a comment on American civiliza- 
tion in the post-war years. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1935. 

Warner, Robert Austin, New Haven Negroes, a social history. New Haven, Yale 
University Press, 1940. 

Warner, W. Lloyd, Bupord H., Junker, and Walter A. Adams, Color and Human 
Nature, Negro personality development in a Northern city. Washington, D.C.: 
American Council on Education, 1941. (Prepared for the American Youth Com- 
mission.) 

Warner, W. Lloyd, and Paul S. Lunt, The Social Life of a Modern Community. 
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941. 

Washburne, Carleton, Louisiana Looks at Its Schools. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Educa- 
tional Survey Commission, 1942. 



1 178 An American Dilemma 

Washington, Books* T«, The Future of the America* Negro. Boston: Small, MaynarcF 

and Company, 1899. 
Washington, Booker T., "My View of Segregation Laws." The New Republic, vol. 

5, no. 57; December 4, 1915; pp. 11 3-1 14. 
Washington, Booker T., The Story of the Negro: the rise of the race from slavery, 

2 vols. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1909. 
Washington, Booker T., Up from Slavery ; an autobiography. Garden City, New York: 

Doubleday, Page and Company, 1900. 
Washington, George, Letters and Addresses of George Washington. (Jonas Viles, 

editor.) New York: The Unit Book Publishing Company, 1908. 
Washington, Forrester B., "Recreational Facilities for the Negro." The Annals of 

the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 140, no, 229; Novem- 
ber, 1928} pp. 272-282. 
Weatherford, Willis D., Negro Life in the South; present conditions and needs. 

New York: Young Men's Christian Association Press, 1910. 
Weatherford, Willis D., Present Forces in Negro Progress. London: Association 

Press, 1 91 2. 
Weatherford, Willis D., and Charles S. Johnson, Race Relations; adjustment of 

whites and Negroes in the United States. Boston : D. C. Heath and Company, 1 934. 
Weaver, Robert C, "Racial Employment Trends in National Defense," Part I. 

Phylon, vol. 2, no. 4; Fourth Quarter, 1941s pp. 337-358. Part II. Phylon, vol. 

3, no. I; First Quarter, 1942; pp. 22-30. 
Weaver, Robert C, "With the Negro's Help." Atlantic Monthly, vol. 169, no. 6; 

June, 1 942 ; pp. 696-707. 
Webb, James Morris, The Black Man the Father of Civilization ; froven by Biblical 

history. Seattle, Washington: Acme Press, 1910. 
Weber, Max, "Geschaftsbericht." Verhandlungen des Ersten Deutschen Soziologentages 

vom J 9-2 2 Oktober, ipio in Frankfort a. M. 1911. (Translated for private use 

by E. C. Hughes, 1940.) 
Wecter, Dixon, The Hero in America, a chronicle of hero-teorshif. New York: 

Charles Scribner's Sons, 1 94 1. 
Weintraub, David, and Harry Magdoff, "The Service Industries in Relation to 

Employment Trends." Econometrica, vol. 8, no. 4; October, 1940; pp. 289-311. 
Wertenbaker, Thomas J., The Old South; the founding of American civilization. 

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1942. 
Wesley, Charles H., "The Concept of Negro Inferiority in American Thought." 

The Journal of Negro History, vol. 25, no. 4; October, 1940; pp. 540-560. 
Wesley, Charles H., Negro Labor in the United States, 1850-102$; a study in 

American economic history. New York: Vanguard Press, 1927. 
Whelpton, P. K., "An Empirical Method of Calculating Future Population." Journal 

of the American Statistical Association, vol. 31, no. 195; September, 1936; pp. 

457-473- 
White, Walter, The Fire in the Flint. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1924. 
White, Walter, "It's Our Country, Too." The Saturday Evening Post, vol. 213, no. 

24i December 14, 1940; pp. 27, 61-68. 
White, Walter, Rofe and Faggot, a biography of Judge Lynch. New York: Alfred 

A. Knopf, 1929. 



List of Books, Pamphlets and Other Material 1179 

Willcox, Walter F., "Negro Criminality," Journal of Social Science, vol. 37 ; Decem- 
ber. 1899; pp. 78-98. 

Williams, William H., "The Negro in the District of Columbia During Recon- 
struction." The Howard Review, vol. I, nos. 2-3; June, 1924; pp. 97-148. 

Winslow, Vernon, "Negro Art and the Depression." Opportunity, vol. 19, no. 2; 
February, 1941 ; pp. 40-42, 62-63. 

Wirth, Louis, "Ideological Aspects of Social Disorganization." American Sociological 
Review, vol. 5, no. 4; August, 1940; pp. 472-482. 

Wish, Harvet, "American Slave Insurrections before 1861." The Journal of Negro 
History, vol. 22, no. 3; July, 1937; pp. 299-320. 

Witmer, A. H., "Insanity in the Colored Race in the United States." Alienist and 
Neurologist, vol. 12, no. I; January, 1891; pp. 19-30. 

Witty, P. A., and M. A. Jenkins, "The Case of 'B'— A Gifted Negro Girl." Journal 
of Social Psychology, vol. 6, no. I ; February, 1 93 5 ; pp. 1 1 7-1 24. 

Wittv, P. A., and M. A. Jenkins, "The Educational Achievement of a group of 
Gifted Negro Children." The Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 25, no. 8; 
November, 1934; pp. 585-597. 

Witty, P. A., and M. A. Jenkins, "Intra-Race Testing and Negro Intelligence." 
Neurologist, vol. 12, no. I; January, 189!; pp. 19-30. 

Witty, P. A., and H. C. Lehman, "Racial Differences: the Dogma of Superiority." 
Journal of Social Psychology, vol. I, no. 3; August, 193O; pp. 394-418. 

Woodbury, Coleman (editor), Housing Officials' Yearbook: xgtto. Chicago: National 
Association of Housing Officials, 1940. 

Woodson, Carter G., "The Beginnings of the Miscegenation of the Whites and 
Blacks." The Journal of Negro History, vol. 3, no. 1 j October, 191 8; pp. 335-353. 

Woodson, Carter G., A Century of Negro Migration. Washington, D. C: The 
Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Inc., 191 8. 

Woodson, Carter G., The History of the Negro Church. Washington, D. C: The 
Associated Publishers, Inc., 192 1, 

Woodson, Carter G., "Insurance Business among Negroes." The Journal of Negro 
History, vol. 14, no. 2; April, 1929; pp. 202-226. 

Woodson, Carter G., The Mis-Education of the Negro. Washington, D. C: The 
Associated Publishers, Inc., 1933. 

Woodson, Carter G., The Negro Professional Man and the Community with special 
emphasis on the physician and the lawyer. Washington, D. C: The Association for 
the Study of Negro Life and History, Inc., 1934. 

Woodworth, Robert S., Heredity and Environment; a critical survey of recently 
published material on twins and foster children. New York: Social Science Research 
Council, 1941. (Bulletin no. 47, prepared for the Committee on Social Adjust- 
ment.) 

Woofter, Thomas J., Jr., The Basis of Racial Adjustment. Boston: Ginn and Com- 
pany, 1925. 

Woofter, Thomas J., Jr., Black Yeomanry; life on St. Helena Island. New York: 
Henry Holt and Company, 1930. 

Woofter, Thomas J., Jr., Races and Ethnic Groups in American Life. New York: 
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1933. 



n8o An American Dilemma 

WoofTER, Thomas J., Jr., and Associates, Negro Problems t» Cities. Garden City, 

New York: Donbleday, Doran and Company, Inc., 1928. 
Work, Monroe N. (editor), Negro Year Book, an annual encyclopedia of the Negro, 

1031-1932. Tuskegee Institute, Alabama: Negro Year Book Publishing Company, 

1931. 
Work, Monroe N. (editor), Negro Year Book, an annual encyclopedia of the Negro, 

1037-1938. Tuskegee Institute, Alabama: Negro Year Book Publishing Company, 

1937- 

World Almanac: 1042, The. Published by the New York World-Telegram. 

Wright, Marion M. Thompson, The Education of Negroes in New Jersey. New York: 
Columbia University, 1 94 1. 

Wright, Richard, Native Son. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940. 

Wright, Richard, 13 Million Black Voices; a folk-history of the Negro in the United 
States. New York: The Viking Press, 1941. 

Wright, Richard, Uncle Tom's Children, four novellas. New York: Harper and 
Brothers, 1938. 

Young, Donald R., American Minority Peoples; a study in racial and cultural con- 
flicts in the United States. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1932. 

Young, Donald R., Research Memorandum on Minority Peoples in the Depression. 
New York: Social Science Research Council, 1937. (Bulletin no. 31, prepared 
under the direction of the Committee on Studies in Social Aspects of the Depres- 
sion.) 

Young, Earle F., "The Relation of Lynching to the Size of Political Areas." Sociology 
and Social Research, vol. 7, no. 4; March-April, 1928; pp. 348-353. 

Young, P. B., "The Negro Press — Today and Tomorrow." Opportunity, vol. 17, no. 
7i July, 1939; PP- 204-105. 



FOOTNOTES 



Introduction 

1 (1939). P- I72' 

2 William I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe end 
America (1918). 

8 One such exception is E. Franklin Frazier's book, The Negro Family in the United 
States (1939). As Ernest W. Burgess hints at in his Preface, the importance of this work 
is in no small measure dependent upon Frazier's ability to look at the development of the 
Negro family in its relation to the trend of changes in the total environmental setting. 

4 The American Commonwealth (1911; first edition, 1893), Vol. 1, p. 7. 

B For a popular but comprehensive attempt at a cultural overview of present-day 
America, where lights and shadows are distributed in a very different way than in this 
study concentrated on a problem sector of American civilization, the author can refer 
to Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, Kontakt Med Amerika (1941). 



Chapter 1. American Ideal* and the American Conscience 

I Alien Americans (1936), p. 149. 

' "Conceptions and Ideologies of the Negro Problem," unpublished manuscript pre- 
pared for this study (1940), p. 4. 

8 "Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln" (1866), pp. 
4 and 6. 

4 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (1921), pp. 281-282. 

s Epic of America (1931), p. 405. 

a Main Currents in American Thought, Vol. 3, "The Beginnings of Critical Realism 
in America, 1 860-1920" (1930), pp. 285 ff. 

7 I9I3. 

8 Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought, Vol. 3, "The Beginnings of 
Critical Realism in America, 1860-1920," p. 410. 

"After a careful survey of American heroes, Dixon Wectcr concludes that only 
Washington could be placed on the side of conservatism, and even he occasionally went 
over to the liberal side and is popularly identified with liberalism. (Dixon Wectcr, 
The Hero in America [1941], pp. 486-487.) 

10 Vernon L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought, Vol. 1, "The Colonial 
Mind, 1620-1800" (1927), p. 179. 

II Charles E. Merriam, "The Meaning of Democracy," Journal of Negro Eduea- 
'«o» (July, 1941), p. 309. 

l " It has become customary in the writing of the early history of American ideas 



1 1 82 An American Dilemma 

to associate the two fundamental concepts of the Creed and the two corJHcting 
tendencies in American social history: (l) to French eighteenth century hnmanitarianism 
and equalitarianism, represented by Rousseau and (2) to English seventeenth century 
liberalism, represented by Locke. 

The difference between the two schools — and the two European influences condition- 
ing the American mind — should, however, not be overemphasized. Both branches of 
the Enlightenment philosophy believed in "inalienable rights of man," both assumed 
a harmony between equality of opportunity and liberty. It should not be forgotten that 
Locke — and in frinciflc also the later English liberals — justified only those titles to 
property which derived from labor as the single "factor of production"; other property 
titles were "monopolies" and "special privileges." {In practice the English school was, 
however, more conservative than in its principles, particularly in regard to property.) 
When Jefferson changed "property" to "pursuit of happiness," he followed the more 
inclusive French idealism, and stuck a radical tone. But as Jefferson and his party did 
not come out for a state interference in the interest of the poor, and as economic protec- 
tion of the interests of the rich could not be defended on the grounds of English 
liberalism, the change was not of great importance for the time being. Both schools had 
their interests focused on political and civil rights. Both schools thought in terms of 
defending the individual, primarily against the state, not procuring for him something 
by means of the state. The contemporary conservatives were actually more interventionist ; 
they wanted, however, to interfere against equality. But they did not have philosophical 
support from either the French or the English school. 

In one single direction Jefferson wanted to extend the scope of government — popular 
education. And there he could also claim the support of both the English and the French 
philosophical schools of liberalism; both believed in environment as the chief explana- 
tion of human differences and, consequently, the chief means of improving mankind. 
The French interest was, of course, less platonic. But all liberalism of the Enlighten- 
ment was for intervention in this one field of education. Belief in education became 
a part of the American Creed and has since then retained its hold upon the mind of the 
nation. In this field America early assumed world leadership and has held it up to the 
present time. 

14 Cited by Ernest S. Bates, American Faith (1940), pp. 275 ff. 

14 Ibid., p. 9. 

18 Ralph H. Gabriel, The Course of American Democratic Thought (1940), p. 37. 

18 Guion G. Johnson, "History of Racial Ideologies," unpublished manuscript pre- 
pared for this study (1940), Vol. 1, p. 67. 

"James Bryce, The -American Commonwealth (1911; first edition. 1893), Vol. 
2, pp. 289 ff. 

18 "The Price of Free World Victory," mimeographed press release from the Office 
of the Vice-President. 

19 Lord Bryce, for example, wrote: "The Americans are a good-natured people, 
kindly, helpful to one another, disposed to take a charitable view even of wrongdoers. 
Their anger sometimes flames up, but the fire is soon extinct." (Of. tit., Vol. 2, p. 285.) 

*° Gabriel, of. cit., p. 406. 
' ** "Popular impatience of restraint is aggravated in the United States by political and 
legal theories of 'natural law.' As a political doctrine, they lead individuals to put into 
action a conviction that conformity to the dictates of the individual conscience is a test 



Footnotes 1183 

of the validity of a law. Accordingly, jurors will disregard statutes in perfect good faith, 
as in the Sunday-closing prosecutions in Chicago in 1908. In the same spirit a well- 
known preacher wrote not long since that a prime cause of lawlessness was enactment of 
legislation at variance with the law of nature. In the tame spirit a sincere and, as he 
believed, a law-abiding labor leader declared in a Labor Day address that he would not 
obey mandates of the courts which deprived him of his natural 'rights.' In the same 
spirit the business man may regard evasion of statutes which interfere with his carrying 
on business as he chooses as something entirely legitimate. In the same spirit public 
officials in recent addresses have commended administrative violation of the legal rights 
of certain obnoxious persons, and one of the law officers of the federal government has 
publicly approved of mob violence toward such persons." (Roscoe Pound, Criminal 
Justice in the American City — A Summary [1922], p. 15.) 

22 When the young Thoreau, for example, wrote his Civil Disobedience (1849), he 
only gave an extreme expression for the common American anti-state attitude: the 
citizen must not "resign his conscience to the legislator"; "law never made men a 
whit more just." 

28 "The desire to expunge or cure the visible evils of the world is strong. Nowhere 
are so many philanthropic and reformatory agencies at work. Zeal outruns discretion, 
outruns the possibilities of the case, in not a few of the efforts made, as well by legisla- 
tion as by voluntary action, to suppress vice, to prevent intemperance, to purify popular 
literature." (Bryce, of. cit., Vol. 2, p. 290.) 

2 * One example is the establishment of federal income taxation which touches individ- 
ual interests directly. It is my opinion that the income tax legislation in America is nearly 
as effective as, for example, it is in Great Britain, and more effective than it was in 
France. Many of the New Deal measures belong to the same category of fairly success- 
ful legislation. The A.A.A. crop restriction and subsidy program as it has been developed 
has, on the whole, been carried out successfully (whatever one thinks about its value), 
in spite of the fact that it would have been a strong local interest everywhere to connive 
in cheating the government. 

25 Pound, of. cit., p. 1 8. 

28 Donald R. Young, American Minority Peoflei (1932), p. 224. 

27 Bryce, of. cit., Vol. 2, p. 371. 

28 Quoted from Guion G. Johnson, of. cit., p. 93. 

29 Race Questions, Provincialism and other American Problems (1908), p. III. 

30 Gabriel, of. cit., p. 418. 

81 Freedom and Culture (1939), p. 55- Dewey is here referring to the theory of 
human freedom that was developed in the writings of the philosophers of the Ameri- 
can Revolution, particularly in Jefferson's writings. 

82 Out of the House of Bondage (1914), pp. 134-135. 

Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem 

1 It is interesting to note that the first books having the term "sociology" in their 
titles were almost exclusively concerned with the Negro problem: (1) George Fitzhugh, 
Sociology for the South (1854) ; (2) Henry Hughes, Treatise on Sociology: Theoretical 
and Practical (1854). 



II$4 An American Dilemma 

2 Possible exceptions are a few natural scientists, such as Ernest £. Just, and a few 
celebrities, such as Joe Louis. But even they, when they reach national top standards, and 
probably before that, are forced to become representatives of their "race." 

George S. Schuyler, a prominent columnist gives the Negro point of view in his 
recent criticism of the white press for its "sinister policy of identifying Negro indi- 
viduals as such": 

"This is a subtle form of discrimination designed to segregate these individuals in 
the mind of the public and thus bolster the national polity of bi-racialism. Thus, 
Paul Robeson is not a great baritone, he is a great 'Negro' baritone. Dr. Carver is not 
just a great scientist, he is a great 'Negro' scientist. Anne Brown is not merely a great 
soprano, she is a great 'Negro' soprano. Langston Hughes is not a poet merely, he is a 
'Negro' poet. Augusta Savage is a 'Negro' sculptor, C. C. Spaulding is a 'Negro' insurance 
executive, R. R. Wright, Sr., is a 'Negro' banker, J. A. Rogers is a 'Negro* historian, 
Willard Townsend is a 'Negro' labor leader, etc., etc., ad infinitum. ... No other group 
in this country is so singled out for racial identification, and no one can tell me that there 
is not a very definite reason for it. No daily newspaper refers to Mr. Morgenthau as 
'Jewish' Secretary of the Treasury, or New York's Herbert H. Lehman as the 'Jewish' 
governor, or Isador Lubin as a 'Jewish' New Dealer. Mayor Rossi is never identified as 
the 'Italian-American' executive of San Francisco, nor is the millionaire Giannini 
called an 'Italian' banker. There would be considerable uproar if Senator Robert F. 
Wagner were termed 'New York's able German-American solon,' or Representative 
Tenerowicz dubbed 'Detroit's prominent Pole.' When has a Utah legislator in Washing- 
ton been labeled 'Mormon'? 

"One could go on and on, but the point is that 'our' daily newspapers carefully avoid 
such designations except in the case of so-called Negroes. I cannot recall when I have 
seen a criminal referred to as a Jew, an Italian, a German or a Catholic, but it is com- 
monplace for colored lawbreakers or suspects to be labeled 'Negro.' 

"Personally, I shall not be convinced of the sincerity of these white editors and 
columnists who shape America's thinking unless and until they begin treating the Negro 
in the news as they do other Americans. Those who continue this type of journalism are 
the worst sort of hypocrites when they write about democracy and national unity." 
(Pittsburgh Courier, June 13, 1942.) 

Schuyler's point is perfectly clear and his description of the situation correct — except 
that he docs not care to mention that Negro newspapers are, if possible, more unfailing 
in giving prominent Negroes their "race label." 

8 E. R. Embree, Broom America ( 1 931), p. 205. 

4 James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (1927; first 
edition, 1912), p. 21. 

8 See Edgar G. Murphy, Problems of the Present South (1909; first edition, 1904), 
especially pp. 188 ff. and Chapter 8; also Jonathan Daniels, A Southerner Discovers 
the South (1938), Chapter 35; and Thomas P. Bailey, Race Orthodoxy in the South 
(1914), especially pp. 341 ff., pp. 368 ff. and p. 380, also William Jenkins, Pro- 
Slavery Thought in the Old South (1935), pp. vii-viii. 

6 Darker Phases of the South ( 1 924), pp. 157 ff. 

''What the Negro Thinks (1929), p. 55. 

8 Following the Color Line (1908), p. 26. 

•The important problem of opportune distortion of knowledge has been dealt with 



Footnotes 1185 

by some outstanding writers in American literature. See, for example, William James' 
two essays: "The Will to Believe" in The New World: A Quarterly Review oj Religion, 
Ethics, and Theology (Jnne, 1896), pp. 327-347, and "On a Certain Blindness ir 
Human Beings" in On Some of Life's Ideals (1912), pp. 3-46. 

10 The Souls of Black Folk (1924; first edition, 1903), p. 186. 

11 The Story of the Negro, Vol. 1 (1909), p. 180. 

18 The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, p. 166. Johnson goes on to draw too 
optimistic conclusions from this statement when he continues: 

". . . and a mental attitude, especially one not based on truth, can be changed more 
easily than actual conditions. That is to say, the burden of the question is not that the 
whites are struggling to save ten million despondent and moribund people from sinking 
into a hopeless slough of ignorance, poverty, and barbarity in their very midst, but that 
they are unwilling to open certain doors of opportunity and to accord certain treatment 
to ten million aspiring, education-and-property-acquiring people. In a word, the dif- 
ficulty of the problem is not so much due to the facts presented as to the hypothesis 
assumed for its solution." (idem.) 

He overlooks here that the "actual conditions" of the Negroes actually fortify "a mental 
attitude" on the part of the whites to form a vicious circle, which will constitute the 
main viewpoint in this book (see Chapter 3, Section 7). 

13 James Weldon Johnson, Along This Way (1934), p. 318. 

14 Of. Cit., p. 65. 

16 Race Orthodoxy in the South (191 4), pp. 37 and 347. 
™Wkat the Negro Thinks (1929), p. 65. 

17 Negro Americans, What Now? (1934), p. 101. 

18 Along This Way, p. 142. 

19 America's Tragedy (1934), p. 72. 

20 The New York Times (May 26, 1942), p. 20. 

21 Murphy, of. cit., p. 23. 

22 American Minority Peofles (193 2), pp. 205-206. The author, thereafter, describes 
the subsequent disfranchisement, condones the Southern election laws — without any 
explicit value premises — criticizes the white primary and generally the unfair adminis- 
tration of the laws, leaving the reader, however, with the impression that measures to 
enforce the Constitution and the state laws are out of the discussion. There is no other 
interpretation than that such interferences would mean making the Negro "a ward of 
the nation." 



Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem 

1 More recently, Donald R. Young has been most outstanding in arguing this restate- 
ment of the Negro problem. We quote from him: 

"The view here presented is that the problems and principles of race relations are 
remarkably similar, regardless of what groups are involved ; and that only by an integrated 
study of all minority peoples in the United States can a real understanding and soci- 
ological analysis of the involved social phenomena be achieved." (American Minority 
Pen-pies [1932], pp. ziii-l.) 



1 1 86 Ak American Dilemma 

In explaining the similarities of the deprivation* imposed upon different minority group*, 
Donald R. Young point* out that: 

"It is ... to be expected that dominating majoritie* in various regions, when faced 
with the problem of what to think and do about minorities, will fail to be sufficiently 
inventive to create unique schemes of relationships and action. Variations in intensity 
of restriction and oppression, special techniques in maintaining superior status and 
other adaptations to the local scene will always be found, but the choice of fundamental 
patterns of dominance in majority-minority relations is limited by the nature of man 
and his circumstances." {Research Memorandum on Minority Peoples in the Depression, 
Social Science Research Council, Bulletin No. 31 [1937], pp. 9-IO.) 

8 Even a prominent leader of the Ku Klux Klan, whose conservative attitudes on 
"racial" questions cannot be doubted, expressed to the writer the considered opinion 
that, in time, not only the Poles, Italians, Russians, Greeks, and Armenians, but also 
the Turks, Hindus, Jews, and Mexicans would come to be engulfed in the great 
American nation and disappear as separate, socially visible population segments. But 
it would take a very, very long time. I have heard this view affirmed by Americans in 
all social classes and regions of the country. 

* Young, Research Memorandum on Minority Peoples in the Depression, pp. 18-19. 

* It is the present writer's impression that anti-Semitism, as he observed it in America 
during the last years before the Second World War, probably was somewhat stronger 
than in Germany before the Nazi regime. 

6 See Eugene L. Horowitz, "Race Attitudes" in Otto Klinebcrg (editor), Char- 
acteristics of the American Negro, prepared for this study, to be published; manuscript 
pages 1 1 5-1 23 et passim. 

9 Robert R. Moton, What the Negro Thinks (1929), p. 219. 

7 This is much to be regretted. Indeed, it is urgently desirable that 6uch impressionistic 
generalizations be critically examined and replaced by statistically verified and precise 
knowledge. Meanwhile, because of the lack of such studies, the author has simply been 
compelled to proceed by building up a system of preliminary hypotheses. The defense is 
that otherwise intelligent questions cannot be raised in those sectors of the Negro problem 
where statistics or other kinds of substantiated knowledge arc not available. 

Some attitude studies and public opinion polls have been made which touch on some 
of the statements presented in hypothetical form in the text. But they were designed 
to answer other questions and are practically never comprehensive, and so they cannot be 
used as conclusive proof of our hypotheses. We shall cite some of the relevant ones in 
footnotes at certain points. For a summary of all the attitude studies (up to 1940) 
dealing with the Negro, see the monograph prepared for this study by Eugene L. 
Horowitz, "Race Attitudes" in Klineberg (editor), Characteristics of the American 
Negro. 

8 There are some studies, however, which provide evidence for the hypothesis of the 
"rank order of discriminations," even if they are not comprehensive enough to serve 
as conclusive proof. There are a host of attitude studies showing how whites have 
different attitudes toward Negroes in different spheres of life. Probably the earliest of 
these studies was that of Emory S. Bogardus, "Race Friendliness and Social Distance," 
Journal of Applied Sociology (1927), pp. 272-287. As an example of such studies which 
apply solely to Negro issues, we may cite the study by Euri Relle Bolton, "Measuring 
Specific Attitudes towards the Social Rights of the Negro," The Journal of Abnormal 



Footnote* 1187 

and Social Psychology (January-March, 1937), pp. 384- 397. For a summary of other 
such studies, see Horowitz, of. cit., pp. 1 23-1 4.8. 

* Such studies should not only break the rank order into liner distinctions, but also 
develop a measure of the distance between the ranks in the order. It would, further, 
be desirable to ascertain individual differences in the apprehension of this rank order, 
and to relate these differences to age, sex, social class, educational level and region. 

10 This goes far back. Frederick Douglass nearly endangered his position among 
Negroes by marrying a white woman. About Douglass, Kelly Miller observed: ". . . he 
has a hold upon the affection of his race, not on account of his second marriage but in 
spite of it. He seriously affected his standing with his people by that marriage." (Kelly 
Miller, Race Adjustment — Essays on the Negro in America [1908], p. 50.) And 
W. E. B. Du Bois tells us in his autobiography: "I resented the assumption that we 
desired it [racial amalgamation]. I frankly refused the possibility while in Germany 
and even in America gave up courtship with one 'colored' girl because she looked quite 
white, and I should resent the inference on the street that 1 had married outside my 
race." {Dusk of Dawn [1940], p. 101.) See also Chapter 30, Section 2. 

11 Of. cit., p. 241. 
" Ibid., p. 239. 

18 An exception, which by its uniqueness, and by the angry reception it received 
from the Negroes, rather proves our thesis, is the remarkable book by William H. 
Thomas, The American Negro (1901). The fact that Negroes privately often enjoy 
indulging in derogatory statements about Negroes in general is not overlooked. It is, 
however, a suppression phenomenon of quite another order. See Chapter 36, Section 2. 

u ''The rape which your gentlemen have done against helpless black women in 
defiance of your own laws is written on the foreheads of two millions of mulattoes, and 
written in ineffaceable blood." (W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk [1924; 
first edition, I903],p. 106.) 

15 Of. cit., pp. 208-209. 

16 Race Adjustment, p. 48. 

17 Out of the House of Bondage (1914), p. 45. 

18 Of. cit., p. 241. 

19 Editorial, The Crisis (January, 1 920), p. 106. 

20 Uf from Slavery (1915; first edition, 1900), pp. 221-222. 

21 "The South, after the war, presented the greatest opportunity for a real national 
labor movement which the nation ever saw or is likely to see for many decades." (Black 
Reconstruction [1935], p. 353 fassim.) 



Chapter 4, Racial Beliefs 

1 See, for example: John H. Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619-18/fs 
O913) i J- C. Ballagh, A History of Slavery in Virginia (1902) ; John C. Hurd, Th^ 
Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States (1 858-1862). 

2 A weak variation of this popular theory — weak because it looked forward only to 
temporary subordination of backward peoples — was that in making the Negroes slaves, 
white men were educating and Christianizing them. This variation is known as the 
"white man's burden" doctrine and played an especially important role in nineteenth 



1 1 88 An American Dilemma 

century exploitation. For some statements of this doctrine, see W. O. Brown, "Ration- 
alization of Race Prejudice," The International Journal of Ethics (April, 1933), pp. 
299-301. 

8 H. A. Washington (editor), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1859), Vol. I, 

P- 49- 

4 Letter to Robert Morris, dated April 12, 1786. Jonas Viles (editor), Letters and 
Addresses of George Washington (1908), p. 285. 

6 "Government and the Negro," Annals of the Academy of Political and Social 
Science (November, 1928), p. 99. 

* This materialistic explanation is not a new idea. It was already seen clearly by some 
in the ante-bellum South. George Fitzhugh, for example, writes: 

"Our Southern patriots, at the time of the Revolution, finding negroes expensive and 
useless, became warm anti-slavery men. We, their wiser sons, having learned to make 
cotton and sugar, find slavery very useful and profitable, and think it a most excellent 
institution. We of the South advocate slavery, no doubt, from just as selfish motives 
as induce the Yankees and English to deprecate it." 
The rationalization comes immediately, however: 

"We have, however, almost all human and divine authority on our side of the 
argument. The Bible nowhere condemns, and throughout recognises slavery." (Sociology 
for the South [1854], p. 269.) 

7 Chancellor William Harper, "Memoir on Slavery," paper read before the Society 
for the Advancement of Learning of South Carolina, annual meeting at Columbia, 
South Carolina, 1837 (1838), pp. 6-8. 

8 This stress on moral equality has not been lost through the ages. T. J. Woofter, Jr., 
a representative of modern Southern liberalism, writes: 

"It is desirable frankly to recognize the differences as they actually exist, but there 
is absolutely no ethical justification for the assumption that an advantaged group has an 
inherent right to exploit and oppress, and the prejudice based upon the assumptions is 
the most vicious enemy to human peace and cooperation." (Basis of Racial Adjustment 
[1925], p. II.) 
Vance, another Southern liberal, writes: 

"In a field where doubts abound, let us make one sweeping statement. If biological 
inferiority of the whole Negro group were a proved fact, it would, nevertheless, be to 
the benefit of both white and black to behave as though it did not exist. Only in this 
way can the Section be sure of securing, in the economic sphere, the best of which both 
races are capable." (Rupert B. Vance, Human Geografhy of the South [1932], p. 463.) 

* "Prejudice of any sort, racial or otherwise, is regarded as derogatory to intellectual 
integrity, incompatible with good taste, and perhaps morally reprehensible. Hence the 
prejudiced in order to be secure in their illusions of rationality, impeccable taste, anrf 
moral correctness find rationalizations essential. The rationalization inoculates against 
insights as to the real nature of one's reactions. It secures the individual in his moral 
universe. It satisfies his impulse to rationality. The mind thus becomes an instrument, 
a hand-maiden, of the emotions, supplying good reasons for prejudiced reactions in the 
realm of racial, class, or sectarian contacts." (Brown, of. cit., p. 294.) 

10 In this connection it is interesting to note, as an example of how political reaction 
fosters racialism, that in the ante-bellum South racial thinking also turned toward 
beliefs in biological differences between whites. The legend was spread that the white 



Footnotes 1189 

Southerners were a "master race" of Norman blood while New England was settled by 
descendants of the ancient British and Saxon serfs. The Northerners and Southerners, 
it was said, "are the same men who cut each other's throats in England, under the name 
of Roundheads and Cavaliers." The Southerners were a Nordic race with greater 
capacity to rule. (See James Truslow Adams, America's Tragedy [1934], pp. 95 ff, 
121, and 128 ff.) A late example of this ideology will be found in a chapter entitled 
"The Tropic Nordics," of H. J. Eckenrode, Jefferson Davis, President of the South 
(1923). The present writer has on several occasions in conversation with Southerners 
met vague reminiscences of this popular theory, usually related to the myth that the 
South, unlike the North, was settled mainly by English aristocrats. The more common 
theory of Southern racial superiority nowadays is, however, simply the assertion that 
the white Southerners belong predominantly to "the pure Anglo-Saxon race," as the 
South has received so few immigrants in recent decades when these were recruited from 
other European countries. In addition, one often meets the idea that "the poor whites" 
and generally the lower classes of whites are racially inferior, as they descend from 
indentured servants. 

11 Guion G. Johnson, "History of Racial Ideologies," unpublished manuscript 
written for this study (1940). Vol. 1, pp. 149, fassim; Vol. 2, pp. 331, fassim. 

12 The same principle operates also outside the Negro problem. The American 
Creed, in its demand for equality, has strong support from the very composition of the 
new nation. As immigrants, or the descendants of immigrants with diverse national 
origins, Americans have an interest — outside of the Negro problem — in emphasizing 
the importance of environment and in discounting inheritance. In order to give a 
human and not only political meaning to the legend e fluribus unum, they feel the 
need to believe in the possibility of shaping a new homogeneous nation out of the 
disparate elements thrown into the melting pot. This interest plays on a high level of 
valuations where the individual identifies himself with the destiny of the nation. In 
daily life, however, the actual and obvious heterogeneity in origin, appearance, and 
culture of the American people acts as a constant stimulus toward prejudiced racial 
beliefs. 

Thus — even outside the Negro problem — there is in America a considerable ambiva- 
lence in people's thoughts on race. On a lower valuational level, there appears to be in 
America an extreme belief in and preoccupation with all sorts of racial differences, 
while on a higher level a contrary ideology rules, equally extreme when compared with 
more homogeneous nations. The former side of the American personality is responsible 
for much friction and racial snobbishness in social life. The latter side finds its expres- 
sion not only in empty speeches — what the Americans call "lip-service" — but also in 
national legislation and in actual social trends. 

13 H. A. Washington (editor), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1854), Vol. 8, 
pp. 380-381. 

14 Ibid., pp. 380 ff. 

"1915. 

16 Concerning this literature, see G. G. Johnson, of. cit., Vol. I, pp. 149, fassim; 
Vol. 2, pp. 250-258 and 311-338. 

17 Much of the earliest literature of this sort is summarized in W. I. Thomas (editor). 
Sourcebook for Social Origins (1909). 

18 The change toward environmentalists in American psychology has been most 



1190 Am American Dilemma 

radical in child psychology, psychiatry and educational psychology, applied psychology, 
"social psychology," and other branches which are in close relation to social practice and 
social science. Undoubtedly the biologistic approach has still a stronghold in academic 
psychology proper. But even there a change is under way which can be registered by 
comparing the present situation with the one prevalent two or three decades ago. An 
indication is the almost complete abandonment of the "instinct" psychology. 

19 This connection between biology and conservatism will have to be remembered 
when explaining why, with some outstanding exceptions, the medical profession has, on 
the whole, in all countries, taken a rather reactionary stand on questions of social and 
health reforms. 

20 Perhaps the most influential of the popular racialistic writers were: Madison Grant, 
The Passing of the Great Race (1916) ; Lothrop Stoddard, The Rising Tide of Color 
(1920); Charles W. Gould, America, A Family Matter (1920). 

21 The acts restricting immigration not only cut down the total number of immi- 
grants admitted to the country, bat also provided that those allowed entrance should be 
predominantly from Western and Northern Europe. The 1921 act permitted an 
immigration from each country equal to 3 per cent of the number of foreign-born 
from that country resident in the United States in 1910. The 1924 act reduced the 
quota to 2 per cent and set the determining date back to 1 890. Immigration from the 
Orient was completely prohibited, but that from independent countries in the Americas 
and from Canada was not restricted at all. 

22 As examples we may cite the following: Carl C. Brigham, an outstanding psy- 
chologist who has since repudiated his book (A Study of American Intelligence 
[1923]); William McDougall, the father of many trends in psychology (The Group 
Mind [1920], and Is America Safe for Democracy? [1921]); Albert Bushnell Hart and 
H. H. Bancroft, the eminent historians (The Southern South [1910], and Retrospec- 
tion, Political and Personal [191 2]). 

28 William H. Thomas, a Northern mulatto who went down to the South during 
Reconstruction and became disillusioned, is an exception. His vitriolic but well-written 
book, The American Negro (1901), has, indeed, its best counterparts in some of the 
extreme expressions of anti-Semitism which, as is well known, are to be found in 
occasional writings by Jews. 

2 * Kelly Miller, Out of the House of Bondage (1914), pp. 221-222. 

25 Ibid., pp. 220-221. 

26 Kelly Miller, Race Adjustment — Essays on the Negro in America (1908), pp. 38- 

39- 

2T Ibid., p. 40. 

**lbid., p. 45. 

39 Ibid., p. 40. 

*°Ibid., p. 31. 

81 Frederick Douglass, one of the first Negro leaders, thus argued the case against the 
race inferiority doctrine: 

"It is not necessary, in order to establish the manhood of any one making the claim, 
to prove that such an one equals Clay in eloquence, or Webster and Calhoun in logical 
force and directness; for, tried by such standards of mental power as these, it is appre- 
hended that very few could claim the high designation of man. Yet something like this 
felly is seen in the arguments directed against the humanity of the negro. His faculties 



Footnotes 1191 

and powers, uneducated and unimproved, have been contrasted with those of the highest 
cultivation; and the world has then been called upon to behold the immense and 
amazing difference between the man admitted, and the man disputed. The fact that 
these intellects, so powerful and so controlling, are almost, if not quite, as exceptional 
to the general rule of humanity, in one direction, as the specimen negroes are in the 
other, is quite overlooked." ("The Claims of the Negro," an Address before the Literary 
Societies of Western Reserve College at Commencement, July 12, 1854 [1854], pp. 

7-8-) 
And again: 

"We all know, at any rate, that now, what constitutes the very heart of the civilized 
world — (I allude to England) — has only risen from barbarism to its present lofty 
eminence, through successive invasions and alliances with her people." [Ibid., p. 33.) 
Booker T. Washington pointed out that: 

"The Negro is behind the white man because he has not had the same chances, and 
not from any inherent difference in his nature or desires." (The Future of the American 
Negro [1902], p. 26.) 

One of the most brilliant of the early discussions of the biological equality of whites 
and Negroes is that of a Negro doctor, C. V. Roman {American Civilization and the 
Negro [1916], especially pp. 42-4; and pp. 321-351). 

For a similar statement from one of the older leaders, see the answer of T. Thomas 
Fortune, editor of the New York Age, to the speech of W. H. Baldwin, "The Present 
Problems of Negro Education" (Proceedings of the American Social Science Association 
in The Journal of Social Science [1900], pp. 65-66.) 

82 W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction (1935), Foreword. 

s3 For some evidence on this point, sec Charles H. Wesley, "The Concept of Negro 
Inferiority in American Thought," The Journal of Negro History (October, 1940), 
pp. 540-560. 

84 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro, University of Pennsylvania series in 
Political Economy and Public Law, No. 14 (1899). 

85 Howard W. Odum, Social and Mental Traits of the Negro (19 10). For a discus- 
sion of Odum's retraction, see Buell G. Gallagher, American Caste and the Negro 
College (1938), pp. 178-179. Brigham repudiated his book (A Study of American 
Intelligence [1923]) in a later article. ("Intelligence Tests of Immigrant Groups," 
Psychological Review [March, 1930], pp. 158-165.) See also Chapter 6, Section 3. 

88 The reader may, for instance, compare the tone in Professor E. B. Renter's first 
book, The Mulatto in the United States (1918), and particularly its last chapter, with 
the liberal and nearly warm treatment of the Negro people in his last book, The 
American Race Problem (1938; first edition, 1927). 

87 Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States, pp. 99-100. 

88 Edward K. Strong, The Second-Generation Japanese Problem (1934), p. 100. 
The classic statement on the difference between categoric and sympathetic contacts is 
that of Nathaniel S. Shaler, The Neighbor (1904), pp. 207-227. 

"•The tendencies of unsophisticated thinking to be "theoretical" are worthy of 
much more study than they have been given hitherto. They can be illustrated from all 
spheres of human life. To give an example outside our problem: The most human 
concept, bona fide, in jurisprudence is a late juristical development in all civilizations; 
originally legal systems are formalistic and behavioriatic (they do not consider people's 



1 192 An American Dilemma 

intentions) ; bona fiJe is even today only the trained lawyer's way of thinking and has. 
as yet, never and nowhere really been understood by the mass of laymen whose thinking 
on legal matters always seems formalistic to the lawyer. Similarly the simple "economic 
laws" are thought-forms adhered to by business people when they speculate in this 
strange field, while the economic theorists, instead, devote their labor to criticising, 
demolishing, and complicating economic theory. It is the common man, and not the 
statistician who "thinks in averages," or, rather, in pairs of contrasting types; good-bad, 
healthy-sick, man-woman, white-black. And the common man is likely to handle aver- 
ages and types as if they applied to the individuals. He will confidently tell you some- 
thing about "all Negroes," in the same breath as he observes an exception. 

He is, further, likely to construct his types without a thought as to sampling difficul- 
ties. He has a tendency to forget about range and spread. He has, of course, a prag- 
matic understanding that things and happenings have their causes. Otherwise he would 
not be able to get on with his several pursuits in a rational way. But particularly when 
it comes to social questions, causation becomes to the untrained mind divested of compli- 
cations. Social causation is to him mostly monistic, direct, apparent and simple. The 
very idea of causal interrelations within a mutually dependent system of a great many 
factors is usually entirely absent. In his thoughts on social causation he mingles his ideas 
about what is right and wrong. The unsophisticated mind is not questioning; it answers 
questions before they are stated. 

Generally speaking, it is a fact that "to think in concrete terms" when reaching for 
generalizations is the endeavor of theoretical training and a mark of the highest intelli- 
gence, while "theoretical," abstract and formalistic thinking is the common man's 
philosophy. 

40 Stoddard, of. cit., pp. 91-92. 

41 Ibid., pp.' 100-102. 

42 Lewis C. Copeland, "The Negro as a Contrast Conception" in Edgar T. Thomp- 
son (editor), Race Relations and the Race Problem (1939), pp. 152-179. 

48 Like other beliefs of the white man, this one, too, is to some extent taken over by 
the Negro group, particularly by the mulattocs. (See Chapter 32, Section 6.) 

"All the stigmas of the Negro group, as previously mentioned, are associated with 
physical appearance; and it is the black Negro who is regarded as mean, ignorant, 
primitive, and animal-like. The light-colored Negro, however, is conceived of as 
'smarter,' more intelligent, more 'civilized' (more 'like the whites' in behavior and 
ability). These beliefs are not restricted to either group but are frequently expressed 
by both Negroes and whites. Sometimes the comment of Negroes is very extreme, as in 
the case of two Negroes overheard discussing 'blackness.' One of them said: 'A blact 
nigguh is the meanes' rascal God evah made! I mean it. A black nigguh is jes' natchally 
mean. He always suspects you of trying to beat him out of something or take something 
from him.' His companion corroborated his opinion: '. . . My grandmother wuz uh 
little black woman, an' she wuz one of the evilest black women God evah made! Dat's 
de truth. He's right about dat. Dey really evil!' Cases were known where light-skinned 
grandparents trained their children to condemn a black parent, the child saying of her 
mother: 'Oh, she's black!'" (Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. 
Gardner, Beef South [1941], pp. 40-41.) 

44 Tit following brief autobiography, describing the growth of racial beliefs and 
their relation to segregation, is taken, in full, from the Preface to a master's thesis by 



Footnotes 1193 

a white Southerner. The author has unusual insight, even for one who has abandoned 
his racial beliefs. "It was less than a year ago when I saw for the first time in my life 
a Negro newspaper. Before that time I had not known that Negroes had papers of their 
own. They were not to be seen in the places I frequented, though I often went as a 
boy into the homes of Negro tenants. I do not believe I ever heard one of the Negroes 
that I then knew say, I read thus and so in the newspaper. If they read at all, it was 
not of their reading that they talked to white folks. 

"I was in college before I read a book written by a Negro. I had been to Negro 
churches and heard their preachers. Probably the first singing I ever heard was that of 
Negroes. But I had never associated them with writing, or very much with rending. 
Those were things, like our Boy Scout troop and school picnics, in which they had no 
part. I remember the surprise 1 felt at finding DuBois' Soul of the Black Folk, my first 
contact with Negro writing, not different in outward respects from other books I had 
read. I don't know what I expected Negro writing to look like; certainly I knew that 
it would not be white ink on black paper. But 1 did feel that there would be something 
physical to show that this was done by a Negro. The Negroes that I knew worked in the 
cotton fields. Around the towns they did all kinds of odd jobs, for small pay. The 
women washed and cooked and kept house for the white folks. None of them wrote 
anything that I knew of. 

"There must have been more Negroes in the little South Georgia community in 
which I grew up than whites, for though there were only three or four white boys in 
the group with which I used to play, there were a half dozen or more Negroes. We did 
chores together there on the farm, and went ' 'possum huntin' ' and to the swimming 
hole down on the creek and played ball and did all of those things that boys do in rural 
Georgia. 

"We did them together, and yet the Negroes were always a little apart. If we were 
swimming, they kept downstream. If we were playing ball, they were in the outfield and 
we did the batting. If we were gathering plums, the Negroes always left us the best 
bushes. There was no ill feeling in this. Negroes were different. They knew it, and we 
knew it. In the fields wc all drank from the same jug, but at the pump the Negroes 
cupped their hands and drank from them and would never have dared to use the cup 
i hanging there. I never knew a Negro to come to the front door of my home, and 1 am 
sure that if one had done so, someone would have a.sked him if he minded stepping 
around to the back. At the age of ten 1 understood full well thai the Negro had to be 
kept in his place, and I was resigned to my part in that general responsibility. 

''As we grew to adolescence, the relationship with Negro boys became less intimate. 

We began then to talk of things which the Negro could not understand — of what we 

were going to do in life, of our little love affairs, of school life, of our hopes for the 

future. In such things the Negro had no part, and gradually wc played together less 

and less. We were more often with grown Negroes, and I think now that we were 

always closer to the men than we were to the boys of our own age. They knew where 

rabbits were, how to tell when a dog had treed, when the wind was too high for 

squirrels to stir, where it was best to set a trap. I don't know how Southern white boys 

on the farm would learn anything without Negroes. And they sang a lot too and 

i strurrmed guitars and were almost always in good humor. They never talked very 

I much about their own affairs, and they never told things on other Negroes. I have 

t never known a Negro to lead a white boy into anything vicious. I knew some of these 



1X94- An American Dilemma 

old Negroes well, after a fashion, and they were in their way good people. They were 
friends of mine, and still are; and when I go back into my home community, I always 
look np those whom I knew best. I call them by their first names, as 1 always have; and 
they call me 'Mister,' as they always have; and I know that they are glad to see me. 

"Bat they were not like white people. There was a difference that we all recognized. 
It was to be expected that a Negro would steal a little now and then, not anything of 
consequence, of course, but petty things: watermelons, sugar cane, fresh meat, and 
things like that, and now and then a little corn for his shoat. It was a common saying 
with us that a Negro who wouldn't steal had gold toe-nails. An old Negro cobbler in 
my home town once said to me: 'That boy workin' for me just ain't no good. 1 treats 
him well and gives him a chance to steal a little, and he just don't do nothin' but trifle.' 
I think all of us must have figured that a little stealing was a part of the wage. Eight dollars 
a month was considered a fair price for farm help, with a house and some food furnished. 
Good Negroes were those who knew what not to steal. Stealing food and stealing money 
may be the same crime in that great chart of the good and the bad, but I have known 
Negroes who would lift a gallon of syrup without a scruple, and yet they could be trusted 
implicitly in the house with money and personal effects lying around. 

"Their moral codes were different from ours. I don't know that it ever occurred to any 
of us that a Negro girl was capable of virtue. White men had no hesitation in approach- 
ing Negro women. I do not know how often they met with refusal, but I do know that 
an intimate relationship between white men and Negro women was not uncommon. It 
is my belief that practically no children and very little disease resulted from this rela- 
tionship, owing to the general knowledge of preventives that has penetrated even into 
rural Georgia. The better whites were much opposed to this intimacy, though white 
boys talked freely with one another of their experiences. Those who did not discontinue 
the practice when they were older, and they were few, became more reticent. Many 
Negroes keenly resented this intercourse with whites. An old Negro man once offered 
this as an explanation of the Negroes leaving the farm in such numbers and going to the 
city. 'Our women,' he said, 'have no protection against low-down white men in the 
country and in small towns.' 

"I have always understood that a Negro who touches a white woman must die. It is 
something that we learn in the South without knowing how or when or where. I have 
heard the statement made by men in the community who were models of right living. 
Somewhere out of the past this idea came, born of pride in our own culture and possibly 
of an unrecognized fear that it might not persist. It wa9 intensified by the chivalric 
ideal of womanhood which has been traditional in the South. In the aftermath of the 
Civil War the motto of those who rode with the Ku Klux Klan was the protection of 
Southern womanhood. Whatever might be the law, however courts might rule, whatever 
amendments might be added to the constitution, the Negro must be kept in his place. 
It might have been seen even then that most of those Negroes who were lynched were 
not charged with attempts to assault white women, and that many of those who were so 
charged were not clearly proved to be guilty. It might have been seen that what claimed 
to be a defense of white womanhood was more often than, not merely a riot of race 
antagonism, brought into existence by rumors and swept along by a kind of fear. We 
used to talk a great deal of that race war which was coming, when black and yellows 
would unite and meet the scorn of whites with violence. It was one of our favorite 
topics of conversation. It may have been no more than bovish prattling, and now that 1 



Footnotes 1195 

can «ee how foolish u the thought, I wonder that we talked of it at all. Bat we had it 
from our elders. They tanght us early to keep the Negro in hit place, whatever the cost 
might be. 

"I'll never forget one of my first lessons. It was on a very quiet Sunday afternoon, 
and a group of white boys were lying on the grass beside the road eating peaches. One 
of the boys was a good deal older than the rest of us, and we looked to him as a leader. 
I think it was he who made some suggestive remarks to a Negro girl who passed along 
the road, and certainly it was he who stood up to answer a young Negro man who came 
to protest when the girl told him what had happened. I think the girl would have been 
more flattered than annoyed had the remarks been addressed to her privately, for she was 
a bad sort; but there on the road in the presence of us all, she resented it. The Negro 
man was mad, and he said more than I have ever heard a Negro say in defense of his 
women, or for any other cause. We all knew him, and it was not the first time that he 
had shown a disposition to argue with white folks. Our leader said nothing for a few 
minutes, and then he walked slowly up to my house, which was not far away, and came 
back with a shotgun. The Negro went away, and as the white boy lay down beside us 
and began eating peaches again, he remarked, 'You have to know how to handle Negroes,' 
I knew then, on that quiet Sunday afternoon almost twenty years ago, and I know now, 
that he was ready to use that gun, if it were necessary, to keep a Negro in his place. 
Such incidents were not common, and few white boys would have done a thing like that. 
But still that was one way. 

"I am looking back to the things that I knew. In cities perhaps it was different. It may 
be a little different in the country now, though I don't think there has been much 
change. I have known Negroes who were happy, despite poverty and squalid surroundings. 
1 have known whites who were miserable, despite wealth and culture of a kind. Old 
Negroes have told me, most any kind of Negro gets more out of life any day than a real, 
high-class white man ; and I believe them. We say here in the South that we know the 
Negro. We believe that we have found for him a place in our culture. Education and 
the passing of years may change everything, but I know that there are in my community 
now many white people who will die perpetuating the order as they found it, the 
scheme of things to which they belong." (Rollin Chambliss, What Negro Newspapers 
of Georgia Say about Some Social Problems, 1033, published thesis submitted in partial 
fulfillment of requirements for Master's Degree, University of Georgia [1934], pp. 
4-8.) 

* 8 The independent role of the author should not be exaggerated. James Weldon 
Johnson writes: 

"The greater part of white America thinks of us in stereotypes; most of these stereo- 
types coming to them second-hand by way of the representation of Negro life and 
character on the stage and in certain book*. In the main they are exaggerated, false, 
and entirely unlike our real selves." (Negro Americans, What Now? [1934], p. 52.) 

Against this opinion, which is common among intellectual Negroes, it should be 
pointed out that ordinarily the stereotypes are already in the white society, and that 
their appearance in the literature is derived rather than vice versa. But the latter fix 
and sometimes magnify the former. This is true in the South. In the North, and par- 
ticularly in those regions where personal relations to Negroes are scarce or totally absent, 
Johnson is probably more right: there the literary representations build up the stereo- 
types. And in the practical problem of strategy it is possible to think of fiction as a 



1 196 An American Dilemma 

destroyer of racial stereotypes. The fiction writers are intellectuals, and it is more pos- 
sible to expose them to modern scientific knowledge than the average reading public. 
Their resistance is, however, rooted in their interest in keeping their market. People 
want to meet their stereotyped beliefs in the books they buy. 

48 Sterling A. Brown is the author of a paper "Negro Character as Seen by White 
Authors," from which we quote: 

"The Negro has met with as great injustice in American literature as he has in 
American life. The majority of books about Negroes merely stereotype Negro character. 
. . . Those considered important enough for separate classification, although overlap- 
pings do occur, are seven in number: (1) The Contented Slave, (2) The Wretched 
Freeman, (3) The Comic Negro, (4) The Brute Negro, (5) The Tragic Mulatto, 
(6) The Local Color Negro, and (7) The Exotic Primitive. 

"A detailed evaluation of each of these is impracticable because of limitations of space. 
It can be said, however, that all of these stereotypes arc marked either by exaggeration 
or omissions; that they all agree in stressing the Negro's divergence from an Anglo- 
Saxon norm to the flattery of the latter; they could all be used, as they probably are, 
as justification of racial proscription; they all illustrate dangerous specious generalizing 
from a few particulars recorded by a single observer from a restricted point of view — 
which is itself generally dictated by the desire to perpetuate a stereotype. 

"All of these stereotypes are abundantly to be found in American literature, and are 
generally accepted as contributions to true racial understanding. Thus one critic, setting 
out imposingly to discuss 'The Negro character' in American literature, can still say, 
unabashedly, that 'the whole range of the Negro character is revealed thoroughly' in one 
twenty-six line sketch by Joel Chandler Harris of Br'er Fox and Br'er Mud Turtle." 
{Journal of Negro Education [April, 1933], p. 180.) Sterling Brown's reference 
is to John H. Nelson, The Negro Character in American Literature (1926), p. 118. 
This article was expanded by Brown and published in pamphlet form: The Negro in 
American Fiction (1937). 

Just to exemplify the type of prejudice transferred by good nonmalicious fiction, a 
few paragraphs may be quoted from Booth Tarkington's Penrad, first published serially 
in various magazines and later as a book, in several editions from 191 3 on (italics 
ours). The book has been read by a great proportion of all American boys year after 
year. Its hero is a twelve-year-old middle class white boy living in a middle-sized Mid- 
western town. The Negro boys in the story, Herman and Verman (the names them- 
selves are significant), live in an alley near Penrod's home. They are having a fight with 
a white man, Rupe Collins. 

"Expressing vocally his indignation and the extremity of his pained surprise, Mr. 
Collins stepped backward, holding his left hand over his nose, and striking at Herman 
with his right. Then Verman hit him with the rake. 

"Verman struck from behind. He struck as hard as he could. And he struck with the 
tines down. For in his simfle, direct African way he wished to kill his enemy, and hi 
wished- to kill him as soon as fossible. That was his single, earnest ptrfose. 
■ "On this account, Rupe Collins was peculiarly unfortunate. He was plucky and he 
enjoyed conflict, but neither his ambitions nor his anticipations had ever included mur- 
der. He had not learned that an habitually aggressive ferson runs the danger of colliding 
with beings in one of those lower stages of evolution wherein theories about 'hittin? 
below the belt' have not yet made their appearance. . . . 



Footnotes i 197 

"The struggle increased in primitive simplicity: Time and again the howling Rupe 
got to his knees only to go down again as the earnest brothers, in their own way, assisted 
him to a more reclining position. Primal forces operated here, and the two blanched, 
slightly higher products of evolution, Sam and Penrod, no more thought of interfering 
than they would have thought of interfering with an earthquake." 

4T Op. cit., pp. 52-53. 

48 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), p. 89. 

49 Quoted from Willis D. Weatherford and Charles S. Johnson, Race Relations 
(1934), p. 235. See, also, James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan (1930), pp. 

244-24S- 

fi0 "A careful observation of negro schools, churches and miscellaneous gatherings in 
all parts of the country convinces the writer that fully three-fourths of the rising 
generation of the race have some traceable measure of white blood in their veins." 
(Miller, Out of the House of Bondage, p. 58.) 

51 Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States. 

52 "One thing is certain: where defense is needed as a result of actions unethical in 
the light of a personally accepted standard, defensive beliefs will arise." (John Dollard, 
Caste and Class in a Southern Town [1937], p. 388.) 

68 Donald R. Young, American Minority Peoples (1932), p. 401. 

84 Ruth Benedict, Race: Science and Politics (1940), p. 237. 

65 There have been many studies of the type of racial beliefs held and of the extent 
to which they are held, but few attempts to show their relation to the functioning of 
society. An example of a study of the types of racial beliefs is: Bertram Wilbur Doyle, 
"Racial Traits of the Negro as Negroes Assign Them to Themselves," unpublished 
master's thesis, University of Chicago (1924). An example of a study of the extent to 
which racial beliefs are held is: Daniel Katz and Kenneth Braly, "Racial Stereotypes of 
One Hundred College Students," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology (1933), 
pp. 280-290. Much of the attitude measurement research comes under this rubric. An 
example of functional studies of beliefs — though not racial beliefs and so outside the 
scope of the present chapter — is Samuel M. Strong, "The Social Type Method: Social 
Types in the Negro Community of Chicago," unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of 
Chicago (1940). W. O. Brown's and Cope land's previously cited studies also belong in 
this category. 

56 Some recent community studies carried out with a primary psychological interest 
in people's beliefs have given a vision of the field to be mapped. Dollard's Caste and Class 
in a Southern Town is particularly suggestive of what might be done. 

67 Among the things we want to know are: What do people mean by "race" in 
reference to the Negro people? To what extent do they allow for influence of environ- 
mental factors? How do they relate those factors to the race and to the individual, 
respectively? What is their idea about the manner in which education, better housing 
conditions, better nutrition, and so forth, "improve" — or "spoil" — the Negroes. To what 
extent and how do people allow for individual exceptions from their racial beliefs? Do 
they believe that all Negroes are worse than all whites, and, if so, in what specific sense? 
How, more specifically, do they "think in averages"? and in contrast types? What are 
people's ideas as to the effect of cross-breeding upon the offspring? What specific beliefs 
are held concerning diverse bodily, intellectual, and moral Negro traits? How are they 
coordinated in systems of beliefs? How are they coordinated with people's religious faith 



1 198 An American Dilemma 

and the American Creed? What evidence do people find for their beliefs? How do 
people feel their own beliefs related to tradition and community consensus? Do people 
recognize an irrational element in their beliefs, and how do they account for this ele- 
ment? Do people ever sense the opportunistic character of their beliefs? Do people know 
anything about results of recent research rejecting the racial beliefs or showing that 
they are without substantiation? What is their reaction to these endeavors of scientific 
research? What is their reaction to attempts to spread scientific knowledge on racial 
matters? In all these respects, we want to have the spheres of beliefs recorded for white 
individuals in different regions of the country, different social and economic classes, on 
different levels of education, in different age groups, and in the two sexes. We also want 
to know the beliefs among the Negro people. 



Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry 

1 James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Vol. 2 (1910; first edition, 1893), 

P- 555- 

* Laws denning a Negro vary from state to state and even differ within a single 
state depending upon the purpose of the law. The most common of these laws are those 
which define a Negro for the purpose of excluding him from marriage with whites and 
from going to white schools. Since Northern states cast of the Mississippi River do not 
prohibit intermarriage (except Indiana) and since they have no enforced segregation in 
public institutions, they have no definition of a Negro in law. Before and during the 
Civil War such laws existed in some of these Northern states so that the present situation 
represents a liberal trend in the law. The opposite trend has occurred in the West and 
South. The West has no Jim Crow laws, but it has enacted vigorous prohibitions against 
intermarriage. Among all the non-Southern states west of the Mississippi River, only 
Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, New Mexico, and Washington now have no such law. Many 
of the Western states with prohibitions against intermarriage define a Negro as anyone 
known to have any Negro ancestry whatsoever and have a heavy punishment for viola- 
tions of the law. Since Southern states have a whole series of legal prohibitions for 
Negroes, it is common for them to have conflicting definitions of Negroes. (See George 
S. Schuyler, "Who is 'Negro'? Who is 'White'?" Common Ground [Autumn, 1940], 
pp. 54-55.) It would seem as though the Jim Crow laws were the most drastic since 
they prohibit persons with the slightest amount of Negro ancestry from using facilities 
and institutions for whites. The laws against intermarriage are often more liberal, since 
they permit a person with up to one-eighth Negro blood to be called "white." It is prob- 
able, however, that in practice the liberality of these two types of legal restrictions is 
reversed. Too, there has been a definite trend since Reconstruction to increase the num- 
ber of situations where Negroes are so defined in law and to broaden the definition of a 
Negro: states that were formerly content to adopt a rule of one-quarter, one-eighth, or 
one-sixteenth Negro blood have increasingly tended to diminish the amount of Negro 
blood that will define a person as a Negro. There is little, if any, differential in law 
between states of the Deep South and Border, although there may be some differential 
in practice. 

For collections of laws defining Negroes see: (1) Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal 
Status of the Negro (1940), Chapter 1 ; (2) Louis Wirth and Herbert Gnldhamer, 



Footnotes 1199 

"The Hybrid and the Problem of Miscegenation" in Otto Klineberg, (editor), 
Characteristics of tie American Negro, prepared for this study; to be published } 
manuscript pages 1 60-162. 

* A white person, particularly if he has a high statu* in society, may, in some places 
and under certain circumstances, be known to have a small amount of Negro blood and 
yet not lose caste. It must not be made notorious, however; it must not be put on record. 
And even to this last statement the observer of the American caste system finds curious 
exceptions, particularly in the old Mother Colony of Virginia and in Louisiana. These 
and other minor filigree-works on the dominant social pattern are here left out of account. 

4 Sir Harry H. Johnston, The Negro in the New World (1910) p. +13. 

"Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race (1924; first edition, 1916), pp. 
17-18. 

•Edwin R. Embree, Brown America (1933; first edition, 1931), p. 31. 

T The primary scientific meaning of "race" seems to be ethnological and to refer to 
a common and distinct ancestry. When population groups live in isolation from each 
other, the cumulated effects of mutations, combinations, and natural selections in 
adaptation to the environment produce different genetic constitutions in the groups, 
expressing themselves in different traits which are more or less common to all the 
members of each group and which are transmitted by heredity. These traits can then 
be used for classifying the groups. Such model conditions have rarely existed on earth. 
If we give up the demand that a racial group should be homogeneous, however, there 
seems to be a rather common agreement among ethnologists that nearly all mankind can 
be classified into three major stocks: the Caucaseid, the Mongoloid, and the Negroid 
peoples. These correspond roughly to the popular division of mankind into White, 
Yellow, and Brown. The three groups 

". . . represent some considerable degree of adaptation to the conditions of the environ- 
ment. The dark skin, which characterizes most of the peoples living near the tropics, 
is almost certainly the result of the elimination by natural selection of the fairer types 
of pigmentation less fitted to afford protection against the actinic rays of the sun. The 
greater number of sweat glands in the Negro and the reduction of their number among 
the yellow-skinned peoples, are probably adaptations to hot and to dry conditions respec- 
tively. Similarly the striking variations in the breadth of the nose according to latitude 
may be adaptively perpetuated through natural selection. A white skin is a disadvantage 
in the Tropics and a wide nostril in the Arctic." (Julian S. Huxley and A. C. Haddon, 
W e Europeans [1935], p. 58.) 

The major criteria of race mean that two average Caucasoids have more ancestors 
in common than a Caucasoid and a Negroid, and also that a typical white man is very dif- 
ferent from a typical Chinese or a typical Negro. But all variations exist within and 
between the typical representatives of each group. The isolation has not been complete, 
and crossing has been widespread through history and prc-history. If it is thus difficult 
to draw sharp lines of distinction between the major groups, it is still more so within 
these groups. Migration and hybridization have been going on all the time through the 
ages and all the national "races" within the three major stocks are the result of extensive 
hybridization. 

8 If we use Herskovits' sample, and if we further assume that a person who said he 
was of mixed blood but was more Negro than white is, on the average, 75 per cent 
Negro, that a person who said he was about half Negro and half white is, on the average, 



loo per cent of the ancestors, 


342.00 


are 


assumed to 


or in proportion to 


the 




be 


pure Negro 


total persons 










IOO " 




97.00 




" 


75 




288.00 




" 


75 




79.50 




" 


50 




1.10.00 




" 


50 




66.50 




■« 


»S 




38.50 




tt 


»5 




18,75 




•< . 



1200 An American Dilemma 

50 per cent Negro, and that a person who said he was more white than Negro is, on the 
average, 25 per cent Negro — if we mate ail these assumptions — the proportion of African 
Negro ancestors of all ancestors back to any given time is roughly two-thirds. The 
computations are based on the figures presented on p. 177 of Melville J. Herskovits' 
The Anthropometry of the American Negro (1930). 

Of 342 N* persons, 

97 NI 

384 NNW • 
106 NNW(I) 
160 NW 
133 NW(I) 
154 NWW 
75 NWW(l) 

Total 1551 1063.25 

* In the table, N stands for Negro, W fir white. I for Indian. Two N's indicate a preponderance of Neirro 
ancestry; two W's indicate a preponderance of white ancestry; an I in parentheses indicates an unknown 
amount jf Indian ancestry. 

1060 

Since the proportion neglects the unknown proportion of Caucasoid blood 

inserted before the Negroes came to the United States, we may reduce the proportion 
Negro to 2/3. However, in spite of Herskovits' valiant efforts to test the representative- 
ness of his sample, it undoubtedly contains too many upper class Negroes who have 
more white ancestry than the average Negro. (See footnote 41 in this chapter.) On the 
other hand, the persons interviewed by Herskovits may not have known about some of 
their white ancestry, and, in addition, Indian ancestry is not accounted for in our cal- 
culation. These counteracting errors must, to some extent, neutralize each other and 
the proportion of African ancestors is perhaps not too far away from 2/3. As we do 
not know the magnitude of the errors, the figure should not be taken to be more than our 
best guess based upon significantly inadequate data. 

* Most states, including the Southern' ones, had laws prohibiting slave importations 
before 1808, but little attempt was made to enforce them — except in the North where 
slavery itself was prohibited during and after the Revolutionary War. For the laws, 
see John Codman Huid, The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States, Vol. 
2 (1 858-1862), p. 2, passim. 

10 U. S, Bureau of .the Census, A Century of Population Growth in the United States: 
1790-1000, p. 91. 

11 Melville J. Herskovits, "Social History of the Negro," in C. Murchison (editor), 
A Handbook of Social Psychology (1935)5 p. 236. 

12 Louis I. Dublin, Health and Wealth (1928), p. 256. 

18 The facts in this paragraph on the distribution of the peoples of Africa have been 
taken from Herskovits, "Social History of the Negro" in op. cit., pp. 207-267. 

14 This sentence should not be taken to imply that the population of Africa is any more 
homogeneous today. 

15 Evidence as to the geographic homelands of the slaves is summarized in Melville 
J. Herskovits, "On the Provenience of the New World Negroes," Social Forres f Decern- 



Footnotes I 401 

ber, 1933), pp. 247-262. In addition to this source, we have relied for this paragraph 
of the text on three memoranda prepared for this study: Melville J. Herskovits, The 
Myth of the Negro Past ( 1 94 1 ) ; Wirth and Goldhamer, of. cit., manuscript pages 6-16; 
and M. F. Ashley Montagu, "The Origin, Composition, and Physical Characteristics of 
the American Negro Population," unpublished manuscript (1940), pp. 8-20. 

18 Herskovits {The Myth of the Negro Past, pp. 43-S3) summarizes the statistical 
evidence to date on the geographical location in Africa from which the slaves came. His 
chief sources are two publications by Elizabeth Donnan: "The Slave Trade into South 
Carolina before the Revolution," American Historical Review (1927-1928), pp. 804- 
828, and "Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America," Carnegie Institution 
Publication, No. 409, Vols. 1-4 (1930-1935). There is a wealth of material in these 
sources and in others cited by Herskovits, but the statistical proportions cannot be accepted 
as exact because data are available for only a sample of slaves whose representativeness 
is not known. The verbal statement in the text, which agrees substantially with 
Herskovits* conclusion, is, therefore, not more reliable but also not less accurate than the 
detailed statistical data given. 

17 When the high reproduction rate is taken into account — always increasing the 
relative importance for genetic composition of a population element in some proportion 
to its length of domicile in this country — the fact that there was an even greater, pre- 
ponderance of West African slave stock in earlier importation must raise its importance 
even above its simple aggregate numerical weight. 

18 For discussions of race intermixture in the West Indies see: Matthew G. Lewis, 
Journal of a West India Proprietor 1815-17 (1929), pp. 73 and 144; Edward B. 
Underhill, The West Indies (1862), p. 225; W. J. Gardner, A History of Jamaica 
(revised edition, 1909), p. 165; George Pinckard, Notes on the West Indies (1816), 
Vol. I, pp. 114-118, Vol. 2, pp. 136-137, 328, and 531; Robert T. Hill, Cuba and 
Porto Rico with the Other Islands of the West Indies (1898), pp. 164-169, 226-227, 
290 and 3 1 1 ; J. Stewart, A View of the Past and Present State of the Island of Jamaica 
(1823), Chapter 15; E. Goulburn Sinckler, The Barbados Handbook (1914), p. 44; 
Ludwell Lee Montague, Haiti and the United States 1714-1038 (1940), pp. 4-6; 
Zora Ncale Hurston, Tell My Horse (1938), pp. 16-21 ; Puerto Rico, American Guide 
Scries (1940), p. HO; J. Antonio Jarvis, Brief History of the Virgin Islands (1938), 
pp. 44-45, 49, 188-189, and 200-201 ; George Milton Fowles, Down in Porto Rico 
(1910; first edition, 1906), pp. 60-61 and 96; George Mannington, The West Indies 
(1930; first edition, 192;), pp. 71, 129 and 239-241; James G. Leyburn, The 
Haitian Peo fie (l94l),pp. 3, 16, 177-179 and 189. 

10 Clyde V. Kiser, "Fertility of Harlem Negroes," Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 

(J«iy» 1935). pp- 273-284. 

20 The evidence on the subjects discussed in this paragraph is summarized in Hers- 
kovits, The Myth of the Negro Past, pp. 293-294. For a discussion of the extent to 
which slaves sought to escape into free territory, see: Henrietta Buckmaster, Let My 
Peo fie Go ( 1 941). 

21 Citations may be made to illustrate these two extreme positions on the extent of 
mortality during passage. Evidence cited by Willis D. Weatherford and Charles S. 
Johnson (Race Relations [1934], pp. 274-275) supports the position of high mortality: 

"The physical effects of slavery are often overlooked or undepressed because, in cer- 
tain significant respects, they are more closely related to the commercial than to th» 



1202 An American Dilemma 

social aspects of the slavery system. Nevertheless, if there is any raise in physical selee* 
tton and survival, there is perhaps no more sensitive example of this in history than the 
cold and almost organic selection for which the slave trade was responsible. For every 
slave introduced into the routine of the American slave system, from two to five died 
or were killed on the way. Thomas F. Buxton estimates that for every slave landed safely 
on a plantation five were lost, and he is supported in this estimate by Normal Leys. 

"The African slave trade was aided by the intertribal warfare which kept numerous 
slaves in the possession of tribes. As the trade became widespread and highly profitable, 
there were deliberate slave raids which entailed great loss of life. The march to the coast, 
hanger, the harsh measures of the slave drivers, the exposure to contagion in the dose 
quarters of the slave barracoons, and the horrors of the notorious middle passage, the long 
ocean voyage on which the victims were packed close in the foul and unsanitary holds 
of the slave ships, resulted in an excessively high toll. It has been estimated that the mor- 
tality on the journey from the interior to the coast amounted to five-twelfths of the entire 
number captured. Since no careful records were kept, this may be an extreme figure, 
but it is known that this mortality was extremely high. 

"There are better estimates for the mortality of the middle passage. A journey 
required about fifty days. Slaves were cheap in Africa but high in America, and this fact 
encouraged overcrowding. The records of the English African Company, for the period 
1680 to 1688, show 60,783 Negro slaves shipped, of which number 14,387 were lost in 
the middle passage. This is 23.7 per cent of the number. Altogether, this was an experi- 
ence calculated to eliminate weaklings. Says Le Fevre: 'From the standpoint of the 
American slaves, the most significant aspect of the slave-trade was its frightful efficiency 
in weeding out feeble bodies and easily depressed minds. Every Negro who survived 
proved by the mere fact of being alive, his physical and mental capacity for endurance.' " 
Herskovits (The Myth of the Negro Pott, p. 43) cites evidence of low mortality. He 
relies on Pere Dieudonne Rinchon. (Le Trafic Negrier, iPafris Us livres de commerce 
du eafitaine Gantois Pierre-Ignoce Lievin Van Alstein [1938], pp. 304 ff.): 

"For he [Rinchon] shows that, between 1748 and 1782, 541 slavers bought 146,799 
slaves, and disposed of 127,133. The difference, 19,666, or 13 per cent, would indicate 
that the losses from all causes during shipment — and it by no means follows that these 
were deaths — were much smaller than has been thought." 

82 Frederick Olmsted quotes a slaveholder to this effect: "In the States of Maryland, 
Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, as much attention is paid 
to the breeding and growth of- Negroes as to that of horses and mules." (The Cotton 
Kingdom, Vol. 1 [1862], p. 57.) 

28 Franz Boas, Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants (1910) and 
various other papers. A' critical and appreciative evaluation of Boas' work has been 
expressed by F. H. Hankins, The Racial Basis of Civilization (1926), pp. 355-356: 

"The famous study by Boas already referred to purported to show that the European 
immigrant 'changes his type even in the first generation almost entirely' ; children born 
a few years after the arrival of their parents in this country 'differ essentially from their 
foreign-born parents.' Elsewhere Boas contends that 'These observations seem to indicate 
a decided plasticity of human types.' In view of the fact that the differences between 
parents and offspring as shown in his original data for such a trait as head-form were 
not always either positive or negative but frequently conflicting, and in view of the fact 
that the general average differences were not always significant when compared with 



Footnotes 1203 

the probable errors of the measurements, Boas'* claims ('entirely,' 'essentially') appear 
much exaggerated. It is, nevertheless, not necessary to deny that he found some real 
differences between the ancestral and the American-born generations. Whether the total 
change, whatever it was, should be attributed to the American climate, food, drink or 
mores, is open to doubt. It is indeed quite probable that these had nothing whatever to 
do with the change in head-form assuming such a change to have occurred, whether as 
a mutation, a recombination of genetic factors, or as a purely somatic modification. One 
cannot be certain." 

Other investigators have followed Boas in studying the physical changes accompanying 
immigration. For example: Leslie Spier, "Growth of Japanese Children Born in America 
and Japan," University of Washington Publications in Anthrofology (July, 1 929) ; H. 
L. Shapiro, Migration and Environment (1939). For a summary of such studies see 
Maurice H. Krout, "Race and Culture: A Study in Mobility, Segregation, and Selec- 
tion," American Journal pf Sociology (September, 1931), pp. 173-189. 

24 There is some inconclusive evidence that the average stature of American Negroes 
has been increasing since the Civil War. (Stature has been used by anthropologists at a 
characteristic of race.) The average stature of Civil War Negro troops was 168.99 cm - 
(reported by Baxter) ; while that of World War Negro troops, less selected, if anything, 
was 171.99 cm. (reported by Davenport and Love); and that of Herskovits' more 
representative sample of 887 male Negroes was 170.49. (See Herskovits, The Anthro- 
fometry of the American Negro, p. 43.) 

26 L. P. Jackson "Elizabethan Seamen and the African Slave Trade," The Journal 
of Negro History (January, 1924), p. 2. 

20 Most of the evidence on the basis of which this paragraph was written is brought 
together in Ashley-Montagu, of. cit. 

27 "The conversion of new negroes into plantation laborers, a process called 'breaking 
in,' required always a mingling of delicacy and firmness. Some planters distributed their 
new purchases among the seasoned households . . ." (Ulrich B. Phillips, American Negro 
Slavery [1918], p. 53.) 

James G. Leyburn reports that families were separated to prevent their conspiring and 
planning revolts. {The Haitian People [1941], p. 179.) 

28 See W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Folk Then and Now (1939); also, "Africa" The 
Encyclopedia Britannica (eleventh edition), Vol. 1, pp. 325-330. 

a0 There have been few attempts by legislation to hinder Negro-Indian intermarriage. 
Only three states (Louisiana, Oklahoma, and North Carolina) have laws forbidding such 
intermarriage, and these were never seriously enforced. (See Hurd, of. cit., Vol. I, p. 
29;, and Mangum, of. cit., pp. 2 53-2 54.) 

80 E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States (1939), Chapter 1 1, 
"Racial Islands." 

81 K. W. Porter, "Relations between Negroes and Indians Within the Present Limits 
of the United States," The Journal of Negro History (July, 1932), pp. 287-367, and 
K, W. Porter, "Notes Supplementary to 'Relations between Negroes and Indians,"' 
The Journal of Negro History (July, 1933), pp. 282-321, especially pp. 320-321. 
These important studies are referred to, and the rest of the evidence on Negro-Indian 
miscegenation is summarized in Ashley-Montagu, of. cit. 

32 Melville J. Herskovits, The American Negro (1928), p. 10. 



I204- An American Dilemma 

u The first census of 1790 showed a white sex ratio of 104 for the United States 
and 106 for the Sooth. Earlier years wonld probably show a higher sex ratio, but the 
data for them arc incomplete and otherwise inadequate. 

84 Marcus W. Jernegan, Laboring and Dependent Classes in Colonial America: 
1607-1783 (1931). Also Carter G. Woodson, "The Beginnings of the Miscegenation 
of the Whites and Blacks," The Journal of Negro History (October, 19 1 8), pp. 335- 

353- 

88 Jernegan, of. cit., p. 55. Also, Woodson, op. cit. t pp. 339-340. 

8 * Reuter thus states that the miscegenation between Negro slaves and the growing 
group of poor whites "very greatly decreased as the institution of slavery developed."" 
He summarizes his arguments, which are representative of one vein of scientific opinion 
on this very controversial question, in the following way: 

"As the status of the slave became better defined and a social difference was made, 
the friendly relation between the Negroes and the white servants gave place to a feeling 
of hatred between the Negroes and the poor white class. This, together with the more 
strict discipline over the slaves, generally prevented much intermixture of these classes 
during the period that slavery existed as a national institution." 15 
And even taking into account the relations between men of the master class and the 
slave women, he draws the conclusion that "mixture of the races probably went on 
more slowly during the period that slavery existed as a national institution, than in the 
period before or the period since."* 

Reuter's reasoning on this point does not seem quite convincing. It is, first, doubtful 
to what extent the growing racial antipathies really prevented the type of exploitative 
sexual intercourse which we are here discussing. Second, only a part of the Negro slaves 
were employed on great plantations where the type of isolation and regimentation 
prevailed which would best support Reuter's hypothesis. While the proportion of slaves 
on the large plantations grew during the period, it never passed 53 per cent. d Third, 
and most important, the slaveholders had no interest at all in directing "the slave system 
as a working and developed institution" so that it "regulated strictly the conduct of the 
slaves and thereby restricted, in a measure, irregular relations between them and the 
general white population."" They had rather the opposite interest. The higher sales 
value of mulatto slaves, especially in the case of women, gave the slaveholders an 
economic interest in favoring race mixture, and contemporary observers even record 

'Edward B. Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States (1918), p. 158. 

b Ibid., p. 163. 

' Reuter is not consistent on this point, since he elsewhere says that there was a decline 
in mixture after Reconstruction. Compare: E. B. Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States 
(1918), pp. 158-159 passim i, E. B. Reuter, Race Mixture (1931), p. 47 passim\ E. B. 
Reuter, The American Race Problem (1927), pp. 138-139 passim. 

d The figure of 53 per cent represents the number of slaves owned by persons who held 
30 or more slaves each in i860, in the fifteen slave states. If we reduce the criterion of a 
"large holding" to 15 slaves, the proportion rises to 62 per cent. If we raise the criterion of 
a "large holding" to 30 slaves, the proportion falls to 40 per cent. Masters who held zo 
or more slaves were 1 z per cent of all masters. (Source : U. S. Census Office, Agriculture of 
the United States in i860 ; Compiled from the Original Returns of the Eighth Census [ 1 864], 

P- *47-) 

'Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States, pp. 158-159. 



Footnotes I2QJ 

cases where rewards were given to white males who consented to be the fathers of 
mulattoes.* 

87 Wirth and Goldhamer, of. eft., manuscript pages 24-25. Wirth does not here refer 
to trends, of course. 

88 Concerning the miscegenation between Northern soldiers and Negro women 
during the period in which the Northern Army occupied the South, Professor E. 
Franklin Frazier writes (in a communication to the author, July I, 1942): 

"In the genealogies which I have collected, few of the white ancestors were Northern 
men. It is possible, of course, that the mulatto offspring of Northern soldiers and 
Southern Negroes do not belong to the upper and middle class in the Negro population 
as do the offspring of the Southern upper class whites and Negroes. It is possible that the 
relations between the Northern soldiers and Southern Negroes were more casual than 
sex relations between Southern whites and Negroes, and the mulatto offspring did not 
know their white ancestors as well as did the mulatto offspring of Southern whites. 
Moreover, there is another factor which should be taken into account, namely: Northern 
soldiers had an aversion to close intimate contacts with the blacks, an attitude which was 
lacking among the Southern whites." 

89 Race Mixture, p. 49. 

40 See, for instance, T: J. Woofter, Jr., The Basis of Racial Adjustment (1925), 
pp. 42-44. Rcuter expressed himself more guardedly. (See Reutcr, Race Mixture, 
pp. 49-50.) See Wirth and Goldhamer, of. cit., manuscript pages 33-35. 

41 The main evidences are the following: 

(a) In his samples of mulattoes drawn from various sections of the country, Herskovits 
found fewer white parents than white grandparents, who in turn were fewer than 
white great-grandparents, and so on. For his college group, 2 per cent reported white 
parentage, while about 10 per cent knew of white grandparents. {The Anthropometry 
of the American Negro, pp, 240-241. Also see The American Negro, p. 30.) Hersko- 
vits seems to forget that one has more grandparents than parents so that, all other things 
equal, the probabilities, naturally, increase in geometric fashion — as one goes back 
through the generations. He also neglects the fact that contraception is more prevalent 
in recent years — probably especially in sex relations which defy convention — so that 
the number of offspring cannot be used as an index of the number of sex contacts in 
time series. Finally, he neglects the possibility of socio-economic differentials — which 
affect the sample of college students — between white parental and white grandparental 
groups. 

(b) In Mrs. Day's sample of 1,152 persons born before the Civil War, 243 were 
known to have been partners in interracial unions, while this was true of only 3 out of 
1,385 persons born since the Civil War. (Caroline Bond Day, A Study of Some Negro- 
White Families in the United States [1932], p. 108.) Day's sample is not intended 
to be representative of the general Negro population, and her information is admittedly 
not complete in this aspect of the study. 

(c) Frazier records that of 920 known grandparents of 31 1 persons listed in Who's 
Who in Colored America: 1928-1020, 137, or 14.9 per cent, were white. (Frazier, 
of. cit., p. 247.) There is no corresponding sample of recent Negro births for compari- 
son, but ihis high proportion is undoubtedly not obtained today. The sample is, of 
tfmrse, not representative, and births are no perfect index of sex contacts in time series. 

* See Wirth and Goldhamer, of. cit., manuscript page 20. 



t%o6 An American Dilemma 

(d) There are a number of observations in the literature to the same effect. Kelly 
Miller writes in Out of the House of Bondage: "As an illustration of the infrequency 
of the direct mulatto progeny, the student body of Howard University, about fifteen 
hundred in number, is composed largely of the mixed element. There are probably not 
a half dozen children of white parents in this entire number. On the other hand, the 
first pupils in this institution, a generation ago, were very largely the offspring of such 
parentage." ([1914]. P- 55-) 

43 Reuter, who has specialized upon the problem of race mixture, wrote two books 
on the subject: The Mulatto in the United States in 1 91 8 and Race Mixture in 1 93 1 
and discussed present and future trends without even mentioning contraception and 
birth control. In his last book, The American Race Problem (1927), although Reuter 
discusses birth control among Negroes in regard to several other problems, he fails to 
consider the effect of contraception on the number of mixed offspring. More remark- 
able is, perhaps, that Herskovits in his path-breaking book, The American Negro, also 
Is able to discuss the present and future trend of miscegenation and amount of mixed 
offspring without touching the question of contraception. 

48 John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (193 7), p. 141. 

44 In June, 1932, The Birth Control Review devoted its entire issue to a discussion 
of birth control among Negroes. In this issue, in an article ehtitled "The Negro Birth 
Rate," S. J. Holmes states: "There is every reason to believe that the same causes which 
have led to a decreased birth rate among the whites have occasioned the declining birth 
rate among the Negroes. As most students of this subject agree, birth control is one of 
the most potent of these causes" (p. 172). 

A social worker gives further evidence: ". . . they [the clients] ask often where 
they may obtain bona fide and scientific information concerning this [contraception] .... 
The Negro client is feeling less and less guilty about asking for and receiving informa- 
tion on birth control and is expressing himself freely as having wanted such guidance 
for a long time. . . . There are still a great many who have not lost their sense of sinning 
in seeking such help. . . . Yet there are increasing numbers who seek birth control." 
(Constance Fisher, "The Negro Social Worker Evaluates Birth Control," The Birth 
Control Review, of. cit., pp. 174-175.) 

Confirming evidence is given by Carolyn Bryant: "As far as teachability goes we find 
that the Negro women seem to learn and accept the method of contraception used in this 
clinic as easily or more so than the white patients. We have no definite figures to prove 
this statement." ("The Cincinnati Clinic," The Birth Control Review, of. cit., p. 177.) 

Norman Himes reports that ". . . at Cleveland, Cincinnati and Detroit the Negro 
rate of clinic attendance, is approximately three times the rate in which Negroes exist 
in the respective city populations." ("Clinical Service for the Negro," The Birth 
Control Review, of. cit., p. 1 76.) 

George S. Schuyler, a Negro journalist, makes the following comments: "There is 
no great opposition to birth control among the twelve million brown Americans. Cer- 
tainly none has been expressed in writing. On the contrary one encounters everywhere a 
profound interest in and desire for information on contraceptive methods among tlu'm. 
. . . Negroes are perhaps more receptive to this information than white folk. Despite 
their vaunted superiority, the white brethren have a full quota of illusions -and, one 
might say, hypocrisies, especially about anything dealing with sex. Brown Americans 
sue somewhat different because they have been forced to face more frankly the hard 



Footnotes 1207 

factt of life. ... No wonder one sometimes hears a colored woman say 'it's a sin to 
bring a black child into the world.'. . . If anyone should doubt the desire on the part 
of Negro women and men to limit their families, it is only necessary to note the large 
scale of 'preventive devices' sold in every drug store in the various Black Belts, and the; 
great number of abortions performed by medical men and quacks." ("Quantity or*. 
Quality," The Birth Control Review, of. cit., pp. 165-166.) 

Further indirect evidence of the desire for family limitation among Negroes can be 
presented. "There is reason to believe ... if one is willing to accept the almost universal 
testimony of Negro physicians, that . . . birth control of a sort is being attempted on a 
wide scale among the lower classes of Negroes. . . . Negro women in formidable num- 
bers, without the advantage of contraceptive information, seek relief through abortions 
performed under highly dangerous conditions. . . ." (Elmer A. Carter, "Eugenics for 
the Negro," The Birth Control Review, of. cit., p. 169.) 

Raymond Pearl's study, however, indicates that Negro women practice contraception 
less than do white women. (See The Natural History of Population [1939], pp. 193- 
194, and table, p. 231.) 

48 In the only recent study showing quantitative trends in intermarriage, Wirth and 
Goldhamer state that intermarriage in Boston and New York State (outside of New 
York City) has been decreasing, but the fact that there are now a larger proportion of 
Negroes in the North where intermarriage is not illegal may have counterbalanced this 
trend. (Of. cit., manuscript, pages 37-50.) Recent studies of Southern communities 
suggest that concubinage hardly exists in the present-day South in the form which it 
took before the Civil War, or at least if it exists, is more effectively concealed. (See 
Dollard, of. cit., pp. 141-142; Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom [1939], pp. 
195-196.) 

46 ". . . In recent years a new type of contact between the two races has been .develop- 
ing in Northern cities. White collar workers of the two races have been associating more 
freely and are having, of course, sex relations. Contraceptives are generally used in such 
contacts." (Communication from E. Franklin Frazier, July I, 1942.) 

47 Wirth and Goldhamer discuss all these types of passing. {Of. cit., manuscript 
pages 72-99.) 

48 One of the reasons often overlooked for the ability to pass of persons who still 
have large proportions of Negro blood is the fact that not all Africans had the black 
color of the "true Negro." (See Day, of. cit., pp. 10-11.) 

46 Day seems to be the only one who has made an approach to the use of the first 
method — and that only incidentally in the course of following up other interests. (See 
Day, of. cit., p. II.) Her samples of the families were known to have differing amounts 
of Negro blood in them, but were not intended to be representative of the general 
Negro population. Out of her 346 families, 35 included one or more individuals 
who had completely lost their racial identity. Her average family contained about 7.3 
persons over 14 years of age, living or dead, so her statement would allow one to 
estimate that, at the very minimum, 15 out of every 1,000 Negroes passed. This 
conclusion is worthless, however, in view of the fact that Mrs. Day's sample was not, 
and was not intended to be, representative since her families were selected as containing 
6ome white blood even though individual members in them were full-blooded Negroes. 

The second method was employed by Hart — also in following up another interest. 
(Horne'J Hart, Selective Migration as a Factor in Chili Welfare in the United States, 



1208 An American Dilemma 

with Special Reference to lotoa [1921], pp. 28-29.) Between 1900 and 1910 he 
estimated that 25,000 Negroes passed each year Into the white community. If the 
average length of life after the passing be assumed as 20 to 30 years beyond childhood, 
and if the rate of passing between 1900 and 1 910 be assumed to be the average for the 
years just before 1900 and since 1910, one could estimate that between 4 and 6 per 
cent of all those with some Negro blood hare passed. It is known, however, that census 
data and vital statistics do not approach the accuracy required to make such refined 
estimates as are necessary in judging the extent of passing, since the entire error is 
contained in the relatively small margin used to measure the amount of passing. 

The third method of estimating the extent of passing — that of noting discrepancies 
in sex ratio — was used by Charles S. Johnson ("The Vanishing Mulatto," Opportunity 
[October, 1925], p. 291) and by Everett V. Stonequist (The Marginal Man [1937], 
pp. 19O-191.) The application of this technique has not only all the weaknesses of 
the original census data, but it also could only reveal the extent to which men pass 
more than women and not the total amount of passing. 

60 The above statement that passing cannot make the population darker refers to the 
average — since the traits, including skin color, of mixed offspring are usually a blend 
of the traits of their parents, on the average. The question as to whether passing will 
create individual cases of children with pronounced Negroid traits being born to 
ostensibly white parents is still a subject of controversy. It seems to be agreed by every- 
one that the offspring of two passable (or passed) mulattoes may have a darker skin than 
either of his parents. The controversy is 'around the question as to whether the off- 
spring of a passed mulatto and a pure-blooded white person can have a darker skin than 
either parent. Majority opinion among those who have looked into this question seems 
to be that it cannot happen. Hooton, for example, says: 

"There is no reversion to the Negro type in the offspring of mixed parents which 
would support the traditional notion of seemingly White couples producing fully 
Negroid infants, but there is no doubt that by a combination of features from both 
parents an occasional child may intensify the Negroid appearance not particularly 
obvious in either of his progenitors. In other words, a Negroid child may look more 
like a Negro than cither of his parents, if both of them carry Negro blood. This is 
theoretically impossible if one parent is pure White, and I do not believe that it occurs. 
Negroid features seem to be attenuated, rather than intensified, by successive generations 
of inbreeding of mixed types, even when approximately identical proportions of blood 
are maintained. White features seem to gain upon Negroid features. I am convinced 
that some sort of Mendelian inheritance, involving many factors, is concerned in this 
process." (Earnest A. Hooton, "The Anthropometry of Some Small Samples of American 
Negroes and Negroids" In Day, op. cit., p. 107.) 
East makes a similar statement: 

"A favourite short-story plot with which melodramatic artists seek to harrow the 
feelings of their readers is one where the distinguished scion of an aristocratic family 
marries the beautiful girl with telltale shadows on the half-moons of her nails, and in 
due time is presented with a coal-black son. It is a good framework, and carries a thrill. 
One waits ihiveringly, even breathlessly, for the first squeal of the dingy infant. There 
is only this slight imperfection — or is it an advantage? — it could not possibly happen 
on the stage as set by the author. The most casual examination of the genetic formulae 
given above demonstrates its absurdity. If there ever was a basis for the plot in real 



Footnotes nog 

life, the explanation lies in a fracture of the seventh commandment, or in a tinge of 
negro blood in the aristocrat as dark as that in his wife." (Edward M. East, Heredity 
and Hitman Affairs [1927], p. IOO.) 

Wirth has examined the scientific and popular literature exhaustively and has never 
come across a documented case of a "black baby" being born to a light mulatto and 
white person: 

"One further aspect of Negro-white miscegenation probably requires some comment 
in view of the persistent error of at least the lay mind on this particular point, namely, 
the possibility that a white person mating with an individual who passes for white but 
has some Negro ancestry may produce a child darker than the mixed blood partner. It 
should be pointed out in this connection that while two parties with Negro blood may 
very occasionally have an offspring with somewhat more Negroid features than them- 
selves, it is not possible for a white person and a person with some Negro ancestry to 
have an offspring more Negroid than the partner with Negro blood." (Wirth and Gold- 
hamer, of. cit. y manuscript page 113.) 

There is at least one biologist, however, who takes the opposite view, and says the 
"black baby" can happen, and occasionally does happen. (Huxley and Haddon, of. «"/., 
p. 82.) 

"In some extreme cases, the offspring of a cross between a white man and a half- 
breed coloured woman have been fair and almost black respectively." 
In a recent (December, 1 941) statement to the author, Professor Huxley indicated that 
he did not wish the above quotation from his book to be taken as final and beyond 
question. 

The Mendelian mechanism of color inheritance, too, is a subject of debate, so that 
it cannot be relied upon to settle this controversy, since the "white" partner may have 
had a distant Negro ancestor about whose existence he was completely unaware. The 
controversy is not very important practically, since if a dark-skinned baby can be born 
to a light mulatto and a white person, this happens so extremely rarely that one is still 
justified in branding as a myth the popular belief that it occurs. 

Finally, it should be said that it may be that the "black baby" is not given a chance 
to appear, since belief in the myth might encourage the use of contraceptives in white- 
mulatto relations. 

61 Southern scholars now discredit the theory that the origin of the Southern planter 
class was aristocratic, or that it differed much from that of the lower classes. See, for 
example: Thomas J. Wertenbaker, The Old South (1942), p. 21; Virginius Dabney, 
Below The Potomac (1942), p. 2; Frank Owsley, "The Irrepressible Conflict" in I'll 
Take My Stand (1930), p. 69. 

62 Reuter, Race Mixture, pp. 1 60-161. Compare Rcuter, The Mulatto in the United 
States,, pp. 396-397, passim. The cultural and social causes and effects of this selective 
mating will be discussed further in Chapter 31. The fact itself is referred to by 
numerous authors, and is, indeed, obvious to any observer. (See Miller, of. cit., p. 57; 
Herskovits, The American Negro, pp. 63-64; and Donald Young, American Minority 
Peofles [1932], p. 356.) 

68 Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States. It should also be pointed out that 
Reuter's estimate of the proportion of mulattoes in the total population — which he 
uses as a basis for comparison — is much too small in the light of subsequent findings. 
In his later books, Reuter retains his conclusion, but reverses himself frequently. "No 



x2fo Am American Diusmma 

legitimate inference may be drawn from social prominence to native ability." (Race 
Mixture, p. no.) 

M The belief that mulattoes were sterile seems to have been called out when it was 
desired to discourage miscegenation, and the opposite belief when it was felt necessary 
to explain the manifest increase in number of mulattoes without admitting the fact of 
continuing interracial sex relations. In the only careful study of the fecundity of 
mulattoes, Frazier finds that it is about the same as that of full-blooded Negroes. (E. 
Franklin Frazier, "Children in Black and Mulatto Families," The American Journal of 
Sociology [July, 1933], pp. 12-29.) This study is not methodologically perfect, but 
seems to be the best available on the subject. For other literature on the subject, see 
Wirth and Goldhamer, of. cit., manuscript pages 109-m. 

M Klineberg has made a painstaking study which tends to show that Negro migrants 
to Northern cities have not included a disproportionate number of highly intelligent 
Negroes. (Otto Klineberg, Negro Intelligence and Selective Migration t'935]-) 
A similar study done before Klineberg's with data for Washington, D. C. is: Alice S. 
McAlpin, "Changes in the Intelligence Quotients of Negro Children," Journal of 
Negro Education (April 1, 1932), pp. 44-48. 

68 The American Negro and The Anthropometry of the American Negro. 

87 The Anthropometry of the American Negro, p. 1 5. Herskovits' full table on p. 
177 is reproduced here: 

Unmixed Negro 

Negro, mixed with Indian 

More Negro than White 

More Negro than White, with Indian 

About the same amount of Negro and White 

About the same amount of Negro and White, with Indian 

More White than Negro 

More White than Negro, with Indian 

1551 100.0 

These proportions refer to the existing Negro population and do not take into account 
those hybrids who have passed into the whke or Indian populations. 

Hrdli£ka — in searching for full-blooded Negroes on whom he wished to make 
anthropometric measurements — also reported that over 70 per cent of a group of 
Negroes in Washington, D. C, had at least one white ancestor." Hrdli&ka's Washington 
Negroes were not meant to be considered as representative of the entire population of 
American Negroes, and undoubtedly contained too many upper class persons who tend 
to have a relatively large proportion of white blood. The fact that Hrdliika was 
searching for full-blooded Negroes may, however, have counterbalanced this selective 
factor. Also Hrdli&ka says that some of the remaining 30 per cent may have had some 
white blood. 

58 E. Franklin Frazier writes: 

"Many mulattoes in the United States with very little Negro blood consider them- 
selves pure Negroes. I have had mulatto students at Fisk University and Howard Univer- 
sity insist that they were pure Negroes. One summer I visited a number of summer 

*Ales Hrdlicka, "The Full-Blood American Negro," American Journal of Physical 
Anthropology (July-September, 1918), p. 15. 



N 


34* 


22.0 


N(I) 


97 


6.3 


NNW 


384 


24.8 


NNW(I) 


106 


6.9 


NW 


260 


16.7 


NW(I) 


133 


8-5 


NWW 


"54 


9-3 


NWW(I) 


75 


5.5 



Footnotes 1211 

ichools in the South in which I had the student teachers fill out blanks indicating their 
racial identity or racial mixture of their parents, grandparents, and eren more remote 
ancestors. I was forced to give up the attempt to discover the amount of admixture of 
white blood because the majority of these elementary school teachers regarded themselves, 
their parents, and more remote ancestors as of pure Negro descent, despite the fact that 
they were obviously of mixed blood. Some could almost pass for white." (Communica- 
tion to the author, June 27, 1942.) 

8 * Although Herskovits has made valiant efforts to test the representativeness of Ms 
sample, there has been no attempt to show that the samples of the other groups — measured 
by other investigators— are representative. Measurements made by different anthropolo- 
gists, at different times, on different samples of African Negro, American white, and 
American Indian groups actually show very conflicting results. In many cases the samples 
are very small, and the errors are correspondingly large — especially in relation to the 
small differences that actually separate the means and standard deviations of the groups 
which are compared. There are no comparisons for many important traits — such as skin 
color and hair form — and even where there are comparable data for the different races, 
the American Negroes have more traits which show greater variability than lesser 
variability. 

We have analyzed Herskovits' data and can find no striking evidence of lower 
American Negro variability. This analysis is partly subjective because of the inadequate 
nature of the original data, but is presented here for what it is worth. 

Comparison of Variabilities* or the American Neo.ro Population with the American 

White Population and with the West African Negro Population in 

Twenty-three Selected Traits 

Number of traits in which the American Negro 
population is more or less homogeneous than: 

The American White The African Negro 

Population Population 



Number of traits in which American Negroes are 
more homogeneous 6 4 

Number of traits in which American Negroes are 
less homogeneous 7 10 

Number of traits in which the evidence is con- 
flicting S 7 

Number of traits in which then are no data $ 2 

Total 23 23 



Source: Melville J. Henkovita, The Anthropometry of the American Nepo (igjo), Chapter 1 and pp. 
240-350. 

' Variability is measured by the standard deviation in all eases. 

The reason that Herskovits offers for the supposed greater homogeneity in the Ameri- 
can Negro population is that there is no longer much miscegenation with whites and 
Indians, and that the Negroes themselves are intermarrying. These reasons are invalid 
even if the data were not: In the first place, the decrease in Negro-white offspring, 
e-en if it should be accepted as established, is a rather new phenomenon, while the 



1 21 2 An American Dilemma 

African tribes, and possibly even the Old Americans, hare had less out-breeding than 
the American Negroes for a much longer period of time. Secondly, while Negroes with 
different physical appearance do marry each other, the predominant tendency is for like 
to marry like. Mulattoes — having a greater concentration in the cities and in the upper 
income brackets, and having a higher prestige because of their relative physical similarity 
to whites— tend to marry each other unless they happen to make a particularly good 
match in the darker, more Negroid group. Finally, Herskovits has not even considered 
the possibility that, if Negroes were more homogeneous in certain traits, this homogeneity 
might be due to greater homogeneity of environment rather than of gene composition. 
Thus, in view of the fact that his data for this purpose are inadequate; that it would 
seem — a friori — that a recently mixed group would show more variability than a more 
genetically isolated group; and that common observation of the most visible traits (color, 
hair form, nose breadth, lip thickness) of American Negroes indicate unequivocally that 
their range — at least — is greater than the range within the American white population 
— in view of all these things, the burden of proof of greater physical homogeneity of 
the American Negroes still lies with Herskovits. As far as we know now, the American 
Negro population may be becoming a homogeneous brown "race" — and it is to Hers- 
kovits' credit that he has opened up discussion as to this possibility — but this is a matter 
of the speculative future and not of the empirical present. 

00 Although there are no adequate data, apparently, to determine trends in class 
differentials in fertility among Negroes, it is probable that they have been increasing 
as a Negro upper class has been rising, and as effective contraceptive devices have come 
into greater use in this upper class. 



Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics 

1 C. B. Davenport and A. G. Love, Army Anthrofology (1921). 

2 For an evaluation of this and other studies of the physical anthropology of the 
Negro, see W. Montague Cobb, "The Physical Constitution of the American Negro," 
Journal of Negro Education (July, 1934), pp. 340-388. 

3 Notable among studies comparing Negro and white traits using small samples has 
been that of T. Wingate Todd and Anna Lindala, "Dimensions of the Body: Whites 
and American Negroes of Both Sexes," American Journal of Physical Anthrofology 
(July-September, 1928), pp. 35-119. These students had at most 100 cases for each 
sex-race group. Even less reliable was the study of Ales Hrdlicka, "The Full-Blood 
American Negro," American Journal of Physical Anthrofology (July-September, 1928), 
pp. 15-33. Hrdlicka had only 20 males and 6 females. In fairness to these authors, it 
should be mentioned that they recognize the great limitations of their data, but other 
authors have used them without making the same reservations. 

* Ales Hrdlicka, The Old Americans (1925). 

a Ibid., pp. 5-6. Hrdlicka did include a series of Southern "Engineers" and Appa- 
lachian mountaineers in his sample, but he does not say how many. 

6 This summary is based upon M. F. Ashley-Montagu, "The Origin, Composition 
and Physical Characteristics of the American Negro Population," unpublished manu- 
script prepared for this study (1940), and Cobb, of. eit m pp. 340-388. These authors 
have relied # mainly on the following primary sources: Davenport and Love, op. cit.\ 



Footnotes 1213 

Todd and Lindala, of. cit.; Hrdlicka, "The Full-Blood American Negro," of. cit,, 
pp. 1 5-34; C. 8. Davenport and M. Steggerda et at., Race Crossing in Jamaica (1929) ; 
M. J. Herskovits, The Anthrofometry of the American Negro (1930) ; M. J. Hersko- 
vits, V. K. Cameron, and H. Smith, "The Physical Form of Mississippi Negroes," 
The American Journal of Physical Anthrofology (October-December, 1951), pp. 193- 
201 ; C. B. Day, A Study of Some Negro-White Families in the United States (1932). 
Our list is aimed to include only those traits which have been most frequently 
measured by anthropologists. 

After this chapter was written, two other summary sources on the physical anthro- 
pology of the Negro became available and we were able to check our statements by 
them also: (1) Julian Herman Lewis, The Biology of the Negro (1942); (2) W. 
Montague Cobb, "Physical Anthropology of the American Negro: Status and Desid- 
erata," unpublished manuscript (1942). 

1 In addition a number of investigators have reported minor skeletal differences 
between Negroes and whites. See Lewis, of. cit., pp. 68-73. 

8 Ashley-Montagu, from his experiences in anatomical laboratories, testifies that he 
"has never had any occasion to remark any appreciable difference of tha Negro genitalia 
as compared with those of whites." (Of. cit., p. 62.) In regard to body odor it should 
be pointed out that Negroes do have a larger number of sweat glands than do whites. 
But this does not prove that their body odor is different. Many white authors refer, 
however, to such a difference as an established fact. (E.g., Donald R. Young, American 
Minority Peofles [1932], p. 406; E. B. Rcuter, The American Race Problem [1938; 
first edition, 1927], p. 61 ; Robert E. Park, "The Bases of Race Prejudice," The 
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science [November, 1928], 
p. 17.) Some few authors are careful to advance the hypothesis that, if the Negro has a 
peculiar odor, it might be explained as due to diet and lack of cleanliness (Otto Kline- 
berg, Race Differences [193;], p. 1 3 1 .) William Archer writes (in Through Afro~ 
America [1910], p. 144): "Let me take this opportunity of saying that to the best of 
my belief the 'body odour' of which we hear so much is mainly a superstition. The fact 
probably is that the negro ought to be at least as scmpulous in his ablutions as the white 
man — but often is not." Ashley-Montagu {of. cit., pp. 58-59) records "the fact that 
in his own experience of African and American Negroes he has never observed any 
particular or general difference in body odor between Negroes and whites." During the 
course of this study, I have not been able to find that Negro Americans have a different 
odor than white Americans of similar social and economic status. 

Klinebcrg refers to a suggestive experiment made by Lawrence "who collected in 
test tubes a little of the perspiration of White and Colored students who had just been 
exercising violently in the gymnasium. These test tubes were then given to a number 
of White subjects with instructions to rank them in order of pleasantness. The results 
showed no consistent preference for the White samples; the test tube considered the 
most pleasant and the one considered the most unpleasant were both taken from Whites." 
(Klincberg, Race Differences, pp. 1 30-1 31.) Such experiments should be repeated on 
larger and more representative groups of whites, and the question should be asked 
whether the Negro sweat is identifiable, rather than whether it is pleasant. 

.Even if it were established that Negroes had a different odor, it would not explain 
why this odor is considered offensive. Likes and dislikes in smells of this sort are A 
matter of personal taste and cultural conditioning. 



i % 14 Am American Dilemma 

'Earnest A. Hooton, "The Anthropometry of Some Small Sample* of American 
Negroes and Negroids," in Day, of. cit., pp. 104-106, and Herskovits, The Anthropom- 
etry of the American Negro, pp. 177-227. 

10 Some anthropologists believe that certain unique Negro traits are exceptions to this 
role; some disappear rapidly when even a small admixture of white ancestry is present, 
and others are tenacious despite large admixtures of white blood.* There is great 
disagreement even among these few observers, but we may note some of those traits 
which have been studied: hair form and low hair level are said to have a high degree 
of "yieldingness," while ear height, interpupillary distance, and hair color are said 
to be "entrenched." The nature of the inheritance of skin color is still a matter of 
debate, but the majority opinion seems to be that, on the average, the color of the off- 
spring tends to be a blend of the colors of his parents. 

11 Cobb, "Physical Anthropology of the American Negro; Status and Desiderata," 
pp. 55-56. Cobb points out that even though Negroes may have continued to hold a 
certain championship, a white man of today is often better than the Negro champion of 
twenty years ago. Sec also Lewis, of. cit., p. 73, and compare Cobb's findings. 

18 See Section 3 of this chapter. A few of the earlier beliefs about Negro suscepti- 
bility to disease are cited in Young, of. cit., p. 339; in Harry Bakwin, M.D., "The 
Negro Infant," Human Biology (February, 1932), pp. 1-33 ; and in Charles S. John- 
son and Horace M. Bond, "The Investigation of Racial Differences Prior to 1910," 
Journal of Negro Education (July, 1934), pp. 335-337. 

For some of the earlier beliefs about Negro susceptibility to mental disease — which 
generally tried to show that Negroes had little mental disease under the secure condition 
of slavery — see Lewis, of. cit., pp. 266-267. 

18 Concretely, this experiment should be made by selecting two groups of children — 
Negro and white — carefully matched in all essentials, keeping them in a controlled 
laboratory situation for at least a month to test and increase their comparability, and 
then inoculating them with certain disease germs (just as in ordinary inoculations to 
develop immunity). Large differentials in reaction ought to suggest, though not measure, 
differences in racial susceptibility or immunity. 

After writing the statement in the text, our attention was called by Lewis' book to 
the only approach to such an experiment that Lewis notes in his careful survey of the 
field. Its weaknesses — in terms of inadequate controls and insufficient cases — make its 
findings completely inconclusive, but its methodology is interesting. 

"In order to find the difference between colored and white people in their reactions 
to tubercle bacilli under controlled conditions, Levine (American Journal of Diseases of 
Children [1936], p/1052) inoculated 74 white, 38 Negro, and 24 Puerto Rican 
children with identical amounts of living attenuated bovine tubercle bacilli (BCG). 
Necrosis of the local lesion on the thigh occurred more rapidly in Negro children than 
in white. Inguinal abscesses developed in more children and more rapidly among 
Negroes and Puerto Ricans than among whites. When the effect of such variables as 
age, previous exposure to tubercle bacilli, economic status, and nutrition were taken into 
account, there still remained a racial factor that is related to the more severe reaction 
in Negroes and Puerto Ricans." (Lewis, of. cit., p. 140.) 

*T. W. Todd, "Entrenched Negro Physical Features," Human Biology (January, 1929), 
pp. 57-69. Also Hooton, "The Anthropometry of Some Small Samples of American Negroes 
and Negroids" in Day, of. cit., pp. 104-106, and Herskovits, The Anthropometry of the 
American Negro, pp. 177-227. 



Footnotes i%i$ 

M Good summaries of reteaTch on disease differentials may be found in Bakwin, 
of. tit., and Harold F. Dorn, "The Health of the Negro," unpublished manuscript 
prepared for this study (1942). 

After this chapter was completed the best summary of disease differentials became 
available, and we had the opportunity of checking our statements by it: Lewis, of. cit. 

16 See Bakwin's summary, of. cit., and Lewis' summary, of. cit. 

M Official death registration statistics underestimate the Negro death rates more than 
the white rates. Thus the reporting of a slightly higher Negro death rate usually means 
that the cause of death is more important among Negroes than the statistics show. 
Studies which are based on a sample instead of the total population, however, are likely 
to be biased in the other direction — since they miss no cases and may get a poorer 
selection of Negroes than of whites. 

17 In Charleston, South Carolina, the white rate of tuberculosis in the period 184.1- 
184.8 was 268 per 100,000 as compared to 266 for Negroes. Willis D. Weatherford and 
Charles S. Johnson, Race Relations (1934), p. 375, and E. R. Embrce, Brown 
America (1933; first edition, 1931), p. 49. 

18 Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro (1896), p. 69. Also see S. J. 
Holmes, The Negroes Struggle for Survival (1937), p. 39. S. A. Cartwright, a Southern 
doctor, writing before the Civil War, expressed this opinion: 

"To the question, 'Is not Phthisis very common among the slaves of the slave States 
and unknown among the native Africans at homer' I reply in the negative, that 
Phthisis, so far from being common among the slaves of the slave States, is very seldom 
met with. As to the native Africans at home, little or nothing is known of their diseases. 
. . . Negroes, however, are sometimes, though rarely, afflicted with tubercula pulmonum, 
or Phthisis, properly so called, which has some peculiarities. . . . Phthisis is, par excel- 
lence, a disease of the sanguineous temperament, fair complexion, red or flaxen hair, 
blue eyes, large blood vessels, and a bony encasement too small to admit the full and 
free expansion of the lungs, enlarged by the superabundant blood, which is determined 
to those organs during that first half-score of years immediately succeeding puberty. . . . 
Hence it is most apt to occur precisely at, and immediately following, that period of 
life known as matureness. . . . With negroes, the sanguineous never gains the mastery 
over the lymphatic and nervous systems." ("Slavery in the Light of Ethnology," in E. N. 
Elliott (editor), Cotton Is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments [i860], pp. 692-693.) 

19 Cited in Charles S. Johnson, "The Negro," American Journal of Sociology (May, 
1942), p. 863. 

80 Dorn, of. cit., p. 97. 

21 Embree, of. cit., p. 54. 

28 A. G. Love and C. B. Davenport, "A Comparison of White and Colored Troops 
in Respect to Incidence of Disease," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 
(March, 1919), pp. 58-67. 

28 H. M. Pollock, "Frequency of Dementia Praecox in Relation to Sex, Age, Environ- 
ment, Nativity, and Race," Mental Hygiene (July, 1926), pp. 596-611. Pollock's 
figures are the numbers of first admissions in 1924 per 100,000 population. A criticism 
of this study may be found in Solomon P. Rosenthal, "Racial Differences in the 
Incidence of Mental Disease," Journal of Negro Education (July, 1934), p. 490. 

24 Even in 1924, the New York rates were 16.9 and 48.6 for whites and Negroes, 



M 1 6 An American Dilemma 

respectively. In 1929-1931, Malzberg found the difference even leas: 19.2 foi whites 
and 44.4 for Negroes. See Benjamin Malzberg, "Mental Disease among American 
Negroes" in Klineberg (editor), Characteristics of the American Negro, manuscript 
page 10. 

28 It is interesting to observe that, almost from the beginning of those studies showing 
race differences, there has been a minority of scholars who have remained skeptical and 
hare ably contested the findings. In 1897, Charles Horton Cooley beautifully demon- 
strated the complete invalidity of the findings of Francis Galton, in the famous essay, 
"Genius, Fame and the Comparison of Races" (The Annals of the American Academy 
of Political and Social Science [May, 1897], pp. 317-358). Other early critics of the 
use of the doctrine of innate differences included: Franz Boas, "The Mind of Primi- 
tive Man," The Journal of American Folk-lore (January-March, 191 1), pp. I-M; and 
The Mind of Primitive Man (1911); William I. Thomas, Sex and Society (1907), 
John Dewey, "Interpretation of Savage Mind," The Psychological Review (May, 
1902), pp. 217-230. 

26 G. O. Ferguson, "The Psychology of the Negro," Archives of Psychology, No. 36 
(April, 1916). See also, W. H. Pyle, "The Learning Capacity of Negro Children," 
Psychological Bulletin (1916), pp. 82-83. 

27 Ferguson's example, as well as others cited in this section, have been taken from 
the summary prepared for this project by Klineberg, "Racial Differences as Shown by 
Tests and Measurements" in Klineberg (editor), Characteristics of the American 
Negro. 

28 Albert L. Crane, "Race Differences in Inhibition," Archives of Psychology, No. 
63 (March, 1923). 

29 Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man (1911), pp. 1 14-11 5. 

80 Ibid., pp. 271-272. Boas later changed his position on these points. In the 1938 
edition of The Mind of Primitive Man, the above statements are not to be found, and 
there is a new emphasis on "variability of function" accompanying any given structure. 

31 Julian S. Huxley and A. C. Haddon, We Europeans (1936), p. 69. 

82 Ibid., pp. 96-97. 

88 A history of these trends in psychological research, with special reference to the 
Negro is contained in two research memoranda written for this study by Otto Klineberg, 
"Experimental Studies of Negro Personality" and "Tests of Negro Intelligence," to be 
published in Klineberg (editor), Characteristics of the American Negro. 

84 While some authors report Negro-white differences in memory, others say they 
cannot find any. For a discussion of this subject, see Klineberg, "Tests of Negro Intelli- 
gence," in Klineberg (editor), Characteristics of the American Negro, manuscript 
pages 16 and 118. 

88 No one has sought a representative sample of either white or Negro children to 
determine what proportions were very superior, but the only investigators who have 
sought superior Negro children had no special trouble in finding them. Witty and 
Jenkins studied 26 Negro children with I.Q.'s of 140 and above, who came from 
grades 3-8 in 7 Chicago public schools. (Paul A. Witty and Martin A. Jenkins, "The 
Educational Achievement of a Group of Gifted Negro Children," The Journal of 
Educational Psychology (November, 1934), pp. 585-597.) The same authors report 
on orie nine-year old Negro girl with a Stanford-Binet I.Q. of 200. "The Case of 'B'-- 



Footnotes 1217 

A Gifted Negro Girl," The Journal of Social Psychology (February, I9J5)» PP- 117- 

86 See Klineberg, "Tests of Negro Intelligence" in Klincberg (editor), Character- 
istics of the American Negro, manuscript pages 13-14 and 106-109, Even Ferguson, 
who has been cited on a previous page as an example of a biased investigator, did not 
find that Negroes reached their maximum intelligence at an earlier age than did whites. 
He found, rather, that they continued their mental growth longer than whites, even 
though they never reached the levels attained by the whites. We need not accept this 
conclusion either, for the same reasons that his main findings are to be criticized. 

87 See Klineberg, "Experimental Studies of Negro Personality" in Klineberg (editor), 
Characteristics of the American Negro, manuscript page 65. 

88 Subsequent studies have not been able to corroborate Ferguson's finding cited on 
a previous page — that there is a correlation between Intelligence Quotient and the 
possession of Negroid traits. See summary by Paul A. Witty and Martin A. Jenkins, 
"Intra-Race Testing and Negro Intelligence," The Journal of Psychology (193 5-1 936), 
pp. 179-192. Even if a correlation were found, it would not prove that the high 
intelligence was caused by white ancestry, since socio-economic differences between 
mulattocs and full-blooded Negroes would first have to be held constant, and since it 
would first have to be proved that the inheritance of intelligence does not involve 
dominant or recessive genes and that the parent population were representative samples 
of the total Negro and white populations (which they were not) and that passing and 
differential reproductivity did not bias the 6amplc of mulattocs. 

89 In their study, "Dimensions of the Body: Whites and American Negroes of Both 
Sexes," p. 48, Todd and Lindala make the point that "it is also irrelevant to suggest 
that our scries are too small. They are quite representative of the scries possible to most 
workers and in numbers they compare favorably with series of other races and stocks 
which will have to be anthropologically compared." 

40 One of the earliest of the modern physical anthropological studies reported all its 
findings in frequency polygons. For presentation alone, if not in other respects, few 
recent studies have approached the excellence of this early study. We refer to Franz 
Boas, "The Half-Blood Indian," The Popular Science Monthly (October, 1894), 
pp. 761-770. 

41 Franz Boas, Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants (1910). 

42 See, Walter H. Eddy and Gessner G. Hawley, We Need, Vitamins (1931), 
PP- 36-37. 

43 Social anthropologists have been using the psychologist's devices for some years 
to quantify culture differences in personality traits. A selection of these studies is 
summarized in Klineberg, Characteristics of the American Negro. There is, for example, 
the classic experiment of W. H. R. Rivers ("Observations on the Senses of the Todas," 
The British Journal of Psychology [December, 1905], pp. 321-396), which showed 
the Todas to have a higher pain threshold than his English subjects because they 
regarded the experiment as a test of their endurance. Another famous example is 
Margaret Mead's {Coming of Age in Samoa [1928]) experiences with the administra- 
tion of the "ball-and-field" questions in the Binet tests, where she found that Samoan 
children were much more interested in producing an esthetically satisfying design than 
in devising a rational means for finding the ball. 

44 An example of the use of intelligence tests to measure cultural differences between 



i%li An American Dilemma 

various group of Negroes may be found in Charles S. Johnson, Growing Up in the 
Black Belt (1941), pp. 334-335- 

48 A recent evaluative summary of such research has been made by Robert S. Wood- 
worth, Heredity and Environment (1941). 

** Klineberg, Negro Intelligence and Selective Migration. 

47 H. G. Canady, "The Effect of 'Rapport' on the I.Q.: A New Approach to the 
Problem of Racial Psychology," Journal of Negro Education (April, 1936), p. 217. 

48 The present War may provide some data to do some of these dynamic studies. In 
the first place, measurements are being made of the psychic traits of a large number of 
individuals with diverse backgrounds. In the second place, these individuals are being 
subjected to experiences which are drastically different from any they have known 
before. To get the fullest use out of the data being brought up by the War, it would 
be necessary to test the members of the armed forces after the War is over, and to 
compare the later measurements with the earlier ones. 

**PauI Horst and Associates, The Prediction of Personal Adjustment (1941), p. 14. 

60 Another revolutionary development in psychological measurement is the trend 
away from the concept of "general intelligence." Mainly under the leadership of 
Thurstone, contemporary psychologists are trying to get at the "factors" in intelligence, 
and to arrive at an "intelligence profile" of an individual rather than a general I.Q. 
An allied development is that toward "item analysis" — the analysis of responses to 
specific questions and tasks in a personality inventory or battery. To go into these devel- 
opments is beyond the scope of this book, but when they are applied to measurements 
of Negro-white differences, they may become important to our problem. 



Chapter 7. Population 

1 Under the 1924 law, the President is permitted to reduce the quota. President 
Hoover did so on March 26, 193 1. See Niles Carpenter, "The New American Immi- 
gration Law and the Labor Market," Quarterly Journal of Economics (August, 1931), 
pp. 720-723. 

2 American population statisticians have long known how inaccurate the birth regis- 
tration statistics are, but not until recently have we come across any specific information 
regarding the inadequacy of death registration data. Harold F. Dorn cites a study by 
Isabella C. Wilson which indicates that about 50 per cent of the deaths of Negroes in 
Chicot County, Arkansas, were unreported. (Harold F. Dorn, "The Health of the 
Negro," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study [1940; revised, 1942]. 
Appendix; Isabella C. Wilson, "Sickness and Medical Care among the Negro Population 
in a Delta Area of Arkansas," University of Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station 
Bulletin 372 [1939]). Other discussions of under-registration of deaths are cited by 
Dorn and by Lyonel C. Florant, "Critique of the Census of the United States," unpub- 
lished manscript prepared for this study (1939). 

* Despite these inadequacies, as well as the difficulty of having special registrations 
for voting, social insurance, unemployment, army draft, consumption goods' rationing, 
observation of aliens and other purposes, America has avoided the far more efficient and 
lest expensive system of a continuous registration of population. Such a system would 



Footnotes 11x9 

not only substitute one registration for all these and make available more accurate 
statistics, but it would reduce the possibility of error and fraud in voting, facilitate the 
substitution of direct taxation for indirect, aid in the detection of criminals, reduce 
the use of the oath (the notary public is an inconvenient and inefficient institution). 
The main reason why Americans do not seem to like continuous registration is that they 
are afraid it will lead to regimentation. But large sectors of the American public are 
already under continuous government registration (all who come under the Social 
Security Act, all who have postal savings accounts, and so forth) and the democratic 
nations of Northern Europe have it for their entire populations. There are other reasons 
why Americans do not have this system: most Americans do not realize its advantages, 
those experts who do realize its advantages have a strong tendency to avoid the political 
battle necessary to institute it, and many politicians do not want to lose the petty 
patronage involved in census-taking. If continuous registration were to be instituted in 
the United States, probably the post office would be the best organization to administer 
it} since practically every community has a post office; since its employees usually are 
reasonably well-educated and have a respected status, and since it has the necessary office 
facilities. 

4 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population. Preliminary Release: 
Series P-5, No. 13. Non whites include Chinese, Japanese, and a few other colored 
peoples as well as Negroes, but non-Negroes are eclipsed by Negroes in the computation 
of nonwhite rates. Estimates made by Kirk on the basis of registered births and deaths 
show a similar picture: the net reproduction rate for Negroes in 1933-1937 was 104, 
while that for whites in 1933-1935 was 98. (Dudley Kirk, "The Fertility of the 
Negroes," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study [1940], p. 14.) 

6 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Population. Preliminary Release: 
Series P-5, No. 13. Kirk's computations show both whites and Negroes to have a net 
reproduction rate of 108 in 1930 {op. eit., p. 14). 

* Thompson and Whclpton's various estimates of future trends in population place 
the Negro proportion in the American population in 1980 between 10.8 per cent and 
12.0 per cent as compared to 9.7 per cent in 1930. (Warren S. Thompson and P. K. 
Whelpton, "Estimates of the Future Population of the United States — 1940 to 1980," 
Population Statistics. 1. National Data. National Resources Committee [1937].) The 
lowest proportion of 1 0.8 was calculated assuming a medium fertility, high mortality, 
and net annual immigration of 100,000. The highest proportion of 12.0 was calculated 
assuming a high fertility, medium mortality, and no net migration. The terms "high," 
"medium," and "low" are used with reference to the period 1930-1934: "high fertil- 
ity" is the actual birth rate of that period; "high mortality" is a declining death rate 
after that period at a greatly decreasing rate. Different assumptions are made for native 
whites, foreign-born whites, and colored peoples. For a detailed description of the 
assumptions used see: P. K. Whelpton, "An Empirical Method of Calculating Future 
Population/' Journal of the American Statistical Association (September, 1936), pp. 
457-473. See dm'. National Resources Board, The Problems of a Changing Population. 
0938), p. 128. 

7 These figures were calculated by A. J. Jaffe, "Population Growth and Fertility 
Trends in the United States," Journal of Heredity (December, 1941), p. 444- The 
rates here are standardized for rural-urban residence only and not for region. Since 
practically all Negroes living in the North and West are urban, and since there it 



iaao An American Dilemma 

practically no difference in the urban rates for the whites and nonwhites, this is 
practically equivalent to standardizing for regions as well as for rural-urban residence. 

It is not yet possible to standardize for both region and rnral-nrban residence at the 
same time, since the necessary breakdowns have not yet been made available by the 
Census Bureau and since Negro net reproduction rates were not calculated for rural 
areas in the North or for rural or urban areas in the West. It is possible, however, to 
standardize for region alone just as Jaffe standardized lor urban-rural alone. The white 
rate then becomes 9; and the Negro rate 96. The Negro rate is below the white rate, 
of course, since — as we have just said — region and urban-rural residence are comparable. 

8 The net reproduction rate we have used is more reliable than the birth and death 
rates which compose it because it is calculated from the decennial census statistics rather 
than from the annual registration statistics, and the former are generally more reliable 
than the latter. Even when annual registration statistics are used, however, the net 
reproduction rate is usually more reliable since the under-registration of births and the 
under-registration of deaths tend to cancel each other out, even when their exact 
magnitude is unknown. 

"Kirk, of. cit., p. 7 and Figure t. Since birth registration statistics have become 
available for a significant number of states only since 191;, Kirk was forced to use the 
number of children under 5 years per 1,000 women aged 1 5-44 as an index of the birth 
rate. In 1880 this was about 760 for Negroes, and in 1930 about 390. 

10 lbid. t p. 14. 

The changes in the uncorrected crude birth rates were as follows: 





1930 


1940 


White 


xi.y 


17-5 


Negro 


21.7 


21.7 



These figures are, of course, subject to many errors, but they can be relied on for the 
following two conclusions: (1) The white birth rate is lower than the Negro birth 
rate, (2) The fall in the white birth rate between 1930 and 1940 was probably greater 
than the fall in the Negro birth rate. The figures fail to show what is likely — that the 
Negro birth rate fell between 1930 and 1940. (Texas — with a high birth rate — was 
not included in the 1930 figures, but was included in the 1940 ones.) These figures 
were calculated from: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics — Special Reports, 
Vol. 14, No. 2, p. 9. The population bases were taken from the Sixteenth Census of 
the United States: 1940, Population. Preliminary Release: Series P-10, No. 1. 

11 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics — Special Reports: 1940, Vol. 14, 
No. 2, p. 9. 

12 Dorn, op. cit. (1942, first draft, 1940), Figures 17 and 18. 

18 The number of still-births per 1,000 live births, according to the inadequate 
official figures, was 2.76 for the whites and 5.81 for the Negroes during 1930. (U.S. 
Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics — Special Reports: 1940, Vol. 14, No. 2, p. 9.) 
. 14 Dorn, op. cit. (1942; first draft, 1940), p. 3. By 1939 the expectation of life 
at birth had increased to 55.4 for nonwhite females and to 52.4 for nomohite males. 
The corresponding expectations for white infants were 66.8 and 62.6, or 11.4 and 
10.2 yean greater, respectively. (Idem) 

15 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics — Special Reports: 1040, Vol. 14, No. 2, 



Footnotes 1221 

16 Kirk reports the following corrected gross reproduction rates: 

Negro Wfnu 

19x8-32 136 1930 IXX 

1933-37 "30 1931-35 »°9 

See of. cit., p. 14, and footnote on p. 161 of this chapter. Other evidence of the 
greater fall in the white birth rate may be had from the net reproduction rates reported 
in Table 1 and from the crude birth rates in footnote 10 of this chapter. 

1T Dorn reports the trends in the following manner: "Although it is impossible to 
state definitely the amount of change in the average length of life of the Negro 
population, the available data indicate that, except for the first few years of life, there 
has been very little improvement since the beginning of the century. The only series 
of data covering the entire period are for Negroes living in the original registration states 
of 1900, the New England States, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana and the 
District of Columbia. In 1900, the Negro population of these states comprised 3.9 
per cent of the total; by 1930, it had increased to 9.5 per cent of the total. Although 
the trend in mortality among Negroes in these states is probably representative of the 
trend among Negroes living in the North there is no way of determining the closeness 
with which it represents the trend of mortality among Negroes living in the South. 

"As shown in Figure 21, the expectation of life among Negroes living in the North 
actually decreased during the first three decades of this century except for persons 20 
years of age and younger. The increase in expectation of life at birth was greater both 
absolutely and relatively among Negroes than among whites, but at other ages it was much 
less. (Figure 22.) 

"Better representation of the entire Negro population can be obtained by considering 
the trend of mortality in the death registration states of 1920. This group of states 
included about 65 per cent of the Negro population in 1920 and nearly 70 per cent in 
1930. The trend of mortality among Negroes in these states presents an even more 
unfavorable picture than the trend in the original registration states. (Figure 23.) The 
expectation of life for Negro males decreased at every age including birth; the decrease 
among Negro females occurred at ages 20 and over. The only increase in expectation of 
life during the decade was for females under 20 years of age. 

"The trend in the expectation of life among Negroes in the general population 
agrees in general with that among the colored policy-holders of the Industrial Depart- 
ment of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (Louis I. Dublin and Alfred J. 
Lotka, Twenty-five Years of Health Progress [1937I). From 1921 to 1931 the expec- 
tation of life for both males and females from 10 to 60 years of age either decreased 
or failed to increase. However, from 1911 to 1 921 the expectation of life definitely 
increased at the same ages. Since 193 1 the downward trend in the expectation of life 
has been stopped and slight increases have occurred at most ages. But even so, in 1938 
the expectation of life for colored males was less than in 1 92 1 at 40 years of age and 
over and among colored females it was less at 50 years of age and over." (Metropolitan 
Life Insurance Company, Statistical Bulletin [June, 1939]. Dorn, of. cit. [1942; 
first draft, 1940], pp. 36-373). (Figures referred to are in Dorn's manuscript.) 

™ Ibid., p. 4c. 

19 For the death registration states at each of the years, the white death rate was 
10.S per 1,000 population in 1930, and 10.4 in 1940. The corresponding drop in the 



1222 An American Dilemma 

Negro death rate was from 16.5 to 13.9. These figures are subject to several types of 
error, but the comparative drop in the two rates are fairly reliable. Calculated from data 
in: U. S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics — S fecial Report*: 1940, Vol. 14, No. 2, 
p. 9. Population bases for 1 940 taken from: Sixteenth Census of the United States: 
1940, Population. Preliminary release: Series P-10, No. 1. 

See also the quotation from Dorn in the preceding footnote. 

20 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population. Preliminary Release: 
Series P-5, No. 3. 

81 A. J, Jaffe, "Urbanization and Fertility," American Journal of Sociology (July, 
19+2). 

22 If we use the net reproduction rate as an index of birth rate, and recognize the 
general deficiencies of the data, it is something of a measure of the truth of this state- 
ment that the relevant net reproduction rates were as follows in 1940. 





Rural Farm 


Urban 


Nonwhite 


15+ 


76 


White 


'3* 


76 



Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population. Preliminary Release: Series 
P-5, No. 4. 

28 "In 19 counties most of which immediately adjoin the lower Mississippi River in 
Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the fertility of the Negro rural-farm population 
drops to comparatively low levels. In the year 1930, the ratio of children under 5 per 
1,000 women 20-44 among rural-farm Negroes was 885 in the entire United States, 
725 in Mississippi, 768 in Louisiana, and 718 in Arkansas, but only 518 in this group 
of counties. In some counties the ratio of children to women, even after correction for 
under-cnumeration, was approximately at replacement levels (491) or even below." 
(Conrad and Irene B. Taeuber, "Negro Rural Fertility Ratios in the Mississippi Delta," 
The Southwestern Social Science Quarterly [December, 1940], p. 210.) This study was 
made from unpublished tables of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. 

24 If wc use net reproduction rates to give us an index of birth rates, Series P-5a of 
the preliminary 1940 census releases (Nos. 14, 15, 16) permits a rough comparison of 
the Negro-white net reproduction rates in the urban South and of eastern and western 
urban areas within the South: 

Net Reproduction Rates in Southern Regions: 1940 





Urban 


Rural Nonfarm 


Rural Farm 


Census Division 


White 


Nonwhite 


White 


Nonwhite 


White 


Nonwhite 


South Atlantic 
East South Central 
West South Central 


71 
79 
81 


73 
70 
68 


"9 

128 


118 
101 
109 


144 
150 
I 4 2 


159 
163 
158 



ss See, for example, E. R. Groves and W. F. Ogburn, American Marriage and Family 
Reflations (1928), pp. 447-448. 
"*• Registration statistics indicate a higher death rate for Negroes in the North than 



Footnotes 1223 

in the Sooth, but there it notorious under-registration of deaths in the South and expert 
opinion seem* to hold to a lower specific death rate in the North. While there are 
influences which tend to raise the death rate for Negroes in the North — such as novel 
climate, novel diet, and perhaps greater exposure to venereal disease — the influences 
which work to make the Negro death rate lower in the North than in the South seem — 
a friori — to be more important. In the North there is much easier access to modern 
medical facilities; the standard of living is higher; and Negroes are better educated. 
The death rate of infants and children is unequivocally lower in the North, even if that 
for adults is not. 

27 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population. Preliminary Release: 
Series P-5, No. 4. Because of deficiencies in census enumeration, these figures are not 
perfect. Also the nonwhite rate covers colored persons other than Negroes. A large dif- 
ference in the declines, however, is certain. 

28 Studies showing the relation between income and vital rates among Negroes are: 
Philip M. Hauser, "Differential Fertility, Mortality, and Net Reproduction in Chicago, 
1930," unpublished Ph.D. thesis. The University of Chicago (1938). Frank W. 
Notestein, "Differential Fertility in the East North CentTal States," The Mil bank 
Memorial Fund Quarterly (April, 1938). Clyde V. Kiser, "Birth Rates and Socio- 
Economic Attributes in 193;," The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly (April, 1939). 

28 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population. Second Series, State 
Table 4. 

80 U. S. Bureau of the Census, A Century of Population Growth in the United States: 
1700-1000, p. 86, and U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 
1920-1932, p. 21. 

81 Clyde V. Kiser, "Fertility of Harlem Negroes," The Milbattk Memorial Fund 
Quarterly (July, 1935), p. 275. 

82 For a short review of this discussion, see Samuel A. Stouffcr and Lyoncl C. Florant, 
"Negro Population and Negro Population Movements, i860 to 1940, in Relation to 
Social and Economic Factors," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940) ; 
(revised by Lyonel C. Florant under title, "Negro Migration — 1860-1940" [1942]) 
Chapter III, pp. 15-25. 

83 There are several other factors to take into account when explaining the general 
inarticulateness of practical thinking on population in America; see Gunnar Myrdal, 
Population: A Problem for Democracy (1940), pp. 24-30 and 66-72, and Alva Myrdal, 
Nation and Family (1941), pp. 9-10. General statements on American population 
policy may be found in Frank Lorimer, Ellen Winston, and Louise K. Kiser, Founda- 
tions of American Population Policy (1940) ; and Frederick Osborn, Preface to Eugenics 

(1940). 

It is a public secret that the National Resources Committee before publishing its 
report, The Problems of a Changing Population (1938), found itself obliged to take 
out the discussion of birth control contained in the original draft. 

84 Compare Alva Myrdal, op. cit., Chapters VII and VIII. 

85 W. Montague Cobb, "The Negro as a Biological Element in the American Popula- 
tion," Journal of Negro Education (July, 1939), p. 347. 

86 W. E. B. Du Bois, "Black Folk and Birth Control," Birth Control Review (June. 
'93 2 )i p- 167. George S. Schuyler takes a position similar to that of Du Bois in the 
following statement: 

"The question for Negroes is this: Shall they go in for quantity or quality in children?. 



1224 An American Dilemma 

Shall they bring children into the world to enrich the undertakers, the physicians and 
furnish work for social workers and jailers, or shall they produce children who are 
going to be an asset to the group and to American society. Most Negroes, especially the 
women, would go in for quality production if they only knew how." ("Quantity or 
Quality," Birth Control Review [June, 1931], p. 166.) 

Another indication that Negroes favor quality even at the expense of quantity is the 
fact that 34 of the most eminent Negro leaders have endorsed the work of the Planned 
Parenthood Federation of America and have lent their names to the letterhead of its 
Division of Negro Service. 

87 This point has been made in detail by Osborn, op. cit. 

88 Council on Medical Education and Hospitals, "Hospitals and Medical Care in 
Mississippi," Journal of the American Medical Association (June 3, 1939), p. 2319. 

89 The Duke Endowment, Fourteenth Annual Report of the Hospital Section (1939), 
p. 6. 

40 H. M. Green, "Hospitals and Public Health Facilities for Negroes," Proceedings 
of the National Conference of Social Work (1928), pp. 178-180. In 1942, Edwin R. 
Embree reports that, for the United States as a whole, there are now "110 Negro 
hospitals in the United States, of which some 25 have been accredited, 13 of them 
approved for the full training of internes by the Council on Medical Education and 
Hospitals of the American Hospital Association. . . . While there are today 10,000 
hospital beds for Negroes in the country, in some areas where the population is heavily 
Negro there are as few as 7 5 beds set aside for over one million of this group." (Julius 
Kosenwald Fund, Review for the Two-Year Period 1040-1042 [194.2], pp. 13-14). 

41 Dora, op. cit. (1940), p. 97. 

42 Compared to a proportion of 21.3 per cent of all Negroes, 55.0 per cent of the 
Negro dentists, 42.6 per cent of the Negro physicians and surgeons and 36.3 per cent 
of the Negro nurses were outside the South in 1930. (U. S. Bureau of the Census, 
Negroes in the United States: 1920-1P32, p. 293.) 

48 For a description of how Negro folk practices are dangerous to health, see Newbell 
N. Puckett, Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro (1926). 

44 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics — Special Reports: 1040, Vol. 14, 
No. 2, p. 9. The infant mortality rate was'43.2 for 1,000 live births for whites and 
72.9 for Negroes. 

46 Idem. The maternal mortality rate per 1,000 live births was 3.2 for whites and 
7.8 for Negroes. 

48 Vance has calculated that for the Southeastern states in 1 930, 27 per cent of Negro 
women have no births as compared to 19 per cent of white women, while 29 per cent 
of Negroes have one birth as compared to 18 per cent of white women. (Rupert B. 
Vance, "The Regional Approach to the Study of High Fertility," The MUbanl: 
Memorial Fund Quarterly [October, 1941], pp. 356-374.) 

In 1930, the following proportions of families had no children under 10 years of age. 







Negro 


Native White 


North: 


Urban 


6S.1 


61.6 


South: 


Urban 


67.1 


S8.1 




Rural farm 


*«.7 


44.2 




Rural nonfarm 


59-o 


♦7-9 



Footnotes 1125 

Calculated from census data by Richard Sterner and Associates, The Negro's Share, 
prepared for this study (1943), Appendix Table 17. Also see Notestein, op. tit., and 
Kirk, op. cit., pp. 51-65. 

4T Raymond Pearl, "Fertility and Contraception in Urban Whites and Negroes," 
Science (May, 1936), pp. 503-506. Also see by the same author, The Natural History 
of Population (1939), p. 113, passim. 

48 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics — Special Reports: 1040, Vol. 14, No. a, 
p. 9. 

48 Dorn, op. cit., (1942; first draft, 1940), pp. 35-44. 

50 "Sterilization laws have been passed by 19 states, and over 1,000 operations have 
been performed in each of 7 states, namely, California, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, 
Oregon, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The total number of sterilizations performed in the 
United States up to January 1, 1940, was approximately 33,000 of which 17,212 were 
on insane cases and 15,231 on feeble-minded; 592 were sterilized for other reasons." 
(Publications of the Human Betterment Foundation, Pasadena, California [1940]. 
Cited by Osborn, op. cit., p. 31.) 

81 Practically every modern discussion of birth control in every scientific book and 
every propaganda pamphlet contains a list of such reasons. 

62 Official mortality statistics of the death registration states of 1930 which are 
defective, not only in revealing total numbers of deaths, but also in classifying these 
deaths by causes, show a syphilis rate of 42.5 for Negroes and 5.2 for whites (per 
100,000 population, 1929-193 1). Death rates may not accurately reflect the relative 
incidence of syphilis, but Dorn summarizes sample studies which also show the Negro 
rate to be between 3 and 9 times as great as the white rate in various communities. 
(Dorn, op. cit. [1940], p. 71.) 

Recently some excellent data have become available on syphilis. Examination of the 
first million draft registrants — who are a selected sample of the population but a 
significant sample — showed that the syphilis rate was 18.5 per thousand for whites and 
241.2 for Negroes. That is, Negroes had 13 times as much syphilis as whites. (See: 
New York Herald Tribune [October 16, 1941], p. 5; and PM [February 10, 1 942], 
P- 20.) 

Since much less is known about gonorrhea, and since it does not seem to be much 
more prevalent among Negroes than among whites, it will not be discussed here. 

83 H. Poindexter, "Special Health Problems of Negroes in Rural Areas," Journal of 
Negro Education (July, 1937), p. 407. 

84 On January 1, 1940, there were 2,527 such clinics. Dorn, op. cit. (1940), p. 155. 

65 The LaFollette-Bulwinkle Act (1938) authorized federal grants-in-aid to the 
various states for venereal disease control. 

66 Dorn, op. cit., (1940), p. ii4-b-3. 

67 "For the most part, the only time that a doctor may legally interrupt pregnancy in 
the United States is when its continuance threatens the life of a mother. Six states — 
Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey — 
overlook even this contingency, having no specific provision for therapeutic abortion. 
Seven states — Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin 
expressly require medical advice prior to the act, while thirty-one states, including New 
York, sanction abortion to save the life of the mother, with no provision for medical 
counsel. Only three states — Colorado, Maryland, and New Mexico — and the District 



1226 An American Dilemma 

of Columbia countenance the interruption of pregnane}' not only to tare the life of the 
mother but alio to preserve her health. The Mississippi law forbids abortions but adds 
the cryptic provision, 'unless the same shall have been advised by a physician to be 
necessary for such purpose.'" (B. B. Tolnai, "Abortions and the Law," Nation 
[April 15, 1939], p. 425.) 

58 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Births, Stillbirths and Infant Mortality Statistics: 
1936, p. 9. 

69 Alva Myrdal, of. cit. 

60 For the dramatic history of the movement see: Margaret Sanger, My Fight for 
Birth Control (1931) or Autobiography (1938). 

91 The legal fight began in 1873 when the anti-birth control forces led by Anthony 
Comstock secured a federal law prohibiting the use of the mails £01 the dissemination 
of birth control information and prohibiting the importation of contraceptives. Many 
of the state governments before or after this year took steps to stop the sale of contra- 
ceptives and the encouragement of their use. The scope of the federal law was some- 
what narrowed by a series of court decisions, but a major setback to this law did not 
come until 1936, when the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit 
declared that birth control devices and information could be imported and sent through 
the mails by doctors "for the purpose of saving life or promoting the well-being of their 
patients." In the meantime some states have repealed or nullified their laws. 

In July, 1942, 19 states make no mention of the prevention of conception in their 
statutes; 13 states have statutes which restrict the distribution and dissemination of 
information regarding the prevention of conception, but expressly exempt medical 
practice; 14 states have statutes aimed at the advertising and distribution of information 
regarding the prevention of conception, but exempt medical practice by implication 
or construction; only two states — Massachusetts and Connecticut — have laws which 
penalize even physicians for giving information. (See: "The Legal Status of Contra- 
ception," mimeographed leaflet distributed by the Planned Parenthood Federation of 
America, July, 1942.) Three states actually sponsor birth control clinics. But the fight 
is far from won: the federal law remains on the books for all nonmedical persons and 
even for medical persons in the Territories and the District of Columbia; in 1937 a 
private clinic was closed in Massachusetts and the personnel subjected to criminal 
prosecution (there was a similar occurrence in Connecticut) ; 45 states do not give the 
birth control movement the active support it needs to be really effective. 

92 E. Mae McCarroll, "A Report on the Two- Year Negro Demonstration Health 
Program of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc." A talk delivered at 
the annual convention of the National Medical Association, Cleveland, August 17, 1942. 
Of the 803 birth control centers, 225 were located in hospitals, 265 in health depart- 
ment quarters, and 313 in settlement houses, churches and similar institutions. 

08 The only three states with birth control officially incorporated into the general 
public health program — North Carolina, South Carolina, and Alabama — are in the 
South. Several other Southern states are expected to join this group shortly, but no 
Northern ones. By July, 1942, there were, in the United States, 345 contraceptive 
centers deriving all or part of their support from taxes. North Carolina, South Carolina, 
and Alabama had 47 per cent of these. Over 24 per cent more were found in 1 3 other 
Southern states (among Southern states only Louisiana and Mississippi had none). 
Twenty-one Northern and Western states had the remaining 29 per cent (almost half 



Footnotes 1217 

of these were in California). Clearly the South leads in the public acceptance of birth 
control. ("Distribution of Birth Control Centers and Services," mimeographed sheet, 
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. [July, 1942].) 

w The facts for this paragraph have been generously provided by Miss Florence 
Rose of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (interview, August 21, 1942). 
Also see: 

1. Claude C. Pierce, "State Programs for Planned Parenthood," address read at 
the Conference of State and Provincial Health Authorities of North America, 

Washington, D.C., March 23-24, 1942. 

2. G. M. Cooper, F. R. Pratt, and M. J. Hagood, "Four Years of Contraception as 
a Public Health Service in North Carolina," At/mrictm Journal of Public Health 
(December 1941), p. 2. 

3. G-eorge M. Cooper, "Birth Control in the North Carolina Health Department," 
North Carolina Medical Journal (September, 1 940), p. 463. 

4. Robert Seibels, "The Integration of Pregnancy Spacing into a State Maternal 
Welfare Program," Southern Medicine and Surgery (May, 1 940), pp. 230-23 3. 

5. J. N. Baker, Director, Alabama State Department of Health, "Alabama's Program 
for Planned Parenthood," address delivered at the Third Southern Conference 
on Tomorrow's Children, Nashville, 1'ennessee, October 31, 1941. 

65 Address by Dorothy Boulding Fcrebee at the Annual Meeting of the Birth Control 
Federation of America, January 29, 1942. 

68 Information made available by Miss Florence Rose of the Planned Parenthood 
Federation of America (interview, August 21, 1942). 

UT For a discussion of these prejudices among Negroes, see an address given by Dr. 
Dorothy Boulding Fcrebee, "Planned Parenthood as a Public Health Measure for the 
Negro Race," delivered at the annual meeting of the Birtli Control Federation of 
America, January 29, 1942. Dr. Fcrebee lists the popular objections as: 

1. the concept that when birth control is proposed to them, it is motivated by a 
clever bit of machination to persuade them to commit race suicide; 
' 2. the so-called "husband-objection" which Dr. Robert E. Seibels of the South 
Carolina rural project observes "is often blamed on physical reactions to the 
material, but apparently is related more to superstitious fear of impairment of 
function through interference with a vital process." 

3. the fact that birth control is confused with abortion, and, 

4. the belief that it is inherently immoral. 

68 Ibid., for a study showing the greater inefficiency of Negro women in using contra- 
ceptives, see Pearl, The Natural History of Pofulation, pp. 11 3- 1 14. 193. On the 
other hand, the Planned Parenthood Federation's experiment in Berkeley County, 
South Carolina, led to the conclusion that "80 per cent of the contacted population of 
Negroes of low income and low intelligence level will use pregnancy spacing methods 
when this is properly presented to them." (Robert E. Seibels, "A Rural Project in 
Negro Maternal Health," Human Fertility [April, 1941], p. 44-) After 1™° 7 ein of 
the Federation's project at Nashville, 58 per cent of the 610 patients instructed used 
the method prescribed "consistently" and successfully (McCarroll, of. cit., p. 8.) 

w The following discussion is largely based on a similar one regarding Sweden, by 
Alva Myrdal, of. cit., p. 200 ff. 

70 There are several controversial issues involved in the above suggestion that an 



1228 An American Dilemma 

educational campaign be instigated to reach the masses with specific birth control advice. 
The first is a legal question: The Comstock Law still stands on the federal statutes books 
for all nonmedical people and would probably be involved if general advice — not 
directed to specific cases investigated by a doctor — were distributed through the mails. 
Twenty-nine states also still have laws which prohibit nonmedical people from giving 
birth control advice. But the birth control organizations are no longer fighting the 
Comstock Law or the state laws (outside of those in Massachusetts and Connecticut, 
which apply to doctors). They are content to let them stand since they no longer apply 
to doctors. The second problem is one of quackery: if nonmedical people were allowed 
to give advice, there would be all sorts of dangerous or useless contraceptives put on the 
market and advertised. But this is already happening, except that the mails are not 
used, even in those states where it is illegal. People know that physicians can give 
contraceptive information; to overcome quackery it is necessary to disseminate correct 
information on a mass scale without waiting for people to consult physicians. Too, it is 
possible to have laws which practically eliminate quackery. A third issue is the question 
of what the popular reaction might be: birth control organizations arc afraid of losing 
the support of doctors and others of the "best people" and of being called "immoral." 
This is probably the decisive issue which prevents the birth control organizations from 
giving concrete information to the masses of the people. But the question remains as to 
whether there would be such a popular reaction, whether this reaction would nullify 
all the small but positive gains that have been made, and whether an extensive publicity 
campaign would not counterbalance any reaction. 

71 Because of the tendency to work through physicians, even greater emphasis than 
is necessitated by facts has been laid on the contraceptive techniques which require a 
doctor's advice; the pessary and the foam-and-sponge techniques. The simple methods 
of the condom and coitus interruftus are deplored. Yet the leading medical authorities, 
Dickinson and Morris, in a manual issued by the Birth Control Federation itself, have 
the following to say about the condom: 

"Properly tested, the condom provides protection as efficient as any method, and, 
skillfully used, furnishes security. ... It ought to enjoy a much more favorable attitude 
on the part of the clinician." (Robert L. Dickinson and Woodbridge £. Morris, 
Techniques of Conception Control [1941], p. 34.) 

It may be that when all people know about birth control, and when the task is to get 
its methods perfected and individualized, it will be wise to shift emphasis back again 
from the condom to the pessary, since the latter is supposed to be the most efficient and 
least annoying method. Since it happens that the condom and coitus interruftus methods 
are for men, the pessary and other methods available to women should be spread so 
that women, too, should have opportunity to control conception. 

72 The public clinics now in existence disseminate information about birth control 
solely by mentioning it to women who have come into the public health office for other 
purposes, especially to women who have just had a child. Only indigent women use the 
public clinic; others are referred to a private physician. 

The demonstration projects sponsored by the Planned Parenthood Federation have 
a similarly slow method of reaching the public. During two years of the project at 
Nashville, only 638 patients were advised, and during 21 months of the project in 
Berkeley County, South Carolina, only 1,008 patients were advised. (McCarroll, of. cit., 
pp. 7, II.) It should be recognized, however, that completeness and not extensive 



Footnotes 1229 

coverage wai the aim of these projects. Still, the achievements were small in view of 
the large amount of money spent. Not even the governments could afford to maintain 
permanent birth control clinics all over if they were as expensive as these two, and yet 
far from all persons needing contraceptive information in the two areas were reached. 
Despite the excellent work of the projects with those women contacted, the small 
number of women contacted shows how limited such clinics are. 



Chapter 8. Migration 

1 The primary census data are somewhat unreliable, particularly for the South, and 
especially for Negroes. They are, furthermore, unreliable in a different degree from 
one census to another. Apart from this, such data as exist can only account for the 
composite result of migration together with all other factors of population change 
during a preceding decade, or the extent to which all persons living at the time of » 
census resided elsewhere than in their states of birth. We cannot, therefore, expect to 
gain any intensive and accurate knowledge of the movement of the population. All 
short-distance mobility is out of the picture. So also are stages and steps in migration, 
and all moves in one direction which arc compensated for by the same persons' (or other 
persons') migration in the opposite direction (within the decade between two censuses) . 
All yearly fluctuations are canceled out in the aggregate figures. Only a suggestion of 
stages of migration may be had by comparing different states as to the character of their 
populations born outside the state. Only to a limited extent arc there studies available 
for small parts of the population, allowing us to make valid inferences in these several 
respects. Perhaps the most useful of these is the information that may be had from the 
question asked of all farmers for the 1935 Census of Agriculture, "Where were you 
living five years ago? " 

The 1940 Census attempts to correct many of the earlier deficiencies by supplying 
information from all persons in the United States on the same question: "Where were 
you living five years ago? " This does not meet all requirements for knowledge about 
migration, but it will offer a body of information vastly superior to anything that now 
exists. Unfortunately the information is not yet available at the time of writing (sum- 
mer, 1942). 

2 U.S. Census Office, Statistics of the United Slates in i860, pp. 337-338. 
"There are no data available to determine the exact size of the net migration of 

Negroes from South to North between 1910 and 1940. The figure of one and three- 
quarters million presented in the text is simply the difference between the Northern 
Negro population for 1940 and that for 1910. To use this figure as an index of net 
migration involves making two assumptions: (1) The net reproduction rate of Negroes 
in the North during this period was 1 .00, on the average. Actually it probably averaged 
less than I.OO. (2) The age distribution of the Northern Negro population was, on the 
average, that of a life table population. Actually there was probably a greater proportion 
of persons in the child-bearing ages. The errors in our two assumptions affect our 
estimate of net migration in opposite ways. We have, therefore, only one assumption — 
that these two errors cancel each other. 

Du Bois estimated that two million Negroes migrated North by 1930. But his 



1230 Ah American Dilemma 

estimate is of total migration and does not exclude those who retained South. (W. E. B. 
Du Bois, "A Negro Nation within the Nation," Current History [June, 1935J, p. 265.) 

* Stouffer and Florant, of. cit., p. 36. According to W. D. Wcatherford and CharJea 
6. Johnson {Race Relations [1934], p. 257) most of the Negroes who went to Liberia 
at first were ex-slaves who were freed on the condition that they emigrate. 

6 The Negro population of Kansas increased from 627 to 43,107 between i860 and 
1880 according to the census. Part of this was natural increase, of course, and only 
some of the increase occurred during the period when there was agitation for Negro 
migration to Kansas. But there was also some return migration to the South. 

* James Weldon Johnson, Along This Way (1934), pp. 206-207 and 208. 

T This reclassification was prepared by the Bureau of the Census with the aid of O. E. 
Baker of the United States Department of Agriculture. The computation of the Negro 
population of these areas back to i860 was done by Stouffer and Wyant. 

8 Stouffer and Florant, of cit, (1940), pp. 1-58 and technical appendix prepared 
by Rowena Wyant. 

9 Stouffer and Florant, of. cit. (1940), p. 5. 

10 As the National Resources Committee points out, part of the migration northward 
was by stages and part of it was direct from the Deep South. 

"Much of the Negro migration has been a State-to-State displacement. By 1930, for 
example, 72,000 Negroes had moved into North Carolina from South Carolina, but 
47,000 had moved out of North Carolina to Virginia and Maryland. More than 50 
per cent of the Negroes leaving South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and 
Louisiana have settled in other Southern states, while about 90 per cent of those leaving 
Kentucky and 6; per cent of those leaving Virginia and Tennessee have settled in the 
North. At the same time there has been considerable migration directly from the deep 
South to the North." (National Resources Committee, The Problems of a Changing 
Population [1938], p. 99.) 

11 Stouffer and Florant, of. cit. (1942), pp. 54-58. 

12 These calculations are taken from Stouffer and Florant, of. cit. (1940), Chapter I, 
pp. 17-18. These authors include Missouri in the Border states, and their definition of 
the North, as noted in the text, is confined to the Northern states east of the Mississippi 
River. 

18 U. S. Bureau of Census, Negroes in the United States: .1920-/9,32, p. 22. 

14 Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030, Pofulation, Vol. 2, pp. 158-162. 

16 Ibid., pp. 163-167. 

18 The literature on Negro migration is too' large to be surveyed, even too large to 
be sampled for purposes of this section. In 1934, F. A. Ross and L. V. Kennedy 
prepared a whole book entitled A Bibliography of Negro Migration, and since then 
many other titles would have to be added to their list. In the monograph prepared for 
this study by Stouffer and Florant, a large and selected sample of this tremendous 
literature was integrated. For this section we have relied largely on this monograph and 
on a few of the better-known books on the subject, such as those by C. G. Woodson 
(A Century of Negro Migration [191 8] ), The Chicago Commission on Race Relations 
(The Negro in Chicago [1922]), L. V. Kennedy (The Negro Peasant Turns City- 
ward [1950]), C. V. Kiser (Sea Island to City [1932]). The general literature on the 
Negro also has much on migration. Because of the size of this literature we have felt 
that h would be best to make this section rather abstract. The conditions which are 



Footnotes 1431 

referred to here in passing are usually taken up in greater detail in other parts of this 
book, 

17 Woodson, of. eit., Chapter 8. Also see Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color 
Lint (1908), p. 110. 

18 Some experts on the problem hold a single-cause theory of Negro migration. They 
believe that migration is a result only of new economic opportunities in cities. Negroes 
went North because the cities were in the North, and if the cities had been in the 
South, Negroes should never have left the South in spite of its traditional prejudice 
and discrimination against them. (See, for example, Donald R. Young, American 
Minority Peofles [1932], pp. 46 ff; and T. J. Woofter, Jr., Races and Ethnic Groups 
in American Life [1933], p. 113.) 

The incorrectness of this theory can be judged by speculating what would happen 
if the situation were to be reversed. If suddenly there should be a new development of 
industry in the South which would open many new jobs of the unskilled and service 
type to Negroes, at the same time as there was economic stagnation and unemployment 
in the North, it is not likely that Northern Negroes would migrate South in such 
numbers as Southern Negroes migrated North under comparable circumstances after 
1915. 

1B In other words, the real "causes" of migration were as numerous as the Negroes 
who migrated and as complex as the entire life-experiences of these Negroes. These 
real causes were not simply a series of "conditions" or "factors" impinging on the 
individual, but they were complexes of factors actively interpreted, weighed, and 
integrated in the conscious and unconscious minds of individuals. What the analyst 
must do, however, is to resolve into elements the complex structure of the motivations 
of individuals, group these elements, and determine which are the important ones — the 
ones without which the migration would have involved significantly fewer numbers 
than it did. Such important classes of elements in the motivation of the migrants are 
usually termed "causes" of the migration, but they must be recognized to be causes in 
only a special sense — neither inevitable in their influence nor all-inclusive as explana- 
tions for the migration of all those who migrated. Unfortunately, due to the complexity 
of migration and the iact that it is always an event in the past and to the poorness of 
the data, the relative importance of the factors cannot be measured. The significance 
assigned to them is a function of the observer's judgment, based upon his knowledge 
of the history of the migration. 

20 The returning migrants probably mounted up to the thousands in the early days 
of the depression of the 1930*5 when jobs were no longer available and the relief 
machinery was not yet set up. Some local Urban Leagues and certain city governments 
sponsored plans to send Negroes back to the South. 

21 Richard Sterner and Associates, The Negro's Share. Prepared for this study (1943), 
p. 40. 

82 Unpublished estimates by Stouffer and Florant indicate that the net migration of 
Negroes from the South was 317,000 between 1930 and 1 940 as compared to 716,000 
between 1920 and 1930. As the authors recognize, there is a considerable margin of 
error in both figures. (Of. eit., [1940], p. 124.) 

28 Two recent incidents are illustrative of this point. 

I. A California law prohibiting the entry of indigents from other states was declared 
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States (No. 17, October 



ti$% An American Dilemma 

term 194.1 ; Fred F. Edwards, Appellant vs. The People of the State of Cali- 
fornia; November 24, 1941). 
2. In attempting to build a labor camp for Southern Negroes near Burlington, New 
Jersey, in May, 1942, the Farm Security Administration met the opposition of 
the nearby township government. Nevertheless the F.S.A. went right ahead with 
its plans and there was no opposition from Congress (including the local con- 
gressman). The F.S.A. was supported by the local farmers who needed the labor 
which the camp would provide. 
34 Between 1930 and 1940, the Negro population of California increased 53 per 
cent. 

88 There are some new agricultural job opportunities on the West Coast — such as in 
cotton planting and commercial fruit growing in California — but these arc likely to 
go to whites now migrating from the West Plains and from the South, and to Mexicans. 
29 Tannenbaum, for instance, says: 

"The South, in a search for solutions, must turn to the gradual migration of the negro 
and his replacement by foreign labor. These two factors are the only available means 
at hand for the breaking up of emotional concentration upon the negro, the gradual 
achievement of objectivity in attitude towards him, the slow softening of the burden 
of fear and hate that has scared and seared the South to this very day." (Frank Tannen- 
banm, Darker Phases of the South [1924], p. 182.) 

27 See Woofter, op. tit., p. 198; John Temple Graves, "The Southern Negro and 
the War Crisis," Virginia Quarterly Review (Autumn, 1942), pp. 512-513. 

28 Woodson, op. tit., pp. 1 83-1 86 j W. E. B. Du Bois, "The Hosts of Black Labor," 
Nation (May 9, 1923), pp. 539-541; and James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan 
(1930), p. 152. 



Chapter 9. Economic Inequality 

1 Charles S. Johnson, Edwin R. Embree, and W. W. Alexander, The Collapse of 
Cotton Tenancy (1935), pp. 14-15 and 21-22. 

2 National Resources Planning Board, National Resources Development, Report for 
1942 (1942), p. 3. Points 6-8 are omitted here as irrelevant to our present discussion. 

8 This is a world-wide trend j for a discussion of the basic principles involved, see 
Alva Myrdal, Nation and Family (1941 ). 

* See The Public Opinion Quarterly (October, 1939), pp. 586-587 and (Fall, 1941), 

P- 475- 

B See The Public Opinion Quarterly (October, 1939), p. 592; (March, 1940), p. 
91; (September, 1940), p. 547; and (Fall, 1941), p. 477. 

6 Bulletin of the Bureau of School Service, University of Kentucky, "A Salary Study 
for the Lexington Public Schools" (March, 1935), p. 26. 

7 For an excellent example of how a wide variety of these arguments are marshaled 
one after the other, we may quote in full a letter to the editor of the Richmond News 
Leader concerning differential salaries for school teachers: 

"ARGUES NEGRO TEACHERS SHOULD RECEIVE LESS 

"Fditor of the News Leader: 



Footnotes 1233 

"Sir, — There it a sort of aoft-soap piety floating around in our part of the world that 
is like the will-o-the-wisp that rises from miasmic swampland. It floats majestically over 
the 'Negro question,' but when analyzed there is nothing to it. The special point about 
which it is bobbing now is 'equalization of teachers' salaries.' Let's cast the light of reality 
(or, should I say, the sunlight of truth? ) over the shadowed point and present it as 
many of us vitally interested really see it. 

"Should Negro teachers receive the same salary that white teachers receive? Emphati- 
cally, No! Why not? 

"(l) Less than 10 per cent, of our taxes is paid by Negroes. Of course, destitute 
white children attend the same schools that wealthy ones attend, but they arc of the same 
race, an identical social unit, with co-ordinating future obligations. 

"(i) Negroes do not teach the same type of future citizens that white teachers 
instruct. God made the two races different and exacts of them their own best contribu- 
tions. White people have and will continue to have responsibility 'the brothers in black' 
cannot assume. 

"(3) Negroes do not teach the same things in reality and in the same way that white 
instructors do. The average Negro has an honorable service to render outside the academic 
field. 

"(4) White people owe Negroes no especial debt, save to 'love one another' in a 
Christian way. The Negro race has gained far more from the civic contact with the white 
than can be here portrayed — and Negro people generally know this and appreciate it, 
the 'soft-soap piety' generally bubbling from the Caucasian mouth . . . Why do these 
people bubble and babble? Perhaps because it is a psychological truth that everyone wants 
to make a 'splash' in life's 'mud-puddle!' 

"(5) If Negro people are paid the same salaries the white teachers receive, salaries 
will not be equalized, but Negro teachers will have more, as their living expenses are less. 
This economic fact should have weight. Compare rent lists in good sections for white 
and Negro, for instance. 

"Let's not 'fly in the face of God' and His great plan. While He made all men of 
one blood, He gave them gifts differing. Let not the white girl's salary for service in 
the schoolroom be lessened, as it has already been markedly in a few cases, for her 
financial responsibilities, as well as her pedagogical efforts, must be greater than her 
Negro sister's. And above all, don't confuse piety with bubbles! 

Montrose."" 

8 "A Salary Study for the Lexington Public Schools," of. at., p. 25. See Chapter 14, 
Section 4. 



Chapter IO. The Tradition of Slavery 

1 Rupert B. Vance, Human Geografhy of the South (1932), p. 467. 

2 /£«/., p. 474. 

8 Ibid., p. 467. 

1 John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (i937)> P- 55- 

e W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction (1935)1 P- '3- 

* "The News Leader Forum," Richmond News Leader (December 6, 1941). 



1234 An American Dilemma 

* Sir George Campbell, traveling in the South m the 'seventies, listened to many old 
slave breeder* who told him about the same story: 

". . . the slaves were not worked out like omnibus horses; in fact, the capital sunk 
in slaves was so heavy, and produce had become so cheap, that the principal source of 
profit was what was called the 'increase' of the slaves — the breeding them for the 
market or for new plantation) opened in the more Western States. As in breeding- 
farms for other kinds of stock, the human stock was carefully, and, on the whole, kindly 
treated; and although the selling off the young stock as it became fit for the market 
was a barbarous process, still, the family relations being so weak, as I have described, 
those who remained did not feel it so much as we should ; and I think it may be said 
that the relations between the masters and the slaves were generally not unkindly. 
One old gentlemen in Carolina dwelt much on the kindness and success with which he 
had treated his slaves, adding as the proof and the moral that they had doubled in twenty 
years." {White and Black in the United States [1879J, PP- 140-141-) 

7 Large numbers of ex-slaves lapsed into temporary vagrancy at the end of the Civil 
War. They, naturally, wanted to test their new freedom. Not without reason, they also 
feared re-enslavement. The general upheaval and the curtailment of production during 
and after the War were also responsible for the vagrancy. The hope which was never 
fulfilled, that the federal government would provide them with land of their own, also 
contributed to the unrest. "This belief is seriously interfering with the willingness of 
the freedmen to make contracts for the coming year," reported General Grant to the 
President in 1865." Many of them regarded steady employment with a white plantation 
owner as slavery. Heavy work and slavery then appeared to them as pretty synonymous 
concepts: 

Mammy don't you cook no mo', 

You's free! You's free! 

Rooster don't you crow no mo', 

You's free! You's free! 

Ol' hen, don't you lay no mo' eggs, 

You's free! You's free! 

Ol' pig, don't you grunt no mo', 

You's free! You's free! 

Ol' cow, don't you give no mo' milk, 

You's free! You's free! 

Ain't got to slave no mo', 

We's free! We's free!" 

Such a reaction was by no means general. The accounts of it probably have been 
exaggerated considerably,' because of the need to rationalize the system which was then 
being built up to keep the Negro worker in his place. In comparison with Southern 
whites, especially upper class whites and white women of all classes, Negroes were 
probably never characterized by unusual laziness. It was only by comparison with the 
continuous labor under slavery, and aided by forced unemployment, that Negroes 
suddenly appeared lazy. If Negroes ever manifested an unusual unwillingness to work, 

* Cited by Hilary A. Herbert, Why the Solid South? (1S90), p. 17. 

b Cited by Federal Writers' Project, The Negro in Virginia (194.0), p. a 10. 

' Ibid., pp. 223-214. 



Footnotes 1235 

it wa» only in the first year or two after the end of the W»r. In so far as it did appear 
during this period of general disorganization, it was just plain human. The institution 
of slavery to a great extent had debased ordinary work in the appreciation of black and 
white alike. It was psychologically inescapable that slavery should backfire in this way, 
particularly during the initial period of freedom. 

* Rupert B. Vance gives this concentrated account of how the system of share tenancy 
came into being and how it became fixed upon the region: 

"A stricken upper class possessing nothing but lands met a servile population possessed 
of nought except the labor of their hand*. In what must have been an era of primitive 
barter, a system was arrived at whereby labor was secured without money wages and land 
without money rent. Up and down the Cotton Belt southern states after 1865 vied with 
one another in passing crop lien laws. Accepted as the temporary salvation of a wrecked 
economic structure, the system has increasingly set the mode for southern agriculture. 
Under the crop lien system the unpropertied farmer mortgages his ungrown crop for the 
supplies necessary to grow it. He also pledges a portion, third, fourth, or half of his 
crop, for use of the land. The most outstanding commentary one can make on the South 
is to point out the fact that from that day to this the percentage of those who must 
secure their year's livelihood by crop liens has steadily increased. Many of the enfeebled 
aristocracy saw their once proud acres go on the block for ridiculously low prices; but 
the hopes for the rise of a vigorous yeomanry to take their places never materialized. 
The crop lien system was developed to readjust the Negro to cotton production on terms 
more fitting a modern economy than slavery. Its success was so great as to be disastrous. 
Congregated on its original fringes the unpropertied poor white farmers poured into 
the new scheme and helped to make temporary expediency a permanent arrangement." ■ 

And so the stage was set for human tragedy. From the Negro angle Du Bois explains: 

"Now it happens that both master and men have just enough argument on their 
respective sides to make it difficult for them to understand each other. The Negro dimly 
personifies in the white man all his ills and misfortunes; if he is poor, it is because the 
white man seizes the fruit of his toil ; if he is ignorant, it is because the white man gives 
him neither time nor facilities to learn; and, indeed, if any misfortune happens to 
him, it is because of some hidden machinations of 'white folks.' On the other hand, the 
masters and the masters' sons have never been able to see why the Negro, instead of 
settling down to be day-laborers for bread and clothes, are infected with a silly desire 
to rise in the world, and why they are sulky, dissatisfied, and careless, where their 
fathers were happy and dumb and faithful. 'Why, you niggers have an easier time than 
I do,' said a puzzled Albany merchant to his black customer. 'Yes,' he replied, 'and so 
does yo' hogs.' " b 

9 Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, p. 368. Others who saw the need for basic economic 
reform were Carl Schurz, congressman from Wisconsin {The Condition of the South, 
Report to the President [1865] and "For the Great Empire of Liberty, Forward." 
Speech delivered at Concert Hall, Philadelphia [September 16, 1864]), and Hinton 
Helper {The Impending Crisis of the South [i860], especially Chapters 1 and a and 
pp. 180-186.) 

10 Paul S. Peirce, The Freedmen's Bureau (1904), pp. 44, 74 and no. 

11 Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, p. 602. 

"Vance, of. at., p. 187. 

*W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), pp. I55-I5& 



1236 An American Dilemma 

12 See Federal Writera' Project, of. eit., pp. 215-225. 

18 Josephus Daniels, Tar Heel Editor (1939), pp. 171-172. 

14 Wooftsr only expresses the common sense and the actual experience of social tenant 
legislation when he points ont: 

"It is to the advantage both of the tenant and the landlord that the tenant treat the 
land as if it were his own; that he build the necessary fences and terraces, improve the 
farm buildings, and drain the swampy places."* 

Without legal claims on improvements he may make, the tenant is robbed of interest 
in conserving or improving the land or the buildings: 

"On the contrary, just as it is to his advantage to rob the soil of its fertility, so he 
is tempted to burn the fire wood rails from any nearby fence or planks from the porch 
floor or from an out-house — if the place happens to be distinguished by having any 
movable materials that have not already succumbed to the ravages of time and tenants. 
The tenant is not likely to trouble to make any repairs that are not absolutely necessary, 
and these few will be so made as not to outlast his stay on the place." b 

18 Stipulations to this effect were, however, included in some of the Black Codes, 
which also set up some requirements for the protection of the freedmen; see Gilbert T. 
Stephenson, Race Distinctions in American Law (1910), pp. 62-63. 

16 Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal Status of the Negro (1940), p. 27. 

17 Prior to Reconstruction some of the Northern free states had similar laws; see, 
for instance, Frank U. Quill in, The Color Line in Ohio (191 3), pp. 21-34 *nd 88-92. 

18 In some states the lien applies not only to the crop but also to livestock, or even 
to all the tenant's property; in a number of states the cropper — in spite of sharing in 
the risk — has no legal title to the crop at all but is legally classified as a laborer. 

19 This may be exemplified by the following recent Georgia statute: 

"PROCURING MONEY ON CONTRACT FOR SERVICES FRAUDULENTLY 

"Any person who shall contract with another to perform for him services of any kind 
with intent to procure money or other things of value thereby, and not perform the 
service contracted for, to the loss and damage of the hirer, or after having so contracted, 
shall procure from the hirer money, or other things of value, with intent not to per- 
form such service, to the loss and damage of the hirer, shall be deemed a common cheat 
; nd a swindler, and upon conviction shall be punished as for a misdemeanor." 

20 Mangum, of. cit., pp. 164-170. The Georgia law was a formulation which the 
Southern legislators had hoped would pass the test. Yet it failed. By a United States 
Supreme Court decision of January 12, 1942, it was declared unconstitutional. The 
case involved a Negro whose employer claimed to have paid the cost for the Negro's 
release from a previous debt charge. The Negro in return had promised to work the debt 
off ($19.50) but failed to do so (New York Times, [January 13, 194.2]). 

21 Baker gives the following picture of a typical situation one generation ago: 

"If he attempts to leave he is arrested and taken before a friendly justice of the peace, 
and fined or threatened with imprisonment. If he is not in debt, it sometimes happens 

"T. J. Woofter, Jr., The Basis of Racial Adjustment (192s)) P- *9- 

" Charles S. Johnson, Edwin R. Embree, and W. W. Alexander, The Collafse of Cotton 

Tenancy (1935)* P- "• 
'Georgia Code of 1933, 26-7048. Quoted by Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," 

unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), p. 184. 



Footnotes i 43 7 

that the landlord will have him arrested on the charge of stealing a bridle or a few 
potatoes (for it is easy to find something against almost any Negro), and he is brought 
into court. In several cases I know of the escaping Negro has even been chased down with 
bloodhounds. On appearing in court the Negro is naturally badly frightened. The white 
man is there and offers as a special favour to take him back and let him work out the fine 
— which sometimes requires six months — often a whole year. In this way Negroes are 
kept in debt — so called debt-slavery or peonage — year after year, they and their whole 
family. One of the things that I couldn't at first understand in some of the courts I 
visited was the presence of so many white men to stand sponsor for Negroes who had 
committed various offences. Often this grows out of the feudal protective instinct which 
the landlord feels for the tenant or servant of whom he is fond ; but often it is merely 
the desire of the white man to get another Negro worker."" 

For a discussion of these practices today, see Kaper, of, cit., pp. 187-188, and Chapter 
26, Section 2. For a recent report of a case of peonage see the New York Sun (Novem- 
ber 5, 1942), p. 9. 

Chapter 1 1 . The Southern Plantation Economy and the Negro Farmer 

1 Hinton R. Helper, The Impending Crisis (1857), pp. 57-58. 

2 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Population. Preliminary Release: 
Series P~5a, Nos. 14-16; and Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Agriculture, 
United States Summary, First Series, Tabic VI. 

8 T. J. Woofter, Jr., "The Negro and Agricultural Policy," unpublished manuscript 
prepared for this study (1940), p. $0. 

* T. J. Woofter, Jr., and Associates, Landlord end Tenant on the Cotton Plantation 
(1936), p. II. 

5 Herman Clarence Nixon, Forty Acres and Steel Mules (1938), p, 13. 

"Carter Goodrich and Others, Migration and Economic Offortunity (1936), pp. 
125-126. A similar reconnaissance survey for 1934 indicated that conditions were even 
worse in Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, and 
Kentucky where more than half of the land was believed to be eroded, at least "moder- 
ately." 1 ' In a third source, 53 per cent of the land in the East South Central Division 
(Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi) is reckoned as "moderately eroded," 
23 per cent is "severely eroded," and 7 per cent is "essentially destroyed for tillage." 
This has contributed to make the Southeast contain the largest contiguous area in the 
country characterized by a low per capita value of farm land. d For the whole South, 
in 1940, the average value of land and buildings amounted to $596 per capita of 
the rural farm population. The corresponding national figure was $l,n6. e 

"Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color Line (1908), p. 98. 

b Letter with manuscript table, July 12, 1939, from Dr. E. A. Norton, Head, Physical 
Surveys Division, Soil Conservation Service, Department of Agriculture, to Dr. T. C. 
McCormick. 

"Department of Agriculture, Yearbook of Agriculture (1938), p. 90. 

d See map published by the National Resources Committee in The Problems of a Chang- 
ing Population (1938), p. 57. 

'Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Agriculture. United States Summary, Finrt 
Series, Table VI. 



1238 An American Dilemma 

7 Gunnar Lange, "Trends in Southern Agriculture," unpublished manuscript prepared 
for thii study (1940), pp. 23 ff. 
* Woofter, "The Negro and Agricultural Policy," p. 31. 

9 Lange, of. cit*, p. 27. 

10 Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Agriculture, Vol. Ill, Part 2, p. 62. 

11 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 7950-1952, pp. 587- 
588, and Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Agriculture, Vol. Ill, p. 12. 

12 Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030, Agriculture, Vol. IV, p. 510. 
"W*V.,p. 891. 

14 Frank Tanncnbaum, Darker Phases of the South (1924), pp. 117-118. 

16 U. S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics, 1940, pp. 108-109. 

16 Planters and other cotton farmers, it is sometimes claimed, have shown that they 
know how to diversify their crops whenever the cotton price is low,* Indeed, it has been 
Statistically ascertained that the cotton acreage — before the A.A.A. — varied with the 
price to a much greater extent than is true about most other crops. 1 ' But this means, on 
the other hand, that Southern farmers, in spite of their poverty and their need for a 
stabilized economy, have been unable to resist the temptation of making large temporary 
profits whenever the price exceeds a certain point. 

17 See, for instance, Rupert B. Vance, Human Geography of the South (1932), pp. 
198-199; and Woofter and Associates, Landlord and Tenant, pp. 49-64. 

18 See, for instance, Goodrich and Others, of. cit., pp. 134-138. 

19 Woofter and Associates, Landlord and Tenant, pp. 23 and 39. 

20 Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Agriculture, Vol. II, Part 2, Table 
46; Thirteenth Census of the United States: 10 so, Agriculture, Vol. V, p. 681. 

21 U. S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics, 1040, pp. 108-109. 
"The average annual loss from insect ravages during the period 1 910 to 1928 has 

been estimated to be about 1 5 percent, whereof the boll weevil is held responsible for 
12 percent." (Lange, of. cit., p. 30.) 

22 In 1929, on the basis of crop value, cotton had the first place in eight Southern 
states and held second place in North Carolina, where it was next to tobacco, and in 
Tennessee, where corn was more important. In seven of the states (South Carolina, 
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas) it accounted for half 
or more (in Mississippi, three-fourth;:) of the total crop value. Of the Southern states 
outside the Border only Virginia (corn, tobacco, potatoes) and Florida (citrus fruits) 
failed to have cotton among their principal crops. Corn, in most of the states, had 
second place. Rice came third in Louisiana, just before sugar cane, and fourth in 
Arkansas. 6 

23 Hid., pp. 657, 892-893. 

24 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Agriculture, United States Summary, 
First Series, Table VI. 

29 Woofter and Associates, Landlord and Tenant, p. 10. See also Davis, Gardner, and 
Gardner, of. cit., pp. 280-288. 

m White and Black in the United States (1879), p. 160. 

'Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, Mary R. Gardner, Deef South (1941), pp. 
272-273. 
h Rupert B. Vance, Human Factors in Cotton Culture (1929), pp. 118-119. 
' Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Agriculture, Vol. IV, pp. 715-716. 



Footnotes 1239 

97 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negro Population in the United States: 1790-1915) 
p. 461. The number of owned farm homes is approximately the same as the number of 
owned farms. It is possible, however, that the proportion of owned homes was somewhat 
lower than the statistics indicate, for 1890, 1900, and 1910; the total number of farm 
homes for these years was scarcely higher than the number of farm operators (owners 
and tenants), whereas there was a large difference in 1 930— indicating a substantial 
number of farm homes occupied by wage laborers. 

38 The number of owner-occupied Negro farm homes in the whole United States was 
almost exactly the same (221,000). 

29 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1920-1932, pp. 257 
and 5775 and Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Agriculture, United States 
Summary, First Series, Table VI. 

80 See J. C. Folsom and O. K. Baker, A Graphic Summary of Farm Labor and Popula- 
tion, United States Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication No. 265 
(1937), P- 10. 

81 The degree of extension of credit itself, as well as the organization of the credit 
market, is a factor relevant to Negro landownership. But this factor works in a com- 
plicated way, and a discussion of it is beyond the scope of this book. 

82 Folsom and Baker, op. cit., p. 14. 

33 Richard Sterner and Associates, The Negro's Share, prepared for this study 

(»9+3)» P- 19- 

3 * Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Agriculltue, United States Summary, 
First Series, Table VI. 

85 Similar interpretations are given by Rupert B. Vance, "Racial Competition for flu- 
Land," in Race Relations and the Race Problem, edited by Edgar C. Thompson (1919), 
pp. 102-103. 

88 There arc no complete statistics on the extent to which large holding? have or 
have not maintained their relative position in Southern agriculture. Plantations do not 
even exist in ordinary census statistics; a farm is defined in such a way that even a share- 
cropper's plot is regarded as an independent unit. This procedure has often been 
criticized. See, for example, Karl Brandt, "Fallacious Census Terminology and Its 
Consequences in Agriculture" Social Research (Match, 1938). However, there was a 
special enumeration of plantations in 325 counties in the Census of 1910 (Thirteenth 
Census of the United States: 1910, Agriculture, Vol. V, Chapter 1 2, "Plantations in the 
South," pp. 877-889). A similar enumeration was planned for the Census of 19+0, but 
the results have, at this writing, not yet been published. Tax digest data for certain plan- 
tation areas in the Southeast indicate, however, that there has been a decline in the 
number of large holdings (over 500 acres) and a large increase in the number of small- 
and middle-sized holdings. These comparisons (over in one case (20 Georgia counties) 
the whole period 1873-1934, and in other cases the period 1911-1934 or 1922-1934 
(Woofter and Associates, Landlord and Tenant, pp. 18, 197). This trend does not seem 
to be quite general, however; another study indicates an opposite trend in 20 Louisiana 
parishes (T. Lynn Smith, The Sociology of Rural Life (1940), pp. 305-307). 

87 Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, op. cit., pp. 296-297. 

88 Arthur F. Raper, Preface to Peasantry (1936), pp. 121-122. 

89 Ibid., p. 1 29. Dr. Raper cites the following example of how an attempt by accepta- 
ble Negroes to buy land in a more desirable neighborhood of Greene County, Georgia, 



1240 An American Dilemma 

ww tamed down. An old plantation was for sale by public auction in lots of sixty to 
ninety acres. Two Negroes wanted to bny two of the lots for a price nearly double the 
market value, but were discouraged by both the owner and the auction company. 

"The Negroes then went to a local white friend and asked him if he would bid in the 
two lots for them at the auction, whereupon he advised; 'Now, I am going to help you 
get some land, for you fellows ought to have some; but I don't believe I could try to 
buy any of those lots — you know there aren't any Negro owners right in there, and 
besides that land is right on the main road. Now understand, 1 want to help you — you 
just keep in touch with me and I will help you to locate some land in the neighborhood 
where you will like it better.* "" 

40 Vance, "Racial Competition for the Land," p. 107. 

41 White landlords in the South have even been accused of "selling" land to Negroes 
without letting them have the proper title to it. An outsider cannot have any opinion 
about the prevalence of such practices, but all available information about the legal 
status of the rural Negro in the South makes it seem probable that such cases occur and 
that Negroes, more often than whites, are the victims in such transactions. Sec for 
example, Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, of. cit., p. 294; Campbell, of. cit., p. 335. 

42 Farm Tenancy. Report of the President's Committee, prepared under the auspices 
of the National Resources Committee (1937), p. 39. 

48 Twelfth Census of the United States: igoo, Agriculture, Vol.V, Part I, pp. 
xcviii, civ; and Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030, Agriculture, Vol. II, 
Part 2, p. 35. 

44 Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Population, Vol. IV, pp. 96-152; 
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negro Population in the United Slates: 1790-1915, pp. 
506-508 and Table 1. It is somewhat difficult to follow this trend, for few of the 
Southern wage earners in agriculture have steady employment, and this makes it difficult 
to enumerate them. Too, there have been certain changes in the census classifications. 
The- conditions of the Negro wage laborers in the Southern states, on the whole, have 
been studied far less extensively than have those of the Negro tenants. Therefore it will 
not be possible for us to pay as much attention to them as their, numerical significance 
would warrant. 

4B A similar enumeration was planned for the 1940 Census, but the results, at this 
writing, are not yet available. 

40 Thirteenth Census of the United States: 19 10, Agriculture, Vol. V, Chapter 12, 
"The Plantations in the South." A plantation was defined as a continuous holding with 
five or more tenants. It is probable that there were some plantation tenants also in "non- 
plantation counties," but even so the majority of the tenants certainly resided on small 
holdings. 

47 Farm Tenancy, Report of the President's Committee, pp. 91-95. 

48 Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p. 15. 

4 * Ibid., p. 15. In nonplantation counties in 1930 only one-fourth of the tenants 
were Negroes. 

60 The proportion of all tenants who rented from their own or their wives' parents, 
grandparents, brothers, or sisters was, in 1930, not quite 30 per cent in the North, 17 

*lMJ..v. 118. 



Footnotes 1241 

per cent in the Wert, and 1 5 per cent in the South." The figure for the Sonth, however, 
includes Negroes; for white tenants alone, it must be considerably higher. 

51 In counties designated as plantation counties in 1 910, almost 60 per cent of the 
tenants were colored in I930. b Wooftcr's sample study of plantations in 1934 indicates 
that 53 per cent of the plantations had Negro tenants only; 42 per cent had both Negro 
and white tenants, and 5 per cent hid white tenants only." 

62 Of 289 Southern counties which were designated as plantation counties in the 
Census of 1910, more than half, or 16;, showed increase in number of both white and 
colored tenants between 1 900 and 1 930. In most of the cases these increases were pro- 
portionally greater for white than for colored tenants. In 50 counties there was a decline 
in number of tenants in both racial gioups. When changes went in opposite directions, 
it was most often the white tenants who gained at the expense of the colored tenants 
(65 counties). The reverse was true in but a few casw (9 counties). This information 
was based on a special adaptation of the census material d made by Richard Sterner, 
"Standard of Living of the Negro and Social Welfare Policies," unpublished manu- 
script prepared for this study (1940). 

58 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Agriculture: 1935, Vol. Ill, pp. 204-20; ; 
and Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p. 1 3. 

64 As early as 1879 Sir George Campbell observed about the constant movement from 
one plantation to another: 

"It is a form of strike as a counter-move against ill-treatment; and under the cir- 
cumstances the move may be a bold and effective measure." 6 Compare in modern litera- 
ture, for instance, Lawrence W. Neff, Race Relations at Close Range (191 1), p. 22; 
and John Dollard, Class and Caste in a Southern Town (1937), pp. 445-497. 

BB Woof ter and Associates, Landlord and Tenant, p. 200. 

Be It will be recalled that there is but scant information on the conditions of the non* 
plantation tenants, who are quite numerous even in the Negro group (although Negroes, 
much more than whites, are concentrated on large holdings). 

07 Some of the best works on the subject are: T. J. Wooftcr, Jr., and Associates, 
Landlord and Tenant on the Cotton Plantation (1937); William C. Holley, Ellen 
Winston, T. J. Wooftcr, Jr., The Plantation South, 1034-1 937, Works Projects Admin- 
istration Research Bulletin No. 2Z (1940); Farm Tenancy, Report of the President's 
Committee (1937); Arthur Raper, Preface to Peasantry (1936), particularly pp. 157- 
180; Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South (1941), 
pp. 255-421; E. L. Langsford and B. H. Thibodeaux, Plantation Organization and 
Operation in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Area, United States Department of Agricul- 
ture Technical Bulletin No. 682 (1939); Edgar T. Thompson, "Population Expansion 
and the Plantation System," American Journal of Sociology (November, 1935), pp. 
314-326. 

M Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, op. eit., pp. 329-331. 

* Farm Tenancy, Report of the President's Committee, p. 47. 
k Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p. 1 5. 

c Woofter and Associate*, Landlord and Tenant, p. 196. 

'Fifteenth Census of the United Stout: 1930, Agriculture, Vol. II, Part a, County table 
i, Supplemental for Southern States, and Twelfth Census of the United States: 1900, Agricul- 
ture, Vol. V, Part 1, pp. 52-141. 

* Op. cit., pp. ix-x. 



1242 An American Dilemma 

"Arthur Raper, "Race and Clan Pressures," unpublished manuscript prepared for 
this study (1940), p. 181. 

80 Woof ter and Associates, Landlord and Tenant, p. 1 1. 

61 Ibid., p. 29. 

« a Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," p. 180. 

68 Rupert B. Vance observes: 

"For the tenant to seek to keep his own accounts within the credit system is often 
regarded as a personal insult to the landlord or credit merchant."* 

04 Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, for instance, have this to say on the problem: 
"One large planter in Rural County attributed the existence of a large number of 

landlords who stole from their tenants to the difficulty of raising cotton profitably other- 
wise, under the present economy. 

" 'The only way a man can make money from farming is by stealing it from the 
Negroes, or by living close. Some people get ahead by living close and saving every cent, 
and then there are lots that steal from the Negroes. Some of them will take everything 
a Negro has, down to his last chicken and hog.' 

"A businessman, in one of the counties, whose business furnished him with a close 
knowledge of the credit dealings of most landlords and tenants in the county, stated 
that 'practically all landlords' cheated their tenants 'in one way or another.' " b 

05 Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," p. 183. 

68 Charles S. Johnson, Growing up in the Black Belt (194.1), p. 309. Italics ours. 

67 Woofter and Associates, Landlord and Tenant, p. 59. 

88 Langsford and Thibodeaux, of. cit., p. 48. 

09 Woofter and Associates, Landlord and Tenant, p. 63. 

70 Holley, Winston, and Woofter, of. cit., pp. 27-28. 

71 Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, of. cit., p. 3 50. 

72 Woofter and Associates, Landlord and Tenant, p. 60. 

78 Information from officials of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, at conference 
in Memphis, January 31, 1939. 

74 There is probably not so much debt-peonage left, however, as is suggested by the 
following statement, taken from the resolution of the Georgia' Baptist Convention's 
Social Service Commission meeting in Augusta, November, 1939: 

"Peonage or debt slavery has by no means disappeared from our land. There are more 
white people affected by this diabolical practice than there were slave owners. There are 
more Negroes held by these debt slavers than were actually owned as slaves. . . . The 
method is the only thing which has changed:" 

Davis, Gardner, and Gardner quoted the following statement made by a Negro land- 
lord in the middle of the 'thirties: 

" 'You don't get any more by being a good tenant! Grosvenor still takes it all and 
charges them besides! . . . They all do it. I do it myself — some of these things. . . . 
How can the tenant get his share? Most of them can't read or write. They can't sell 

' "Cotton and Tenancy" in Problems of the Cotton Economy, Proceedings of the Southern 
Social Science Research Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana (March, 1935), p. 19. See also 
Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," p. 181, and Federal Writers' Project, These Art Our 
Lives (1939), pp. 21-12. 

*Of. cit., p. 351. 

' Cited by Raper, "Race and Clan Pressures," p. 198. 



Footnotes 1143 

their own cotton. . . . They can't dispute the landlord'* word, if he is white, and they 
can't more if they owe him. Even if they don't owe him, another landlord won't 
take them unless the one they're renting from is willing for him to go.' "' 
78 For example, see Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," pp. 1 78-180. 

76 Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color Line (1008), p. 79. 

77 See Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, of. cit., p. 356. 
Mangam informs us: 

There is a common-law rule that one can recover damages from anyone who entices 
away one's servant. Moreover, an Arkansas enticement statute, applying to the luring 
of renters as well as laborers, has been held not to be in conflict with the Thirteenth 
Amendment or the peonage statutes." 1 * 

78 Raper tells a story about a case in Warren County, Georgia, where almost two- 
thirds of the population arc Negro. Adjoining Glasscock County, where the popula- 
tion includes a relatively large proportion of small white farmers, had an unusually good 
cotton crop in 1937 and sent to Warren County for pickers, bidding a higher price 
than planters in that county wanted to give. The result was a scries of rather violent 
demonstrations and intimidations by organized vigilantes. The trucks from Glasscock 
County had to turn back without any pickers, and the enraged Warren farmers forced 
all Negroes they could get hold of to work for them, entering their homes in order to 
find them, scarcely even leaving the domestics employed by other white families in 
peace." 

78 Ibid., p. 179. 

80 "Where the system flourishes, ignorance, prejudice, and cruelty are the rule, not 
the exception. The arrangement has behind it the weight of tradition and public 
opinion, tainted by fear and hate. The white owners know no other order. The Negro 
tenant is poor, illiterate, and intimid.itcd. There arc few better landlords to whom he 
could transfer his allegiance if he tried.'" 1 

Chapter 12. New Biotas to Southern Agriculture During the Thirties: 
Trends and Policies 

1 U. S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics: 1940, pp. 108-III; 
Gunnar Lange, "Trends in Southern Agriculture," unpublished manuscript prepared for 
this study (1940), pp. 17 ff. and Table A5. 

8 Lange, "Trends in Southern Agriculture," p. 18. 

8 The situation was aggravated by the depression after 1919. Domestic and foreign 
demand for textiles dropped sharply with increased unemployment and reduced indus- 
trial income. As a result the demand for cotton lint fell off rapidly, and prices dropped 
to half the pre-war level. The textile industries in the main cotton manufacturing 
countries abroad began to place more of their purchasing contracts with producers else- 
where than in the United States. England and France took larger shares of their cotton 
import from their dominions and from Egypt and Brazil. In Brazil cotton production 

'Of. cit., p. 356. 

'Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal Status of the Negro (19+0), p. 170. 

e "Race and Class Pressures," pp. 202-203. 

'Edwin R. Embree, Brown America (19331 first edition, 1931), p. (43. 



1244 An American Dilemma 

rote from an avenge of 492 million bales annually in 192 5- 1929 to 1,856 million bales 
in 1933-1937. At the same time a tremendons increase in the production of synthetic 
fibres occurred. World production of rayon and rayon staple fibres, which in 1920 
had been only 33 million pounds, increased from 458 million in 1930 to 1,948 
million pounds in 1938. It has been estimated that the production of these fibres was 
equivalent to 78,000 bales of cotton in 1920 and 4,583,000 bales in 1938.* 

"These two factors, the upward trend of cotton production abroad and the shift in 
demand to rayon, are the most responsible for the sharp reduction of the demand for 
American cotton. It seems to be certain that these factors will continue to influence 
the situation in the future and the American cotton producers cannot be expected to 
retain their present markets — much less to regain what they lost, unless some way of 
expanding domestic consumption can be found. Other innovations — for instance, nylon, 
recently introduced on a commercial basis — have come into the picture lately and do not 
brighten the market outlook for cotton." b 

That the cotton economy has suffered much more during the depression and recovered 
much less after the depression than American agriculture in general is evident from the 
following figures: e 

Index Numbers jo* Gross Cash Income from Marketinos 



All Cotton and 

Year Products Cotton Seed 



1925-1929 100 100 

•93* 43 3» 

1939 71 41 

Yet, even so, cotton was still in 1939 the leading money-income crop of the whole 
country, giving the American farmers $609,000,000 in cash as compared to $397,- 
000,000 from wheat, $367,000,000 from truck crops (all vegetables, except dry 
edible beans, potatoes, and certain garden plot crops), $326,000,000 from corn, and 
$264,000,000 from tobacco. None of the crops, however, could compete with milk 
($1,355,000,000), cattle and calves ($1,274,000,000) or hogs ( $821, 000,000 ). d 

* Lange, "Trends in Southern Agriculture," p. 43. 
8 Hid., pp. 23 ff. 

6 Ibid., pp. 1 1 and 24 ff. 

7 The number of cows and heifers kept mainly for milk production increased by 23 
per cent between 1930 and 1940. The national increase (17 per cent) was not much 

* See: I. W. Duggan, "Cotton Land and People," Journal of Farm Economics (February, 
1940), p. 197. 

b Lange, "Trends in Southern Agriculture," pp. 16-17. 

* Adapted by Lange ("Trends in Southern Agriculture," p. 4.2) from U. S. Department of 
Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics: 1940, pp. 54.4 and 5525 and Bureau of Agricultural 
Economics, Income Parity for Agriculture, Part I, Section 1. Calendar Years 19 10-193 7 
(Preliminary, 1938). The figure 41, used as the index for cotton and cotton seed for 1939, 
is only approximate. 

*U. S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics: 1040, pp. 544-545. 



Footnotes 1245 

smaller, however, and the South 's share in all milk produced (21 per cent) or sold (12 
per cent) was still very small in 1940.* 

8 If we exclude the West South Central states, where the raising of beef cattle 
always has been large but never has provided much employment for Negroes, we find 
that the rest of the South had an increase between 1930 and 1940 of no less than 
69 per cent in number of cows and heifers kept mainly for beef production. The 
production of hay increased by 53 per cent in the South, whereas the rest of the 
country showed a small decline. The number of hogs and pigs increased by 4 1 per cent 
in the South, as against 4 per cent for the country as 3 whole. (The last figures are 
somewhat too low, owing to a change in the enumeration method.) 1 " 

8 Idem. 

10 M. R. Cooper and Associates, "Defects in Farming System and Tenancy," U. S. 
Department of Agriculture, Yearbook of Agriculture, 1938, p. 144. 

11 Concerning these present trends, see U. S. Department of Agriculture, The 
Agricultural Situation (particularly the issues for March, April, and August, 1942) and 
Crop and Markets (for instance, the issue for July, 1 942). 

12 Richard Sterner and Associates, The Negro's Share, prepared for this study (1943), 
p. 19. Italics ours. 

13 We shall have to say more about this change later. At this writing it is not yet 
known how large the increase in number of wage laborers is compared with the decrease 
in number of tenants. Indeed, it is not even ceruin whether there was any significant 
increase at all in number of wage workers between 1930 and 1940.° It is certain, how- 
ever, that the increase in number of Negro day laborers-^if it did occur — was much 
smaller than the decline in number of Negro tenants. For the total Negro rural-farm 
population in the South declined by 4.5 per cent between 1930 and 1940. This decline 
was relatively smaller than during the decade 1920-1930 (8.6 per cent), but it is 
remarkable that it could go on at all in spite of the lack of industrial employment 
opportunities during the 'thirties. The Southern white rural-farm population, on the 
other hand, which had been slowly decreasing during the 'twenties (— 3.0 per cent) 
showed a small gain during the 'thirties (2.1 per cent). The fact that white people 
have greater opportunities in farm ownership than have Negroes apparently meant more 
than their greater employment chances in nonfarm areas. The records for this decade 
show clearly, as we have found, that farm ownership and high tenure status tend to 
keep the people on the land. d 

One of the reasons why Negro tenants were losing out seems to be that the increased 
•population fressuie had brought about an intensified racial competition for the land. 

* Sixteenth Census of the United States: iy^o, Agriculture, United States Summary, First 
Series, pp. 30-31. 

b Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Agriculture, United States Summary, First 
Series, pp. 30-31 and 52. 

e The number of Negro and white agricultural wage workers in the South, in 1930, was 
511,000 and 603,000 respectively (see Table 1 of Chapter ti). These figures include 
unemployed workers. The number of employed wage laborers in 1940 was 471,000 (includes 
a few non-whites other than Negroes) and 495,000, respectively {Sixteenth Census of the 
United States: 1940, Population, Second Series, State table i8a-b). It is obvious, however, 
that these two seta of figures are incomparable, so in spite of the two last ones being lower, 
a certain increase may, nevertheless, have occurred. 

'See Sterner and Associates, op. est., pp. 11-18. 



1246 An American Dilemma 

Among 288 counties in six selected Southern state*, no lea than 199 showed at the 
same tinie (between 1930 and 1935) an increase in number of white and a decrease in 
number of Negro cash and share tenants; the reverse of this happened in on]/ one of 
the counties studied.* 

Wbofter'a plantation study indicates that the proportion of white families on the 
plantation increased during these years. 1 * 

14 W. C. Holley, Ellen Winston, and T. J. Woofter, Jr., The Plantation South, 
'934-'937 (1940), p. 49- 

18 The harvested area, because of the depression, had already declined from 43,000,* 
OOO acres in 1929 to 36,000,000 in 1932. In 1933, because of the A.A.A., it was 
down to 29,000,000. There was a further decline to 22,000,000 in 1941.° 

18 From a peak of 17,000,000 bales in 1931, it fell to less than 10,000,000 in 1934; 
but then it started to climb again and reached an all-time peak of 19,000,000 bales in 
1937, when the acreage had been allowed, temporarily, to increase to 3 little more than 
three-fourths of the 1929 level.' 1 In 1940, however, it was down to 12,500,000 bales.* 

17 The carry-over, which was almost 10,O00,000 bales in 1932, had decreased to less 
than half of that figure by 1937 but reached a new, even higher peak of 13,000,000 
bales in 1939.' 
Behind this was the huge crop of 1937. 

* Richard Sterner, "The Standard of Living of the Negro and Social Welfare Policies," 
unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940). These data are based on a special 
adaptation of census materials for all counties in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas, which had at least 100 colored and 100 white tenants (other 
than croppers). Corresponding tabulations were made for farm owners (241 counties) and 
croppers (269 counties). The following- table gives a complete summary of the main results: 

Counties in Selected Southern States by Increase or Decrease in Number of Colored 
[AKD White Owners, Tenants (other than cropper*), and Croppers: 1 930-1935 

Counties by Decrease or Increase of Colored Operators 

Counties by Decrease or In- Tenants other 
crease of White Operators Owners than Croppers Croppers 

Decrease Increase Decrease Increase Decrease Increase 



Decrease 


3i 


8 


ij 


1 


16J 


aj 


Increase 


J7 


14J 


199 


73 


40 


39 



Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census. Census of Agriculture: loss. Vol. I, County Table 1, Supplemental 
for Southern States. Fifteenth Census of the United Stales: 1030. Agriculture, Vol. II, Part 3, County Table I, 
Supplemental for Southern States. 

k T. J. Woofter and Associates, Landlord and Tenant on the Cotton Plantation (1936), 

p. 157. 

'Bureau of Agricultural Economics, "The Agricultural Situation" (August, 1942), p. 9. 

" U. S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics: 1940, p. 109. 

*U. S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics: 1941, p. 120. The preliminary 
figure for 1941 was 11,000,000 bales (The National Industrial Conference Board, The 
Economic Almanac for 1941-1943 [1942], p. 266.) 

' U. S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics: 1940, p. 119 



Footnotes 1247 

tf Carl T. Schmidt, American Farmers in the World Crisis (1941), p. 156. 

*•/*«., p. i S5 . 

'"U.S. Department of Agriculture, Yearbook of Agriculture: 1940, p. 654. 

81 According to certain estimates (Holley, Winston, and Woofter, of. cit., p. 1 16), 
the labor requirements for cotton do not at all vary with the acreage, but only with the 
number of bales produced. It is understandable that this would be true about chopping 
and picking — but less so about operations which have to do with the soil rather than 
the plants. It does not seem, therefore, that these estimates would disprove that the 
acreage cuts have brought about a decrease in the need for year-round labor. 

22 Henry I. Richards, Cotton and the A.A.A. (1936), p. 146. 

28 Sterner and Associates, of. cit., pp. 75-76. 

** Holley, Winston, and Woofter, of. cit., p. 44. 

2,1 Edwin G. Nourse, Joseph S. Davi*, and John D. Black, Three Years of the. 
Agricultural Adjustment Administration (1937), p. 344. Set' .llso Allison Davis, B. B. 
Gardner, and M. R. Gardner, Deef South (1941), pp. 28^-284. 

2 * Nourse, Davis, and Black, of. cit., p. 344. Sec also Carl T. Schmidt, of. cit., p. 265: 

"The Act . . . obligates landlords not to reduce the number of their tenants below 
the average number on their farms during the last three year". The loophole is that 
the limitation applies only if the county committee finds that the change or reduction 
is not justified and disapproves such a change or reduction." 

2T Lange, "Agricultural Adjustment Programs and the Negro," p. 37. 

28 Thomas J. Woofter, Jr., "The Negro and Agricultural Policy," unpublished 
manuscript prepared for this study (1940), pp. 104 ff. Particularly illuminating is the 
following statement by a Missouri planter, quoted by Sihinidt, of. cit., p. 265: 

"What happens after a landlord decides upon a change [ from tenants to wage labor] ? 
He goes to the committee, and thereupon the three harassed men who are trying to run 
a complicated cotton program find themselves in an impossible position. They know 
very well that, since 1933, other owners have shifted to day labor and are getting all 
the payments. Why, therefore, should they discriminate against this late-comer? . . . 
They get very little credit if they stand iirm and try to run a good program." 

29 Concrete examples of how the local administration in the Deep South is domin- 
ated by large landlords are given by Davis, Gardner, and Gardner. Sec, for instance, 
of. cit., pp. 283-284. 

30 Lange observes: 

"The decentralization of A.A.A. might give the programs a more democratic 
character. That so much of the responsibility of promoting the programs has been placed 
upon the local committees is, however, in many respects to the disadvantage of the 
Negroes. The local administration of the A.A.A. in the South has been fitted into the 
traditional pattern of racial segregation. This segregation prevents the Negro from 
participating actively in the county associations. . . It is possible that A.A.A. to sonic 
extent has contributed to a breakdown of the racial barriers, for the Negroes are 
allowed to attend A.A.A. meetings together with white farm operators in a few 
Southern states, as, for example, in North Carolina. But, with rare exceptions, they 
would not be permitted at those meetings in Alabama or Mississippi . . . although the 
Negro farm operators actually are in the majority in many counties. The influence of 
the Negro farm agents over the administration of A.A.A. is, of course, only through 
the white agents. This brings us to the conclusion that the Negro farmers have very 



U4-8 An American Djlemma 

little influence over the local operation and enforcement of the A.A.A. legislation. This 
mean* that complaints from Negroes about acreage allotment and illegal diversion of 
payment practically always are judged by a committee of white farmers.* 

81 About the importance of the literacy factor in this context, see, for instance, 
Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, of. cit., p. 419. 

** Changes in Technology and Labor Requirements in Crof Production, Cotton. 
Work Projects Administration, National Research Project (1938). Cited by Lange, 
"Trends in Southern Agriculture," p. 33. 

Number or Motor Trucks and Tkactoks on Farms: 1930 and 1940 











Texas 


All other 


Item and Year 


United 


The North 


The 


and 


Southern 




States 


and West 


South 


Oklahoma 


States 


Motor trucks 












1930 


900,000 


663,000 


237,000 


76,000 


161,000 


1940 


1,047,000 


737.COO 


310,000 


85,000 


225,000 


Per Cent Increase 


J6% 


11% 


31% 


12% 


40% 


Tractors 












1930 


920,000 


774,ooo 


146,000 


63,000 


83,000 


194° 


1,567,000 


1,296,000 


271,000 


144,000 


127,000 


Per Cent Increase 


70% 


67% 


86% 


1*9% 


64% 



Sources: Fifteenth Census of the United Slates: 1030. Agriculture, Vol. IV, pp- 536. 537- Sixteenth Census 
cfthe United States: 1940, Apiculture. United States Summary, Second Series, pp. 27-31. 

84 Holley, Winston, and Woofter, of. cit., p. 20. 

ss By 1940, Texas and Oklahoma had more than half of all farm tractors in the 
South. They also showed a more rapid increase during the 'thirties than did the rest of 
the South or the nation. This, in conjunction with the drought which hit Oklahoma 
particularly, brought about a more spectacular decline in the rural farm population than 
in any other Southern state. The white farm population between 1930 and 1940 
decreased by 6 per cent in Oklahoma and by 7 per cent in Texas. The corresponding 
figures for the much smaller Negro farm population, as usual, were higher: 27 and 13 
per cent, respectively , b Speaking of mechanization trends as affected by the A.A.A. in 
these parts of the South, Carl T. Schmidt says: 

"To be sure, technological changes in cotton cultivation have been accelerated by 
the A.A.A., not only in the extent that it has given cotton planters cash with which to 
buy machinery, but also because the substitution of machines for tenants and croppers 
enables the landlords to double their share of the Government subsidy." 

The continuance of the differential in mechanization rates between the two parts of 
the South must give the Southwest a considerable competitive advantage, re-emphasizing 
the old shift in cotton culture to the Southwest. And under the pressure of this compe- 
tition, the Southeast will probably intensify its own efforts to make the change. It 
seems to be only a question of time until an extensive mechanization of the cotton 

'Lange, "Agricultural Adjustment Programs and the Negro," pp. 24-25. Italics ours. 
* Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Preliminary Release, Series P-5a, No. 16. 
'"Power Farming and Labor Displacement," Monthly Labor Review (March, 1938). 
Quoted by Schmidt, of. cit., pp. 263-164. 



Footnotes 1249 

culture in the Delta will occur. An appraisal of what that would mean hat been given 
by Horace C. Hamilton.* 

"Langsford and Thibodeaux* have shown how the mechanization of plantations in 
the Mississippi Delta area would reduce the plantation labor force per plantation 
(having 750 acres of crops) from 40 families under the horse-drawn one-row system, 
to 24 families under a four-row tractor system. This amounts to a decrease of 40 per 
cent. In this estimate they arc quite conservative, because they are assuming that some 
of the 24 families would be kept there primarily for the purpose of hoeing and picking 
cotton. If the Delta should come to depend upon transient labor as the Plains and 
Blacklands of Texas do, then less than 24 families might be kept on the plantation. 
Already we know of many instances where transient cotton pickers have been transported 
in trucks from Texas to Mississippi."' 

It should be added that such transient workers are often Mexicans, who have actually 
started to compete on a small scale with Negroes even in this stronghold of Negro 
agricultural labor. c 

"Schmidt, of. cit., p. 65. 

87 ". . . the general history of such machines suggests that the cotton-picker will 
eventually be perfected, for use in relatively flat country at least — and the greater part 
of the richer cotton lands of the South are located in just such country ... it is an 
ominous machine . . . since it overcomes the last and principal barrier to the mechaniza- 
tion of Southern cotton farming . . . huge mechanized land units arc plainly indicated 
as the easiest way to recovering, so far as it is possible, the foreign market, lost piecisely 
because of the high production costs of the present methods of growing cotton.'" 1 
38 Schmidt, op. cit., p. 69. 

3 * "Many planters throughout the South agree that the cropper's necessity of keeping 
his second-hand Ford on the road, coupled with his inability to part with any cash for 
repairs, had made of him a good mechanic. Thus when the plantation comes to 
mechanize it will find its Negro labor machine conscious and able to make the transi- 
tion." 6 

40 Fifteenth Census of the United States: ig$o, Agriculture, Vol. IV, pp. 530 and 
536-537. There were 38,000 tractors on tenant-operated farms in the South, but only 
2,000 on farms operated by colored tenants in the whole country. Most tractors used 
by tenants may have been registered as belonging to the owner-operated parts of the 
plantations. 

11 "If . . . the mechanical cotton pickers should be applied to half of the 10 million 
acres of cotton in the Delta Lands, the Gulf Coast Prairie and the Texas Black Waxy 
Prairie, we might expect a saving ... of half a million pickers during the cotton 
picking season. . . . Mechanization of other phases of cotton production should undoubt- 

* "The Social Effects of Recent Trends in the Mechanization of Agriculture," Rural 
Sociology (March, 19J9), p. 11. 

* E. L. Langsford and B. H. Thibodeaux, Plantation Organization and Operation in the 
Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Area, U.S. Department of Agriculture Technical Bulletin <»» 

(•939)1 P- 8o - 
' Information received by Sterner during interview, Department of Welfare, Clarksdale, 

Mississippi, January, 1940. 

"W. F. Cash, The Mind of the South (194.il, p. 4i«. Compare Rupert B. Vance, 
Hitman Geography of the South (1936), p. 497- 

'Vance, of «/., p. 497. 



1450 An America* Dilemma 

edly accompany widespread nse of the mechanical picker thereby decreasing the labor 
required prior to harvest."" 

42 Oren Stephens, "Revolt on the Delta," Har fir's Magazine (November, 194.1), 
p. 664. 

48 Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," unpublished manuscript prepared for 
this study (1940), p. 206. 

44 Idem. 

48 Quoted by Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," p. J13. Often even the attempts to 
organize the tenants in the Southwest met with violence. One woman sympathizer was 
whipped while studying the activities of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union in 
Arkansas. (See Oren Stephens, of. tit., p. 661.) A Negro member, who had received a 
leaflet from the Union containing an admonition that members take part in the election 
of the county conservation committee, showed this leaflet in the office of the county 
agent, while inquiring about the date of the election. He failed to receive the informa- 
tion, but later he was handcuffed, beaten and "run out of the county." b 

A white attorney in Arkansas, although not particularly progressive, was aroused by 
the illegal practices in the dealings with tenants and, therefore, used to assist them at 
court. Because he had helped some members of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, 
his house was once attacked by a group of vigilantes, who, however, left when they 
found him armed . d The police generally take orders from the planters. Lower courts 
rend to decide against the tenants, but when cases are brought to higher courts, as by this 
attorney, they are frequently reversed.' 

M Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, "History of S.T.F.U., S.T.F.U. Study Course," 
mimeographed, pp. 102. See also Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," p. 208. 

One of the most spectacular incidents occurred in January, 1939, when a group of 
displaced sharecroppers and other discontented rural workers of both races, led by 
persons connected with both the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union (S.T.F.U.) and the 
United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (U. C. A. P. A. 
W. A.), camped near a Missouri highway, thereby demonstrating their plight. After 
the state health authorities had delivered the somewhat peculiar declaration that their 
presence at this place constituted "a menace to the public health," they were moved 
to a less conspicuous location, where they were left stranded for some time, until the 
Farm Security Administration managed to take care of some of them. The organizers 
referred to this demonstration as an "organized peaceable protest against unfairness of 
cotton control to cotton workers" and against the "defeat of labor policy in cotton 
control."* 

'Roman L. Home and Eugene G. McKibben, "Changes in Farm Power and Equipment, 
Mechanical Cotton Picker" (1937), Works Progress Administration, National Research 
Project, Report A-a, p. 18. 

" Information received by Sterner from the directors of the Southern Tenant Farmers' 
Union at conference in Memphis, December 31, 1939. A number of similar cases are reported 
in issues of The Tenant Farmer, monthly magazine of the S.T.F.U. 

'Stephens, of. cit., p. 659. 

'Interview by Sterner, October, 1938. Story confirmed by Raper, "Race and Class Pres- 
sures," pp. 216-117. 

* Ibid., pp. ato-xn and 117. 

'Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," pp. 211-213. See also New York Times (January si, 
1939) and New York Post (January ao, and November 0. 1939). 



Footnotes 1451 

a H. L. Mitchell, "The Southern Tenant Farmers Union in 1941," Report of the 
Secretary (1942), p. 2. 

48 Cited by Schmidt, of. cit., p. "I. 

49 Ibid., p. 286; and Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Agriculture, 
United States Summary, First Series, p. 10. 

80 Bertram Schricke, who, with a background in Dutch colonial policy, surveyed the 
American Negro problem in the early 'thirties, painted the future for a new American 
peasantry quite rosy: 

"America, and particularly the South, offers a unique opportunity for the develop- 
ment of the new peasant. He will do as the old peasant did, produce his own food and 
the feed for his stock. With his fruit, maple svrup, cream and butter, home-cured 
hams, cereals, and vegetables, he will provide himself a healthier and more abundant 
diet than he has ever known. At the same time, in this age of radios, automobiles, 
movies, and telephones, he will not be isolated as was the pioneer. The word 'peasant' 
brings unfavourable associations to the American mind. It suggests, feudalism. The 
agriculturist wishes to be called a 'farmer,' but farming implies the production of 
commercial crops. However, the peasant is not a serf; he is a hard-working stubborn 
character, proud of his freedom and independence on his self-owned land."* 

It should be recalled, however, that this new American peasant, in order to have a 
decent living standard — and particularly if he were to be provided with those gadgets 
of modern civilization which Schrieke would give him — would need a substantial cash 
income. This is not, under present trends in agricultural technique and in world 
production of agricultural goodt, compatible with anything like the present ratio of 
labor to land in the South. 

The so-called "agrarians" — a small group of Southern university professors, journal- 
ists, and so on — also have advocated a return to the land. Their reasons are sentimental 
rather than economic and they seem to have had no influence. Sec: Twelve Southerners, 
/'// Take My Stand (1930). 

61 The Collapse of Cotto» Tenancy (1935), pp. 68-69. 

62 Preface to Peasantry (1936), pp. 6-7. Italics ours. 

M A tendency in Administration circles to abstain from publicly criticizing govern- 
ment policies has not been without responsibility for allowing the general public to be 
less well-informed on technical points of such public questions than corresponds to its 
intelligence and general education. The attitudes toward labor unions, social insurance, 
and agricultural policy are as a result too often in black and white: one is cither for a 
policy as a whole, or against it. The tendency to extreme loyalty on the part of govern- 
ment experts has to be understood against the background ( t ) that the technical plans 
for policy are often originally drawn up without much public dibcusaion; (2) that the 
Administration seems always to fear that the opposition will make undue use of any 
admission of unfavorable effects of a policy; (3) that the public expects all members 
of the Administration to agree, and if they do not agree they are said to be "bickering" 
or "showing jealousy." This spreads an air of one-mindedncss and secretiveness around 
policy making, and makes the policy adopted partly a matter of accident. One admin- 
istrator, when discussing certain features o£ the A.A.A. for which he was not respon- 
sible, privately remarked: "You cannot expect me to criticize the policy of the govern- 

' Alien Americans (1936), p. 193. 



i2$2 An American Dilemma 

ment." The whole set-np is much like the often-criticized Russian scheme of having 
discussion until a policy is voted upon and then a complete stifling of discussion. 

M Schmidt, of. cit., p. 280. These estimates do not include future losses on 
commodity loans. Because of the War, such losses perhaps will not be so large. 

66 The full series of estimates for the latter part of this period is given below: 

•9*9 >93* 1933 "934 193S 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 

Millions of dollars 1651 648 807 1190 1245 1360 1473 1342 1354 1291 
Index Nos. 100 39 49 73 7$ 82 89 81 82 78 

Figures are from Farm Income (February 19, 1941) and from figures made available 
through the Division of History and Statistics, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 
United States Department of Agriculture, in Lange, "The Agricultural Administration 
Program and the Negro," p. 39. The nine Southeastern states included in the analysis 
were: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Missis- 
sippi, Kentucky and Tennessee. A.A.A. payments are included for the years 1933-1940. 

88 Computed from Lange, "Agricultural Adjustment Programs and the Negro," 
p. 39. Lange gets his figures from Farm Income (February 19, 1 941) and from figures 
made available through the Division of History and Statistics, Bureau of Agricultural 
Economics, United States Department of Agriculture. 

97 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Annotated Compilation of Soil Conservation and 
Domestic Allotment Act, as amended (1938), Section 7a (5). Quoted by Lange, 
"Agricultural Adjustment Programs and the Negro," p. 9. 

B8 Lange, "Agricultural Adjustment Programs and the Negro," p. 7. 

89 Ibid., pp. io-n. 

"'Holley, Winston, and Woofter, op. cit., pp. 40, 41 and 44. 

81 True, not all planters receive incomes such as these averages indicate. Some even 
have to suffer losses. This was true of about 7 per cent of the 646 plantations in 
Woofter's larger plantation sample of 1934. But over one-third of the planters had a 
net cash income of at least $2,000, and the average for this group was $5)393-" On the 
whole, it seems that the statement, often heard in the South, that not only tenants but 
planters as well arc poor, is greatly exaggerated. Those who want to argue that planters 
generally are badly off, often taken their recourse to certain computations of percentage 
returns on plantations; such computations cannot always be accepted without important 
qualifications. 

Woofter estimates that the operator's average "capital investment" (total value of 
land, buildings, livestock and machinery) for a sample of 632 plantations was $28,694 
in 1934. If the operator's salary for his own work is considered to be only $1,000 a 
year, the residua] net return on this capital would be 5.5 per cent." Such a capital 
return may seem low, but it is questionable whether it is low also for agricultural condi- 
tions. The author, who is somewhat familiar with Swedish agricultural economics, can 
testify that similar calculations for Swedish farms indicate the prevalence of much 
lower returns. This argument, however, cannot be stressed much, for computations of 

'Woofter, Landlord and Tenant, p. 86. 
*IUa\, p. aiS. 



Footnotes 1253 

this kind are always rather arbitrary and more or less incomparable. The main objection 
is, rather, that such calculations seldom give any exact and meaningful indices on the 
economic success of the operations. For the capital value is not an independent unit; 
it is a reflection of the anticipated net income (as well as of the anticipated returns on 
competing investment opportunities and of anticipated risks). The A.A.A. payments, 
for instance, undoubtedly have contributed to an increase in plantation values, and, 
although they constitute part of an increase in income, it is not certain that they have 
helped to bring about any rise in the percentage return. If they should have brought 
about such an increase, this is only because the investor considers them temporary and, 
consequently, bases his calculation on the assumption that his net income eventually will 
decline. Indeed, the greater the assurance that a certain increase in income will last, 
the less likely is it to cause any rise in the percentage return. 

92 Schmidt, of. cit., p. 152. 

8S Woofter, "The Negro and Agricultural Policy," p. MO. 

84 United States Department of Agriculture, "Extension Work with Negroes," 
mimeographed, p. 5. 

05 Figures made available through the courtesy of Dr. M. L. Wilson, Director of 
Extension Work, U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

80 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics: 1940, p. 719. In Missis- 
sippi, for instance, where in 1 942 the majority of the rural farm people are colored, 
less than one-fourth of the extension workers were Negro. Tennessee had but to 
colored workers in 1942, whereas the total number of extension workers, even in 1939, 
was fifteen times greater. Among all Southern counties with 500 or more Negro farm 
families almost two out of five were without any colored extension workers in 1941." 

It has already been mentioned that the Extension Service has frequently failed to 
stand up for the rights of tenants when landlords have appropriated A.A.A. payments 
intended for them or in other ways have misused the aid given under the A.A.A. 
program. A somewhat less serious charge is that some county agents, who frequently 
are the secretaries of local chapters of the Farm Bureau, have helped to force tenants, 
including Negroes, to become dues-paying members of this organization, which rarely, 
if ever, represents the interests of the Southern tenant class* The county agents may 
rarely express an explicit command to the tenants to join the Farm Bureau; but a mere 
suggestion, often made when benefit checks are distributed, is enough to make a Ncgto 
believe that he has not much choice. About similar pressure from the side of landlords, 
see PM (February 23, 19+2.) 

87 This system of federally organized credit agencies was begun by the institution of 
the Federal Land Banks (for mortgage loans) in 191 6 and the Federal Intermediate 
Credit Banks (for certain t}pes of production credit) in 1923. The Farm Credit Act 
of 1933 provided for the organization of the Farm Credit Administration (F.C.A.) 
which now includes half a dozen federally sponsored credit agencies working for various 
purposes, among those the older institutions which were just mentioned, as well as the 
Production Credit Corporations and Associations (for short-term credit), the Banks for 
Cooperatives, and the Emergency Crop and Feed Loan Offices (short-term credit for 
farmers unable to get assistance from other institutions). In addition, certain indepen- 

* C. S. Department of Agriculture, "Extension Work among Negroes," Table II. 

"Information from the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, December 31, 1939. 



j*J4 An American Dilemma 

dent new federal agcncie* give more specialized types of agricultural credit, rach » the 
Firm Security Administration, which will be discussed subsequently, the Commodity 
Credit Corporation, which is part of the previously mentioned "Ever-Normal Granary 
Plan" system, and the Rural Electrification Administration. 

Even this incomplete list is impressive enough. Possibly it may reflect a certain over- 
lapping between various offices, but in the main it indicates a real effort to solve the 
problem of agricultural credit in its various phases. 

88 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics: 1940, p. 599. 

w The total amount of such credit held by the various F.C.A. agencies and by the 
Commodity Credit Corporation on January 1, 1940, was not much more than half of 
that held by one single group of private institutions, the insured commercial banks; it 
was about the same in the South. 1 Woofter's study of 646 plantations in 1934 shows that 
a little more than one-fourth of the short-term credit came from government institu- 
tions. 6 The follow-up study of 246 plantations showed that less than half of them used 
any short-term credit at all in J937; among those who did, over two-thirds used private 
sources of credit, usually banks, but in a few cases used supply merchants and fertilizer 
companies. The government institutions, however, had become more important at the 
expense of the private organizations. They were used somewhat less infrequently than in 
1934, and they granted higher average amounts of credit. 

n lbid„p. 25. 

71 Woofter, Landlord end Tenant, p. 55. 

72 Schmidt, of. tit., p. 280. 

78 See, for instance, The Tenant Farmer (February 15, 1942). 
74 Sterner and Associates, of. ell., p. 305. 

70 Information from field offices in Mississippi, January, 1940. See also Sterner and 
Associates, of. cit., p. 297. 

79 Schmidt, of. cit., p. 238. 

77 Monthly Re fort of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, May 1, through 
May 31, 1934, p. 6. 

78 Refort of the Administrator of the Farm Security Administration, 1041, pp. 28-29. 
78 Sterner and Associates, of. cit., pp. 300-301. 

80 Hid., pp. 300 and 305. 

81 Ibid., pp. 301, 302, 304, and 308-309. 

82 Ibid, Table 125, p. 306. 

88 Refort of the Administrator of the Farm Security Administration, 1041, p. 10. 
84 Schmidt, of, cit., p. 233. 



Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 

1 "Whether upon the plantation or in towns, whether in the cruder trades or the 
artistic crafts, the Negroes played an important role. We find them on the rice or the 
tobacco plantations, serving their masters as carpenters, coopers, blacksmiths, sawyers, 

"U. S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Statistics: 1940, pp. 619, 620, 632, and 

* Wosfter, Landlord and Tenant, p. a 1*. 

* Holley, Winston, and Woofter, op. cit., p. 25. 



Footnotes 1255 

wheelwright!, shoemakers, painters, etc. We may assume that they were, m a rule, not 
the most skilled or enact craftsmen, but they were capable of doing satisfactory work 
in shoeing horses and mules, making hogsheads, repairing bams and slave quarters, 
making wagons, cutting timber. The slave who had been trained to a craft always 
commanded a higher price than the ordinary field hand . . . 

"In the larger towns in all parts of the South, slaves were trained to various crafts and 
naed in the shops of the larger shipwrights, cabinetmakers, shoemakers, wigmakers, 
etc. • . . 

"The custom of hiring out Negro artisans was common in many parts of the South. 
When a master craftsman died, his widow often found that she could depend on a fair 
revenue from the work of her slave helpers. 

"This use of Negro craftsmen tended to run white men out of the trades, since it 
not only lowered wages, but cast a stigma on skilled labor. Slave labor in the rice and 
tobacco fields had already struck a deadly blow at the yeomanry, now it began to under- 
mine the small but important artisan class. ... In the old South, after the passing of 
wigs and elaborate hair dressing for men, the barber business fell largely into the hands 
of blacks. An old Southern gentleman once told me that on his first visit to the North 
he experienced a kind of shame for the white man who cut his hair and the white girls 
who waited on him at table. Thousands in the South were shocked when the first Negro 
postman delivered mail to their front doors. Thus, when the master craftsmen of the 
old South began to employ Negroes in large number, it tended to make carpentry, or 
bricklaying, or wheelmaking, or cooperage, or tanning the profession of slaves. Slave 
workers not only degraded labor, but cheapened it," (Thomas J. Wcrtcnbaker, The 
Old South [1942], pp. 229-232.) 

2 The Negro: The Southerner 1 : Problem (1904), p. 127. 

3 The Negro in Louisiana (1937), pp. 135-136. 

4 Willis D. Weatherford and Charles S. Johnson, Race Relations (1934), p. 315. 

5 Edwin R. Embree, Brown America (1933; first edition, 1931), p. 151. 
e Page, of. cit., p. 77. 

7 Winficld H. Collins, The Truth about Lynching and the Negro in the South 
(1918), p. 138. 

8 Eleventh Census of the United States: i8go, Population, Vol. II, Table u6; 
Thirteenth Census of the United States: ioio, Population, Vol. IV, Table 7. 

9 Thirteenth Census of the United States: ipso, Population, Vol. IV, pp. 313-314; 
Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030, Population, Vol. V, pp. 408-4II. 

10 Although the South had 32 per cent of the nation's population in 1940, only about 
20 per cent of all wage earners in manufacturing industries in 1939 were in the South. 
(U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: ig38, Tables 6 
and 793; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Slatisti,:al Abstract of the United States: 1941, 
Table 868; and Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Population. Preliminary 
Release, Series P-10, No. 1.) 

11 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1020-1033, p. 53. 

12 It should be noted that the concept of "labor force" in the 1940 Census, like the 
concept of "gainful worker" in earlier census enumerations, includes unemployed 
workers. This circumstance, owing to the increase in unemployment, affects the compari- 
son between 1930 and 1940 to a greater extent than corresponding comparisons between 
previous census years. There are no reliable data for 1930 which could be compared 



12$6 An American Dilemma 

with the 1940 figures on employed worker*. To be rare, a centos of unemployment w» 
taken in 1930 which indicated a much lower unemployment than in 1940, particularly 
for Negroes {Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Unemployment, Vol. II, 
pp. 232 if.), but this study probably involves an under-enumcration, especially for 
Negroes. (There was little indication of unemployment rates being significantly higher 
ior Negroes than for whites.) It is not likely, however, that a comparison based on 
accurate data for employed workers would have shown any smaller decrease in the 
proportion of Negroes in the urban -labor force than do the figures in Table 2, since 
this would have presupposed that the race differential in unemployment had become 
smaller. Rather it was the other way around; in spite of the lack of reliable statistical 
data, it seems most probable that, between 1930 and 1940, unemployment increased 
more for Negroes than for whites. 

This development is not restricted to the South. The discrepancy between the 
increase in urban Negro population and the increase in the Negro labor force was even 
greater in the North than in the South during this period. We shall discuss the causes 
later. 

In both regions the development is to some extent explained by the institution of 
old age benefits and large-scale relief and by the increase in the numbers of Negro 
youths who attended schools: these factors caused a certain tendency for Negroes to 
withdraw from the labor market. (See Chapter 13, Section 9.) However, these with- 
drawals from the labor market were certainly due, in part, also to the lack of employ- 
ment opportunities for Negroes which have tended to cause elderly people, particularly, 
to abstain from seeking jobs and from considering themselves as workers. 

18 See source reference to Table 3. Data available at this writing do not enable us to 
indicate the exact size of the change in total employment, since the 1940 figures refer 
to employed workers 14 years of age and over, and those for 1930 to both employed 
and unemployed workers 10 years of age and over. These circumstances have been 
considered in the text comment, which refers only to some of the most apparent 
changes. 

14 The Negroes in New York not only had to bear the pressure of general sentiment 
against free Negroes, but were called on to stand up under an economic pressure stronger 
than that endured by any other of the free groups. For generations the New York 
Negroes had had an almost uncontested field in many of the gainful occupations. They 
were domestic servants, laborers, boot-blacks, chimney-sweeps, whitewashes, barbers, 
hotel waiters, cooks, sailors, stevedores, seamstresses, ladies' hairdressers, janitors, caterers, 
coachmen. (At that time a black coachman was almost as sure a guarantee of aristocracy 
for a Northern white family as a black mammy for a family of the South.) In a limited 
way they were engaged in the skilled trades. The United States Census of 18 50 lists 
New York Negroes in fourteen trades. In two occupations — as janitors of business 
buildings and as caterers — a number of individuals actually grew wealthy. (James 
Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan [1930], pp. 43-44.) 

"Frederick Douglass, cited by B. Schrieke, Alien Americans (1936), p. 122. 

16 There were many exceptions though. Ray Stannard Baker relates from the North: 

?And yet, although I expected to find the Negro wholly ostracised by union labour, 

I discovered that where the Negro becomes numerous or skillful enough, he, like the 

Italian or the Russian Jew, begins to force his way into the unions. The very first 



FOOTNOTES 1157 

Negro carpenter I chanced to meet in the North (from whom I had expected a com- 
plaint of discrimination) said to me: 

" 'I'm all right. I'm a member of the union and get union wages.' 
"And I found after inquiry that there are a few Negroes in most of the unions of 
skilled workers, carpenters, masons, iron-workers, even in the exclusive typographical 
anion and in the railroad organizations a few here and there, mostly mulattoes. They 
have got in just as the Italians get in, not because they are wanted, or because they are 
liked, but because by being prepared, skilled, energetic, the unions have had to take 
them in as a matter of self-protection. In the South the Negro is more readily accepted 
as a carpenter, blacksmith, or brick-layer than in the North not because he is more highly 
regarded but because (unlike the North) the South has almost no other labour supply." 
(Following the Color Line [1908], p. 135.) 

17 The New South (1890), pp. 249-250. 

16 Problems of the Present South (1909; first edition, 1904), pp. 186-187. The 
thesis that the South provided industrial opportunities for Negroes had a vital role in 
its defense for abridging their rights as citizens: 

"The South has sometimes abridged the Negro's right to vote, but the South has not 
yet abridged his right, in any direction of human interest or of honest effort, to earn 
his bread. To the Negro, just now, the opportunity, by honest labor, to earn his bread 
is very much more important than the opportunity to cast his vote. The one opportunity 
is secondary, the other is primary; the one is incidental, — the greater number of enlight- 
ened peoples have lived happily for centuries without it, — the other is elemental, 
structural, indispensable; it lies at the very basis of life and integrity — whether indi- 
vidual or social." (Ibid., pp. 187-188.) 

18 Up From Slavery (1901; first edition, 1900), pp. 219-220. 

20 Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Population, Vol. IV, Table 7. 

21 Thirteenth Census of the United States: soio, Population, Vol. IV, Table 7; and 
Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030, Population, Vol. IV, State Table II. 

22 The data for the nation as a whole indicate that, between 19 10 and 1930, there 
was a 46 per cent increase of male workers (all races) in nonagricultural pursuits. For 
unskilled workers the rate of expansion was only 20 per cent. (U.S. Bureau of the 
Census, Alba M. Edwards, Social-Economic Grouping of the Gainful Workers of the 
United States in 1030 [1938], p. 7.) Yet it was due, mainly, to this limited expansion 
in laboring jobs that the Negro was able to make any inroads into industry. Sterner 
points out: 

"There were 1,171,000 more male unskilled workers in 1930 than in 1910; 40 per 
cent of these [additional] workers were Negroes. Of the 2,121,000 additional semi- 
skilled workers, 8 per cent were Negroes. The total increase in number of skilled, 
clerical, managerial, and professional male workers amounted to 5,739,000 persons, of 
whom only 2 per cent were Negroes." (Richard Sterner and Associates, The Negro's 
Share, prepared for this study [1943], p. 27.) 

Nevertheless, there had been some improvement in the Negroes' occupational status; 
the proportion of all Negro workers who were in semi-skilled occupations had increased, 
at the same time as the proportion of those in unskilled occupations had declined some- 
what. Yet in relation to the white workers, the position of the Negro had become 
worse. (Idem.) 

28 Edwards, op. cit., pp. 47 and 59. 



H58 An American Dilemma 

84 Ibid., pp. 4*-59- 

n Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Population, Preliminary Release, 
Seriei P-4, No. 4. 

** The employment rates for white females were comparatively uniform all over the 
country. In most large cities, North as well as Sooth, from one-fifth to one-third of the 
white women were reported as employed. The rates for Negro women in large Southern 
cities usually ranged front one-third to one-half. In the North they were less consistent, 
and frequently much lower. In some cities, like Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pitts- 
burgh, they were even lower than those for white women. (Sixteenth Census of the 
United States: 1940, Population, Second Series, State Reports, Table 41.) 

27 In the nine Northern cities having the heaviest Negro population (New York, 
Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, 
Indianapolis), the proportion of actually employed persons among Negro men 14 years 
and over ranged around one-half (from 45 to 56 per cent), whereas the corresponding 
figure for white males varied between two-thirds and three-fourths (from 63 to 73 
per cent). Southern cities showed a somewhat smaller difference, but even there 
Negroes were worse off than whites. The large cities in the Upper and Lower South 
showed a rather uniform pattern; in most of them about two-thirds of the Negro men 
and three-fourths of the white men were registered as being employed. (Idem.) 

88 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population, Preliminary Release, 
Series P-4, No. 8. 

89 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Population. Preliminary Release, 
Series P-4, No. 8. See also Sterner and Associates, of. eit., p. 3 1 . 

80 Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p. 31. At the Census of 1930 no less than 20 per 
cent of the Negro boys and 12 per cent of the girls, 10 to 15 years of age, were 
registered as gainful workers. The corresponding figures for white boys and girls were 
5 and 2 per cent, respectively. Corresponding data from the 1940 Census are not avail- 
able at this writing. It is known, however, that the rate for colored boys and girls, 14 
years of age, dropped from 23 per cent in 1930 to 11 per cent in 1940; whereas, the 
corresponding figures for white boys and girls were 5 per cent in 1930 and 3 per cent 
in 1940. (Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940^ Population, Preliminary 
Release, Series P-4, No. 8). 

81 The general rate for Negro women was about stationary for the period 1 900-1930, 
but this was probably due to the migration from rural areas, where but a small propor- 
tion of females are registered as gainful workers. Urban areas seem to have shown a 
slight decline during the period. (Sterner and Associates, of. eit., pp. 29-30.) 

**Ibid^ p. 33- 

88 It should be noted, however, that data for 1930 and 1940 are not quite comparable 
since the basic census definitions have been changed. Seasonal workers, who were 
neither working nor seeking work during the time of the census, were not included as 
members of the "labor force" in 1940; but in 1930 they were reckoned as "gainful 
workers." Since they may have been particularly numerous among the Negroes, it is 
possible that this, to some extent, may have made the equalization between Negroes and 
whites, in regard to proportion of persons in the labor force, appear as somewhat more 
pronounced than it actually was. This error in the comparison may have been counter- 
acted, to some extent, by another difference in definition: young workers, who had 
never had any unemployment, are included as members of the "labor force" in 1940; 



Footnotes 1259 

but they were not considered as gainful workers in 1930. Thii group, however, ii 
tmill. (Regarding then problem* of definition, tee the previously quoted census publica- 
tions.) 

•* Sixteenth Census of the United Slates: 1940, Pofulation, Preliminary Release, 
Series P-4, No. 8. There were several cities, however, particularly in the North, where 
the proportion of all workers (employed and unemployed) had become smaller among 
Negro than among white males (Table 6). Also, there were in the North some large 
cities where the relative number of female workers and job-seekers was only slightly 
higher in the Negro than in the white group. In such cases Negro rates usually tended 
to be even lower than white rates for girls under 15, at the same time as they were 
higher for other age groups. {Ibid., Series P-4, No. 6.) One sometimes hears that many 
Negro mothers would rather work than let their daughters lose status in the eyes of 
possible suitors by accepting positions as domestics. We can take it for granted, at any 
rate, that the extremely limited range of job opportunities for Negro women is behind 
this phenomenon; after all, of all Negro women workers in nonagricultural pursuits in 
1930, less than one-half were able to find work other than as servants or cooks in private 
families. (U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1910-1931, 
pp. 303 and 358.) There has not been any substantial improvement since then. 

80 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Pofulation, Second Series, State 
Reports, Table 17. 

88 The proportion of old Negro men (75 years of age and over) who were still "in 
the labor market" declined from 53 per cent in 1930 to 23 per cent in 1940 (the 
corresponding figures for whites were 31 and 18 per cent, respectively). (Sixteenth 
Census of the United States: 1940, Pofulation, Preliminary Release, Series P-4, No. 8.) 

37 The discussion in this section is based, mainly, on the 1940 Census. There are no 
major studies which would enable us to get an idea about the trends in employment and 
unemployment rates by race. In addition to the 1940 Census, there are only two general 
studies reliable enough to be used, viz. the Unemployment Check Census studies of 
November, 1937 (Calvert L. Dedrick and Morris H. Hansen, Pinal Report on Total 
and Partial Unemployment, 1937 [1938], Vol. 4) and the National Health Survey of 
1 935- 1 936 (Bernard D. Karpinos, The Socio-Economic and Employment Status of the 
Urban Youth of the United States, 1935-1936 [1941].) Both of these studies give 
about the same picture of the character of the race differences in regard to the size of 
the "labor force," employment and unemployment as docs the 1940 Census. (Sterner 
and Associates, op. cit,, pp. 39-45.) Vet the three sets of data arc not comparable to 
such an extent that any conclusions regarding the trends could be drawn on the basis 
of them. 

88 Ibid., pp. 44-45, Italics ours. 



Chapter 14. The Negro in Business, the Professions, Public Service and 
Other White Collar Occupations 

1 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Alba M. Edwards, Social-Economic Grouping of the 
Gainful Workers of the United States: 1930 (1938), p. 86, Table 31. 

2 Sutherland reports: 

"The field studies indicated that there was no better place to study frustration of this 



1260 An American Dilemma 

type than in the imall northern community. Here the tradition of liberalism in race 
relations has given Negro youth an expectation of freedom in community life. In their 
childhood experiences they are accepted in the churches, in the schools, and on the 
playgrounds. Some arc favored by white teachers who, recognizing their traditional 
handicap, give them special encouragement. Service clubs allocate part of their educa- 
tional funds to Negro youth. Honors in athletics, in class offices, and in scholastic attain- 
ment also come their way. Responding to these incentives, the boy or girl feels no 
isolation and expects his good fortune to continue. He has already experienced some 
of the blessings of the American dream. 

"Sad, therefore, is the awakening which comes to many of these youth when, upon 
graduation from high school, they find that the communities did not mean to be really 
liberal; that, although a service club would help a Negro boy to Complete his high 
school course, its mcmbeis would not give him a job after his schooling was over. 
Even before graduation day the lines of participation had been drawn and his social 
contacts were limited largely to other Negroes in the community, and in many small 
towns there are too few of them to provide any satisfactory kind of society. Unless he 
could manage to continue his education in college and settle in a larger community, 
his prospect of success was exceedingly slight." (Robert L. Sutherland, Color, Class, 
and Personality [1942], pp. 31-32.) 

8 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1 040, Preliminary Release, "Retail Trade. 
Retail Negro Proprietorship — The United States — 19^9" (August 29, 1941). The 
description in this section is based both on the Census of Business and on occupational 
information from the Census of Population. They are not comparable in that the 
population census is much more complete in regard to very small establishments, but 
the discrepancy does not affect the main conclusions. 

* Idem. 

5 Ira DeA. Reid, "The Negro in the American Economic System," unpublished manu- 
script prepared for this study (1940), Vol. 1, pp. 102-103. 

Charleston, South Carolina, where Negroes live widely scattered, has little Negro 
business; Savannah, Georgia, where Negroes are concentrated in one area, has much 
more Negro business. 

7 This is true, for instance, in Richmond, Virginia, where the principal Negro 
neighborhood borders Broad Street. 

8 Reid, of. tit., Vol. 1, p. 105. 

9 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1920-1932, pp. 332-333. 

10 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1920-1932, p. 358; 
and U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1038, p. 66. 

11 Edwards, of. cit., p. 10. 

12 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1020-1932, p. 497. 
18 For a statement of how few of the "Negro entertainment" places in Harlem are 

owned by Negroes, see Claude McKay, Harlem: Negro Metro folis (1940), pp. 
1 1 7-1 20. 

14 See James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan (1930), pp. 43-44. 

15 W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro (1899), pp. 119-121. 
W /&V., p. 120. 

1T N*to Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., 303 U.S. 552 (1938). 
*• Of. cit., p. 143. 



Footnotes ia6i 

w One or two of the more noteworthy campaigns may be mentioned. Certain Harlem 
organizations, in the middle of the 'thirties, forced some stores to take on a few Negro 
clerks. The merchants, however, secured an injunction against them for "restraint of 
trade" and the new colored workers were dismissed. The great discontent caused by 
this incident was the major force behind the Harlem race riot of 1935. The fight was 
continued by an organization called Greater New York Coordinating Committee for 
Employment which, in 1938, succeeded in getting a written agreement with the 
Uptown Chamber of Commerce to the effect that all stores in Harlem under the 
jurisdiction of the Chamber should increase the proportion of Negroes among their 
white collar workers to at least one-third, as soon as white employees resigned or were 
dismissed for cause. Negro workers should have the same chance of hcing promoted 
as other workers. Another campaign in New York which, according to Rcid, has turned 
out to be "singularly effective," concerns public utilities. In this case there arc several 
possible tactics: to force white telephone operators to make the connections instead of 
using the mechanical dialing system, to demand out-of-turn inspection of electricity and 
gas connections, to avoid using electricity, and so on. The St. Louis Urban League has 
organized "block units," some with 100 per cent membership. These and the Colored 
Clerk's Circle, as well as other organizations, have succeeded in getting jobs for several 
hundreds of colored clerks. There are some campaigns, however, which have miscarried, 
as for instance, one in Atlanta in the middle of the 'thirties. (Rcid, of. cit., Vol. 1, 
pp. 149-161.) 

i0 Ibid., Vol. i, p. 163. 

21 Edwards, of. cit., pp. 11 8-1 19. 

22 Sir George Campbell, White and Black in the United States (1879), p. 286. 
Du Bois comments as follows: 

"Morally and practically, the Freedmcn's Bank was part of the Frcedmcn's Bureau, 
although it had no legal connection with it. With the prestige of the government back 
of it, and a directing board of unusual respectability and national reputation, this 
banking institution had made a remarkable start in the development of that thrift 
among black folk which slavery had kept them from knowing. Then in one sad day 
came the crash, — all the hard-earned dollars of the frecdmen disappeared; but that 
was the least of the loss, — all the faith in saving went too, and much of the faith in 
men; and that was a loss that a Nation which to-day sneers at Negro shiftlessncss has 
never yet made good. Not even ten additional years of slavery could have done so 
much to throttle the thrift of the freedmen as the mismanagement and bankruptcy of 
the series of savings banks chartered by the Nation for their especial aid." (W. E. B. 
Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk [1903], pp. 36-37.) 

23 Most data in this and the preceding paragraphs are based on Reid, of. cit., Vol. I , 
pp. 70-83. Some of the main sources used by Reid are: Abram L. Harris, The Negro 
as Capitalist (1936); Jesse B. Blayton, "The Negro in Banking," The Bankers 
Magazine (December, 1936), pp. 51 1-514; and J- B. Blayton, "Arc Negro Banks 
Safe?" Opportunity (May, 1937). PP- '39-J4'- 

24 All data on Negro insurance, except when otherwise stated, have been drawn 
from Reid, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 84-92. The main basic source used by Reid was Samuel 
A. Rosenberg, Negro Managed Building and Loan Associations in the United States 
(1939). Concerning the general problem of Negro housing credit, see Chapter 15, 
Section 6. 



i»6a An American X>ilemma 

w Some Northern state* have made attempts to atop discrimination in insurance; the 
New York act even forbids the refusal of a Negro's application because of his race 
alone. (See Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal Status of the Negro [1940], p. 70.) 
Most data on Negro life insurance, except when otherwise stated, are based on Reid, 
op. at., Vol. 1, pp. 37-69. 

26 See, for instance, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Study of 
Consumer Purchases, Family Expenditures in Selected Cities: 1935-36, Bulletin No. 
6+8, Vol. 8, "Changes in Assets and Liabilities" (1941), pp. 70-179. U.S. Department 
of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics, Consumer Purchases Study, Changes in 
Assets and Liabilities of Families, Miscellaneous Publication No. 464 (1941), pp. 50 
and 79. Concerning average amounts of premiums, see also, Richard Sterner and 
Associates, The Negro's Share, prepared for this study (1943), p. 152 and Appendix 
Table 35. 

27 According to the Consumer Purchases Study it is quite usual that every year as 
much as 5 or 1 o per cent — sometimes up to 15 per cent — of the low income families 
surrender their insurance policies; the proportion of policies which fail to reach maturity 
must under such circumstances be extremely high. (U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau 
of Labor Statistics, Study of Consumer Purchases, Family Expenditures in Selected 
Cities: 1935-36, pp. 70-179.) 

28 A survey of funeral expenses connected with 7,871 "adult deaths" of industrial 
policyholders in 1927 revealed that the average cost of burial was $363. The average 
insurance carried was somewhat lower ($309). Another group studied was composed of 
3,121 veterans, for whom the average burial cost ranged from $241 in towns with less 
than I0,O0O population to $336 in cities of over 250,000. Funeral expenditures of 
319 dependent widows applying for pensions to the New York Board of Child Welfare 
averaged $247 in the Jewish group, $421 in the Italian group, and $452 in the Irish 
group. It happened frequently that low income families spent large sums on an extrava- 
gant funeral and a few weeks later applied for relief. The high fees apparently had 
caused an over-expansion in this business; it was ascertained that 92 per cent of the 
undertakers in New York City made a living on an average of but 25 funerals a year. 
(John C. Gebhard, Funeral Costs, Miscellaneous Contributions on the Costs of Medical 
Care, Number 3, The Committee on the Costs of Medical Care [1930], pp. 3-7.) 
Although conditions may have changed since the time of this study, it is a well-known 
fact that funeral costs arc still high. 

29 We have asked Negro insurance officials whether it would not be in the public 
interest for the insurance companies to develop policies which would set limits to the 
extraprdinary expenses that poor Negro families incur when one of the family dies, and 
whether they would not start an educational campaign to teach people the importance 
of keeping insurance for the survivors instead of spending it on funerals. The answers 
have, in general, been the following: (1) one should not interfere with the desires of 
people to use their money as they please; (2) the intense desire among even the poorest 
Negroes to guarantee a decent funeral after death is one of the strongest incentives for 
keeping up insurance, and the insurance companies should not be expected to demolish 
the basis for their own business; (3) even granted that the morticians artificially stimu- 
late in an unsocial way conspicuous consumption in luxurious funerals, and that, parti- 
cularly^ they exploit the poor people, one business should not be expected to take a stand 
against another business; (4) the morticians are so powerful in the Negro community, 



Footnotes 1463 

and are 10 entrenched in the churches, that not even the big insurance company dare* 
to take np a fight against them. 

80 A detailed account of these societies is given in Harry J. Walker, "Negro Benevolent 
Societies in New Orleans," unpublished manuscript, Department of Social Science, 
Fisk University (1936). 

81 Modern Negro insurance history centers around four institutions: the North Caro- 
lina Mutual Life Insurance Company of Durham, the Standard Life Insurance Company 
of Atlanta, the National Benefit Life Insurance Company of Washington, D. C, and the 
Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company of Chicago. The history of the North 
Carolina Mutual goes back to 1898. C. C. Spaulding, still the leading Negro finance 
official, soon became its most prominent officer. The Standard Life Insurance Company of 
Atlanta, which was organized in 191 3, has had a more turbulent history. Its activities 
rose rapidly but soon they became too involved, in that investments were made in quite 
a number of business and real estate projects, many of which were far outside the sphere 
of ordinary life insurance investment. The company was finally dissolved in the middle 
of the 'twenties. The National Benefit Life Insurance Company in Washington also 
was one of those concerns which went too far in its investment policies. It failed in 
1931. There are several other Negro life insurance ventures which have been char- 
acterized by similar shortcomings, such as unwise spending, high administrative costs, 
lack of prudent management, excessive investment in real estate, too great a readiness to 
help Negro business establishments, marginal trading in stock. Irregularities have not 
been infrequent. The personnel is often underpaid. Premiums, it is claimed, are com- 
puted from tables which do not reflect the true mortality of the Negro population. The 
turnover among those insured is described as high. 

Unsuccessful Negro insurance companies have been made the subject of a special 
study by the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 
entitled Causes of Negro Insurance Company Failures, Bulletin No. 15 (1937). 

82 Edwards, of. cit., pp. 7 and 13. 
M I6id., pp. 46-49 and 58-61. 

8 * It should be noted, in passing, that these data seem to suggest a certain equalization 
in the educational facilities for Negroes and whites. At the same time as the Negro 
school system expanded somewhat more than the white school system, there was a great 
increase in the number of Negro pupils in unsegregated Northern schools. 

85 Doxey A. Wilkerson, Special Problems of Negro Education (1939), p. 21. Among 
sources used by Wilkerson are Ambrose Caliver, Education of Negro Teachers, U. S. 
Office of Education, Bulletin No. 10 (1933); David T. Blose and Ambrose Caliver, 
Statistics of the Education of Negroes, 1033-34 and 1935-36, U. S. Office of Educa- 
tion, Bulletin No. 13 (1938). 

88 Wilkerson, op. cit., pp. 23-25. 

87 Bond, op. cit., pp. 264-265. 

88 Decision of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals of June 18, 1940, in the 
awe of Mclvin Alston v. the School Board of Norfolk, Virginia. 

89 An account of these developments is given in recent issues of the magazines, The 
Crisis and Opportunity. A summary of the development until mid- 1 941 is given in the 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Teachers' Salaries in Black 
and White. A Pamphlet for Teachers and Their Friends (September, 1 941). 



ia<>4 An American Dilemma 

**ReM> of. cit., Vol. 2, p. 248; Woodson, of. eii., pp. 68-69; Charles S. Johnson, 
The Negro College Graduate (1938), p. 137. 

41 It seems that the majority of the churches give at least moral support to Negro 
business establishments in one form or another. (Woodson, of. ett., p. 76.) 

48 Reid, of. ctt., Vol. 2, p. 242. 

*• Woodson, of. cit., pp. 69-70. See also Chapter 40 of this book. 

44 Woodson, of. ctt., p. 89. 

46 Reid, of. cit., Vol. 2, p. 182. 

4 * Woodson, Of. ett., pp. 98-102. Although Woodson does not say so, it is quite likely 
that some of this white trade consists of abortion cases. 

47 I Jem. 

48 The average amount per year for different community groups ranges between 
$IO and $20 for families with an income of less than $;oo, they usually run into several 
hundreds of dollars for families with more than $3,000. Negroes, since thev are poorer, 
often use a somewhat smaller percentage of their income for this purpose than do whites, 
and the actual amounts they spend are only one-third or one-half of those spent by 
the average white family.* 

48 Woodson, of. ett., p. 96. 

60 Hid., p. 97. 

81 Harold F. Dorn, "Health of the Negro," unpublished manuscript prepared for thu 
study (1940), p. 113 a. 

68 Reid, of. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 186-187. 

58 Sterner once interviewed one of the leaders of the National Medical Association 
(the Negro professional organization for physicians and surgeons) who resides in the 
Deep South. He complained about how a patient brought to a hospital was alwavs a 
patient lost to him. He described how he had tried to make Negroes understand that 
the treatment at the public clinic was not in any real sense free, as the pitients had to 
pay "with their good name." One of the reasons why the Negro pmate practitioner was 
losing out, he explained, was that employers send their workers to the public clinic, 
they are not even allowed to retain jobs at a shirt factory unless they are free from 
syphilis. The informant seemed to be against any further increase in public health 
facilities for Negroes, but apparently mainly for the reason that he feared that Negro 
doctors would never get any chance to work at public clinics and hospitals. His. repeated 
requests to the state government that the Negro doctor be given a real place in the 
public health service of the state had been in vain. (Interview, January 8, 1 940.) 

54 Howard University with 276 candidates had only 33 failures, or 12 per cent. 
This ranks favorably with other medical schools., Harvaid University, at the top, had 
I.I per cent of its 276 candidates failing, Lo>ola University, at the bottom, had 20.9 
per cent of its 254 candidates failing. (Albert E. Casey, "Research Activity and the 
Quality of Teaching in Medical Schools," Science [July 31, 1942], pp. no-ill.) 

85 Reid, of. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 185-187. During the 'thirties, there was a decline in the 
number of students at Negto medical schools, but this was probably a depression 
phenomenon. The number of interneships available to Negroes has increased from 68 
in 1931 to 168 in 1939. 

56 Charles S. Johnson, of. ctt., p. 137. 

'Sterner and Associates, of. cit., pp. 1+9-153. Data based on Study of Consumer Pur- 
chases. 1935-36. Data refer to nonrehef families only. 



Footnotes 1265 

57 Woodson, of. cit., pp. 104-113. 
M Reid, of. cit., Vol. 2, p. 215. 
■• Woodson, of. cit., pp. 165-183. 
M Reid, of. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 283-290. 

61 Cited in ibid., Vol. 2, p. 296. 

62 Sterner once met a white Farm Security supervisor in the Deep South who com- 
plained about the restricted possibilities of having Negro assistants and cooperating freely 
with them. He asserted that Negro workers, in general, gained the confidence of Negro 
clients much more easily than did white workers. He once had a male Negro assistant 
who had been forced to leave because of the resentment in the community. According 
to another informant in the community, a young educated Negro who said that he was 
the friend of this Negro assistant, the departure had been brought about by a group 
of whites who had entered the office of the assistant and told him to get out of town 
before a certain time. There was still a female Negro co-worker, but she had to work 
outside the town and the daily communications with her had to be made over the 
telephone — an arrangement which the white Farm Security official described as 
extremely inconvenient. 

68 Thirteenth Census of the United States: ipio, Population, Vol. IV, pp. 416-419', 
Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030, Population, Vol. Ill, Part I, p. 23; Vol. 
5, p. 548. 

64 Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Po filiation, Vol. V, p. 83. 

65 Thirteenth Census of the United Stales: igio, Population, Vol. IV, pp. 426-431 ; 
Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030, Population, Vol. V, pp. 572-574. 

69 Laurence J. W. Hayes, The Negro Federal Government Worker (1941), pp. 
37-56. 

87 Robert R. Moton, What the Negro Thinks (1929), p. 169. 

68 The total number of Negro federal employees (including custodial workers and 
laborers), according to the estimates cited by Hayes (of. cit., p. 153), increased regularly 
— even during the Wilson administration: 



1892 
1900 
1912 
1918 
•933 
"93* 

Only a minority of these workers, however, were officials and clerical employees. 

69 A very light Negro stenographer told Sterner that she had at first worked in the 
stenographic pool of one large Washington agency. After some time she was sent to work 
in another building of the same agency where those in charge of assignment did not 
know her race. Immediately she was put to work as a private secretary to one of the 
white officials. The white girls associated with her. This situation embarrassed her, for 
she had not intended to "pass" but feared the expression of resentment from her boss 
and the white girls if she told them that she was » Negro. 

70 This has happened, for instance, in the Bureau of the Census owing to the activity 
of the Federal Workers' Union, to which, however, only a minority of the employee* 



Number 


Percent 


2,000 


>•+ 


1,000 


0.4 


20,000 


5.0 


4.5,000 


4-9 


53,000 


9.8 


82,000 


9-9 



x*6<5 An Ameeicaw Dilemma 

in the Bureau belong. Some time afterwards, a mimeographed sheet denouncing Negro 
employees was secretly distributed among the employees. 

Another incident, as related by the Washington Bureau of the National Association 
for the Advancement of Colored People: 

"A suit in criminal court against ... a guard at the War Department building in 
Arlington, Va., is expected to be filed by the Bureau within the next few days. 

"Trouble came May 1 8, when James Harold, a War Department draftsman, was 
struck over the head . . . when Harold and other colored workers in the department 
attempted to enter the cafeteria in the building. 

"Quick action by the Bureau resulted in the removal of the ban against Negroes at 
the cafeteria." (N.A.A.C.P., Bulletin, [June, 1942].) 

71 Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. V, pp. 574-576. 

"Woodson, of. cit., pp. 250-251. 

78 Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1010, Population, Vol. IV, Table VII; 
U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 10*0-1031, Table 23 s 
U. S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1038, Table 51. 

74 For an enumeration of the white-owned and Negro-owned places of amusement 
featuring Negro entertainers in New York, sec McKay, of. cit., pp. 11 7- 120. 

76 Reid, of. cit., Vol. 2, p. 358. Based on unpublished manuscript by William T. 
Smith (editor), Silhouette, Los Angeles, California. 

™PM (June 23, 1942), p. 22. 

77 Frazier describes a district of Louisville in the following words: 

"Within the boundaries of this zone the tempo of Negro life in Louisville is most 
rapid and all forms of illegal and anti-social practices flourish. Throughout the area 
'hustlers,' thieves, 'con' men, pimps, policy writers, and race horse bookies ply their 
trades. Under the guise of legitimate business, traffic is carried on in dope or 'reefers,' 
liquor, and prostitution. Though the number of legitimate liquor stores is increasing 
monthly, bootleg liquor known as 'mammy,' 'splo,' and 'derail' is sold in the dens of 
vice to which men go for all types of sexual pleasures. There are homosexual 'joints' 
masquerading under the names of clubs and inns. And, as in all cities, there are the 
'exclusive' dens of vice where Negro women cater to the perverted as well as normal 
sexual desires of white men." (E. Franklin Frazier, Negro Youth at the Crosssoays 
[1940], p. 16.) 
Fortune magazine describes the underworld of Harlem: 

"There are reefer pads (marihuana dens), gambling houses, and countless houses of 
prostitution. Most 'hotels' are brothels, and it is a usual sight to see a dozen street- 
walkers on every corner in lower Harlem . . . 

"Almost every grocery, cigar store, beauty parlor, barbershop, and tavern in Harlem ( 
is a numbers 'drop' where the collectors pick up the play for the day . . . Harlem . . . 
has . . . the city's highest record of . . . dope peddling." (This quotation and others 
in this section are reprinted through the courtesy of Fortune magazine, "Harlem," 

Jutyi '939> P- >7°) 

78 See Claude McKay, op. cit., pp. 101-116. 

79 Du Bois mentions this type of gambling as early as 1897. (See The Philadelphia 
Negro, p. 265.) 

80 See J. Saunders Redding, "Playing the Numbers," The North American Review 
(December, 1934), pp. 533-5*»' 



Footnotes 1267 

a During the prohibition era and afterwards when bootlegging became lew profit- 
able, the organized white criminal gangs "muscled in" and not only took control of the 
numbers racket in the Negro community but introduced it into the white community 
where it now flourishes all over the United States. The New York investigation into 
the activities of "Dutch" Schultz, head of the numbers racket, revealed a close tie 
between his activities and those of the Tammany political machine. (See Newsweek 
[August 1, 1938], pp. 7-8.) 

At the present time, although the heads of the national numbers syndicates are whites, 
Negroes run the number rackets in Negro communities. Fortune points out: 

". . . the hottest game in Harlem is the numbers game, the policy racket, which is 
going stronger than ever since the publicity of the Jimmy Hines [Tammany leader] 
trial. The racket, run by Negroes who have a working agreement with the white bankers 
of Manhattan and Hoboken, grosses about $20,000,000 a year." {Fortune, of. cit., 
p. 170.) 

For a description of the "numbers" racket in Chicago, see J. G. St. Clair Drake, 
"The Negro Church and Associations in Chicago," unpublished manuscript prepared 
for this study (1941), pp. 274-Z77; and J. G. St. Clair Drake, Churches and Volute 
tary Associations in the Chicago Negro Community, Work Projects Administration 
Report (1940), pp. 179-182. 

82 See Redding, op. cit., pp. 537 and 540. 

88 Gosnell tells about Daniel M. Jackson, before his death in 1927 the most power- 
ful vice and gambling king in Chicago, that he was noted for his generosity to poor 
people. He quotes the following statement, made during an interview, by a Negro 
journalist: 

"I don't like to admit it, but an open town is far better for the Negroes than a 
closed town. ... Of course, these bosses make a lot of money, but while Jackson was 
in control he donated thousands to charities, the N.A.A.C.P., working girls' homes 
and the like. While Jackson was in power the colored people always had a friend to 
go to. ... " (Harold F. Gosnell, Negro Politicans [1935], pp. 131-132.) 

Regarding the reasons for the power of the Negro underworld leaders, Gosnell 
states: 

"In commenting on this situation one prominent Negro said: '. . . Now, if I were 
to run for a political office, 1 would have to raise campaign expenses. If I went to 
every professional man in the town, I would not be able to raise two hundred dollars. 
But if I went to the vice lords and policy kings, I would get two or three thousand 
from a couple of them.' ... In relation to other enterprises run or partly controlled 
by Negroes the total amount of money involved in the undercover activities is large. 
The drug stores, the taxi cab companies, the beauty parlors, the bonding houses, the 
small shops, the criminal lawyers, the real estate companies, and even the bankers 
in the communities where the 'racketeers' are numerous and well supplied with cash 
may depend in part for their own prosperity upon the patronage of those engaged 
in illegal activities." (Ibid., pp. 1 34-I35-) 

84 In addition to the jobs connected directly with the numbers game, there are * 
whole parallel series of "shady" businesses that exist partly for the purpose of turning 
up the lucky number; these are the occult enterprises, the astrologers, charm sellers, 
crystal-ball readers, fortune tellers: 

"A subsidiary of the [numbers] game is the dream-book and incense business. 



1*68 An American Dilemma 

Dream boob containing lucky numbers are told for two bits or half a dollar. The 
incense tells for a dime and, when it has burned down, three numbers (the right 
ones, of course) can be seen in the ashes." (Fortune, of. cit., p. 170. See also, Redding, 
of. cit., pp. 539 ff; and John B. Kennedy, "So This is Harlem," Cottier's [October 
*&» »933]> PP- « «nd 50-52.) 

Many of these enterprises are owned and operated by the policy kings on a syndi- 
cated basis, and the employees belong to the shady middle or lower class; they have 
relatively little power or wealth. Some few of the astrologers, many of them women, 
however, build up a reputation and clientele and exert considerable influence in the 
shady upper classes. See McKay, of. cit., pp. 73-81.) 

83 Frazier has some pertinent observations on the mechanism of the tendencies to 
asociality among Negroes: 

"The . . . pathological 'feature of the Negro community is of a more general char- 
acter and grows out of the fact that the Negro is kept behind the walls of segregation 
and is not permitted to compete in the larger community. This produces an artificial 
situation in which inferior standards of excellence and efficiency are set up. Since 
the Negro is not required to compete in the larger world and to assume its responsi- 
bilities and suffer its penalties, he does not have an opportunity to mature. Moreover, 
living within a small world with its peculiar valuations and distinctions, he may easily 
develop on the basis of some superficial distinction a conception of his role and status 
which may militate against the stability of his own little world. This is manifested not 
only in the activities of racketeers who arc known as such, but also in the behavior 
of those who because of color, of 'good looks' or education maintain a professional 
or upper-class 'front' while engaging in antisocial practices." (Of. cit., p. 290.) 

8e Frazier, of. cit., p. 16 passim. 

87 One observer reports: 

"I have seen colored prostitutes galore, catering to a white clientele who are satisfied 
to pay fancy prices for novelties offered. It is said that about ninety per cent of these 
dives are owned and managed by whites . . . ; five per cent are owned and managed by 
whites and negroes jointly, and the balance are managed by colored people. (Hendrik 
de Leeuw, Sinful Cities of the Western World [1934], p. 266.) 
Fortune states: 

"In recent years white prostitutes have also been imported from downtown." (Of. 
cit., p. 170.) 

88 Gosnell observes: 

"Since it is easier to observe immoral conditions among a poor and unprotected people, 
colored prostitutes are much more liable to arrest than white prostitutes. White women 
may use the big hotels or private apartments for their illicit trade, but the colored women 
are more commonly forced to walk the streets." 

And he goes on to explain how officers often tend to arrest Negro girls solely because 
they find them in company with white men, whereas white women can approach white 
men without being conspicuous. (Of. cit., pp. 1 20-121.) 

89 The Nation reports that prices for Negro prostitutes range from 25 cents to $z 
while those for whites are $1 to $5. ("Prostitution in New York City," editorial, 
Nation [March 25, 1936], p. 369.) 

** Merely as an illustration we quote the following estimates about the Chicago 
Negro, community: 



Footnotes i 269 

"Protected busmen u important in the economic life of the community. Some 
$10,000,000 ii spent annually on policy playing alone. The game gives employment to 
more than 4,000 people and maintains a weekly payroll of $40,000 in salaries and com- 
missions. No other business in the Negro community is so large or so influential." (W. 
Lloyd Warner, Buford H. Junker, and Walter A. Adams, Coior and Human Nature 
[i94»]»p. >9-) 



Chapter 15. The Negro In The Public Economy 

1 Clearly regressive indirect taxation, such as property, tobacco, liquor, and sales taxes, 
and custom duties, made up more than half the total national tax receipts in 1937. (See 
the Twentieth Century Fund, Facing the To* Problem [1937], pp. 9-25. For a similar 
estimate for 1936, sec Clarence Hcer, Federal Aid and the Tax Problem, The Advisory 
Committee on Education, Staff Study No. 4 [1939], p. 34.) Some estimates are pre- 
sented in this study illustrating the point in the text that taxes were regressive for the 
lower and middle income groups; see ibid., p. 232. 

2 The Constitution of the United States does not, of course, say anything directly 
about the distribution of public services, or about the principle of "need." The 
relevant phrasing is in Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment: 

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immuni- 
ties of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, 
liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its 
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." 

It is to be noted that this requires not only equality but also equality applied to 
individuals and not to groups. Under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court 
has consistently required the states to provide equal facilities to individual Negroes, and 
this in effect turns out to be the principle of need. If, for example, a state has an 
unemployment insurance law, it must apply equally to individual Negroes and individual 
whites, even though Negroes as a group arc more benefited because more of them are 
unemployed. Similarly, individual Negroes do not have to pay higher gasoline taxes than 
individual whites, even though the entire group of Negroes pays less gasoline taxes 
because it buys less gasoline. For this reason we shall refer to tiic principle of need as 
the "constitutional" norm, and we shall regard as unconstitutional any attempt to relate 
the distribution of general public services either to a group or to the amount of taxes 
paid by an individual or group. 

8 An example of this is presented in T. J. Wooftcr, Jr., and Associates, Black Yeo- 
manry (1930). The total tax levy for an almost all-Negro community during the period 
1 921-1927 was $16,437, while the total value of services was estimated at $6,837, 01 
42 per cent of the former amount. (See ibid., pp. 158-185 and 275.) 

4 T. J. Wooftcr, Jr., for instance, has this to say: 

"The democratic theory of public expenditure demands more than common justice. 
It demands that the money raised from public taxation be spent where it is most needed, 
regardless of the sums which the needy group have paid in. If the policy of expending 
money for education in proportion to the amount paid in were adopted, then the rich 
districts and wards would have magnificent palaces for public schools and the poorer 



137° An American Dilemma 

districts and wards would hare schools little better than those prodded for the Negroes 
now. ■ . • 

"Some communities are ... so far behind the realization of thi* democratic ideal 
that it if necessary to hold up before them the amount of money which the Negroes 
actually contribute in order to emphasize the fact that common justice demand* the 
more liberal rapport of colored institutions. 

"Many communities in the South have never expended a cent of public money for a 
colored public school building, but have relied on the use of a church or a school build- 
ing erected by private agencies. In some of these communities bonds have been issued 
recently to build expensive schools for whites. This means that colored property holders 
are taxed to build school buildings for white people. . . ." (The Basis of Racial A J just' 

"""* [»9»5]»PP- I54-J55-) 

6 "The universality of the property tax burden is often ignored in current tax dis- 
cussion. Many members of the community, it is sometimes said, are 'exempt' from taxes, 
since they are so poor that they pay no income taxes, health duties, or gift taxes, and 
own no taxable property. They are, however, exempt only in the sense that they have 
no direct contact with the tax collector." (The Twentieth Century Fund, of. cit., 
p. »o6.) 

• It is indicative of the opportunism of popular beliefs that, while the observer finds 
most white people in the South inclined to stress that Negroes pay practically no taxes, 
Negroes, on the other hand, show themselves quite sophisticated in the theory of the 
incidence of indirect taxation. In 1873 a Negro Reconstruction politician, the Missis- 
sippi State Superintendent of Education, Cardozo, expressed what is the Negro theory 
in the matter: 

"Again it is objected that a general tax compels white men of the State to educate 
the children of the Negro. But as the Negro forms a majority of the entire population 
of the State, and in an eminent degree a majority of the producing classes, as such 
classes of every population — the laborer, tenant, and consumer — indirectly bear the 
burdens of taxation, it follows that an assessment upon the property of the State would 
be principally paid by the Negro. . . ." (Quoted in Horace Mann Bond, The Education 
of the Negro in the American Social Order [1934], p. 71.) 

7 The Advisory Committee on Education, Report of the Committee (1938), pp. 
20-22. 

8 The mean family income in 193 5-1 936, according to the estimates of the National 
Resources Committee, was $1,622 for the country as a whole and $1,326 for the South. 
The Mountain and Plains regions, however, which include several states with rather 
high expenditures per pupil, showed an average family income ($1,363) which was not 
much higher than that for the South. (National Resources Committee, Consumer 
Incomes in the United States, Their Distribution in 1935-36 [1938], pp. 21-22.) 
In the South there were in 1930 about 6 children, 5 to 17 years of age, to every 10 
adults, 20 to 64 years of age; in the rest of the country there were about 4 children to 
every 10 adults. {Report on Economic Conditions of the South, prepared for the Presi- 
dent by the National Emergency Council [1938], p. 25; The Advisory Committee on 
Education, Report of the Committee, p. 25). Additional information on income and on 
number of children is presented in Chapter 16 of this book. 

9 A calculation made by the Advisory Committee on Education (The Federal Govern- 
ment end Education [1938], pp. 8 and 12-13), °* ^ e y'x&& °f a uniform state tax, 



Footnotes ta7i 

indicates that the iUte-to-rtate variations in these yield* are much greater than are the 
differences in actual expenditures for education. In Mississippi the yield per child would 
be only one-tenth of that in New York State, whereas the actual expenditure per child 
was one-fifth of the amount expended in New York State. 

10 In Arizona and in the two Dakotas, the expenditure level was even higher than the 
national average, and in Utah it was not far below this national figure. (Advisory Com- 
mittee on Education, The Federal Government end Education, pp. g and 12-13.) 

11 Missouri and Oklahoma even showed somewhat higher per pupil expenditures for 
Negro schools than they showed for white schools. This is due to the fact that Negroes 
in these two states, to a greater extent than whites, are concentrated in cities, where school 
expenses always tend to be higher than they are in the country. 

"David T. Blose and Ambrose Caliver, Statistics of the Education of Negroes, 
1933-34 and 1035-36 (i939)» PP- H-16. 

la Doxey Wilkerson, Special Problems of Negro Education (1938), p. 21. 

"/to**., p. 19. 

16 Ibid., p. 9. Also see Chapter 43, Section 4, of this book. 

16 Sixty-five per cent of all the Negro public schools in Louisiana are one-teacher 
schools, and another 27 per cent are two- or three-teacher schools. (See Charles S. 
Johnson, "The Negro Public Schools," Louisiana Educational Survey [1942], p. 43.) 

1T Wilkerson, of. cit., p. 33. 

18 Ibid., pp. 40, 4;, and 60. 

10 The main figures in the tabulation are as follows: 

Median Expenditure for Teachers' Salaries in Counties With 
Number Specified Proportion of Negroes in the School 

r Population, Aged 5-19: 1930-1931 



Race 


Counties 


- 
"■4% 


ii-5- 
24.9% 


H.O- 

37-4% 


37-5- 
49-9% 


A 


62.5- 
74-9% 

»2.85 
26.25 


75.0- 
87.4% 

$2.12 
I8.50 


87.5- 
99.9% 


Negro Schools 
White Schools 


521 
526 


$8.62 
14-31 


$5.28 
16.87 


*S-S6 
21.25 


$4.46 
21.25 


f-J.05 
22.58 


(only 1 
county) 



Source: Horace Mann Bond, The Education of Iht Nepo in Ike American Social Order (19.34), pp. 140-341- 

20 Bond, of. cit., pp. 232-245. 

21 "Experience with a number of Federal funds has demonstrated that when the 
division of Federal grants between separate white and Negro schools or institutions is 
left entirely to administrative discretion, it is exceedingly difficult to secure an equi- 
table distribution. Experience with some State distributive funds has also indicated that 
when such funds are allocated to local jurisdictions for Negro schools, frequently either 
the funds for Negro schools are diverted in part to white schools or the local support of 
Negro schools is reduced and the effect of State aid is cancelled in whole or in part." 
(The Advisory Committee on Education, Report of the Committee., p. 51.) 

22 See Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal Status of the Negro (1940), pp. 88, 
fassim. Mangum summarizes his discussion as follows: 

"The central theme running through the above discussion of the statutes and deci- 
sions on this important subject is the guarantee of equal educational opportunity for the 
children of all races. The fact that such a guarantee of equal facilities exists does not 



W]2 An American Dilemma 

mean that it is carried out in the southern states. In fact it is the exception and not the 
rale for the Negro schools in that part of the nation to be anywhere near as efficient as 
those for the whites. The inequalities are manifest to anyone who has even a cursory 
knowledge of the present status of education in the South." {Ibid., pp. 129-130; Com- 
pare p. 137.) 

28 Charles H. Thompson, "The Status of Education Of and For the Negro in the 
American Social Order," Journal of Negro Education (July, 1939), pp. 494-495. 
See also, Bond, of. cit., p. 171. 

2 * Wilkerson, op. cit., p. 79. Where the federal government has left it up to the 
state legislatures to allocate the funds for agricultural, industrial, or home economics 
training, Negroes have received little of the benefits. According to Wilkerson, such 
federal acts include: Hatch Act (1887), Adams Act (1906), Smith-Lever Act (1914), 
Clarke-McNary Act (1924), Purnell Act (1925), Capper-Ketcham Act (1928), and 
Bankhead-Jones Act, Sections 1-8 and 21 (193 5). But where the federal law stipulates 
that Negro schools are to receive an equitable share of the funds, Negroes have received 
benefits. Such laws include: Nelson Amendment (1907) to the Morrill Act (1890) and 
Bankhead-Jones Act, Section 22 (1935). Negroes have received about half their propor- 
tionate share of the Smith-Hughes Act (191 7) funds. {Idem.) 

2B W«V.,p. 72. 

28 Robert M. Lester, "Corporation Grants for Education of the Negro," A Report 
of the Carnegie Corporation of New York (1941), p. 26. 

^ Advisory Committee on Education, The Federal Government and Education, 
pp. 17-18. 

28 Ira DeA. Reid, In a Minor Key (1940), p. 39. 

28 Advisory Committee on Education, Federal Relations to Education, two vols. 
(1931) ; Advisory Committee on Education, Report of the Committee (1938), p. 243. 
More recently the American Youth Commission, headed by Owen D. Young and com- 
posed of eight laymen and eight educators, came to a similar conclusion after extensive 
investigation. (Educational Policies Commission, Education and Economic Weil-Being 
in American Democracy [1940].) The conclusion of the former of the two commissions 
was summarized as follows: 

"The facts presented previously in this report indicate that no sound plan of local or 
state taxation can be devised and instituted that will support in every local community 
a school system which meets minimum acceptable standards. Unless the Federal Govern- 
ment participates in the financial support of the schools and related services, several 
millions of the children in the United. States will continue to be largely denied the 
educational opportunities that should be regarded as their birthright." (Advisory Com- 
mittee on Education, Report of the Committee, p. 47 ; compare Clarence Heer, op. cit., 
particularly pp. 86-87.) 

80 The subject is touchy, and the Advisory Committee on Education is anything but 
clear in its pronouncements on this point. On the one hand, it recommends, in its 
main report, that: 

". . . all Federal action should reserve explicitly to State and local auspices the 
general administration of schools, control over the processes of education, and the deter- 
mination of the best uses of the allotments of Federal funds within the types of 
iiture for which Federal funds may be made available." {Report of the Com- 
*> P- 4*) 



Footnotes 1*73 

On the other hand, it advises that: 

"All Federal grants for educational purposes to States maintaining separate schools 
and institutions for Negroes should be conditioned upon an equitable distribution of the 
Federal funds between facilities for the two races." (Ibid., p. 43.) 

In the last statement it does not seem to be implied that federal authorities should 
make it a condition for federal aid that state and local appropriations be equitably dis- 
tributed between Negro and white schools. It is only said that the proportion of state 
and local funds spent for Negro schools should "not be reduced" when the federal 
government gives money. {Ibid., p. 51.) 

8X Sterner and Associates, The Negress Share, prepared for this study (1943), pp. 
152 ff. 

82 According to Elliot H. Pennell, Joseph W. Mountin, Kay Pearson, Business Census 
of Hosfitals, 1035, Supplement No. 154 to the Public Health Reports (1939), 47 
per cent of the total income came from government funds, 43 per cent from patients 
and 10 per cent from private endowments and gifts. (Russell Sage Foundation, Russell 
H. Kurtz (editor), Social Work Yearbook, 1941 [1941], p. 329.) 

83 Monroe N. Work (editor), Negro Year Book, 1937-1938 (1937), pp. 290- 
292. 

84 According to a survey for 1935, none of the states in the Upper and Lower South 
had as many as 345 beds per 100,000 population in all registered general and special 
hospitals, and all but three of them (Virginia, Florida, and Louisiana) had less than 
264. On the other hand, Maryland, District of Columbia, as well as several Northern 
and Western states, had rates higher than 445. (Joseph W. Mountin, Elliot H. Pennell, 
and Evelyn Flook, Hosfital Facilities in the United States, U.S. Public Health Service 
Bulletin No. 243 [1938], quoted by Harold F. Dorn, "The Health of the Negro," 
unpublished manuscript prepared for this study [1940], Figure 44.) Conditions have 
certainly improved since then, however, in part due to increased efforts on the part of 
the federal government which has rendered assistance, through its program of public 
works, for the erection of several new hospitals. 

86 According to Charles S. Johnson, the P.W.A. provided, either by direct aid or by 
loans, 8,000 hospitals beds for Negroes in 17 Southern states. (See "The Negro," 
American Journal of Sociology [May, 1942], p. 857.) Also see: Federal Works Agency, 
Second Annual Refort (1941), pp. 116, 191, 31c, 460. 

86 Social Work Yearbook, 1941, pp. 332-336 and 427-430. 

87 Sterner, when visiting the public health clinic in a Mississippi county in December, 
1939, was told how planters brought truckloads of their tenants to the clinic for treat- 
ment of syphilis. A prominent Negro doctor in another Mississippi town told him how 
white manufacturers did not even let Negroes do factory work unless they received 
treatment for veneral diseases at the public clinic. The public health officer in this city 
said that about 90 per cent of the clients at the clinic were Negroes. 

88 At the end of 1939, almost two-thirds of the rural counties were still without any 
complete health departments directed by full-time medical officers, but the increase in 
number of units where satisfactory public health services are rendered has been extremely 
rapid during the last decade. In 1940 more than two-third* of the counties had at 
least public health nurses. The federal government, under special provisions in the 
Social Security Act of 1935 and the Venereal Disease Control Act of 1938, has rendered 
financial assistance on a matching basis to several programs, including general health 



1374 An Ambmcan Dilemma 

clinics « well u maternal and child health services, venereal disease clinics, and to on. 
{Social Work Yearbook, 1941, pp. 324-325 and 432-433.) Considerable extension 
of this federal assistance was proposed in the National Health Bill. 

** Michael M. Davis observes: 

"Programs have been planned by categories of disease. Tuberculosis, diphtheria, infant 
and maternal mortality, venereal disease, hookworm, malaria, mental disease, and some 
others, hare each been the objective of specific programs. General sanitation, the 
disposal of excreta, and the control of epidemics represent other, historically older 
objectives which are really categorical. The diseases of people have been studied and a 
series of technical procedures have been discovered for control or prevention. The 
people have rarely been studied, to determine the health needs they had, the needs they 
felt, and the relative urgency of those recognized needs — so as to plan a health cam- 
paign, which would meet a social situation as well as a series of biological ones. 

"In order to be both wise and efficient, public health policy needs to take into account 
both the social and categorical points of view. The issue is one of balance. If the balance 
had not been so heavily weighted on the categorical side, the Mexicans in a few states, 
the whites of the Appalachian highlands in several states, and the Negroes in many states, 
would have had much more attention from public health departments and voluntary 
agencies." ("Preface" to Harold F. Dorn, "Health for the Negro," unpublished manu- 
script prepared for this study [194.0], p. 10.) 

M Negro Year Book, 1937-38, pp. 559-560. 

41 As there are no comprehensive statistics on recreational facilities and their distri- 
bution between whites and Negroes, we are restricted to citing examples. Concerning 
the conditions in small Southern cities, E. Franklin Frazier makes the following state- 
ment: 

"The dominant white group in these areas simply pay little or no attention to the 
recreational needs of Negroes. For example, for the white residents of Greenville, 
South Carolina, there is within thirty miles a state park available but there is no public 
reservation for Negroes. In the city of Greenville there are two small areas without 
any equipment in which Negroes are allowed to play. Negroes are denied the use of a 
tract of land, eighteen acres in area, between two densely populated Negro areas, chiefly 
because it is used as a playing field for the white baseball team. Even the areas adjacent 
to the Negro high and elementary schools are too small to provide adequate recreation 
for the school children." * 

Yet Greenville is one of the few small cities in the South having a Negro community 
center. It has been organized by a private- agency. Frazier characterizes it by quoting the 
following statement by the National Recreation Association (April, 1 939): 

"It is not adequately supported and does not have a budget consistent with its service. 
The outdoor area is too small to be considered in contemplating even the Negro child 
school population of nearly 4,000. It does have a side yard with a tennis court and a tot 
lot." » 

Thje large cities in the South, where the need for recreational facilities is greater, 
also fcave inadequate provisions. Frazier gives a complete description of the recreational 

* < $eenation and Amusement among American Negroes," unpublished manuscript pre- 
parwtfor this study (1940), p. 36. 

.. ; * Report of the Field Director, Bureau of Colored Work, National Recreation Associa- 
ffcp* ^August, 1939)1 cited in Mi., p. 37. 



Footnotes U75 

facilities in North Carolina, where conditions, however, are superior to thoae in the Deep 
South. In 1940, Raleigh had three playgrounds, one park with a swimming pool, and one 
community center for Negroes. Greensboro had one park with a community building, 
a swimming pool, a golf course, and a playground ; it also had three independent super* 
▼ised playgrounds, one handicraft center and a skating rink. There were similar provi- 
sions in Durham and Charlotte. On the other hand, Winston-Salem, which has the 
largest Negro population in the state (36,000 in 1940), did not have any special recrea- 
tional facilities for Negroes, except a swimming pool; for the rest, school houses were 
used as recreational centers, with special recreational leaders." 

In respect to the situation in Virginia's urban areas — likewise above the average for 
the entire South — we may quote the following statement: 

". . . Negro children of smaller cities have for their only playgrounds their school 
yard, vacant lots of outlying regions, or the alleys. The Community Center of Rich- 
mond, sponsored by the Colored Recreation Association, a Richmond Community Fund 
agency, offers courses in vocational arts and crafts and in home-making, music and folk- 
dancing. The gymnasium and playground affords such recreations as boxing, ten pins, 
volley ball, basketball, ping pong, baseball, and tennis for young and old. In July, 19,18, 
the Richmond city council approved the purchase of a large plot of ground in North 
Richmond, upon which is to be erected a playground and recreation center with space 
and equipment for games, a swimming pool, and modern gymnasium and field house. 
By means of a P.W.A. grant the outdoor swimming pool was completed for use during 
the summer of 1939. 

"Likewise Lynchburg, Norfolk and Newport News have inadequate recreational 
facilities for Negroes. Happyland, a private park of Lynchburg, has a lake for swimming 
and boating, picnic grounds, recreational fields, and what has been described as the 
'most beautiful dance floor in Virginia.' The Recreation Center of Newport News 
was completed in January, 1938, out of funds contributed principally by the Newport 
News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company." b 

Birmingham, Alabama, a city in the lower South, has no Negro parks. In Houston, 
Texas, there is a ten-acre park for Negroes donated to the city by ex-slaves; the white 
parks comprise 2,600 acres. 

* 2 The four states were Virginia, Kentucky, Texas and North Carolina. The remain- 
ing nine states were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Okla- 
homa, South Carolina and Tennessee. It was estimated that only 21 per cent of the 
Negroes in these 13 states had access to public library services. 11 

In some large cities with public branch libraries, like Atlanta and Birmingham, 
Negroes can use only books stored in the special Negro branches. In Richmond and 
Houston, on the other hand, books can be secured through the Negro branches from the 
main library. 8 

The Virginia State Library in Richmond can be used by Negroes, although they have 
to sit at segregated tables in the main reading room. On the whole, there may be somc- 

* See of. cit., p. 39. 

"The Federal Writers' Project, Tht Negro in Virginia (19+0), p. 344. 

* See Frazier, op. cit., pp. 45-46- 

* Survey made by Eliza Atkins Gleason, Tht Soul/urn Negro and tht Public library 

(19*1), p. 9». 

* See Frazier, of. cit., pp. 49-50. 



1276 An American Dilemma 

what greater freedom in the case of 'higher" library services than there is m respect to 
the "popular" public libraries. 

The Rosenwald Fund has tried to improve the situation by (applying money on a 
matching basis for the extension of library service. But only II counties cooperated 
between 1 930 and 1935 and even they were quite discriminating in the distribution of 
these funds between Negroes and whites.* 

48 Federal Works Agency, Second Annual Re fort (1941), pp. 1 1 6, 191, 315 and 
460. 

**Ibid., pp. 121-125. 

45 Not only do real property taxes increase housing expenses for the consumer in a 
way which must be particularly burdensome for low income families; even more impor- 
tant, perhaps, is the fact that they must make investments in housing more risky than 
they otherwise would be. For what they really mean is that states, counties, and munici- 
palities have a first mortgage on all real estate, leaving less room and less security for 
other mortgages, and making the owner's equity much more likely to fluctuate in value 
than would have been the case if taxes were on income only. 

49 Suffice it to say that, in 1940, when most of the building construction was of 
single family homes, 171,440 new small homes, or 40 per cent of all new dwellings in 
this category, in nonfarm areas were covered by F.H.A. insurance. (U.S. Federal 
Housing Administration, Seventh Annual Report [1941], pp. 6 and 15.) In 1941! 
218,035 new small homes, or 41 per cent of new single family homes, were covered 
by F.H.A. insurance. (U.S. Federal Housing Administration, Eighth Annual Refort 

[1942], P- 3) 

47 U.S. Federal Housing Administration, Seventh Annual Report (1941), pp. 15 
and 77. See also Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p. 314. 

48 Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p. 313. See also U.S. Federal Housing Admin- 
istration, Successful Subdivisions, Planning Bulletin No. 1 (1940); and National 
Association of Housing Officials, Housing Yearbook (1940), pp. 161-162. 

4 * U.S. Federal Housing Administration, Underwriting Manual (1938), par. 935. 

60 Ibid., par. 980. 

51 Idem. 

62 Coriennc K. Robinson, Federal Public Housing Authority, letter (August 28, 
1942). It should be noted, in addition, that a considerable number of projects orig- 
inally intended for low income families were turned over to defense workers for the 
duration of the War. Concerning the Negro's share in the war housing program, see 
Chapter 19. 

68 One New York project, for instance, the South Jamaica Houses, has 1,050 Negro 
and 459 white residents thus intermingled. The John Jay Homes in Springfield, Illinois, 
also have about 100 Negro and 400 white families living without any segregation. The 
experiences, so far, have been good; there have been extremely few expressions of bad 
interracial feeling. (New York Herald Tribune, [June 10, 1942]; William M. 
Ashby, "No Jim Crow in Springfield Federal Housing," Opportunity [June, 1942], 
pp. 1^0-171; and Sterner and Associates, op. cit., p. 320.) This may be due, in part, 
to the fact that the white inhabitants in such projects are often Italians, Poles, and 

*L6uis R. Wilson and Edward A. Wight, County Library Service in the South (193$), 
pp. <7-9<| cited by Doxey A. Wilkerson, Special Problems of Negro Education (1939)! 
pp. I*«-I49- 



Footnotes 1277 

other immigrants, not yet imbued with American race prejudice. Then, too, there is no 
guarantee that conflicts would be avoided, were this practice to be followed on a larger 
scale than hitherto. Still it should be tried. Even a partial success would be extremely 
valuable. 

84 Federal Works Agency, Second Annual Re fort, p. 381. 

M Ibid., p. 8. 

M Anne E. Geddes, Trends in Relief Expenditures, jgio-io$s. (1937), pp. 11 and 
92-94. 

87 In 1 890 somewhat more than 1 per cent of the total population and somewhat less 
than I per cent of the Negro population was cared for in public almshouses. The differ- 
ence was due to the fact that almshouse care was less extensive, in proportion, in the 
South than it was elsewhere. In the South, Negroes and whites had about the same 
proportions cared for in almshouses; in the North the proportion of Negroes cared for 
was twice as high as the proportion of whites. Thus, public relief agencies in the North 
and in the South showed about the same difference in their attitude toward Negroes 
as has characterized them during recent years. See the following table: 

"Paupers" is Almshouses im 1893 



Race United States 



Numbers 

All Races 73i°- l 5 

Negro <M<J7 

Percentage of total population 

All Races 1.2 

Negro .9 



The North 




and the West 


The South 


59,896 


>3>i49 


1,013 


4,454 


>•♦ 


.6 


1.8 


•7 



Sources: Eleventh Census qf the United States: 1S00. Report on Crime, "Pauperism and Benevolence In 
the United States," Part a. p. 651. U.S. Bureau of the Census. Negroes in the Untied States: toio- toj>, p. 5. 

58 Grace Abbott, From- Relief to Social Security ( 1 94 1 ) , p. 9. 

89 Sterner and Associates, of. cit., Part 2, particularly pp. 219-230. 

80 Idem. 

"Idem. 

62 The period 1 93 3- 1 93 5 stands somewhat apart in the history of public assistance. 
We may call this the F.E.R.A. period, since the main welfare agency during these years 
was the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. State and local agencies were being 
organized, but the federal government carried the main financial responsibility over 
the whole field and particularly in the South. Eventually a certain specialization among 
various aspects of the relief work was brought about, and this trend was precipitated 
around 1935-1936 when the social security program and various special programs were 
inaugurated; at the same time a strict demarcation line was drawn between, on the one 
hand, the responsibilities of the federal government and, on the other, those of state 
and local governments. 

In October, 1933, Negro relief rates in urban areas of Northern states with 100,000 
or more Negroes varied between 25 and 40 per cent, and they were usually between 
three and four times higher than the white rates. The corresponding state figures for 
urban Negroes in the South varied between 10 and 33 per cent and were usually two 



Itjt An America* Dilemma 

or three timet higher than these for whites. In the rani Sooth, en the other hand, 
which, of course, comprises both villages and open country, Negro relief rates were 
sometimes lower — as, for instance, in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana — and some> 
times higher than the white rates. Both Negro and white rates were quite heterogeneous 
in the rural South, the lowest one being 2 per cent and the highest 27 per cent.* 

A special survey of urban workers on relief in May, 1934, indicated a higher general 
level but about the same differential. Half the Negro families in a sample of cities in 
the North and in the Border states were receiving public assistance; the corresponding 
proportion of white families was 10 to 13 per cent. Cities in the Upper and Lower 
South showed a proportion of Negro relief of one-third, whereas the white figure was 
about the same as it was in the North. b The Census of Workers on Relief in March, 
193$, showed a similar pattern for urban areas in the North and the South. There was 
one state (Mississippi), however, where even the urban rate was slightly higher (17 
per cent) for whites than for Negroes (16 per cent). The rural areas in the South, 
of course, showed an even greater lack of uniformity. The relief incidence was some- 
times higher and sometimes lower for Negroes than it was for whites. 6 

The lack of uniformity in the South becomes even more evident when data for 
individual cities and counties are considered. There were some Southern cities which 
definitely showed a Northern pattern. Even more pronounced, however, were the 
divergencies in rural areas. Georgia had two counties, both with an appreciable propor- 
tion of Negroes in the population, where there were no Negroes at all on the relief 
rolls in March, 193$, whereas as much as 12 and 19 per cent, respectively, of the 
white families were receiving public assistance. Most of the other Georgia counties 
had lower relief rates for Negroes than they had for whites, but there were a few 
where the relations were reversed. In Eastern Texas, there were some counties where 
relief rates for Negroes were less than half those for whites; on the other hand, there 
were other counties where the Negro relief incidence was four times higher than the 
white relief incidence.' 

Since Negroes are always poorer than whites, on the average, this heterogeneity cannot 
be explained on the basis of "local conditions." In the main, it is just a matter of lack 
of uniformity in the administration of relief. One can well understand how this came 
about. On the one hand, there were the federal relief officials demanding equal treat- 
ment of Negroes and whites. On the other hand, there were the traditional local atti- 
tudes. The dominant group in the South was against racial equality. Public relief was 
a new thing. The politically and economically most potent among them tended to be 
against it, except when their attitudes were conditioned by obvious needs during the 
worst depression years when even they welcomed the assistance in carrying their 
laborers through the off-seasons. It is frequently said that, in many places, planters even 

'Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p, 22. Data based on Federal Emergency Relief Ad- 
ministration, Unemfloyment Relief Census, October, 1033, Report No. a (1934), pp. 14 
and 15. 

"Sterner and Associates, of, est., p. 218. Data based on Katherine D. Wood, Urban 
Workers on Relief, Part 2 (1936), pp. 72-73. 

'See Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p. 133. Data based on Philip M. Hauser, Workers 
on Relief in the United States in March, 1955, A Census of Usual Occufations (1938), 
Vol. it* pp. 102-103. 
. *8s» Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p. 213. 



Footnotes 1479 

took command of public welfare agencies, making them accept their workers on the 
relief rolli when they were not in need of their services, and making them torn them 
back to work as soon as there was any work to do. 

It seems that in every country where large-scale public relief has been introdnced, 
employers have been against it because of their interest in having an abundant labor 
supply competing for low wages. It goes without saying that such an attitude has been 
prevalent in the South, where planters have shown in so many other wavs (social 
sanctions for "tenant stealing," laws against "enticement of labor," remnants of peon- 
age, and so on) how far they can go in order to secure absolute command over the 
services of "their Negroes." We have run across this several times during our field 
work in the South. 

"The conventional attitude of the landlord was that the tenant, and particularly the 
share-cropper, was dependent on him for direction and aid. More than nine out of 
every ten landlords interviewed stated that it was one of the functions of the landlord 
to maintain his tenants, if possible, in times of distress. At first sight it would seem 
difficult to reconcile this statement with the fact that approximately 80 per cent of the 
landlords actually wanted their tenants to get on relief. The contradiction is partially 
explained, however, by the fact that 50 per cent of the landlords reported financial 
inability to care for their tenants ... a considerable number of unscrupulous landlords 
used government relief as a means of furnishing their tenants with goods which could 
and should have been furnished by themselves. On the other hand, nearly 40 per cent 
of the landlords who had tenants on relief were opposed to governmental aid for their 
tenants on the grounds of its demoralizing effects upon them. . . . Among the landlords 
who had no tenants on relief, more than 70 per cent stated that they objected to relief 
because of its demoralizing influence on the tenant." ■ 

Caught in the middle were the local social workers. In the beginning, comparatively 
few of them had much of a professional background, but the proportion of trained 
workers has gradually increased, and practical experience must have given many others 
an outlook rather different from the prevalent one. Under such circumstances, almost 
anything could happen. The treatment of the Negro is a matter of chance. A good social 
worker, for instance, can treat Negroes and whites on a basis of equality. In the cities, 
where professional standards are higher than in rural areas, the chances of giving 
Negroes something approaching their just share is, of course, much greater. Even there, 
however, it may well happen that welfare workers are hampered by politicians. 

In the beginning of November, 1938, Sterner visited the Department of Welfare 
in Birmingham, Alabama. Negroes and whites were received in segregated parts of the 
offices. The statistical data revealed the higher relief needs of Negroes, but, nevertheless, 
a large proportion of the clientele was white. Just after this, there was reported in a local 
newspaper an interview with a member of the state legislature who claimed that he had 
found evidence of discrimination against whites; Negroes, he said, could go into the 
department and get what they asked for, but a white applicant had a hard time getting 
a fair hearing. 

Relief grants, during this period, were much lower in the South than they were 
elsewhere. In July, 1935, for instance, the national average benefit per case per month 

" Harold Hoffsommer, Landlord-Tenant Relations and Relief in Alabama, Federal Emer- 
gency Relief Administration, Division of Research, Statistics and Finance, Research Bulletin, 
Series II, No. 9 (1935)1 PP- « !iad 4- 



ia8o Am American Dilemma 

was about $30, but all the states in the Upper and Lower South showed lower figures; 
most of them paid between $10 and $18. Negroes usually received less than did whites, 
at least in rural areas. In the Eastern cotton area, for instance, the average grant to 
whites in June, 1935, was $16, whereas Negroes received $13.* 

68 This tendency to disregard the Negro in most of the current reporting on relief 
may often be due, of course, to a desire not to publicize racial discrimination. Some 
social workers have given Sterner another explanation which, in many cases, may be 
almost equally feasible: when there are relatively more Negroes on the relief rolls than 
in the general population, such statistics could bring about pressure from white tax- 
payers wanting to limit relief appropriations to Negroes. Quite unrealistic, on the 
other hand, is the following rather usual explanation: "Since we don't discriminate 
against Negroes, we have no reason to count them separately in the statistics." 

•* Alva Myrdal, Nation and Family (1941), p. 134. 

66 In 1937 over 32,000,000 workers were covered by old age insurance. Of those 
over 2,240,000, or 6.9 per cent, were Negroes. Together with other nonwhites they 
constituted still not more than 7.8 per cent of the total coverage. According to the 
1940 Census, on the' other hand, 10.7 per cent of the total labor force (including unem- 
ployed persons and relief workers) was nonwhite, b 

Those covered by insurance in 1937 constituted over 70 per cent of all workers 
actually employed in 1940. Three- fourths of the white workers but only one-half of 
nonwhite workers were covered. There was a great difference, however, between the 
South and the rest of the country. In the North the overwhelming majority not only 
of the white but also of the nonwhite workers were within the old age system. In the 
South, on the other hand, about three-fifths of the Negro workers and almost half the 
white workers were in uncovered occupations. The old age pension system was particu- 
larly inefficient in regard to female nonwhite workers, North as well as South; only 
about one-fourth of them were covered. 

The real race differential is even greater, however, than these figures suggest. Even 
in covered occupations, low-wage workers are often denied any benefits from the 
system. Since Negro covered workers had only 3 per cent of the total taxable wage 
income,* 1 it is obvious that such additional restrictions must, hit them worse than the 
whites. In general, in order to qualify for old age benefits, a worker "must have had at 
least 1 quarter of coverage for each 2 calendar quarters elapsing during his working 
lifetime."* Quarters during which he has had a wage income of less than $50 are 
not counted as having been "covered." Not less than 42 per cent of the covered Negro 

* Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p. a a 7". 

k Social Security Board, Old Age and Survivors Insurance Statistics, Employment and 
Wages of Covered Workers, 1938 (1940), pp. 16-18. Sixteenth Census of the United States: 
toeo, Population, Preliminary Release, Series P-4, No. 4. 

* Idem, and Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Population, Preliminary Release, 
Series P-4a, Nos. 1 4 to 1 6. It is obvious that these percentages cannot be exact. Not only is 
there a time differential j there is also the fact that covered workers include unemployed as 
well as employed persons. The comparison gives some idea, however, about the relative 
efficiency of the system for various groups. 

'Idem. 

*Wjiyne F. Caskey, "Workers with Annual Taxable Wages of less than $100 in 1937-39," 
Social Security Bulletin (October, 1941), pp. 17-14- 



Footnotes 1281 

workers, as against 22 per cent of the white workers in 1955, had wage incomes of less 
than $200 per year; more than half the female Negro workers had wages below the 
limit.* This means, of course, that a substantial proportion even of the covered Negro 
workers are not going to get any old age benefits at all, if present regulations are to be 
maintained. 

The benefits range between $10 and $85, depending upon the number of dependents, 
the years of coverage and the average previous wage income. The last two stipulations 
mean that Negro average benefits must be lower than are those for whites. (A large 
number of covered workers moves between covered and uncovered occupations. Since 
the field of uncovered occupations is larger for Negroes than it is for whites, they are 
more likely to have spent considerable time outside the system of old age insurance.) 
Even persons with fairly low previous wage incomes, however, receive benefits which, 
at least in the South, must appear high compared to average relief benefits under many 
other social welfare programs. For instance, a worker who has had an average monthly 
wage of $50 and a coverage of five years will receive for himself and his wife, when 
both have reached the age of 65, a monthly benefit of $3i.50. b There are additional 
benefits for children under 16 (sometimes 18) years of age. There arc benefits, as well, 
for surviving wives and children. 

Unemployment compensation has limitations in coverage similar to those of the 
Old Age and Survivors' Insurance. In the rural South, of course, Negroes have little 
help from the unemployment insurance. Although the system is fairly uniform, benefits 
may vary to some extent. In the South, most clients receive between $5 and $10 per 
month; in most other states the majority of recipients get benefits in excess of $!0. u 

88 Social Work Yearbook, 1041, op. cit., p. 611. 

87 Ibid., p. 609, and Virginius Dabney, Below the Potomac (1942), p. 114. 

08 Social Work Yearbook, 1041, of. cit., p. 612. 

00 Even in Virginia, where conditions are probably better than in many other 
Southern states, there remains much to be done. The state labor commissioner officially 
refers to the "inadequacy of the State safety laws" and refers, among other tilings, 
to the fact that, for factories and buildings for public use, there arc no legal "standards 
and controls over the width, pitch and general repair of stairways or the condition of 
floors . . . aisles, passageways, ladders, platforms, and scaffolding." (Department of 
Labor and Industry, State of Virginia, Forty-third Annual Report, Industrial Statistics, 
Calendar Year, 1930 [1941], p. 21.) 

70 Sixteenth Census of the United States: i<)io, Population, Preliminary Release, 
Series P-10, No. 6. 

71 Sterner and Associates, op. cit., pp. 272-274. 

74 California paid $34 per month in 1939-1940; several Northern states, as well 
as the District of Columbia, paid between $20 and $30. In the South, on the other 
hand, there were eight states which paid less than $10. 

78 Sterner and Associates, op. cit., p. 280. 

74 Ibid., pp. 282-283. The last percentage was between one-and-a-half and two 

'Idem. 

* Social Wort Yearbook, 1941, of. cit., p. 384. 

* Ibid., p. 570. 

4 Social Security Board, "Operation of the Employment Security Board," Social Security 
Bulletin (October, 1941), p. 63. 



ii%i Am American Dilemma 

timei higher in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, although in these Northern 
«utes Negroel conititnte only * small minority of the total population. 

™IbU., p. 281. 

n IM.,p. 284. 

77 In April, 1940, for instance, there were in this country 8,000,000 unemployed 
persona, of whom 2,900,000 were taken care of by the W.P.A., C.C.C., or N.Y.A. 
(those on the Student Work Program arc not included in either of the figures). (See 
Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population, Preliminary Release, Series 
P-4, No. 5.) 

78 Sterner and Associates, of. cit., pp. 239-241. 

79 This discrepancy was particularly pronounced in Tennessee, where 23 per cent 
of all unemployed workers, those on emergency work included, in 1940 were Negroes, 
whereas the proportion of Negroes among relief workers was but 1 1 peT cent. {Idem. 
and Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Population, Second Series, Tennessee, 
State Table 16.) 

80 Sterner and Associates, of. cit., pp. 241-242. One of the reasons why Negroes are 
discriminated against to such an extent in rural areas of the South is, of course, that 
agricultural employers are against seeing Negroes get wages on relief work high enough 
to compete with those paid on the farms. For similar reasons, in part, there is a pro- 
nounced special discrimination against Negro women on W.P.A., as evidenced by the 
following figures for February, 1939: 

Negroes as a Percentage of 

All W. P. A. Workers in: Male Female 

1 3 Southern states and the District of 

Columbia 26.x 15.9 

All other states io.z 15.7 

{Ibid., p. 244.) Thus, the Southern states gave Negro women a share of the work 
relief employment which was no greater than that given to them by states in the North 
and West; and it was only about half as great as the proportion of Negroes among all 
unemployed women in the South in 1940. {Sixteenth Census of the United States: 
1940, Population, Preliminary Release, Series P-4a, Nos. 14' to 16.) 

This phenomenon is due not only to the popular belief in the South that Negro 
women always can and should earn their living as domestics. Even more significant, 
perhaps, are the Southern segrcgational practices and the rules about local sponsorship 
of W.P.A. projects. Negro men probably would be even worse off than they are under 
present conditions had it not been for the fact that most W.P.A. projects for men are 
outdoor projects. This means that, even according to Southern rules, both Negroes and 
whites can work on the same project, although in separate gangs. Projects for women, 
on the other hand, are indoor affairs. Seldom, if ever, is it possible in the South to have 
a sewing room for Negro women in the same building where there is such a room for 
white women. The consequence is that separate projects have to be organized for Negro 
women if they are to have any share in the jobs. Since there are few local agencies 
which would even think of sponsoring projects especially for Negroes, Negro women, 
in most places, have to be without them. (Sterner and Associates, op. cit., pp. 245-246.) 

It goes without saying that the situation is similar in regard to projects for profes- 
sional and clerical workers. On the whole, there is a general complaint among Negroes 



FOOTNOTES I2»3 

to the efect that their chances of being assigned to other than the lowest and least well- 
paid jobs on W.P.A. are much smaller than corresponds to the actual skills of Negro 
unemployed workers. Certain evidence presented by Sterner, although not quite conclu- 
sive, makes it seem probable that such complaints are justified, at least as far as the 
South is concerned. (Hut., pp. 249 and 251.) 

81 The C.C.C. organized work projects at rural camps principally for boys aged 17 
to 23 who were unemployed and eligible for relief or otherwise came from low income 
groups. The work consisted of soil conservation, development of forests and parks for 
recreational use, flood control and so forth. The objectives of the National Youth 
Administration have been stated as follows: 

"(a) to provide funds for the part-time employment of needy school, college, and 
graduate students between sixteen and twenty-five years of age so that they can continue 
their education; (b) to provide funds for the part-time employment on work projects 
of young persons, chiefly from families certified as in need of relief, between eighteen 
and twenty-five years of age, the projects being designed not only to provide valuable 
work experience but to benefit youth generally and the communities in which they live; 

(c) to encourage the establishment of job training and counseling service . . . ; and 

(d) to encourage the development and extension of constructive leisure-times activities." 
M. M. Chambers, "Youth Programs" in Social Work Yearbook, 1941, of. cit., p. 614. 

82 Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p. 258. 
88 Ibid., pp. 263-265. 

M Iiid. i p. 287. 
m lbid., p. 291. 



Chapter 16. Income, Consumption and Housing 

1 A great number of studies on income of farm families have been made, but there 
are probably none that give an exact picture of the income distribution of all Southern 
farm families. Owing to the importance of income "in kind" in agricultural areas, it 
is always difficult to get reliable statistics on farm income. Besides, many .samples are 
biased in either a high or a low direction. By surveying different studies having different 
characteristics, however, it is possible to arrive at fairly safe general conclusions. Such 
a survey has been made by Sterner and Associates, The Negro's Share, prepared for this 
study (1943), pp. 62-70. In this context, we may content ourselves by citing the main 
results of the two most important studies. 

The plantation study made by T. J. Woofter, Jr., in 1934, indicates the average 
annual income for families of Negro tenants and wage laborers on plantations was but 
$278, whereas the corresponding figure for whites was $452. Negro wage laborers 
earned as little as $175 per year. Even the Negro cash renters and share tenants were 
not far above the $300 mark, being worse off than white sharecroppers, who earned 
$417.* 

* Unpublished figures made available by Woofter, cited in Sterner and Associates, of. cit., 
pp. 67-68. 



J 284 AN AMERICAN UILEMMA 

Theie figures, however, are probably slightly too low. While the value of home-use 
production was included, certain other items, such as housing, fuel, refite^ *a«i wages 
earned off the plantation, were not. The sample of farm families of .the Consumer 
Purchases Study for 193 5-1 936 (see table in this footnote) indicates higher incomes 
for Negroes and whites alike, but these data are biased upward.* The reason is that 
large groups among the poorest families, such as unemployed workers, wage laborers, 
broken families, and farmers who had moved within the year, were completely excluded 
from the sample. Almost half the families approached during the survey turned out 
to be ineligible for the sample because they were of these types. 1 * Since the groups studied 
must have had much higher average incomes than the excluded groups, the fact that 
they included such extremely high proportions of destitute families is remarkable. 
Since wage laborers were excluded, it was, of course, the Negro sharecroppers who were 
lowest on the scale. A significant number of them had less than $Z$o. White share- 

Median Incomes* for Neoro and White Farm Families in Three Southeastern Sample 

Areas: 1935-1936 



State 


Owners and Tenants 
Except Croppers 




Croppers 




Negro 


White 


Negro 


White 


South Carolina 

Georgia 

Mississippi 


*599 
49> 
576 


*W5 

708 

1,091 


409 
4»6 


*54« 
544 



Source: U. S. Department of Agriculture. Bureau of Home Economics. Consumer Purchases Study, 
Form Series, Family Income and Expenditures, Southeast Region, Miscellaneous Publication No. 463, Part 
1, Family Income (1941), PP. 5 and 77-80. 

• These as veil as all following median income figures are calculated under the assumption that relief 
families, for which no complete income data were gathered, had incomes below the median. This assumption 
ia certainly correct, except for some rare cases. 

* The sample for the eastern part of North Carolina (not used in the table) gave income 
figures which cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be characterized as typical for the 
Southeast. The median income varied between $797 for Negro sharecroppers and $1,587 for 
white operators (other tenants and owners). Negro operators and white croppers, as usual, 
had about the same position} they earned $1,046 and $1,023, respectively. Another sample 
for North Carolina which included only white operators in the western part of the state 
indicated an opposite extreme. The median, income was but $611, which is lower than that 
for any other group of white operators sampled in the Southeast. (U. S. Department of 
Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics, Consumer Purchases Study, Farm Series, Family 
Income and Expenditures, Southeast Region, Miscellaneous Publication No. 46a, Part «, 
Family Income [1941 ], p. 5.) The figure cited for white operators in eastern North Carolina 
($1,587) is higher than that for any of the states sampled in farm regions of the North- 
east and of the Middle Wests the latter varied between $936 (Iowa) and $1,503 (Illinois). 
(See U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics, Consumer Purchaser 
Study, Farm Series, Family Income and Expenditures, Middle Atlantic, North Central and 
New England Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 383, Part 1, Family Income [1940], 
p. 19.) 

*U. S. Department of Agriculture, Miscellaneous Publication No. 46a, of, cit., p. 185. 



footnotes 1485 

croppers were somewhat better off. They had about the same position as the combined 
group of Negro owners, cash tenants and share tenants. Highest on the scale was the 
corresponding group of white operators. 

2 Sterner and Associates, of. eit., p. 71. Data based on U.S. Department of Agricul- 
ture, Bureau of Home Economics, Consumer Purchases Study, Urban and Village 
Series, Family Income and Expenditure, Southeast Region, Miscellaneous Publication 
No. 375, Part 1, Family Income (1941), p. 92. 

3 In this case the only low income group excluded from the sample was broken 
families. This is probably the main reason why Negro incomes in villages appear so 
low compared with the income data for farm families contained in the same study. 
In addition, it is probable that the great number of displaced Negro farm families in 
Southern villages helps to drag the income level down. White village families in these 
34 villages earned between three and four times as much as did Negro families. Their 
median income was $1,220. For nonrclief families alone, it was $1,410. These figures 
compare very well with those for the 8 groups of villages studied in other parts of the 
country, which — if relief families are included — showed a range in median incomes of 
from $737 (Illinois and Iowa) to $1,355 (California). In fact, only 3 of these 8 
non-Southern village groups had income levels higher than those for white families in 
Southern villages.* 

* Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p. 71. 

Idem. Data based on U.S. Public Health Service, 'National Health Survey: 1935- 
1936, Preliminary Reports, Population Scries, Bulletins A and C (1938). An addi- 
tional confirmation, based on data for 1 4 Southern cities but only 3 Northern cities is 
presented in Department of Commerce, Consumer Use of Selected Goods and Services, 
by Income Classes, Market Research Scries, No. 5 (1935-1937). 

The mean income, on the other hand, seems to be significantly higher in Northern 
than in Southern cities, since the frequency of very high incomes is greater in the 
North. See, for instance, the estimates in National Resources Committee, Consumer 
Incomes in the United States, 1935-1936 (1938), p. 28. 

6 Margaret Loomis Stecker, Intercity Differences in Costs of Living in March, 1935, 
59 Cities (1937), p. xix. 

1 While the allowances for food may be sufficient, at least for a limited time, they 
are not as large as the minimum amount for what the Bureau of Home Economics 
calls a "good" diet, determined by what families in actual practice had been found able 
to purchase. Only a few adequate dwelling units which can be rented for the amount 
intended for housing in this budget arc available in American citics. b 

8 Sterner and Associates, of. cit., pp. 84-88. 

* For example, the median income for nonrelief Negro families in Atlanta, consisting 
of husband, wife and o, 1, 2, and 3 to 4 children under 16, was $710, $685, $675 
and $655, respectively. This was so in spile of the fact that the proportion of low 
income families receiving public assistance — who were not included in these figures — 

* U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics, Consumer Purchases 
Study, Urban and Village Series, Family Income and Exfenditure, Southeast Region, Mis- 
cellaneous Publication No. 37s, Part 1, Family Income (194O1 P- «+• 

* Sterner and Associates, of. cit., pp. 86 and 316. 



1*86 An American Dilemma 

ma positively correlated with the number of children in the family, which meant that 
the sample of larger families had fewer poor case*. (Ibid., p. 82.) 

10 Alva Myrdal, Nation and Family (1941), pp. 61-76. 

11 Large families do not benefit from subsidized housing in proportion to their 
greater sufferings from bad housing conditions. (See Chapter 15, Section 6.) The 
whole program is designated primarily for low income families; family size, at best, 
is given secondary consideration only. The new social welfare system includes a special 
program for broken families (Aid to Dependent Children) ; but there are no corres- 
ponding special provisions for large families. While urban relief authorities generally 
give assistance to a greater proportion of the large than of the small families, it has 
sometimes happened that welfare agencies in the farm areas of the South have failed to 
consider the special plight of the large families, particularly in the case of Negroes. 
(See data from the Consumer Purchases Study cited in Sterner and Associates, of. cit., 
p. 81.) 

18 In 1930, 59 per cent of all Negro children under 21 years of age in private 
families belonged to households which had at least four children, whereas the corres- 
ponding proportion for native white families was 4.4 per cent. (See Sterner and 
Associates, of. cit., p. 49.) The figures would be still higher if one added families 
having four or more children, of which some were over 21 or had already left home. 

18 The Consumer Purchases Study shows that, for instance, in Atlanta, white 
husbands, 50 to 59 years of age, in "normal" nonrelief families, earned over one-half 
more than did husbands 20 to 29 years of age. The corresponding difference for Negro 
families was only about one-third. The absolute amount of difference was over $700 
for white families and $190 for Negro families. (Ibid., p. 83. U.S. Department of 
Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Study of Consumer Purchases, Urban Series, Family 
Income in the Southeastern Region 1935-36, Bulletin No. 647, Vol. 1, Family Income 
[1939], Tabular Summary, Section B, Tables 8 and 18.) 

14 In Atlanta, Mobile, and Columbia, for instance, there were about twice as many 
supplementary earners in "normal" nonrelief Negro households as there were in 
corresponding white families. But each one of them did not earn more than one-fourth 
or one-third as much as did the supplementary earners in white families, and their 
total earnings per family, therefore, were only one-half or two-thirds of those of the 
fewer white supplementary earners. Even so, their contributions made up a larger 
percentage of the total family income than was the case in white families. (Sterner and 
Associates, of. cit., pp. 57 and 77-79.) 

18 In the urban North, where 40 to 50 per cent of the Negro families were on relief 
at that time, and in addition, a great number were broken families, the study repre- 
sented less than half the Negro population. Groups covered by the study were, on the 
average, better off than those excluded. The exclusions were somewhat less important 
in the urban South; still they were considerable. In the rural farm South, the exclusion of 
relief families meant comparatively little; but in view of the exclusion of wage laborers, 
and of farmers and tenants who had stayed less than one year on the farm, and of 
broken families, this rural sample was, at least, just as much too "high" as was that for 
the urban North. 

16 Sternrr and Associates, of. cit., p. 93. Basic data available in U.S. Department of 



Footnotes 1287 

Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Study of Consumer Purchases, Urban Series, Family 
Expenditure in Chicago, 1935-36, Bulletin No. 642, Vol. 2, Family Expenditure 
(l939)> Family Income and Expenditure in New York City, 1035-36, Bulletin No. 

643, Vol. 2, Family Expenditure (1939); Family Expenditure in Nine Cities of the 
East Central Region, Bulletin No. 644, Vol. 2, Family Expenditure (1941); Family 
Expenditure in Three Southeastern Cities, 1035-36, Bulletin No. 647, Vol. 2, Family 
Expenditure (1940); and Urban Technical Series, Family Expenditure in Selected 
Cities, 1935-36, Bulletin No. 648, Vol. 8, Changes in Assets and Liabilities (1941), 
Tabular Summary, Tables 2 and 3 ; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Home 
Economics, Consumer Purchases Study, Urban and Village Series, Family Income and 
Expenditure, Five Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 396, Part 2, Family Expendi- 
ture (1940), pp. 182-189; Farm Series, Family Income and Expenditure, Five 
Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 465, Part 2, Family Expenditure (1941), 
p. 113. 

17 Sterner and Associates, op. cit., p. 93. 

18 Ibid., pp. 31 and 94-16;. 

19 Ibid., pp. 163 and 165. 

20 The general data on value of housing are not quite reliable since they have to be 
estimated for families residing in their own homes or in houses owned by their em- 
ployers. In the case of rent-paying families in Atlanta, Georgia; Mobile, Alabama; 
Columbia, South Carolina; Albany, Georgia; and Columbus, Ohio, however, it can be 
ascertained unequivocally that Negro tenants usually pay lower rents than do white 
families with the same income; but in New York it is the other way around. (U.S. 
Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Study of Consumer Purchases, Urban 
Technical Series, Family Expenditures in Selected Cities, 19 35-36, Bulletin No. 648, 
Vol. 1, Housing [1941], pp. 20 and 26; and Bulletin No. 647, Vol. I, op. cit., p. 104, 
and Family Income in Nine Cities of the East Central Region, 1935-36, Bulletin No. 

644, Vol. 1, Family Income [1939], p. 88.) 

21 It should be remembered that it is particularly difficult to get complete reports on 
Negro food consumption, since Negro domestic servants, as well as hotel and restaurant 
workers, often eat the food of their employers. The fact that the expenditures for 
housing are sometimes lower, in relation to income, in Negro than they are in white 
families may be due to the greater insecurity in Negro income. The phenomenon is 
also characteristic of groups of lower social status generally. Wage earners often pay 
lower rents than do business, professional and clerical workers in the same income 
classes. (U.S. Department of Labor, Bulletin, No. 644, Vol. 1, op. cit., p. 90.) 

22 Atlanta Negro families, in the average Negro income group $500-$999, had an 
average of $241 to spend for clothing, personal care, medical care, recreation, and all 
other items, after food, housing, household operation and furnishings had been paid 
for. Negro sharecroppers with an income of less than $500 spend, on the average, $73 
on the same "extra" items (clothing, medical care and so on). (Sterner and Associates, 
op. tit., pp. 96 and 97.) 

2a In the "average white" income class $1,500-$ 1,999, for instance, clothing 
expenditures in Negro and white families were $206 and $180, respectively. Yet such 
a difference is of little practical significance, as the number of Negro families in this 
economic group is exceedingly small. 



1288 An American Dilemma 

84 In Negro families with lew than $500 in income, $9 worth of clothing was 
bought for the husband, an equal amount was spent on the wife, and $6 was left over 
for children and other family members; when there were more than four persons in 
the family, husband and wife could each spend but $5 on themselves. In the income 
group $500-$999, the husband's share in the clothing budget was $24, the wife's 
share was $27 and that of children and other family members was $21. (Sterner and 
Associates, of. cit., p. 140.) The following description gives some idea about what 
such sums meant in concrete terms: 

"The figures for the husbands in low-income families were far below the annual 
clothing requirements suggested in the WPA budget for an emergency standard of 
living. [Margaret Loomis Stecker, Quantity Budgets for Basic Maintenance and Enter- 
gency Standards of Living, Research Bulletin, Series 1, No. 21 (1936), p. 15.] For 
example, while an annual replacement of one cotton work shirt and one other shirt 
with attached collar and purchase of a wool work shirt every other year is suggested, it 
appears that one-third of the Negro men at the lowest income level and almost one-fifth 
of the white and Negro meu at the next level bought no shirts at all during the year. 
Likewise, in contrast to the annual purchase of two pairs of work shoes and one pair of 
oxfords suggested in the emergency budget, work shoes were purchased barely every 
other year, on the average; two-thirds of the Negro men in families with incomes 
below $500 bought no street shoes, and approximately one-third of the wliite and 
Negro men at the next income level failed to purchase any during the year of the 
study." (Sterner and Associates, of. cit., pp. 1 40-1 41.) 

25 Interdepartmental Committee to Coordinate Health and Welfare Activities, 
Proceedings of the National Health Conference, July, 1938, "Report of the Technical 
Committee on Medical Care" (1938), p. 57. Quoted in Sterner and Associates, op. cit., 
p. 153. 

26 Sterner and Associates, op. cit., Appendix Table 32. 

27 Negro sharecroppers with incomes under $500 spent, for the entire family, an 
annual average of $1 for reading matter, less than 50^ for movies and other admissions, 
$1 for games and sports equipment, $1 for other recreation, and $12 for tobacco. 
Atlanta Negroes in the income group $500-999 spent for these same items $9, $5, $1, 
$7 and $17. The corresponding figures for white Atlanta families in the income 
bracket $1, 500-$2,249 were $17, $22, $5, $22 and $44. {Ibid., pp. 154-159 and 
Appendix Table 36.) 

28 In cities, villages, and farm areas of the South, Negroes consumed larger quantities 
of fish and other seafoods, but smaller quantities of milk, eggs, potatoes, other vegetables, 
and fruits, than did white families of similar means. In order to cut down on their 
expenditures they bought less baked goods, but more flour and cereals than was usual 
in white households. Largely for the same reason, they consumed less processed foods 
than did white families of the same economic classes. These arc among the most usual 
differences, but there were others which appeared more or less consistently; some of 
them were mainly "cultural."* 

'U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Study of Consumer Purchases, 
Urban Technical Series, Family Expenditures in Selected Cities, Bulletin No. 648, Vol. x, 
Food ^1940), Tabular Summary, Table 51 U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of 



Footnotes 1289 

29 Exactly how great this difference is we cannot say, since the low income groups 
were greatly under-represented in the expenditure sample of the Consumer Purchases 
Study (which, of course, must affect the data for Negroes much more than it does those 
for whites). Yet the records, despite this fact, show a considerable discrepancy in regard 
to several important items. Negro farmers and tenants consumed even less than did 
white sharecroppers of pork, poultry, eggs, fats, potatoes, vegetables, fruits, sugar, and 
particularly milk. Of fish and other seafoods they consumed somewhat larger quantities, 
of beef and grain products about the same amount as white sharecroppers. Compared 
with owners and more independent tenants among the whites, their inferior position 
was even more pronounced. In Southern villages whites consumed four times as much 
milk, three times as many eggs and fruits, twice as many potatoes and other vegetables 
as did Negroes. Although Negroes, in villages as in other community groups, were 
greater consumers of fish and seafood, the combined consumption of meats, pork and 
fish was one-and-a-half times as high in white as it was in Negro households. Even of 
fats and sugar, whites bought larger quantities than did Negroes." Concerning the 
situation in Southern cities we may quote the analysis of Sterner and Epstein: 

"Whites reported the consumption of nearly six times as much whole fresh milk and 
twice as much canned milk as Negroes. On the average, white families used more than 
twice as many eggs, over three times as many tomatoes, five times as many oranges, and 
over twice as many pounds of white potatoes as Negro families. Negroes used somewhat 
less butter and other table fats but more lard products. Beef was used in considerably 
larger quantities by whites than by Negroes. . . . While [Negroes used] more fresh 
pork and salt-side, they consumed less bacon, ham, and poultry than white families. 
On the other hand, Negroes used twice as much fresh fish as whites." b 

30 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Study of Consumer Pur- 
chases, Urban Technical Series, Family Expenditures in Selected Cities, Bulletin No. 
648, Vol. 2, Food (1940), Tabular Summary, Table 4. 

31 Sterner and Associates, of. cit,, Appendix Table 27. 

32 Ibid., pp. 99-100. 

33 Almost half the Negro families sampled in small cities, villages, and farm areas of 
the Southeast had a food-value per week and per food-expenditurc-unit of less than 
$1.38. The same was true of oVcr one-fourth of the Negro families sampled in Atlanta, 
Columbia and Mobile. White families, on the other hand, usually had relatively few 
representatives in this economic group (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of 
Home Economics, Consumer Purchases Study, Urban and Village Series, Family Food 
Consumption and Dietary Levels, Five Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 452 
[1941], p. 188; and Farm Series, Family Food Consumftion and Dietary Levels, Five 
Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 405 [1941], p. 328.) 

Home Economics, Consumer Purchases Study, Urban and Village Series, Family Food Con- 
sumftion and Dietary Levels, Five Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 452 (194.1), 
Tables 30 to 34; and Farm Series, Family Food Consumption and Dietary Levels, Five 
Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 405 (194.1), Tables 48 to 52. 

* U. S. Department of Agriculture, Miscellaneous Publication No. 405, op. cit., Tables 
48-52} and No. 452, of. cit., Tables 30-34. 

b Sterner and Associates, of. cit., p. 112. 



i»9° An Ams*ic*w Dilemma 

M 

Pmcbwtaob or Nbobo aitd White Famjum ix the Southeast Wm Diets Fouinwo 
Leu Thak Optimum Requirement* or Specified Nutrients; 1936-1937* 



Families by Weekly 


No. ot 




















Food Value per Food- 


Families 
















Ascor- 




expenditure-unit 


in 


Energy Pro- 


Phos- 


Cal- 




Vita- Thia- 


bic 


Ribo- 




Sample 


Value 


tein 


phorus 


cium 


Iron 


min 


min 


Acid 


flavin 




No. 


Pet. 


Pet 


Pet. 


Pet. 


Pet. 


Pet. 


Pet. 


Pet. 


Pet. 


$0.69- $1.37 






















Village families, Negro 


84 


48 


70 


66 


93 


58 


67 


68 


96 


94 


Farm families, Negro b 


109 


5o 


57 


»4 


60 


as 


52 


47 


96 


79 


$1.38- $2 J07 






















City families, Negro" 


54 


16 


41 


45 


33 


21 


»4 


44 


67 


9' 


Village families, Negro 


S3 


17 


36 


»5 


15 


H 


63 


43 


73 


79 


Village families, White 


69 


22 


49 


30 


73 


39 


68 


61 


69 


74 


Farm Families, Negro k 


89 


7 


14 


9 


34 


9 


»J 


30 


81 


48 


Farm families, White* 


133 


16 


4 


a 


13 


4 


44 


17 


79 


38 



Sources: U. S. Dep a r t ment of Agriculture. Bureau of Home Economic!, Consumer Purchases Study. Farm 
Series, Family Food Consumption and Dietary Levels. Five Returns, Miscellaneous Publication No. 405 (1941)1 
pp. 53-61 and 103; and Urban and Vitiate Series, Family Food Consumption and Dietary Levels, Five Regions, 
Miscellaneous Publication No. 45a (I94 I ).,PP- aoo-aao. 

• Toe following requirement* were used/or this tabulation: energy value 3.000 calories, protein 67 grams, 
phosphorus 1.3a gramB, calcium 0.68 gram, iron is milligrams, vitamin A 6,ooo International Units, thiamin 
1.5 milligrams, aseorbio acid 75 milligrams, and riboflavin 1.8 milligrams. These requirements refer, to the 
daily needs of a moderately active full-grown man. Needs of women and younger persons may be different 
from these— often lower but sometimes higher. This complication is taken care of by computing the con- 
sumption per nutrition unit, whereby the needs of a full-grown man are used as a unit. The number of food 
expenditure units are computed in a similar way (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Miscellaneous Publication 
No. 452. op. cit., pp. 251-353). 

Groups having less than 50 representatives in the sample are excluded from the table. 
b Owners, tenants and croppers. 

• Atlanta, Georgia; Mobile, Alabama; Columbia, South Carolina. 

• Owners and tenants, except cro pp ers. 

85 To be sure, these observations are based on rather small samples. For this reason, 
we cannot draw man/ detailed conclusions. It is extremely unlikely, however, that the 
data would give us an exaggerated general impression regarding the frequency of dietary 
deficiencies in the Negro population. Rather, it is not unlikely* that they minimize the 
occurrence of such deficiencies. For we must keep in mind that large groups at the very 
bottom of the income ladder, such as relief families, broken families, agricultural wage 
laborers, farmers and tenants who have moved within the year, are completely excluded 
from the sample. 

86 To be sure, statistical correlation does not prove anything about causation. Sick 
people may live in slums because their sickness has kept them so poor that they cannot 
afford adequate housing. Prostitutes may not get housing accommodation in decent 
neighborhoods, and so are forced to live in slums. Poor slum families may get tuber- 
culosis because their diet is bad. Nevertheless, any common sense evaluation will tell 
us that the causation, in part, goes from poor housing to bad moral, mental and physical 
health. 

87 The material in more than one-half of the Southern farm houses in 1934 was 
unpainted wood. This was true about less than one-tenth of the farm houses in 
Northern states east of the Mississippi River. About one-third of the Southern farm 
house* had foundations in poor condition. The corresponding proportions for other 
area varied between 7 and 28 per cent. There were about the same differences in 



Footnotes 129 

regard to the condition of other parti of the house, such as exterior walk, roof*, flooi 
and to on. In regard to almost every equipment item, for which data are available 
conditions were worse in the South than they were in other regions. This was true eve: 
in regard to such conveniences and necessities as are particularly needed in the Souther: 
climate. Only a minority of the farm families in the country have bathrooms in thei 
homes, but in the South bathrooms were scarcer than they were anywhere else. Fror 
one-third to one-half of the Southern farm houses were without screens in 1934 
whereas the corresponding proportions for other regions varied between 4. and 14. pe 
cent. One-fourth of the farm houses in the country were equipped with ice boxes 
other refrigeration; in New England two-thirds of the farm houses had refrigeratio: 
of some kind. But in the South the proportion was below the national average. (Sterne 
and Associates, of. cit., p. 168.) 

88 Ibid., pp. 172-173. 

89 The average number of occupants per farm house ranged in the South from 4.6 i 
the West South Central division to 5.2 in the South Atlantic division. In Norther 
states east of the Mississippi it was about 4.4. The number of rooms per house range 
in the South from 4.2 in the West South Central area to 5.2 in the South Atlantic arei 
whereas the average for the four Northeastern divisions ranged from 6.0 to 8.9. (Ibid 
P- 1 77-) 

*° The Consumer Purchases Study, based on a sample which omits the poore: 
families, gives proportions of crowded large families, in farm areas of the South, s 
shown in the following table: 

Large Families Living in Homes With Moke Than 1.5 Persons Per Room as a Pbrcentao 
or All Laroe Farm Families, by Color and Tenure: In 1935-1936 



Area 


Owners and Tenants 
Except Croppers 


Croppers 






Negro 


White 


Negro 


Whit 


North Carolina and South Carolina 
Georgia and Mississippi 


59-4 
68.3 


27.1 
3S-° 


63-6 
60.4 


4J.7 



Source: Richard Sterner and Associate!!, The Negro's Share (1943). P- 180. Data based on U.S. Depart 
merit of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics, Consumer Purchases .Study, Urban, Village, and Farm Strie. 
Family Housing and Facilities, Five Rctions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 309 (1040). Table 36. Cot 
cerning the definition of large family, see footnote (a) of Table 3 in this chapter. 

41 Sterner and Associates, of. cit., pp. 181 and 179. 

42 One-third of the dwelling units in the urban Southeast (including the Souti 
Atlantic states, the East South Central states and Louisiana) and one-fourth of thos 
in the Southwest were without any private indoor flush toilets in 1 934-1 936, where; 
the corresponding proportion for the country as a whole was 1 5 per cent. There wer 
limilar differences in regard to other equipment items. Almost one-fourth of th 
dwelling units in the Southeast and close to one-fifth of those in the Southwest wer 
characterized as either in need of major repairs or unfit for use. The national figure- 
excluding New York City — was 16 per cent. The median dwelling unit was one o 
four rooms in the South; in other regions it was one of five rooms. The proportion 
"doubled-up" families and of crowded households was higher in the South than any 



1292 An American Dilemma 

where eke. (Sterner and Associates, of. eit., p. 186. Data bated on Peyton Stapp, Urban 
Housing i A Summary of Real Proferty Inventories Conducted as Work Projects, 
1934-36, Works Progress Administration [1938], fassim.) 

* s Sterner and Associates, of. eit., pp. 182-183. Data based on U.S. Public Health 
Service, The National Health Survey, 1935-36, Sickness and Medical Care Series, 
Bulletin No. 5 (1939), fassim. 

** The proportion of families having living quarters equipped with running hot and 
cold water, inside flush toilet, and electric lights, for Atlanta Negro families in the 
income group $1,000-$ 1,249 was only 23 per cent. For white families in the same 
income class it was 58 per cent. The corresponding figure for white families having an 
income of $750-$999 was 51 per cent; not until one comes to the lowest income group 
listed for the white population ($soo-$749) does one find a figure (24. per cent) on 
about the same level as that quoted for Negro families in the income group $1,000- 
$1,249. ^ tne same token, one has to go as high up on the Negro income scale as to 
the class $i,750-$i,999 in order to find a percentage (57 per cent) about as high as 
that for white families in the income group $1,000-$ 1,249. (U.S. Department of 
Labor, Bulletin No. 648, Vol. I, of. eit., p. 75.) 

45 Sterner and Associates, of. eit., Table 79. 

48 In Augusta, Georgia, 8 per cent of the Negro and 3 per cent of the white house- 
holds were living in dwelling units where there were more than two persons per room. 
These crowded households included 1; and 6 per cent, respectively, of the population. 
In all probability they included an even larger proportion of all minor children. (Ibid., 

P- 194) 

The statement that children are more crowded than are adults is based on the fact 
that they, to a greater extent, belong to large families. It is corroborated by Swedish 
experiences. (Myrdal, of. eit., p. 246.) The Real Property Inventories, however, do 
not contain any data on the number of children in crowded households. The important 
point about children as the main sufferers of poor housing conditions seems to have 
been overlooked in American housing statistics. 

47 U.S. Department of Labor, Bulletin No. 648, Vol. 1, of. eit., p. 26; U.S. Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics, Consumer Purchases Study, Urban 
and Village Series, Family Exfenditures for Housing and Household Oferation, Five 
Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 432 (1941), p. 86. 

48 Sterner and Associates, of. eit., p. 99. 

49 Ibid.,?. 197. 



Chapter 1 7. The Mechanics of Economic Discrimination as a Practical Problem 

1 The following experiences of the author may serve as illustrations: 
A Negro lad in Minneapolis, Minnesota, had successfully prepared himself in the 
excellent vocational school of this Midwestern city to become an electrician. As he had 
been told before he started to take these courses, he encountered difficulties in getting 
apprenticeship training and employment, in spite of the best personal recommendations 
and in spite of assistance from the local Urban League. Most of the contractors declared 
that they themselves had nothing against engaging him. They were not prejudiced, they 



Footnotes 1293 

explained, but they had to abstain on account of occasional customers who were 
prejudiced. 

1 made some inquiries and found that most housewives I questioned did not mind. 
A few stated that they felt that they rather wanted to have white workers around in the 
house when something was to be repaired. They did not realize how their slight and 
unmotivated bias had the cumulated effect of closing employment opportunities to great 
numbers of Negro youths. They were actually shocked when informed of what they 
were doing. One young lady announced that she was immediately going to take up the 
matter in the church club. 

The incident from Minneapolis could be duplicated in any similar Northern city. 
In Minneapolis at the time of my visit (Christmas, 1939) the majority of Negro 
workers was unemployed. The total Negro population was estimated to be only four 
or five thousand in a total population of half a million. The local Urban League worked 
hard to find employment outlets but with scant success. The white people I met were 
all well informed about the criminality and viciousness in the Negro slum quarters but, 
on the whole, totally ignorant about Negro unemployment. They had given practically 
no thought to the possible causal relations between economic distress and morals. 

The following example, drawn from a different line of work, also illustrates the 
ignorance of white people. A Negro clerk told Sterner that he had been unable to con- 
vince a white friend about the fact that a Negro (before the recent change in policy) 
was unable to enlist for ordinary combat service in the Navy. He had to take his white 
friend to a naval recruiting office and try to enlist in order to make the friend believe 
that his statement was correct. 

2 Cited by Earl Brown, "American Negroes and the War," Harper's Magazine 
(April, 1942) p. 551- 

8 The technique of introducing Negro labor has often been discussed during this 
war emergency. See, for instance, "The Negro's War," Fortune (June, 1942), p. 1575 
and "Found: A Million Manpower," Modern Industry (May 14, 1942), p. 31. 

4 Comparatively little good research work seems to have been made on employers' and 
workers' opinions regarding Negro labor. Some of the most noteworthy studies of 
employers' attitudes have been summarized by Charles S. Johnson (The Negro in 
American Civilization [1930]) pp. 68-86). Usually it was found that the bulk of the 
employers considered Negroes to be about as good workers as whites. There was a signif- 
icant proportion of them, however, who believed Negroes to be inferior to whites, but 
also a large number who held that they were superior to their white competitors. Indeed, 
according to some of the most significant studies, the number of those believing 
Negroes to be better than were whites was actually larger than the number of those 
who held the opposite view. These judgments referred to general efficiency at the 
place of work. In regard to regularity, punctuality, and so forth, the results were some- 
what less encouraging; the opinion that Negroes in this respect were less dependable 
than were whites, according to certain studies, was more frequently voiced by employers 
than was the opposite contention that whites were less dependable. 

A recent inquiry made by the National Industrial Conference Board (William 
Barnes O'Connor, "The Use of Colored Persons in Skilled Occupations," The Con- 
ference Board Management Record [December, 1941], pp. 156-158. Quoted by per- 
mission of the National Industrial Conference Board) gives, in part, similar results. 
The overwhelming majority, among over 1 00 employers and company officials ques- 



1494 An American Dilemma 

tuned, thought that Negroes were tboat at good at whites on comparable skilled and 
semi-skilled work; but there was a large minority who thought they were poorer than 
white*, and only a few who believed them to be superior to their white competitors. 
The judgments were particularly favorable to the Negro in regard to actual performance 
in production) 85 employers thought they were equal to whites, 12 that they were 
poorer, and 5 that they were better than whites. A minority of over 30 employers 
thought that Negroes were poorer than whites in regard to ability, skill and regularity in 
attendance. Least favorable were the judgments on general intelligence; 49 informants 
believed Negroes to be inferior to whites, and about the same number believed them 
to be equal to whites. It is interesting to find, however, that many employers char- 
acterized the problem as "distinctly individual rather than group." 

Such studies, of course, indicate merely employers' opinions — not the actual per- 
formance record of the Negro worker, and still lets his potentialities. It can be taken for 
granted that many informants voice preconceived ideas rather than findings based on 
actual measurements of the workers' performance; for some of the "experiences" quoted 
(Johnson, op. cit., p. 78, and O'Connor, op. (it., p. 158) are just familiar stereotypes 
about Negroes being particularly good at hot, greasy, dirty or other disagreeable work. 
It is a well-known fact that most managers and foremen are likely to make mistakes 
about their workers' actual ability unless they use some kind of numerical measurement 
as a basis for their judgment. Such measurements are often made, of course, but it is 
questionable how often they are used for the purpose of finding out how the range 
of Negro performance records compares with that for white workers. The fact that 
Negroes are often segregated in special occupations increases the difficulty of making 
sound comparisons of this type. 

It seems that additional research work, where these complications were given due 
consideration, would be extremely valuable. It would be of great interest, for instance, 
to find out how the opinions of those employers who have organized systematic tests 
of the abilities of Negro and white workers may diflFer from those of other employers. 
The results could be highly signiiicant, even though they, of course, would not measure 
the real potentialities of the Negro worker. 

It would be profitable, as well, to make some intensive studies of the attitudes of 

white workers. The opinion poll technique should make such inquiries fairly easy to 

organize. The emphasis should be put on how the attitudes may differ among various 

groups of white workers. Classifications according to region, sex, employment condition 

(whether unemployed or not), occupational status (unskilled, skilled, clerical worker, 

and so on), union and nonunion, craft or industrial union, and so forth would often 

give strategically significant results. It might be corroborated, for instance, that white 

women are more biased than are white men, as has already been suggested by certain 

experiences and findings (O'Connor, op. cit., p. 157). It could be ascertained to what 

extent the rank-and-file membership in the new industrial unions agrees with its leaden 

on the policy of treating Negro workers as equals. Still more important would be to find 

out about the difference in attitude among workers with various kinds of experience* of 

collaboration with Negroes (those in all-white plants; those in establishments where 

Negroes are segregated; those who compete with Negroes on equal terms). It would be 

necessary, of course, to ask not only whether the informant in general is prepared to 

let, 'Jfegfse* compete with white workers on equal terms; but also whether he would 

,_i6cefet;.4ttch competition in his own occupation and in his own workplace. 



Footnotes 1295 

■Johnson, of eit., pp. 78*79. 

•See O'Connor, of. eit., pp. 156-158. 

T Actually, there have been only few examples — and those mainly during the period 
191 5 to 1930 — when employer* have made serious attempts to make white workers 
accept Negroes as fellow workers. The instances when white-dominated labor unions 
have attempted to educate the employers to hire Negro workers have been even less 
significant. 



Chapter 1 8. Pre-War Labor Market Controls and Their Consequences for the Negro 

1 Most data on legal provisions in this section are based on Richard A. Lester, 
Economics of Labor (1940). (Mimeographed; now printed.) 

2 Virginius Dabncy, Below the Potomac (194.2), p. 114. 
8 Ibid., p. 87. 

*In 1930, a few years before the introduction of these minimum wage regulations, 
the average hourly wage for Negro male workers in Virginia manufacturing industries 
was 28 cents, as against 39 cents for white workers. The corresponding figures for Negro 
and white manufacturing workers in the female group were 1 6 and 2 1 cents, respectively. 
None of the specific industry groups which had more than a handful of Negro women 
paid as much as 25 cents an hour to Negro females. (Department of Labor and Industry, 
State of Virginia, Forty-Third Annual Report, Calendar Year 1939, Industrial Statistics 
[1941]; Thirty-fourth Annual Report, Calendar Year 1931, Industrial Statistics, 
[1932], pp. 24-26). Yet Negroes certainly had higher earnings in Virginia than in most 
other Southern states. This confirms the impression that Negroes, albeit the law's cover- 
age is particularly limited as far as they are concerned, ought to be much more affected 
by it than the whites. 

We quoted these Virginia figures because they seem to be the only data with break- 
down by race covering a whole state. (By and large, there is a greater paucity of informa- 
tion by nee in the Deep South than in the Upper South in official state reports on labor 
conditions, public welfare and so on. Actually, the more federal or private investiga- 
tions indicate the occurrence of discrimination against the Negroes, and the greater the 
proportion of Negroes in the population, the more are the Negroes forgotten in official 
state reports. There are exceptions to this rule, but the general trend is unmistakable.) 
A complete series of such wage data, by race, would be extremely valuable for the 
purpose of checking up on the enforcement of the Wages and Hours Law. Unfortunately, 
the breakdown by race in the Virginia wage statistics has been discontinued during 
recent years. Certain over-all wage data suggest, however, that by 1939 the total averages 
for both races combined in virtually all specific industries were at least up to, or in 
the neighborhood of, the 30-cent limit. This seems to be true even about certain indus- 
tries where Negro women predominate and where the wage level previously had been 
extremely low (such as where there prevailed an average rate of only 12 cents per hour 
for Negro female workers in 1930). 

One of these industries was peanut shelling and cleaning. Despite the substantial 
increase in wages, there was no tendency to displace the Negro women in this line of 
work. The candv industry, on the other hand, which started from an equally low 



t2$6 



As American Dilemma 



wage-level, had but a small minority of white workers in 1930, bat fn 1939 about half 
the workers were white, most of them women. 

The total number of Negro workers in all manufacturing industries did not decrease 
but showed a rather substantial increase, at least in the male group. Yet this has to be 
seen against the background of the tremendous expansion in Virginia manufacturing 
industries, which occurred between 1930 and- 1939. The rates of increase for all four 
color-sex groups of wage earners and the proportions of workers who were colored were: 

Fercentaoe Increase in Number op Wage Earners in Virginia Manufacturing Indus- 
tries: 1930-1939, and Percentage of Nonwhite Wage Earners: 1930-1939. 

Nonwhite White 1930 1939 

Male 23% 39% »8-3% 0.6.0% 

Female 4 3a 34.5 28.6 

Sources: Department of Labor and Industry, State of Virginia, Forty-third Annual Report, Calendar 
Year Z939, Industrial Statistics (1041); Thirty-fourth Annual Report, Calendar Year 1930, Industrial Statistics 
(I93S). PP. *4-*0- 

The facts that whites profited much more from the expansion than did Negroes, 
and that the proportion of Negro workers declined, particularly among women, was 
probably not all due to the improved working conditions and the increased competition 
brought about by the unemployment among whites. But, unless we are much mistaken, 
those circumstances must have been operating as important contributing factors. 

6 Such a program has been developed in Cincinnati. One of the main "selling points" 
was that employers should hire local labor rather than allow unemployed workers with 
legal residence in the community to become public charges. (Information from Dr. 
Lorin A. Thompson, who formerly was connected with this program.) 

6 The National Labor Union of the i86o's represented the first noteworthy endeavor 
to unite all organized labor on a national basis. The leadership showed a liberal attitude 
toward Negroes, but, in order not to alienate monopolistically inclined groups of white 
workers, it tolerated separate unions for Negroes and whites, probably even outright 
exclusion of Negroes. Negroes sometimes met in separate state and national conventions. 
The union's interest in organizing a political labor party interested Negroes even less 
than whites; this interest eventually contributed to the union's downfall after a few 
years. The Industrial Congress of 1873, on tfte other hand, foreshadowed the principle 
of "trade unionism pure and simple" of the American Federation of Labor, but it was 
soon destroyed by the big depression which started the same year. Negroes were hardly 
at all represented in these efforts. 

The Knights of Labor originally started as a secret order in 1 869, but did not grow 
into importance until the 1880's. It again manifested a liberal attitude toward Negroes, 
and soon met enthusiastic response from them. It was the goal of the Knights to 
organize and develop a general working class solidarity of all workers. Those who did 
not belong to trade unions were organized in local assemblies. Several of these local 
assemblies were segregated, however, and the Knights had little power to combat the 
tendency of ordinary trade unions, composed mainly of skilled workers, to organize 
Negroes into separate unions.* 

*Tfic historical notes are based mainly on Sterling D. Spero and Abram L. Harris, Thi 
Stiti Worker (1931), particularly pp. 23-47. 



Footnotes 1297 

The craft unions, mainly composed of the labor aristocracy of skilled workers, 
became Increasingly dissatisfied with the all-inclusive objectives of the Knights. Already 
in 1881, before the Knights had reached their peak, the craft unions had organized - 
special federation of their own, which in 1886 withdrew from the Knights and 
adopted the name "American Federation of Labor" (A.F. of L.). After this, the 
Knights of Labor disintegrated. The development toward craft unionism naturally hit 
the Negroes more than the whites, not only on account of their race, but also because 
they were mainly unskilled workers. The A.F. of L. was not left completely unchal- 
lenged during the whole period before the institution of the C.I.O. There were some 
attempts to organize workers on the basis of a common, nonracial and nondiscriminatory, 
working class solidarity. The most noteworthy example is the syndicalist group, Inter- 
national Workers of the World (I.W.W.), which was started in 1905 and lasted until 
the early 'twenties. It meant something for Negroes in lumber and longshore work in 
certain areas of the South. With such exceptions, however, it was the American Federa- 
tion of Labor and the independent Railroad Brotherhoods which governed organized 
labor during the long period from the early 1 890's until the middle of the 1 930's. 

The A.F. of L. was never an association of craft unions only. Some unions were 
organized on an industrial basis, at least in name, but in some cases also in fact. In the 
latter group we find those few unions — for instance, the United Mine Workers' Union 
and the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union — which during the entire 
period of their existence have recognized the necessity of including the Negro on the 
basis of equality, and also, in spite of certain unavoidable racial frictions and with some 
limitations, have succeeded in giving the Negro a square deal. It must also be recognized 
that part of the failure of the Federation to organize a more substantial proportion of 
all wage earners was due to the energetic anti-union work of the employers. During the 
decade before the First World War there was a series of vicious intimidations. It was 
during this time that one of the presidents of the National Association of Manufac- 
turers expressed the belief that "the American Federation of Labor is engaged in an 
open warfare against Jesus Christ and His cause."" The 'twenties brought a new attack 
from the employers in the form of labor espionage, blacklisting, strike-breaking, 
violence. This was also the heyday of the company unions, which by 1928 had about 
1,500,000 members. 1 * 

These circumstances, however, should not be allowed to overshadow the fact that the 
Federation, by and large, has been governed by the craft spirit, and that its main pur- 
pose has been to regulate the monopolistic competitive interests of the crafts. Its. 
principal business was not to fight for labor in general. It was to draw the jurisdictional 
borderlines among it" various member groups by means of the "charter." This explains 
why mass production industries, like steel and automobiles, were practically unorganized 
until the C.I.O. was instituted in 1935. The policy of the Federation was that the mass 
production workers were to be divided among the crafts. But this could be done only 
if they were first organized on an industrial basis, and then there was the danger that 
they would like to stay organized that way. This was exactly what finally happened, 
and the Committee for Industrial Organization (C.I.O.) c grew out of the resistance 

* Richard A. Lester, of. cit., p. 310. 
" Ibid., p. 313. 

'In 1938, the name of the Committee for Industrial Organization was changed to Con- 
gress of Industrial Organizations. 



i $9$ An American Dilemma 

of the newly organized industrial worker* against the attempts of the crafts to take 
them over.* 

7 On this matter we may quote Paul H. Norgren: 

"From its very beginning, the Federation hai professed adherence to the principle of 
racial equality. Time and again it has 'resolved,' and its leaden have reaffirmed that it 
knows no color bar, and that 'the workers mast unite and organize' irrespective of race 
or creed. 

"For a few yean immediately after its formation, the leaden of the Federation 
apparently made an attempt to enforce this principle. Thus the Executive Council, in 
an early publication, states that 'a union that [draws the color line] cannot be admitted 
into affiliation with this body.' (Quoted by Spero and Harris, of. eit., p. 88.) However, 
the dictates of expediency and the desire for increased membership soon gained the 
upper hand, with the result that in 189; the International Association of Machinists, a 
strictly Negro-excluding body, was admitted as a full-fledged affiliate. 

". . . there is no way of knowing whether the Federation will in the future attempt 
... to bring an end to racial discrimination by its constituent unions. The present 
writer, for one, is extremely skeptical as to the possibilities. There was some hope in 
this direction in earlier years, when several large industrial unions, including the 
United Mine Workers, and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, were still affiliated with 
the Federation. But after the expulsion of these unions in 1937, the craft union leaders 
came into virtually complete control of the Federation. . . . 

"It is, in fact, abundantly clear even to the casual student of the labor movement in 
this country, that one of the principal functions of the American Federation of Labor, 
as it exists today, is to provide a centralized source of pious propaganda through which 
the craft unions which control it can issue frequent public reassurances of their firm 
adherence to the principles of democracy, equality, and unity among the laboring 
masses, while at the same time they continue with impunity to practice exclusionism and 
restriction of job opportunities in their own particular fields. . . . The 'control make-up' 
of the Federation is well adapted to this Jekyll-Hyde role. The Executive Council — 
which makes all the important decisions concerning policy — is made up principally of 
the heads of the craft unions which, in one way or another, practice racial discrimina- 
tion." (Paul H. Norgren and Associates, "Negro Labor and Its Problems," unpublished 
manuscript, prepared for this study [1940], pp. 303-308, -passim.) 

Making a survey of the Negro-excluding unions within and without the Federation, 
Norgren says: 

"No less than twenty American trade unions explicitly exclude Negroes from mem- 
bership, either by constitutional provision or in their rituals. Only eleven of these, 
however, are of any appreciable importance from the standpoint of barring Negroes 
from jobs. . . . The eleven larger unions include the Boilermakers, the Machinists, the 
Commercial Telegraphers, the Railroad Telegraphers, the Railway Mail Clerks, the 
Railway Clerks and Freight Handlers, the Switchmen, the Firemen and Enginemen, 
the Trainmen, the Conductors, and the Locomotive Engineers. ... In addition, five 
unions — the Electricians, the Plumbers and Steamfitters, the Bridge and Structural 
Iron Workers, the Granite Cutters, and the Flint Glass Workers — exclude Negroes 
by tacit agreement." (Hid., pp. 300-301.) 

'Sea, for instance, J. Raymond Walsh, C.l.O. Industrial Unionism in Action (1937), 
pp. aK.47. 



Footnotes 1299 

It should be noted that ilmoit all the Negro-excluding union! are either A.F. of L. 
affiliates or independent railroad brotherhoods. (See Florence Murray [editor], The 
Negro Handbook [194.2], pp. 134-135.) 

These are the cases of complete exclusion. But most other craft unions show more or 
less partial discrimination: 

"Most of the other national craft unions, while they do not bar Negroes from 
their ranks, either curtail their rights and privilegei within the union, or allow their 
local components to do so. Thus the national rules of the Motion Picture Operators, 
the Blacksmiths and Drop Forgers, the Sheet Metal Workers, and the Maintcnance-of- 
Way Employees (an unskilled craft union) permit the organization of colored workers 
in 'auxiliary' locals, but prohibit them from having any voice in union affairs. And if 
they are subjected to unfair or arbitrary treatment by the employers, their only means 
of obtaining redress is to request the officials of the 'regular' (white) local to present 
their grievances for them. . . . 

"The Carpenters and the Painters do not have any constitutional provisions or other 
explicitly stated roles in their national set-up providing for the exclusion or segregation 
of colored workers. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of discrimination against 
Negroes among the locals of both these unions which, while not openly sanctioned, is 
always tacitly condoned by the central organizations. The national leadership of the 
Bricklayers' Union, on the other hand, has on * number of occasions attempted to 
enforce racial equality in the constituent bodies. As far as the writer has been able to 
learn, however, these attempts have been sporadic, and not very vigorous; and there 
are still a number of local bricklayers' organizations which openly practice discrimina- 
tion." (Norgren and Associates, op. cit., p. 302.) 

More recently (September, 1 94.2) Northrup has classified the unions according to 
degree of discrimination and nondiscrimination as follows: 

"Unions excluding Negroes by ritual — (1.) International Association of Machinists 
(A.F.L.) 

"Unions excluding Negroes by constitution, — (1) Masters, Mates, and Pilots; 

(2) Commercial Telegraphers; (3) Railroad Telegraphers; (4) Railway Mail Associa- 
tion; (5) Switchmen's Union; (6) Airline Pilots; (7) Sleeping Car Conductors; 
(8) Wire Weavers; (all A.F.L.) ; (9) American Federation of Railroad Workers; 
(10) Locomotive Engineers; (11) Locomotive Firemen and Engincmen; (12) Rail- 
road Trainmen; (13) Railway Conductors; (14) Train Dispatchers; (15) Railroad 
Yardmasters of America; (16) Railroad Yardmasters of North America; (all inde- 
pendents). 

"Unions which generally refuse admittance to Negroes by tacit consent: — (1) Broth- 
erhood of Electrical Workers; (2) Journeymen Plumbers and Steamfitters; (3) Asbestos 
Workers, Heat and Frost Insulators; (4) Granite Cutters; (5) Flint Glass Workers} 
(all A.F.L.). 

"Unions which provide Negroes with Jim Crow auxiliary status which gives them 
the privilege of paying dues but no say in the organization — (1) Boilermakers, Iron 
Ship Builders, Welders and Helpers; (2) Blacksmiths, Drop Forgers, and Helpers; 

(3) Railway Carmen; (4) Railway and Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express 
and Station Employees; (5) Maintenance of Way Employees; (6) Federation of Rural 
Letter Carriers; (all A.F.L.) (7) Rural Letter Carriers' Association (Independent)." 
(Herbert R. Northrup, unpublished memorandum made available by the courtesy of the 



1300 An American Dilemma 

author [September, 1942]; this memorandum is to be incorporated in a forthcoming 
article.) 

8 The C.I.O. has, however, demanded that the A.F. of L. take positive steps to 
eliminate racial discrimination before any alliance between the two organizations can 
be reached. 

• Richard A. Lester, of. cit., p. 309. 

10 See the reports by the La Follettc Committee: Violations of Free Speech mi 
Assembly and Interference with Rights of Labor. Hearings before a Subcommittee of 
the Committee on Education and Labor. United States Senate, Second Session on 
S. Res. 266, Washington, 1936, passim; Oppressive Labor Practices Act. Hearings 
before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor, United States Senate, 
Seventy-sixth Congress, first session on S. 1970, Washington, 1939, passim. 

11 Concerning the widespread use of violence as a weapon in labor strikes in the 
South, Virginius Dabney writes: 

"It is interesting to note, on the basis of material gathered by Dr. Arthur Raper of 
Atlanta, that far more strikers and labor organizers were killed in the South in the period 
immediately preceding the birth of the C.I.O. than subsequently. In 1929 and 1 930, 
when Gastonia and Marion were in the headlines and the first great textile strike was 
on, seven strikers and one police chief were slain. In 1934 and 1935, no fewer than 
forty-two Southern laborers and organizers were killed in strikes. In 1936 and 1937, 
with the coming of the C.I.O., only five workers and organizers were killed in Southern 
labor disorders; the total for 1938 and 1939 was 14, while the figure for 1940 and 
1 94 1 is six. But while slayings have become less numerous, beatings have increased, and 
organizers are all too frequently set upon by company deputies, sometimes accom- 
panied by irate citizens, or by non-union workers who have been persuaded, whether 
rightly or wrongly, that unionization will bankrupt their employers." (Dabney, op. cit., 

P- I3I-) 

12 "How Democratic are Labor Unions?" Harper's Magazine (May, 1942), pp. 
655-662. 

13 Ibid., p. 662. 

"Herbert R. Northrup, "Negro Labor and Union Policy," unpublished Ph.D. 
thesis, Harvard University (1942), pp. 408-409. 

Norgren describes two of the state laws against race discrimination: 
"The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act of 1937 contains a clause stipulating that 
unions which exclude workers from membership because of their color shall be denied 
the protection of the State Labor Relations Board. (Correspondence with Reginald A. 
Johnson of the Urban League of Pittsburgh, July, 1940.) In January, 1940, the New 
York state legislature passed a law expressly forbidding unions to 'deny a person or 
persons membership ... by reason of race, color or creed.' A union which violates this 
statute is subject to court action, and the aggrieved person may recover up to $500 for 
the injury. In addition, union officers or members found guilty of violating the law are 
subject to fine or imprisonment. . . . According to the above-mentioned correspondent, 
the Pennsylvania anti-discrimination clause has up to now been almost completely 
ineffective, owing largely to the difficulty of finding 'a dispute under a clear cut 
circumstance where the racial clause of the Act can be put into effect.' The New York 
Act is still too new to permit of appraising its effectiveness or otherwise." (Norgren and 
Associates, of, cit., p. 307.) 



Footnotes 



130. 



Chapter 19. The War Boom — and Thereafter 

1 A rtndy made by the Work Projects Administration indicates unequivocally that, 
it least until the latter half of 1941, Negroes were grossly under-represented among the 
in-migrants to certain large cities including many primary war production areas. 
(See table in this footnote.) This was true in the North as well as in the South. In 
most cases there were not even half as many Negroes among those moving to the cities 
as among those already in the cities. This means that the war boom had reversed an 
earlier migration trend. While the Negro population until 1940 had been increasing 
faster than the white population in urban areas, both in the North and in the South, 
during this early stage of the defense boom, it was the white population that showed 
the most rapid growth. This pattern was, of course, wholly different from that during 
the First World War. 

Conditions may have changed somewhat since the fall of 194.1. The Bureau of 
Employment Security reports in September, 1942, that: 

"These developments [the federal government's stand on discrimination and coopera- 
tion by some industries] have resulted in some slight increases in Negro employment from 
3.5 percent in May to 4.7 percent in July of employment in the major war manufactur- 
ing establishments. ... It is reported [however] that many employers in war production 
industries plan to continue their discriminatory policy until other available sources of 
labor are exhausted. This appears to be true especially of the aircraft, ordnance, rubber 

Percentage or Nonwhites in the Total Population, 1940, and Among Recent In-migrants 
According to Surveys Made Durino the Latter Halt of 1941, in Selected Cities* 





Percentage of 




Percentage 


of 




Nonwhite Persons 


City 


Nonwhit 


:ePei 


rsons 


City 


In Total 


Among recent 


In Total 


Among recent 




Population 


ln-migrants 




Population 


In- 


migrants 


North and West 






North and West 






Bridgeport 


3 


1 


(cont.) 








Philadelphia 


13 


6 


San Diego 


3 




i 


Pittsburgh 


9 


8 


Los Angeles 


6 




3 


Dayton 


10 


5 


Oakland 


5 




3 


Indianapolis 


U 


4 










South Bend 


4 


a 


South 








Detroit 


9 


4 


Baltimore 


19 




11 


Dea Moines 


4 


(b) 


Washington, D.C. 


19 




7 


Wichita 


5 


2 


Norfolk 


3* 




>4 


Seattle 


4 


(M 


Atlanta 


35 




16 


San Francisco 


5 


(b) 


Nashville 


28 




8 


Long Beach 





1 


Oklahoma City 
Houston 
St. Louis 


10 
22 
13 




1 

7 
3 



Source: Migration figures furnished by courtesy of Work Project! Adminatration, Division of Research; 
Population figures from Sixteenth Census if the United States: IQ40. PopuSalion. Preliminary Release, Sena* 
P-5, No. 10. , . . . 

• The data on in-migrants are based on rather small samples. The figures for individual cities, there- 
fore, should not be stressed as much as the fact that virtually all data give about the same general impression 
of Negroes being under-represented among the in-miiirants. 

k Leas than 0.5 per cent. 



1302 An American Dilemma 

products, electrical machinery, machinery, and textile-mill product* industries." (Federal 
Security Agency, Social Security Board, Bureau of Employment Security, The Labor 
Market [September, 1942], p. 13.) 

* At the close of the First World War about 39,000 Negroes were employed in plants 
under the jurisdiction of the United States Shipping Board. (George E. Haynes, The 
Negro at Work During the World War and During Reconstruction [1921] p. $8. 
Quoted by Robert C. Weaver in "Racial Employment Trends in National Defense," 
Part I, Phylon [Fourth Quarter, 1941], p. 34.2.) 

"The Federal Security Agency, as late as June, 1942, made the following signifi* 
cant statements: 

"In April, 1940, Negroes constituted 9.8 per cent of the population, 1 0.7 per cent 
of the Nation's labor force, and 12.5 per cent of the unemployed. Since 1940 Negroes 
have constituted an increasing proportion of the unemployed — during the past year 
from 15 to 20 per cent — because industry has recruited its vnr workers almost exclu- 
sively from among the white labor force." {The Labor Market [June, 1942], p. 10.) 
And: 

"Over 500,000 Negroes who should be utilized for war production arc now idle 
because of the discriminatory hiring practices of war industries. In addition, several 
million other Negroes engaged in unskilled occupations are prevented from making a 
greater contribution to the war effort because employers, with few exceptions, are 
unwilling to train and promote them to jobs of higher skills. Persistent discrimination 
is accentuating the shortage of labor in areas where acute problems already exist. Dis- 
criminatory hiring practices in these areas result in the recruitment of white in-migrants 
while Negroes remain unemployed. With the influx of outside workers into these cities 
housing, transportation, health, educational and sanitation facilities in many localities 
have become inadequate and local problems have increased." {Ibid., p. 9.) 

4 Lester B. Granger of the National Urban League (interview, August 10, 1942) 
emphasized particularly the reasons given under (1), (2) and (4). Paul H. Norgren 
of the War Production Board, Labor Division, stressed especially the declining need 
for unskilled labor (interview, August 3, 1942). 

"During the depression of the 1930'$ employers could set almost any combination 
of job specifications and still be assured an ample supply of applicants. As a result, 'native, 
Protestant, white,' came to be a fairly widespread personal qualification for employ- 
ment. Maintenance of such qualifications not only contradicts democratic principles 
but in the present situation also greatly intensifies disruptive recruiting practices and 
encourages unnecessary migration of unskilled as well as skilled workers. Discrimina- 
tion by one company has resulted in over 40 per cent of its 34,000 workers coming from 
outside the State while there yet remains a large number of unemployed Negroes in 
the local community who could have been trained and hired." {The Labor Market 
[May, 1942], p. 6.) 

6 For a report of alleged Ku Klux Klan activity in the U.A.W. in Detroit, see PM 
(February 13, I94«)» P- H- 

7 Again we may quote the Federal Security Agency: 

"Moreover, the bulk of placements of Negroes was concentrated in service and 
unskilled occupational groups. In the first quarter of 1941 only 51 per cent of all white 
placements, as against 90 per cent of all Negro placements were made in service and 
unskilled occupations. In the first quarter of 1942 the corresponding proportions were 



FOOTKOTW 1303 

$3 per cent and 93 per cent. ... In the first quarter of 1941 16 per cent of all white 
placement! compared to 1.9 per cent of all nonwhite placements were made in either 
skilled or professional occupations. In the first quarter of 1942 the corresponding pro- 
portions were I4..6 per cent of all white placements, and only i.z per cent of all non- 
white placements." (The Labor Market [June, 1942], p. n.) 

These figures, however, are not quite representative. It appears that the Employment 
Service handles a larger part of the turnover in unskilled than in skilled occupations. 
A comparison with Edwards' classification indicates that there is a much higher propor- 
tion of skilled, clerical, and professional workers in the total labor force than in the 
Employment Service placements. (U. S. Bureau of the Census, Alba M. Edwards, 
Social-Economic Grouping of the Gainful Workers in the United States, 1930 [1938], 
p. 7.) The Employment Service data, furthermore, cannot cover promotions of workers 
within an establishment. 

8 War Production Board, Statistics Division, "State Distribution of War Supply and 
Facility Contracts, June 1940 through May 1942" (mimeographed, June 30, 1 942). 

• Robert C. Weaver, "Racial Employment Trends in National Defense," Part II, 
Phy/on (First Quarter, 1942), p. 28; Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, 
Bureau of Employment Security, Negro Workers and the National Defense Program 
(September 16, 1 941), p. 5; Robert C. Weaver, "With the Negro's Help," Atlantic 
Monthly (June, 1942), pp. 699-700; interviews with Lester B. Granger, Executive 
Secretary, National Urban League (August 10, 1942), and Paul H. Norgren, War 
Production Board, Labor Division (August 3, 1942). 

10 "Throughout the country there was a heavy demand for unskilled labor needed 
for the construction of airports, military cantonments, barracks. . . . Negro unskilled 
labor shared substantially in these employment opportunities and benefited by the wage 
rates paid on these projects, which were generally higher than wages usually earned in 
unskilled work. 

"The extraordinary demand for skilled construction workers, particularly carpenters 
. . . resulted in many job opportunities particularly for union members. There is evi- 
dence, however, that in some localities, in spite of the acute shortage of carpenters, 
Negroes were not employed. In skilled building trades occupations other than carpenters 
and cement finishers, and to some extent, bricklayers and masons, there is no evidence 
that discriminatory practices were being noticeably relaxed," (Negro Workers and the 
National Defense Program, p. 5.) 

Weaver ("Racial Employment Trends in National Defense," Part I, pp. 352-356) 
cites a number of instances where Negro carpenters have been employed on defense 
projects — and others where they have not been able to get in. As a result of increased 
employment there was a growth in the number and strength of Negro carpenters' locals. 

Some other building crafts, however, have maintained a more consistent exclusionistic 
policy. The President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice found in 1942 that 
the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers' Union excluded Negroes from membership; that 
the Union for several years had had a written agreement with the Plumbing Contractors' 
Association of Chicago, according to which the contractors were to accept as workers 
on certain defense projects (Great Lakes Naval Training Station and the Cabrini Hous- 
ing Project) only plumbers who were members of the union; and that Negroes, for 
this reason, had been unable to work as plumbers on those projects. The Committee 
directed that these practices be abolished. ("Summary of Hearings on Complainti of 



1304 An American Dilemma 

Negro Plumben against the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers' Union Local 1 30 held in 
Chicago, Illinois, April 4, 1942, before the President's Committee on Fair Employ- 
ment Practice, with Findings and Directions" [mimeographed, 1942].) It goes without 
saying that this is just one example of barriers instituted by some of the unions in the 
building trades. 

11 In the female group only six-tenths of I per cent of all placements in defense 
industries made by the Employment Service, during the period October, 1 940, through 
March, 1941, were nonwhite. On the other hand, for all male and female defense and 
nondefense placements taken together, the Negro's share amounted to about 20 per cent. 
It should be considered, however, that only a part of the newly hired workers were 
recruited through the Employment Service. {Negro Workers and the National Defense 
Program, p. 10.) 

12 Only 1 9 per cent of all the hiring that was planned for the period September, 
1 941, to February, 1942, was to occur in plants where Negroes were represented in 
the labor force. Even in the South more than two-thirds of the anticipated expansion 
referred to establishments which barred the Negro entirely. To be sure, several 
employers indicated their willingness to start hiring Negroes, but it is evident that a 
great number of them were just paying lip-service to government regulations. What makes 
their statements particularly suspect is the fact that the expressed readiness to change 
policies was particularly pronounced in the case of professional, managerial and skilled 
workers. (Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, Bureau of Employment 
Security, "Survey of Employment Prospects for Negroes," undated mimeographed 
release.) 

18 White placements through the Employment Service in 1 8 selected war industries 
tripled from the last quarter of 1940 to the beginning of 1942, whereas Negro place- 
ments in the same industries increased by only 80 per cent. (The Labor Market [June, 
1942], p. 1 1.) These data give strong support to the theory that the proportion of Negro 
workers in the war industries has actually declined. However, since it is uncertain what 
relation there is between Employment Service placements and total placements, the 
evidence is not quite conclusive. It is possible, for instance, that there has been a 
greater increase in the utilization of the Employment Service for white workers than 
there has been for Negro workers. 

14 "Not always, however, are the employment practices of shipyards the obstacle to 
maximum utilization of local labor supplies. A city ordinance in Miami, Florida, for 
example, prohibits Negroes from working in skilled and semiskilled occupations in 
sections of the city other than Negro and has consequently affected shipbuilding expan- 
sion in the area. Negro boatbuilder and joiner trainees, needed in the local yards, 
cannot be hired because of this ordinance." (The Labor Market [June, 1942], p. 14. 
See also: ibid., p. 10; Weaver, "With the Negro's Help," pp. 700-791 ; and the National 
Urban League, "The Integration of Negroes into Defense Training and Employment. 
The Barriers faced, the Progress made," typescript [February 1 7, 1942]. This source 
indicates, for instance, that the number of Negro workers at the Charleston Nary Yard 
increased during 1941 from 453, or 9.$ per cent of the total, to 1,302, or 17.7 per 
cent. The number of Negro workers at the Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, 
had, by November, 1941, increased to about 6,0O0, or 23 per cent. Supplementary 
information from Mr. Lester B. Granger of the National Urban League, interview 
[August 10, 1942].) 



Footnotes 1305 

18 The Burean of Employment Security observe*, with respect to the ordnance 
industry: 

"Hiring of Negroes is not commensurate with rapidly expanding job opportunities, 
and it is doubtful that there will be a general acceptance of Negro workers in the near 
future. Jobs filled by Negroes at present arc chiefly in the custodial services and in the 
unskilled categories, with few instances of upgrading reported. Virtually every impor- 
tant employer has indicated that hiring of nonwhites will begin 'when necessary,' that 
is when the supply of white workers is exhausted. Employment prospects for Negroes in 
southern war plants, even as unskilled workers, are limited, due to the availability of a 
large pool of whites. Almost without exception, job opportunities for Negroes are 
negligible in the large ordnance plants of the Great Lakes and Middle Atlantic States." 
{The Labor Market [June, 1942], p. 15. See also other sources cited in the preceding 
footnote.) 

16 There are certain instructions issued, after conferences with unions and employers, 
by the Office of Production Management (September 17, 1 941) and jointly by the 
War Manpower Commission and the War Production Board (Jane f 8, 1942), regulat- 
ing the seniority rights of workers moved from one production line to another, or from 
one establishment to another within the industry. 

17 Interview with Lloyd H. Bailer of the War Production Board, Labor Division 
(August 2-3, 1942). See also Lester B. Granger, "Negroes in War Production," Survey 
Graf hie (November, 1942), p. 544. 

18 The Labor Market (June, 1942), p. IO; and Weaver, "With the Negro's Help," 
p. 701. 

19 The Richmond Timet-Disfatch, for instance, carried a series of articles on the sub- 
ject during the winter of 1940-1941. Among the most noteworthy pamphlets arc: 
Council for Democracy, The Negro and Defense (1941); Frank R. Crosswaith and 
Alfred Baker Lewis, "Discrimination, Incorporated," Social Action (January 15, 1942); 
Earl Brown and George R. Leigh ton, The Negro and the War, Public Affairs Pam- 
phlet No. 71 (1942); The National Urban League, "Report of Progress in the War 
Employment of Negro Labor" (mimeographed, July, 1942). Prominent magazine 
articles are: "The Negro's War," Fortune (June, 1942), pp. 77-80, 157-164; "Found: 
A Million Manpower," Modern Industry (May 15, 1942), pp. 28-3 1; Earl Brown, 
"American Negroes and the War," Harfer's Magazine (April, 1942), pp. 545-572; 
Stanley High, "How the Negro Fights for Freedom," Readers Digest (July, 1942), 
pp. 1 1 3-1 1 8. Walter White, "It's Our Country, Too," The Saturday Evening Post 
(December 14, 1940), pp. 27 and 61-68. See, also, other sources cited in this and 
the preceding Section. 

20 The National Defense Advisory Commission instituted a special Department of 
Negro Affairs in its Labor Division in July, 1942. In August, the N.D.A.C. made a 
statement to the effect that defense workers should not be discriminated against because 
of age, sex or race. This declaration was backed up by the President in September and 
by Congress in October, 1940. A few days later the N.D.A.C. reached an agreement 
with the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the American Federation of Labor 
to the effect that all trade union barriers against the Negro should be removed. In 
November, 1940, the U. S. Commissioner of Education urged those in charge of public 
defense training programs to consider the nondiscrimination clause in existing defense 
training legislation. In April, 1941, a Negro Employment and Training Branch was 



1306 An American Dilemma 

instituted in the Office of Production Management, later the War Production Board. 
During 1942 it was moved to the War Manpower Commission. (President's Committee 
on Fair Employment Practice, Negro Employment and Training Branch, Labor Divi- 
sion, O.P.M., Minority Groups Branch, Labor Division, O.P.M., "Minorities in 
Defense" [1941], pp. 10-12.) 

21 Brown, "American Negroes and the War," pp. 548-5 50. 

22 The President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice was originally set up u 
a division within the Office of Production Management. Later it became independent. 
In 1942, it was moved over to the War Manpower Commission. 

23 Lester Granger points ont that allowing the Committee to fine employers who 
discriminate would give them an effective method of control. ("Negroes in War Produc- 
tion, p. 470.) 

24 Brown and Lcighton, of. cit., pp. 26-27. 

28 On September 6, 1 94 1, the President issued a second, and much stronger, condem- 
nation of discrimination, but this one applied to federal government agencies only. 

Mr. Roosevelt's new letter "to heads of all departments and independent establish- 
ments" read: 

"It has come to my attention that there is in the Federal establishment a lack of 
uniformity and possibly some lack of sympathetic attitude toward the problems of 
minority groups, particularly those relating to the employment and assignment of 
Negroes in the Federal civil service. 

"With a view to improving the situation, it is my desire that all departments and 
independent establishments in the Federal Government make a thorough examination 
of their personnel policies and practices to the end that they may be able to assure me 
that in the Federal service the doors of employment are open to all loyal and qualified 
workers regardless of creed, race or national origin. 

"It is imperative that we deal with this problem speedily and effectively. I shall look 
for immediate steps to be taken by all departments and independent establishments of 
the government to facilitate and put into effect this policy of non-discrimination in 
Federal employment." 

26 Brown and Leighton, of. cit., p. 27. During the winter .of 1 94 1 it happened that 
about 200 Negro stenographers and typists hired by the War Department had to spend 
their time in enforced idleness since most office heads refused to use their services. 
(Hid., p. 19.) 

It seems that many hiring officials in federal offices have recourse to various tricks 
when they find out that they have employed a Negro. There are numerous stories told 
by Negroes about how, when they report for work, they are told that "some mistake 
must have been made," and a technical excuse is found for dismissing them. Hiring 
officials have even been accused of asking the Negro for the letter of employment — and 
then keeping it, leaving the employee without proof of his employment. According to 
one white informant who has collected material on practices in various federal offices, 
one of the most usual tricks is based on the fact that job descriptions are often oral. They 
Can simply be changed when the hired persons turns out to be a Negro. (For instance, a 
secretary who is good at typing, but less well trained in taking dictation, is told that 
dictation it the main part of the job.) The use of detailed, written job descriptions is 
the only answer in such cases. The same informant believed that it would not be impas- 
sible Wen to overcome the discriminations in dismissals made possible by the stipula- 



Footnotes 1307 

turn of a probationary period. "When you fire a veteran, yon have to show cause. When 
you fire a Negro, you don't have to." (Interview, August 3, 1942.) See also, Granger, 
"Negroes in War Production," pp. 471 and 543. 

* T In addition there were the so-called supplementary courses, where Negroes, during 
the same period, constituted but 1.7 per cent of the total. (Negro Workers and the 
National Defense Program, pp. 17-18; The Labor Market [June, 1942], p. n.) It is 
a well-known fact that Negroes are under-represented on most in-plant training programs 
organized by employers. The Work Projects Administration and the National Youth 
Administration, on the other hand, have, to a comparatively large extent, included them 
in their war work training programs. (High, of. cit., p. 1 1 5.) 

28 For the whole South the percentages of nonwhites among those referred to such 
courses and projects was only 7.; per cent, although 26.2 per cent of the total Southern 
labor force in 1940 was nonwhite. The corresponding figures for the rest of the nation 
were 2.9 and 4.8 per cent, respectively, indicating a much smaller discrepancy. (Federal 
Security Agency, Social Security Board, Bureau of Employment Security, "Vocational 
Training Activities of Public Employment Offices, January, 1942," mimeographed; 
Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population, Preliminary Releases, Series 
P-4, No. 4, and P-4a, Nos. 14 to 16.) 

Workers are referred to these training courses by the Employment Service. The latest 
instructions issued by the Bureau of Employment Security to local offices have the fol- 
lowing rather unfortunate formulation: 

". . . it is the policy of the United States Employment Service ... to fill requisitions 
for trainees without regard to race, color, creed or national origin, except in those 
States where separate educational facilities for whites and Negroes are required bv law, 
namely . . ." [Eighteen Southern and Border states enumerated.] (Federal Security 
Agency, Social Security Board, Bureau of Employment Security, "U.S.E.S. Operations 
Bulletin No. C-45" [July 1, 1942], p. 2.) 

The intention, of course, is just to acknowledge the segregation in the Southern educa- 
tional system. The formulation, however, leaves the door open for almost any kind of 
discrimination. 

28 Journal and Guide, Norfolk, Virginia (February 28, 1942). 

80 Information from Lester B. Granger, National Urban League (August 10, 1 942). 
According to Mr. Granger all Southern states, except Georgia, have Negro Employment 
Service offices. 

""U.S.E.S. Operations Bulletin, No. C-45," PP- *-3- 

82 The recommendations and requirements sent out by the U.S.E.S. to its local offices 
included the following injunctions: 

". . . it is the policy of the United States Employment Service: . . . 

(2) To make definite effort to persuade employers to eliminate specifications which 
prevent the consideration of local qualified workers because of their race, color, creed, 
or national origin . . . 

"(3) To omit discretionary specifications from advertising sponsored or approved by 
the United States Employment Service: 

"(4) To report to the Director of the United States Employment Service for appro- 
priate disposition each instance in which an employer refuses to relax discriminatory 
specifications; 

"(5) To refuse to make referrals on employer orders which include discriminatory 



1308 An American Dilemma 

specifications in those states where soch specifications are contrary to State law; . . ." 
{Ibid., p. 2.) 

88 The war housing work, for a long time, was extremely uncoordinated, particularly 
from a local viewpoint. This was due, largely, to the fact that the local Housing Author- 
ities were kept from leadership since they worked under the auspices of the United 
States Housing Authority which happened to be rather unpopular in Congress. Most of 
these organizational difficulties, however, have been overcome since the integration of 
all public housing programs under the National Housing Agency in 1942. 

84 The following description of the conditions in the Negro section of Norfolk, 
Virginia, in the spring of 1942 is pertinent in this context: 

"Three recent field trips to the area have convinced the writer that there is an 
immediate demand for dormitory accommodations. All rooming houses are overcrowded. 
Such community agencies as the Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tions have canvassed the city for spare rooms that residents would be willing to rent 
out to new-comers. All available sleeping space has been utilized: porches have been 
closed in, two and three double beds have been placed in rooms, couches have been 
placed in halls, and as many as 35 men a night can be found sleeping in chairs or on the 
floor of the recreation room of the Y.M.C.A. It is difficult to find single accommoda- 
tions. A man has to share his bed with a second occupant. The 'hot bed' practice of sleep- 
ing men in shifts without a change of linen has been reported . . ." (Lyonel C. Florant, 
Population Study, Virginia State Planning Board, "Memorandum re: Negro Housing 
in Norfolk, Virginia," typescript [June 3, 1942], p. 3.) 

88 Information from Miss Corienne K. Robinson, National Housing Agency, Federal 
Public Housing Administration (letter, [August 28, 1942]). 

86 See, for instance, Emmett J. Scott, The American Negro in the World War 
(1919), pp. 77-78. 

87 Monroe N. Work (editor), Negro Year Book, 1031-32 (1931), pp. 327-334. 
Negro soldiers were used on both sides in the Revolutionary War — often in unsegregated 
outfits. There were almost 180,000 Negro troops on the Union side in the Civil War; 
some fought on the Confederate side. During the First World War there were 380,000 
Negroes in the Army. About 200,000 Negro soldiers were sent to France. Most of these 
were in labor battalions and service units; only 42,000 were combat troops, and Negroes 
had to fight for the right to be represented at all among the line soldiers. About 1,400 
Negroes were commissioned as officers in the Army of the First World War, although 
it took some time before the Army leadership could be induced to make provisions for 
giving officer's training to any Negro soldiers. 

88 Scott, of. cit., particularly, pp. 82-91, 315-327 and 442-443. 

89 Brown and Leighton, op. cit., p. 7; "The Negro's War," p. 164; "The Negro in 
the Army Today," typewritten statement issued by Judge William Hastie, Special 
Assistant, War Department; White, of. cit., p. 63. 

40 "The Negro in the Army Today." 

41 See, for example, White, of. cit., p. 61. 

42 High, of. cit., p. 114; Brown and Leighton, of. cit., p. 7. 

48 The Negro pilot school at Tuskegee at present (August, 1942) accepts only some 
20-odd Negro pupils every five weeks. At the present time (September, 1942), however, 
there are plans for a considerable expansion in the Negro aviation cadet training 
program. 



Footnotes 1309 

44 Daring the First World War, for instance, there was a serious riot in Houston, 
Texas, in 1 91 7, which ended in the execution of thirteen Negro soldiers. Another 
large riot in Spartanburg, South Carolina, was barely avoided. A Negro soldier had 
been beaten up while buying a newspaper in a hotel ; the next night a group of soldiers 
started marching from their camp to the city in order to "shoot it up," but were 
stopped by a white officer. There were numerous other clashes. Special investigations 
revealed widespread discrimination against Negroes in certain camps, such as Camp 
Lee, Virginia, where the military police was accused of treating Negroes unfairly. 
Passes were said to be issued more freely to white than to Negro soldiers. Officers 
sometimes inflicted bodily punishment on Negroes. When selecting Negro soldiers for 
promotion to the rank of noncommissioned officers, they often showed a tendency to 
prefer illiterate "funny fellows" to men of greater ability. The chief of the only 
Negro combat division stationed in the North caused a general resentment among 
Negroes when he issued a bulletin urging Negro officers and men to refrain from their 
legal right to visit theaters and other places "where their presence will be resented," 
giving as a reason the argument that "white men made the Division, and they can 
break it just as easily if it becomes a trouble maker." (Scott, of. cit., pp. 80-1 10.) 

^N.A.A.C.P. Annual Report for 1041, pp. 7-9; Brown and Lcighton, of. fit., p. 7. 
It goes without saying that these are only a sample of the incidents which have occurred. 

46 To be sure, the merchant marine may, in large part, have to be rebuilt after the 
War, and this may, for a time, minimize the decline in shipbuilding. It is possible, as 
well, that the government, for the purpose of meeting another future emergency, will 
subsidize ship production in order to maintain some part of the present shipbuilding 
capacity. Even so, there must be a substantial decline. At present, facilities are being 
geared to the purpose of replacing ships that have been sunk; to the transportation of 
military supplies and troops; to provide for the increase in need due to the tremendous 
slowing up of transportation. 

47 See, for instance, George B. Galloway, Postwar Planning in the United States 
(I94Z). 



Chapter 20. Underlying Factors 

a W. E. B. Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro (1899), pp. 368-370. 

2 Gilbert T. Stephenson, Race Distinctions in American Law (1910), p. 284. 

'Stephenson, of. cit., pp. 282-284, an d Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal Status 
of the Negro (1940), pp. 371-374. The five New England states mentioned had, in 
i860, a total Negro population of 16,084, constituting 4.5 per cent of the total free 
Negro population outside the 1 1 secession states; New York had, in addition, 49,005 
Negroes of which, however, probably the great majority were disfranchised under the 
limitation. 

"The Constitution of Tennessee of 1834 provided that no pcison should be disqual- 
ified from voting in any election who was then by the laws of the State a competent 
witness in a court of justice against a white person."* It is impossible to tell, however, 
how many Negroes were thus qualified to vote. 

The Wisconsin Constitution (1848) limited voting to whites, but the Supreme 

* Stephenson, of. cit., p. 284. 



1310 An American* Dilemma 

Court of the State held in 1866 that suffrage had been extended to Negroes by > refer- 
endum at the general election on November 6, 1849; since the result of the election 
was in dispute from 1849 nnt 'l 1866, it is probable that no Negroes voted during that 
period.* 

* Marian D. Irish, "The Southern One-Party System and National Politics," Tha 
Journal of Politics (February, 1942), p. 80. 

B To quote two representative liberal Southern authors; Willis D. Weatherford: 

"Who among us has not seen how the presence of the Negro has moulded onr 
political history since emancipation? We have been slow to pass laws for compulsory 
school attendance, lest we tie ourselves to the task of classical education of the Negro. 
We are slow enough about extending the suffrage, lest the colored man should become 
too influential. No major political issue has faced the South in the last hundred years 
that has not been decided largely in the light of the presence of the Negro." b 
T. J. Woofter, Jr.: 

"It is . . . apparent that in excluding the Negro the South is, in a way, politically 
dominated by the Negro question. Before all others it looms as the bulwark of the one- 
party system. It was a determining factor in the prohibition vote. It affected the Sooth's 
stand on woman suffrage and it ramifies into hundreds of questions of public policy, 
it influences the South's position on child labor, it is a stumbling block in the admin- 
istration of compulsory school laws, standing as an ever-present shadow across the door 
of political councils." 

The conservative Southerner it> not so likely to write books on the Negro problem 
as is his liberal compatriot. The present writer recalls, however, from his talks with 
many Southerners of conservative leanings that they too usually complained about how 
the Negro problem has entered into all public questions of the region and hindered 
their consideration upon their own merits. But they consider this situation without 
remedy or, rather, hold that even a gradual enfranchisement of the Negro could only 
accentuate this "plight of the South." 

* Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (1927), 
pp. 298-306. 

7 Donald Young, American Minority Peoples (1932), p: 212; compare ibid., pp. 
201 ff. especially p. 207. 

8 Some Northern states — Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maine, Delaware, 
Wyoming, California — actually have literacy requirements for registration in their 
constitutions or election laws. d In addition, in some Northern states, paupers are 
disfranchised; some criminals are prohibited from voting. In Utah, anyone who advo- 
cates polygamy, or belongs to an organization that advocates it, may not rote.* 

When these requirements are enforced, they are done so regardless of race or 
national origin; Northern states that have literacy requirements also provide adult 
education schools to teach illiterates how to read and write. 

* Frank U. Quillin, The Color Line in Ohio (191 3), p. 9. 

'Idem. 

"Willis D. Weatherford and Charles S. Johnson, Race Relations (1934)1 P> *9>« 

* Tie Basis of Racial Adjustment (1925), p. 166. 

'Stephenson, op. cit., pp. 301-302; and Osmond K. Fraenkel, "Restrictions on Voting in 
die United States," in The National Lawyers* Guild Quarterly (March, 1938), pp. 135-143. 
'Fraenkel, of. cit., p. 138. 



Footnotes 1311 

10 Stephenson, of. cit., pp. 184-287, and W. E. B. Du Bois, BUck Reconstruction 
(1935). P- 341. 

11 At late as 1831 the Virginia legislature considered a plan for the gradual eman- 
cipation of the slaves; the plan, inspired by Thomas Jefferson, and introduced into the 
legislature by his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, was debated for months and 
finally defeated by a single vote.* 

12 William Sumner Jenkins, Pro-Slavery Thought in the Old South (1935). 
**From the judgment in the text, we do not make exceptions of modern fascism 

and nazism. Those ideologies, however, fall outside our classification: they arc no more 
like conservatism than radicalism but could, perhaps, best be characterized as a peculiar 
blend of reactionism and radicalism. 

14 The reluctance of modern conservatism to build up closed systems of compendent 
logical propositions varies, of course, considerably. Catholic conservatism, for instance, 
tends more toward a closed system of principles. Hegelianism was also, in some respects, 
a conservative philosophy and was developed into a system, though not a static one. 

15 George Fitzhugh, Sociology for the South (1854), Chapter 2. 

16 Jenkins, of. cit., p. 295. See also Chapter 10 of this book. 

17 Fitzhugh, of. cit., p. 289. 

18 Ibid., p. 248. 

19 Speech in the Senate, March 2, 1859, quoted in Jenkins, of. cit., p. 192. 

20 Congressional Globe, 35th Congress, 1st Session, App. p. 71 (March 4, 1858); 
quoted from Jenkins, of. cit., p. 286. 

21 Judge Upshur, quoted by Jenkins, of. cit., p. 288. 

22 Quoted from: W. F. Cash, The Mind of the South (1941), p. 80. 

33 A few quotations on the last point from this remarkable book should be given: 
"Notwithstanding the fact that the white non-slaveholders of the South are in the 
majority, as five to one, they have never yet had any part or lot in framing the laws 
under which they live. There is no legislation except for the benefit of slavery, and 
slaveholders. As a general rule, poor white persons arc regarded with less esteem and 
attention than negroes, and though the condition of the latter is wretched beyond 
description, vast numbers of the former are infinitely worse off. A cunningly devised 
mockery of freedom is guaranteed to them, and that is all. To all intents and purposes 
they are disfranchised, and outlawed, and the only privilege extended to them is a 
shallow and circumscribed participation in the political movements that usher slave- 
holders inte office."" 

"The lords of the lash are not only absolute masters of the blacks, who are bought 
and sold, and driven about like so many cattle, but they arc also the oracles and arbiters 
of all non-slaveholding whites, whose freedom is merely nominal, and whose unparal- 
leled illiteracy and degradation is purposely and fiendishly perpetuated. How little the 
'poor white trash,' the great majority of the Southern people, know of the real condition 
of the country is, indeed, sadly astonishing. The truth is, they know nothing of public 
measures, and little of private affairs, except what their imperious masters, the slave- 
drivers, condescend to tell, and that is but precious little, and even the little, always 
garbled and one-sided, is never told except in public harangues; for the haughty 

m See William E. Dodd, Statesmen of the Old South (191 1), p. 80. 
* Hinton R. Helper, The Impending Crisis of the South (1857)1 P- 4*. 



131 2 An American Dilemma 

cavaliers of shackles and handcuffs will not degrade themselves by holding private 
converse with those who have neither dimes nor hereditary rights in human flesh."* 

"It is expected that the stupid and sequacious masses, the white victims of slavery, will 
believe, and as a general thing, they do believe, whatever the slaveholders tell them ; and 
thus it is that they are cajoled into the notion that they are the freest, happiest and 
most intelligent people in the world, and are taught to look with prejudice and disap- 
probation upon every new principle or progressive movement. Thus it is that the South, 
woefully inert and inventionlcss, has lagged behind the North, and is now weltering 
in the cesspool of ignorance and degradation. " b 

24 "The most tangible reform that he [Tillman] could suggest was that the Fifteenth 
— and sometimes the Fourteenth — Amendment be repealed . . . [but] ... he did not 
arouse [Northern] public opinion to effect the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment." 6 

25 "Less than 5 per cent of all cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment have 
dealt with Negro rights and most of those have been lost." d 

"Since 1868 some 575 cases involving the 14th amendment have come before the 
supreme court for adjudication. Only 27, or less than 5% of these have dealt with the 
negro. By far the greater portion of the litigation under this act has been concerned 
with the federal regulation of industrial combinations. Organized capital rather than 
the negro race has invoked the protection of the 14th amendment against state inter- 
ference. Of the 27 cases concerned with the negro, 20 were decided adversely to the 
race for whose benefit the act was framed. The six decisions favouring federal inter- 
vention in modified forms are concerned for the most part with the refusal to admit 
negroes to jury service in the state courts." e 

28 For example, two leading Southern Restoration statesmen, L. Q. C. Lamar and 
Wade Hampton, in a symposium in 1879, stood by the post-war Amendments. In 
presenting his opinion, Lamar first states the two propositions for the symposium: 
"l. That the disfranchisement of the negro is a political impossibility under any 

circumstances short of revolution. 

"4. That the ballot in the hands of the negro, however its exercise may have been 

embarrassed and diminished by what he considers, erroneously, a general southern 

policy, has been to that race a means of defense and an element of progress. 

"I agree to both propositions. In all my experience of southern opinion I know no 

southern man of influence or consideration who believes that the disfranchisement of 

the negro on account of race, color, or former condition of servitude is a political 

possibility. I am not now discussing the propriety or wisdom of universal suffrage, or 

whether, in the interests of wise, safe, and orderly government, all suffrage ought not 

to be qualified. What I mean to say is that universal suffrage being given as the condition 

of our political life, the negro once made a citizen can not be placed under any other 

condition. And in this connection it may surprise some of the readers of this discussion 

" Ibid., pp. 43-44- 

"Ibid., pp. 44-45. 

' Butler Simkins, "Ben Tillman's View of the Negro," in The Journal of Southern History 
(May, 1937), pp. 170-173. See also Paul Lewinson, Race, Class and Party (1931), p. 84. 
footnote. 

'Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization (1930), p. 337. 

'John Moffat Mecklin, Democracy and Race Friction (1914), pp. 231-231. 



Footnotes 1313 

to learn that in 1 869 the white people of Mississippi unanimously voted at the polls in 
favor of ratifying the enfranchising amendment. . . ."* 

"Whatever may have been the policy of conferring the right of voting upon the 
negro, ignorant and incompetent as he was to comprehend the high responsibility thrust 
upon him, and whatever may have been the reasons which dictated this dangerous ex- 
periment, the deed has been done and is irrevocable. It is now the part of true states- 
manship to give it as far as possible that direction which will be most beneficial or least 
hurtful to the body politic." b 

2T The editor of The News and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina, is such an 
exception: 

"Again let it be said and clearly understood that were The News and Courier a 
democratic newspaper, if it believed in democracy as President Roosevelt believes in it, 
as he described it in his North Carolina speech last week, it would demand that every 
white man and woman and every black man and woman in the South be protected in the 
right to vote. It would demand the abolition of all 'Jim Crow' cars, of all drawing of 
the color line by law. That is democracy. But The News and Courier is not a democrat. 
It fears and hates democratic government. The News and Courier believes in Democratic 
government — Democratic with a big 'D' and that is another word for a measure of 
aristocratic government that ought to be more aristocratic than it is." c 

"In South Carolina, the Democratic party, has been, so far as the negro vote is 
concerned, a Fascist party, and that is why The News and Courier 'cooperates' with it. 
In the North the Democratic party has become so democratic that it turns Southern 
stomachs." 4 
A prominent white lawyer in a letter observed: 

"We have a newspaper in Charleston, S.C, which fills its editorial column with daily 
blasts against the Negro. It is, so far as 1 know, the last surviving representative of a 
school of journalism which was at one time quite common in the state. Its own influence 
is rapidly dwindling." 8 

28 The "grandfather clause" no longer belongs to tills list since it was declared 
unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in 191 5. 

29 The author of the disfranchisement amendments of the Virginia Constitution 
(1902), Carter Glass, later U. S. senator, replied to a question whether the elimination 
of the Negro vote would not be accomplished by "fraud and discrimination": 

"By fraud, no; by discrimination, yes. But it will be discrimination within the letter 
of the law. . . . Discrimination! Why, that is precisely what we propose. That, exactly, 
is what this convention was elected for — to discriminate to the very extremity of per- 

*L. Q. C. Lamar, "Ought the Negro to be Disfranchised? — Ought He to Have Been 
Enfranchised?" in The North American Review (March, 1879), p. 2ji. 

"Wade Hampton, "Ought the Negro to be Disfranchised? — Ought He to Have Been 
Enfranchised?" in The North American Review (March, 1879), p. 240. 

For similar expressions of opinion from other leading Southerners, see the "Symposium: 
Ought the Negro to be Disfranchised? — Ought He to Have Been Enfranchised?" in The 
North American Review (March, 1879), pp. 125-281, Ir °n> which the above statements 
are taken. 

' August 26, 1937. Quoted from Rayford W. Logan (editor), The Attitude of the Southern 
White Press toward Negro Suffrage, 1932-1940 (1940), p. *9- 

* July 20, 1938. Ibid., p. 70. 

•July 2, 1940. 



13 14 An American Dilemma 

missible action under the limitations of the Federal Constitution, with a view to die 
elimination of every Negro voter who can be gotten rid of, legally, without materially 
impairing the numerical strength of the white electorate. ... It ia a fine discrimination, 
indeed, that we have practiced in the fabrication of this plan."* 
Moffat states: 

"There can be no reasonable doubt that the intent of the delegates to these various 
conventions [Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, North Carolina, Maryland, Ala- 
bama, and Virginia] was to frame their constitutions in such wise as to stand the test 
of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution and at the same time withhold the 
ballot from the great mass of negro voters in their respective states." 1 * 
Moffat backs his statement with many pages of quotes from the legislators who partici- 
pated in the conventions. 6 

James Weldon Johnson makes the following statements: 

"Not long ago, in a widely circulated weekly magazine, Senator George, formerly 
a member of the Supreme Court of Georgia, was quoted as saying in the course of an 
interview: 

" 'Why apologize or evade? We have been very careful to obey the letter of the 
Federal Constitution — but we have been very diligent and astute in violating the spirit 
of such amendments and such statutes as would lead the Negro to believe himself the 
equal of a white man. And we shall continue to conduct ourselves in that way.' 
"Senator Glass was quoted by the same interviewer as saying: 

" 'The people of the original thirteen Southern States curse and spit upon the 
Fifteenth Amendment — and have no intention of letting the Negro vote. We obey the 
letter of the amendments and the Federal Statutes, but we frankly evade the spirit 
thereof — and purpose to continue doing so. White supremacy is too precious a thing 
to surrender for the sake of a theoretical justice that would let a brutish African deem 
himself the equal of white men and women in Dixie.' " d 
80 Bertram Schrieke reflects likewise: 

"National history strongly believes in the fait accompli. If a revolution is successful, 
its promoters are heroes, their opponents tyrants; if a revolution is unsuccessful, the 
promoters are dishonest agitators or at least impractical but dangerous idealists. Since 
the revolution that undid reconstruction, no new revolution in the South has occurred; 
therefore no need has been felt for a new evaluation. The slogans of the struggle of 
the southern Democrats — 'Negro domination,' 'carpet-bagger governments,' 'corruption, 
frauds, and maladministration because of Negro participation in politics,' and so on — 
have now become 'historical verities.' As .a matter of fact, there had never been a Negro 
majority in the reconstruction governments, whereas Southerners of standing had 
prominently participated in them. As for political corruption and 'spending,' these had 
not been much worse than in the North, especially in New York, during the same 

* Virginia Debates: 1901-0*. Vol. a. Quoted from Lewinson, of. cit., p. 86. 

* R. Burnham Moffat, "The Disfranchisement of the Negro from a Lawyer's Standpoint," 
The Journal of the American Social Science Association (September, 1904), p. 33. 

'Ibid., pp. 34.-62. See also James A. Hamilton, Negro Suffrage and Congressional 
Representation (1910). 

* "A Negro Looks at Politics," The American Mercury (September, 19*9), p. 92. See also, 
The Journal of the American Social Science Association (December, 1899), p. 67, a state- 
ment by Mr. Woods of Marion, South Carolina in a discussion of a paper by W. H. Baldwin 1 
and Edward M. Salt, American Parties and Elections (1939s first edition, 19x7), pp. 53-J4- 



Footnotes 13 15 

period. However, not facts but opinions about facte determine national history. . . . 
The whole attitude of the North towards the South was changed, softened. The desire 
to forget the regrettable misunderstanding between the states for the sake of the unity 
of the nation made it necessary to adopt the southern version of the history, at least in 
part. The fait accompli of the undoing of reconstruction stamped reconstruction as a 
failure and established the southern evaluation of reconstruction governments as his- 
torical truth." • 

"Josephus Daniels, Tar-Heel Editor (1939), pp. 281-282. Some of them had 
consistently favored the Union cause throughout the Civil War when it was extremely 
unpopular to do so. 

w A few white historians — Louis Hacker, for example — have given a history of the 
Reconstruction that corresponds with the facts. But these are far from dominant among 
writers of history. Two great historians, J. W. Burgess and W. A. Dunning, set the 
pattern for the dominant historical interpretation of the Reconstruction pcriod. b 

Negro writers have had a contrary need for rationalization which is equally under- 
standable. W. E. B. Do Bois' Black Reconstruction (1935) is expressly written to 
counterbalance the common bias in favor of the unreconstructed white Southerner'. 
Carter Woodson and other Negro historians have the same purpose in their books.' The 
Negro authors concede that the Reconstruction governments were guilty of extravagance, 
theft, and incompetence in many cases, but insist that the charges have been grossly 
exaggerated. They point to the very difficult conditions in the war-ridden, poverty- 
stricken Southern regions, where the former ruling aristocracy and a large portion of 
the entire white population were openly hostile and obstructive and wished Negroes 
to fail. They also emphasize that political corruption was widespread and common in 
the whole country in this period and point particularly to the Tweed machine in New 
York. They observe that the historians they criticize have not given the Reconstruction 
governments their due credit for their remarkable initiative in establishing a public 
school system in the South and beginning social legislation. They stress finally that 
there was nowhere "black domination," but that the Negroes were usually in a minority 
among the electors, and that whites always held the great majority of the higher, 
policy-making offices. There are also quixotic attempts made from the side of some 
Negro writers on the period to picture the Negro legislators as great reformers and 
statesmen who introduced the democratic institutions to the South. 

The English observer of the South during Reconstruction, Sir George Campbell, 
gives first-hand evidence that the Negroes' position is justified, that the South was nu 
worse off nor more corrupt during Reconstruction than was the rest of the country. 1 * 

Ralph J. Bunche is one Negro author who has probably struck a balanced picture of 
the Reconstruction period.* He points out that there was no "black domination" but 

* Alien Americans (1936), pp. nz-113. 

* For a discussion of historians of the Reconstruction by a Ncg ro, see A. A. Taylor, 
"Historians of the Reconstruction," The Journal of Negro History (January, 1938), pp. 
18-24. 

'See, for example, Kelly Miller, Out of the House of Bondage (1914), pp. 116-117* 
Robert R. Moton, What the Negro Thinks (19*9), PP- 1*8-130. 

1 White and Black in the United States (1879), pp.176-180. 

""The Political Status of the Negro," unpublished manuscript prepared for this stuay 
(1940), Vol. i, pp. 220-140. 



1316 An American Dilemma 

rather that there were Negro carpetbagger and scalawag governments operating, in the 
presence of federal troops, under the dominance of Congress. The North had a variety 
of conflicting interests, some selfish, some altruistic, with respect to the South and 
considered that its victory gave it the right to satisfy these interests. The bulk of the 
Negroes, he concludes, were ignorant peasants who played only a feeble role in the 
political drama of the period. 

In surveying the literature on Reconstruction, the present author has gained the 
impression that in explanation of the imperfections of the Reconstruction regime — 
besides the factors of physical war, destruction, and general poverty in the South; the 
wave of political corruption in the whole nation which reached a culmination in this 
period; and the psychology of defeat among the Southern people — the lack of political 
education generally in the South has been given too little weight. Successful democracy 
has never been established anywhere in the world except by considerable exertions of 
the masses themselves, masses who have been fairly well educated and who arc public 
spirited from the start, and who, in addition, during the struggle for representation and 
power, have acquired political experience and built up organized civic movements of 
their own. What happened in Reconstruction was, on the contrary, that, without their 
asking for it, almost a million Negro men, most of whom had not only been kept in 
total ignorance, but who in the protected slave existence had lacked any opportunity 
to live a self-directed life, were suddenly enfranchised. "Rights which the agricultural 
laborers of England did not obtain until 1885 were • ■ • thrust upon these children of 
nature . . ." reflected James Bryce.* At the same time, one hundred thousand men of the 
not much larger white population were disfranchised and, in addition, another hundred 
thousand white men were not only disfranchised but were disqualified for office because 
they had taken up arms against the Union. The disfranchised and disqualified group 
contained a great over-representation of the educated and politically alert and experi- 
enced classes of the South. Under the guard and direction of the Union army and 
federal agencies, the political power in the Southern states was thus conferred on the 
masses of totally uneducated Negroes and the nearly as ignorant white masses, both 
abruptly freed from the controls of the politically experienced upper strata under which 
they had been held in the ante-bellum South. 

Even the staunchest believer in democracy must fee] anxious and skeptical when 
contemplating this situation. One must be surprised that the actual outcome was not 
worse. The agents for the federal government, the "carpetbaggers" — operating without 
much of a rational plan and often lacking support from Washington — must have been, 
on the average, considerably better than their reputation, as transmitted through the 
historical mythology. One also feels that the freedmen — led by the carpetbaggers and 
the scalawags and also by some educated free Negroes from the North — if not a success 
as responsible citizens, were less of a complete failure than could have been reasonably 
expected. 

A basic flaw of the Reconstruction regime was thus, according to the present author's 
view, the almost total lack of general education of the black and white masses in the 
South. It is true that "the ballot is a school-master." It is true also that the Reconstruc- 
tion governments took immediate and courageous measures to establish a public school 
system in the South, and that the Negroes especially went in enthusiastically for educa- 

* Tie American Commonwealth (1900; first edition, 1893), Vol. 2, p. 495. 



Footnotes 1317 

tion. But education, not least political education, takes time. And the Negroes were not 
given time. 

83 See William J. Robertson, The Changing South (1927), p. 144; Bessie L. Pierce, 
Public Ofinion and the Teaching of History in the United States (1926), pp. 136-169; 
Marie E. Carpenter, The Treatment of the Negro in American History School Text- 
books (1941), especially pp. 43-48; and Lawrence D. Rcddick, "Racial Attitudes in 
American History Textbooks of the South," in The Journal of Negro History (July, 
1934). PP- 225-265. 

84 Thomas P. Bailey testified: 

"1 found that the younger white voters were bent on causing trouble at the polls 
during a municipal election. I inquired whether they feared that the negroes might 
carry the election. The reply was in the negative. The 'audacity' and 'impertinence' of 
the negroes in 'daring' or 'presuming' to vote was the trouble." The same attitude is 
frequently displayed today. 

8B "Patterns of Race Conflict," in Race Relations and the Race Problem, Edgar T. 
Thompson (editor) (1939), p. I3 8 - 

86 Paul H. Buck, The Road to Reunion — 1865-1900 (1937), pp. 284-285. 

87 Edgar G. Murphy, The Basis of Ascendancy (1910), p. 39. 

88 "The South accustomed itself to denying this essential condition of democratic 
government [freedom of speech] during the days of slavery ." b 

89 Human Geografhy of the South (1932), pp. 75-76. 
*° Of. cit., p. 43. 



Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism 

1 Because there were several occasions on which the South split politically, as we not» 
in the text, Lewinson claims that the South is not generally "solid." On another ground, 
Ray Stannard Baker prefers not to consider the South as "solid," although he does use 
the term: 

"In the South to-day there are, as inevitably as human nature, two parties and two 
political points of view. The one is aristocratic and the other is democratic.'" 1 
Nevertheless, one party is completely dominant in the South today, despite freak elections 
such as in 1928 and despite splits within the party. There is a "Solid South" and it has 
a one-party system. 

2 John D. Hicks, The Pofulist Revolt (1931), p. 391. For a brief history of the 
Populist party in the Southern states see Lewinson, of. cit., pp. 69, 75 and 164. 

8 The principal idea of this movement to disfranchise the Negro by "constitutional" 
means was to invent statutory formulations which discriminated against "Negro charac- 
teristics" rather than against the Negro race. Poll tax requirements and property, 
literacy, "understanding" and "good character" clauses were the main devices used. 
(See Chapter 22.) Some of these techniques for disfranchising the Negroes were 

* Race Orthodoxy in the South (1914), p. 38. 

"William E. Dodd in a communication to the editor of Nation (April 35, 1907), p. 383 
See also William E. Dodd, The Cotton Kingdom (1919), pp. 23, 69.70, and 146. 
'Paul Lewinson, Race, Class and Party (193a), p. 101. 

* Following the Color Line (19 08 )) P- ***■ 



13 1 8 An American Dilemma 

already on the law boob of tome Southern states. The task was now to build them into 
a unified and efficient system. 

The educated upper classes in the South faced a dilemma. On the one hand, it must 
hare seemed to be both advisable on general grounds and constitutionally more correct 
to allow these clauses to disfranchise also the poor white people in the South. It is obvious 
that, in addition, such a course also favored the political interests of those classes to 
keep the political power firmly in their own hands. On the other hand, the white 
supremacy doctrine asserted a principle of democracy among all white people and 
established a gulf between them and all Negroes. More important was the fact that the 
lower classes had tasted political power and were most suspicious of anything that might 
disfranchise them ; their suspicion had only been accentuated during the agrarian revolt. 

The question of disfranchising the Negroes was, for this reason and in spite of the 
great unanimity in the main purpose, the cause of heated campaigns. The debates in 
the constitutional assemblies were long and extremely controversial. Indeed, the con- 
troversy has lasted until this day; it now concerns principally the poll tax. In principle 
the upper classes had to give up; the compromises reached were everywhere openly 
announced as aiming at disfranchising the largest possible number of Negroes without 
depriving any white man of his vote. Devices such as permanent registration, the 
"grandfather clause," or the exception of war veterans were intentionally framed in 
order to enable all the white voters to evade the force of the clauses aimed at disfran- 
chising the Negroes; in addition, a sufficient discretionary power was reserved tat the 
registrars to give effect to the promise of a "right-minded" administration of the 
election statutes. The upper classes felt a certain satisfaction in the reflection that some 
of the corrective devices were bound to have decreasing importance as time passed. In 
practice, particularly the poll tax requirement has turned out to be a barrier to great 
masses of lower class white people. 

The dilemma of the "best people" in the upper strata and their interpretation of the 
result is interestingly revealed by Edgar G. Murphy, who himself had taken an active 
part in the struggle about the new constitution (1901) in his home state, Alabama, and 
who is distinguished as one of the most sincere friends of the Negro among the conserv- 
ative-minded old Southerners and the author of two books -on the Negro problem. In 
Problems of the Present South (1909; first edition, 1904) he writes: 

"Had the negro masses presented the only illiterate elements, that method (namely 
to require literacy for voting) might have been pursued. But there were two defective 
classes — the unqualified negroes of voting age and the unqualified white men. Both 
could not be dropped at once. A working constitution is not an a priori theoretic crea- 
tion ; it must pass the people. The unqualified white men of voting age might be first 
included in the partnership of reorganization. Such a decision was a political necessity. 
. . . Moreover ... no amended Constitution, no suffrage reform, no legal status for a 
saner and purer political administration, teas possible without their votes. . . . 

"Terms were given them. Under skillfully drawn provisions the mass of illiterate 
negro voters were deprived of suffrage and the then voting white population — with 
certain variously defined exceptions — was permitted to retain the ballot. Care was 
taken, however, that all the rising generation and all future generations of white workers 
should be constrained to accept the suffrage test, a test applicable, therefore, after a 
brief fixed period, to white and black alike. Such is the law."* 

* Pp. 191-1931 italics ours. 



Footnotes 1319 

The ultimate goal to be reached as new generations of white Southerners rose to voting 
age was what he called "the supremacy of intelligence and property." 1 Murphy did not 
want to disfranchise the Negroes entirely: 

"Take out of his life all incentive to the franchise and you will partly destroy his 
interest in the acquisition of knowledge and of property, because no people will, in the 
long ran, accept as a working principle of life the theory of taxation without representa- 
tion."" 

He understood that the reaching of his goal presumed honest administration of the 
provisions decided upon: 

"If these boards of registrars — the essential and distinctive provision in the suffrage 
system of the South — be administered arbitrarily and unfairly, if they perpetuate the 
moral confusion and the debasing traditions which they were intended to supplant, then 
the South will stand condemned both to the world and to herself. She will have 
defeated the purpose of her own deepest political and moral forces."" 
In The Basis of Ascendancy, published in 1909, Murphy already thought that his 
policy had proven successful: 

"The clouds of conflict have rolled away. Within less than ten years thousands of 
the worthier black men, under our amended constitutions, have been admitted to the 
ballot; and in Alabama alone, in the first presidential election after the readjustment 
of the suffrage, more than half of our adult white men did not qualify and vote. 
Despite all the frank assertions of discrimination on the part of the South, despite all 
the imputations of discrimination from the side of the North, the thing which the 
Southern majority declared should happen and which the Northern majority denounced 
as having happened has not happened at all. Many negroes have been admitted. Many 
white men have been excluded.'" 1 

As to the disfranchisement of white men, Murphy was correct as we shall see in Chapter 
22. But otherwise this last quotation and the next to the last one indicate wishful 
thinking. 

4 Lewinson, of. cit., pp. 189-199. See also, Marian D. Irish, "The Southern One- 
Party System and National Politics," The Journal of Politics (February, 1942), pp. 
80-94, and George E. Stoney, "Suffrage in the South. Part II: The One Party System," 
Survey Graphic (Mitch, 1940), pp. 163-167 and 204-205. 

"Ralph Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," unpublished manuscript 
prepared for this study (1940), Vol. i,"p. 36. 

'Henry W. Grady 4 The New South (1890), pp. 242-243. 

7 Ibid., pp. 240-241. 

8 Ibid., p. 239. 

• Virginius Dabney, Beloto the Potomac (1942), pp. 11 2-1 1 3. 

10 "The Negro Citizen" in Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in American Civilization 

(1930), pp. 467-468. 

11 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Agriculture, United States Sum- 
mary, Second Series, Table 26. 

12 William Archer, Through Afro-America (1910), p. 146. 

• Ibid., p. 199. 
"Ibid.,?. 195. 
'Ibid., pp. 1 97-191. 
*P. 4. 



1320 An American Dilemma 

11 Dabney, of. eit., pp. 241-244. 

14 Archer, of. eit,, p. 154. 

18 For a general description of intolerance in the South, we Dabney, of, eit., pp. 
237-256. 

16 The Mini of the South (1941). 

"««?., p. 33. 

18 W. J. Cash, who stressed these factor*, concludes that: 

"If the yoke of law and government weighed but lightly, so also did that of class. 
Prior to the last ten or fifteen years before Secession, the Old South may be said, in 
truth, to hare been nearly innocent of the notion of class in any rigid and complete 
sense."* 

On the other hand, there was the myth among the Southern aristocrats that they 
were descended from Cavalier Norman stock, whereas the lower classes in the South 
were of Roundhead Saxon stock. As we said, they kept these ideas to themselves. 

18 For a discussion of the effect of the last War on the South, see Frank Tannen- 
baum, Darker Phases of the South (1924), pp. 13-20. 

20 Quoted from memory. 

81 One Southern liberal has given us the following lyrical picture of the South: 

"In particular here was a large segment of "America's Tragedy" with its harvest of 
later conflict and confusion, born of undesigned and unbalanced programs of reconstruc- 
tion. So came an American epoch that was the South. Old golden pages of history, 
shining parchment records of culture, then yellow and faded, scorched and seared with 
yean of embattled conflict, and epic struggle. . . . Gallant figures on black horses and 
white . . . and crude, simple folk, sore with the footfall of time, passing across, an 
epoch which was to be destroyed by physical and cultural conflagration and to rise up 
again in another American epoch strangely different and vivid and powerful. Cultures 
in the making, social processes at work, portraiture descriptive of how civilizations grow. 
All the South's yesterdays, with their brilliant episodes and with their sordid pictures 
receding, giving way to the South's tomorrows, through a sweeping American develop- 
ment reminiscent of universal culture. Thus, there are many Souths yet the South. 
It is pre-eminently national in backgrounds, yet provincial in its processes. There are 
remnants of European culture framed in intolerant Americanism. There are romance, 
beauty, glamor, gaiety, comedy, gentleness, and there are sordidness, ugliness, dullness, 
sorrow, tragedy, cruelty. There are wealth, culture, education, generosity, chivalry, 
manners, courage, nobility, and there are poverty, crudeness, ignorance, narrowness, 
brutality, cowardice, depravity. The South is American and un-American, Christian and 
barbaric. It is strong and weak, white and black, rich and poor. There are great white 
mansions on hilltops among the trees, and there arc unpainted houses perched on pillars 
along hillside gullies or lowland marshes. Yet, here is reflected a composite region-in-the- 
making, descriptive of American reality, rich in power, range, and contrast, shaped and 
proportioned by strong backgrounds whose unfolding episodes were vivid with the 
quiver of life. Here are epic and romantic materials of history and literature alongside 
measurable elements for the scientific study of human society. Here are illuminating 
materials for the better understanding of American life through the study of regional 
situations and folk society. Their consistency is often in their contradictions, their unity 
in their diversity, like some masterpiece of orchestral harmony. Or, like some unfold- 

»/*«., p. 34. 



Footnotes 1321 

mg evolution of social culture or some masterpiece of narrative, charm and power are 
revealed only through dramatic unfolding, episode upon episode, year upon year. Here is 
a civilization slowly gathering together its processes and patterns until the magnitude of 
the whole has Been fashioned, nevertheless, whose power and brilliance are cumulative, 
residing unescapably in separate unite, yet also, and more, in the high potentiality of the 
final unity."" 

A milder example may be taken from a more recent book of an outstanding Southern 
liberal: 

"Not content with such flagrant misrepresentations as the foregoing, certain profes- 
sional Northerners delight in reading lectures to all Southerners for their 'narrow- 
mindedness,' their 'provincialism,' and their general lack of decency and intelligence. 
Such criticisms of the South are heard most often with respect to its handling of the 
race problem. Fantastic statements in Northern magazines and newspapers, by self-con- 
stituted authorities who know little or nothing about the subject, naturally contribute 
only slightly to intersectional goodwill. For example, the following pontitication appeared 
not long ago in the editorial columns of the Lowell, Massachusetts, Sun: 'Any Negro in 
the South who dares go near a polling booth on election day invites a bullet through 
his brain. That is fact, not fiction.' A Virginia editor promptly pointed out that many 
thousands of Negroes vote every election day in the South, without any such retribution 
as the Lowell paper declared to be universal, and three Northern-born residents of 
Virginia protested the Sun's extravagant assertion. The Massachusetts daily promptly 
modified its charge with respect to Negro voting, but was equally absurd in its comment 
upon one of the above mentioned letters. The author of the letter, a native New Eng- 
lander, had declared, on the basis of residence in both Florida and Virginia, that 'the 
lot of the Southern Negro is no worse thin that of the average Northern laborer.' This 
declaration, it is true, was distinctly vulnerable, but the Sun's editor went to the 
extreme length of saying, in rebuttal, that 'no Northern laborer would for one moment 
tolerate conditions under which the Southern Negro lives.' He should have read the series 
of newspaper articles by Harry Ashmore, a young South Carolina newspaperman, lovingly 
describing the unspeakably foul slums of various Northern cities — a series which was 
published with gusto in 1938 by more than a score of Southern dailies grown weary of 
excursions by Northern journalists into the cabins and back alleys of the cotton belt." b 

22 The present author was traveling in the South in the fall of 1938 when the out- 
burst of anti-Semitism in Germany disheartened and infuriated liberals all over the 
world. The Southern liberal newspapere — and many of the conservative ones — were out- 
raged and denounced in no uncertain terms the barbarous actions taken by the German 
Nazis against the Jews: the cheating and beating, the arbitrary justice, the discrimina- 
tions against the Jews by attempts at residential segregation and Jim-Crowing in street- 
cars, and beaches, in the labor market, in business. But the intellectual association to the 
conditions of Negroes in America was skillfully and completely avoided. One liberal 
editor with whom I discussed this point told me that such an association, if expressed, 
would "altogether spoil the educational effect." It had to be left to "the deeper forcei 
in the Southern soul" to make this comparison. 

■Howard W. Odum, An American Efoch (1930), pp. 3*9-33°. adapted in Howard W. 
Odum and Harry E. Moore, American Regionalism (i93*)> PP- 5" »"d 5*3- 
"Dabney, of. cit., pp. 11-2*. 



1322 An American Dilemma 

Chapter IZ. Political Practices Today 

1 The World Almanac: 104a, p. 813. Thews percentage* ihonld not be taken as an 
exact measure of the South's adherence to the Democratic party, since, if the Republi- 
can party were to get enough votes to challenge it, the Democratic party in time would 
get more persons to vote. 

2 "The one-party system of the South expresses itself through the local political 
machines. These are the courthouse gangs, the county cliques, which are the main props 
of the southern political structure as it exists today. The real venality of southern politics 
is revealed in the operation of the courthouse gangs. Though they are technically sub- 
ject to the controls of the county and state Democratic party committees, in their own 
domain they are supreme. Here offices are bought and sold, and there is found an almost 
complete anarchy of political thought and law. By and large, they tend to make their 
own rules, and are rarely ever well-informed upon the laws of the state that they are 
sworn to uphold. In the courthouse gangs will be found the probate judges, the ordi- 
naries, the county clerks, the registrars or the members of the county registration com- 
mittees or boards, the sheriffs, the beat committeemen, the members of the election com- 
mittees and the county Democratic party officers. 

"The political power of these local machines is so great that it is virtually impossible 
to make any generalizations concerning the pattern of any particular aspects of southern 
politics. For example, if we are to consider the qualifications for registration required 
of Negroes in Georgia and Alabama, it is not enough to study the state laws on the 
subject. The local registrars take the law into their own hands and there are almost as 
many variations of the laws as there are counties. Even within the white population, the 
laws are not administered uniformly. The county officials are often known to grant favors 
with respect to the application of the laws, to friends or political partisans." (Ralph J. 
Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," unpublished manuscript prepared for this 
study [1940], Vol. 1, pp. 35-36.) 

8 The World Almanac: 194a, p. 813, and Sixteenth Census of the United States: 
1040, Population, Preliminary Release, Series P-10, No. 6, Table 3. 

* For detailed evidence of the general corruption in Southern elections see: (l) 
Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," especially Vols. 1 and 2; (2) George C. 
Stoney, "Suffrage in the South. Part II: The One Party System," Survey Graf hie 
(March, 1940), pp. 163-167 and 204-20;. For other excellent surveys of the Southern 
political scene, see (3) Paul Lewinson, Race, Class and Party (1932) ; and (4) Marian 
D. Irish, "The Southern One-Party System and National Politics," The Journal of 
Politics (February, 1942), pp. 80-94. 

6 It is by no means certain that it is the poor whites who stay away from the polls 
in greatest proportion, even though it is certain that they get least out of politics. 
Rosenstein found that, for a single Mississippi county, the poorest white farm operators 
were registered in greater proportion than white farm operators of middle income. 
(Joseph Rosenstein, "Government and Social Structure in a Deep South Community," 
unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Chicago [1941], pp. 17-18.) 

A detailed county-for-county description of election practices in the South is avail- 
able in Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," Vols. I and 2. 

* "The Citizen-Georgian of Macon County, Georgia, in an editorial of November 



Footnotes 1343 

5» '936, «ttaeks the ibtence of a secret ballot in Georgia and the need for an Australian 
Ballot, ttating, in part: '. . . the present method can hardly be called a secret ballot 
because friends, relatives, supporters, and sometimes even the candidates themselves, 
literally stand over the voting booths, making it impossible for a person to mark his 
ticket without several persons knowing for whom the vote has been cast.' " (Hid., 
VoL 1, p. 194..) 

"The numbers on the ballot are used to check up on how people vote in almost 
every precinct. Almost every election after the official burning of the ballots, lists of 
names of those who voted and how they voted on major offices are 'for sale.' " (Inter- 
view with a member of the Alabama Legislature, February, 1940, cited in ibid., p. 
125.) 

8 V. O. Key, Jr., Political Parties and Pressure Group (1941), pp. 402-407. 

9 Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 5, p. u8o. 

10 Lewinson, of. cit., pp. 1 10 and 170. 

11 For a history of the movement, see ibid., pp. 166 ff. 

12 This is a tradition from Reconstruction. Many Southerners find a partial motiva- 
tion for the disfranchisement of the Negroes in the fact that Negroes voted against 
the whites. Many stories are told to illustrate this tendency. The best one is Booker T. 
Washington's about an old Negro in Reconstruction time who relates: 

"We watches de white man, and we keeps watching de white man till we finds out 
which way de white man's gwine to vote; an' when we finds out which way de white 
man's gwine to vote, den we votes 'xactly dc other way. Den we knows we's right." 
(Booker T. Washington, U f from Slavery [1915; first edition, 1900], p. 111.) 

13 See Section 4 of this chapter. Wendell Willkie, the defeated Republican candidate 
for President in 1940, has recently made a number of speeches condemning race prej- 
udice and discrimination against Negroes. He even delivered the keynote speech at 
the 1942 convention of the N.A.A.C.P. If he should again become the Republican 
candidate for President, which does not seem likely at the present time, it is probable 
that he would get many Negroes to vote for him who had voted for Roosevelt in 1936 
and 1940. The same would happen if any other Republican candidate should demon- 
strate friendliness toward the Negro, or if the Democratic candidate should be a 
Southerner. 

11 Theoretically, anyone not qualified by the grandfather clause (i.e., Negroes) could 
still register if he paid taxes and met a battery of other restrictions. Another theoretical 
weakness of the grandfather clause arose from the fact that many Negroes had white 
fathers and grandfathers who had voted before 1861 or who had served in a military 
capacity; such white ancestors could not be formally claimed by Negroes, however. 

" Guam v. United States, 238 U. S. 347 ('9iS)- 

18 Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 4, p. 982. 

17 Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536 (March, 1927). In this brief resume of the 
legal status of the white primary, we shall not present the decisions reached by state 
courts or lower federal courts, but only those of the United States Supreme Court. 

18 Nixon v. Condon, lib U. S. 73 (i93*). 

19 Grovey v. Tovmsend, 295 U. S. 45 (i935>> 

80 United States v. Patrick B. Classic et d., No. 618 (October Term, 1940). See 
Ralph J. Bunche, "The Negro in the Political Life of the United States," Journal 
of Negro Education (July, 1941). P- 574- 



1324 An American Dilemma 

21 Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal Status of the Negro (1940), p. 371. 

22 A few Northern states still hare a compulsory poll tax for everyone. In such a 
£orm it has no effect on voting. The compulsory poll tax is so different from the volnn- 
tary poll tax that modem experts give it a new name, "capitation tax." The compulsory 
poll tax, or capitation tax, is compulsory in that if one does not pay it, he is subject 
to criminal prosecution, just as for nonpayment of other taxes. The voluntary poll tax, 
which is found only in the South, does not carry any penalty for nonpayment other than 
inability to vote. 

28 In a few Southern states the payment of poll taxes by landowners is compulsory. 

24 Mississippi is perhaps the most restrictive state: the payment of all state taxes 
is made a prerequisite to voting in the genera] election, but only the poll tax of two 
dollars per year for two years is necessary for voting in the primary. Alabama and 
Georgia, while they charge only $1.50 and $1.00 per year respectively, make this hard 
on older persons by requiring all back taxes (back to the time the individual became 
twenty-one years of age) before registration. South Carolina requires payment of a poll 
tax of $1.00 for voting in the general election, but no poll tax need be paid to vote 
in the primary. Virginia has a three-year cumulative tax. Tennessee, Texas, and Arkansas 
are relatively lenient with a small tax ($1.00 in Tennessee and Arkansas, $1.50 in 
Texas with an additional $0.25 optional to the county), without the cumulative 
features and without any distinction between primary and general election. (Bunche, 
"The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 3.) 

28 Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 630. 

20 There also has been an attempt recently to abolish the poll tax by federal law. In 
1938, a bill to this effect was introduced in Congress by Representative Lee E. Geyer, 
California Democrat. The Southern-dominated House Judiciary Committee stifled the 
bill for four years (as did a Senate Committee for the bill introduced by Senator 
Pepper of Florida), but in 1942 the bill was forced to the floor of the House by 
sentiment created by the disfranchisement of soldiers. As this is being written (October, 
1942), the House has passed the bill, and it is now up before the Senate. Liberals 
throughout the South are fighting the poll tax, but many would much prefer that the 
individual states abolish it, rather than see it killed by the United States Congress or by 
the federal courts. (See Virginius Dabney, Below the Potomac [1942], Chapter 4.) 

27 While Louisiana no longer requires the payment of the poll tax, it does require 
the possession of a "poll tax certificate," which is available without cost. This is con- 
fusing to many voters. 

28 Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 3, and Lewinson, op. cit., p. 80. 

29 The World Almanac: 1942, p. 813; and Sixteenth Census of the United States: 
1040, Population, Preliminary Release, Series P-IO, No. 6, Table 3. 

80 For cases of this and other kinds of discrimination in the application of require- 
ments for voting, see Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 3, esp. p. 774, 
and Vols. 4 and 5. 

3X Ibid., Vol. +, p. 839, and Vol. 7, pp. 1 563-1 565. 

**i«W., Vol. 2, pp. 316, 330 and 436-506 passim. The South generally has more 
rigid residence requirements for voting than the North, but whether there is any 
special discrimination against Negroes in this respect in the South is not known. (See: 
Leo Alilunas, "Legal Restrictions on the Negro in Politics," The Journal of Negro 
History [April, 1940], p. 158.) 



Footnotes 1325 

88 For documented cases of each of these types of violence and intimidation, see the 
unpublished monographs prepared for this study (1940): Bunchc, "The Political Status 
of the Negro," especially Vols. 2 and 4, and Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures." 
See also Lewinson, of. cit., Chapter 6. 

84 I have talked to a great number of registration officers in various Southern states, 
and they have usually been very outspoken .on this point. They have also been astonish- 
ingly frank in describing the methods they used. A tax collector in Georgia, for example, 
referred to the Supreme Court jurisdiction clause of the State Constitution and said: 

"I can keep the President of the United States from registering, if I want to. God, 
Himself, couldn't understand that sentence. I, myself, am the judge. It must be written 
to my satisfaction." (Interview by Myrdal, November 3, 1939.) 

85 Interview by Wilhelmina Jackson, December, 1939, in Bunchc, "The Political 
Status of the Negro," Vol. 4, p. 941. 

80 Interview by Wilhelmina Jackson, December, 1939, in Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 940. 

87 Sometimes a vague excuse may accompany a refusal to permit a Negro to register 
or vote, such as that "there is no provision in the law for registering Negroes," or that 
the "quota" of Negro voters had been filled. (See Lewinson, of. cit., p. 118.) 

38 Idem. 

88 Ibid., p. 119. 

40 Raper, of. cit., pp. 288-291. 

41 The causes of local variations are discussed in Lewinson, of. cit., pp. 120-124, 
132-138. 

42 A candidate who docs this is sometimes a "reform" candidate. For a description of 
several "reform" campaigns leading up to general elections, sec Lewinson, of. cit._ 
pp. 148 fF. When the 1928 campaign split the South, there were contests in the general 
elections for a few years afterwards where pro-Hoover Democrats joined the Repub- 
licans to battle the regular Democratic candidates. (See ibid., pp. 1 59 ff.) 

43 Ibid., p. 147. 

44 In one case at least the commission form of government is known to have hurt 
Negroes politically: In Chattanooga before 1920 the city had an aldermanic govern- 
ment, and there were Negro aldermen from Negro sections of the city. In 1 9 20 a 
nonpartisan commission form of government was instituted and — since elections became 
city-wide — Negroes were outvoted. From that time on, according to a local labor leader, 
Negroes received less consideration in politics. (Interview by George Stoncy, January, 
1940, in Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 4, p. 973.} 

45 Here again we rely on Bunchc's estimates. 

46 See Chapter 12, Section 5. Corruption is absent only in the sense that Negroes 
are not intimidated at the polls. There have been reports of white plantation owners 
bringing their Negro croppers to the polling place and "voting" them. Too, the voting 
is not secret, so that white plantation owners know their tenants' vote. On the other 
hand, some Southern whites feel that the A.A.A. ekctions arc bad because they are giving 
Negroes the idea that they can vote. Other whites satisfy themselves by believing that 
the Negroes do not know what they are voting for anyway or by telling Negroes how to 
vote. While Negroes vote in the main A.A.A. referenda, they are often not permitted 
to vote for the committeemen who administer the program locally. In some cases they 
are permitted to vote, but only for white nominees. In all Alabama, for example, there 
was only one county which had Negro committeemen in the A.A.A. program. (Hale 



13*6 An American Dilemma 

County, which had three Negro committeemen in 1940, representing three separate 
communities.) See Bunche, 'The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 5, p. 1066. 

47 Lewinson, of. cit., pp. 107 ff; Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 
4. Bunche quotes a number of these statements from his interviews, including some by 
Southern senators. They represent one of the traditional stereotypes. Stone says: 

"The Negro masses in fact do not hare to be excluded. They will disfranchise 
themselves if left to their own devices." (A. H. Stone, Studies in the American Race 
Problem [1908], p. 374.) 

Occasionally a Negro author will agree to the white rationalization. Bertram W. 
Doyle writes: 

". . . the Negro masses are, in general, not interested. The situation serves as an 
illustration to draw the distinction between the controls established by laws and formal 
regulation and those fixed in custom and habit. The Negro masses look on the white 
man as chosen to rule and on the ballot as a means to that end. They feel out of place 
participating in such. They accept their status as nonvoters and expect to be guided 
thereby. They would much prefer that "quality" white people govern them ; but, even 
in other instances, they exhibit a lack of interest. From this standpoint the battle for 
and against Negro suffrage, on principle, or on a platform of the enforcement of the 
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments of the Constitution, is hampered by the under- 
lying sentiments and habits of the Negroes themselves. Voting and participation in 
governmental affairs seem not to be in the mores of the Negro group." {The Etiquette 
of Race Relations in the South [1937], pp. 139-140.) 

* 8 Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South (1941), 
p. 487. 

49 For general traits of nonvoters, see Charles E. Merriam and Harold F. Gossnell, 
Non-Voting (1924), and Herbert Tingsten, Political Behavior (193 7). 

50 The political boss of a large city in the Deep South, who openly conceded to the 
author that he bought votes, gave a sort of democratic motivation for vote-buying which 
might be recorded because of the light it throws on the psychology of corrupt politics. 
"Why," he said, "shouldn't the poor devil, who doesn't own more than his shirt, have 
the right to expect a couple of dollars for his vote, when the big shots get so much 
more out of politics. ... If yon were a local business man," he continued, "wouldn't 
you expect favors from me, if you helped me into office? Well, what about the common 
citizen? Should he be entirely forgotten in this big game?" 

81 In Detroit in 1940, for example, Negroes constituted 9.2 per cent of the total 
population but n.O per cent of the population 21 years of age and over. 

62 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro (1899), p. 373. 

83 There are many forms of gerrymandering: in addition to cutting up a minority 
group, it may also take the form of concentrating a group in one election district when 
that group could control several districts if otherwise distributed. Since the modification 
of the boundaries of an election district always affects the influence of the vote in that 
district, the only test for the presence of gerrymandering is to equate the total votes 
of all groups over several election districts with the total influence of these groups in 
electing candidates. 

Gerrymandering is possible because Negroes are segregated in certain areas of the city 
and because the multi-district system is used instead of proportional representation or 
other systems without districts. If Negroes were distributed throughout a city or if a 



Footnotes 1327 

district's boundaries meant nothing (as under a proportional representation system), 
there would be no gerrymandering. But there would also be much less chance of electing 
Negroes to office (except under a proportional representation system). When Negroes 
are scattered throughout a city, they cannot exert much influence in any district. Segre- 
gation usually gives them control of at least one district, and also makes apparent to 
politicians how they vote in city-wide elections. Voting on a city-wide basis takes away 
the advantage of being a majority in a single district. In Detroit and Chattanooga, the 
Negroes have little political influence, partly because of the city-wide election system 
for local office. But if the city-wide system is combined with proportional representation 
it gives greater weight to the votes of those Negroes living in non-Negro areas. Between 
1930 and 1938 the New York City Council, operating under the single-member- 
district plan, had a Negro alderman. When proportional representation was put into 
effect in 1938, the Negro alderman was lost. But in 1 94.1, Negroes managed to concen- 
trate their votes, and with the help of some white votes, sent a representative to the 
Council again. 

54 In 1933 the victorious Democrats of St. Louis redistricted the city for the election 
of state legislators. A large number of the Negroes formerly concentrated in the Twelfth 
District were shifted into the huge Eleventh District and their vote in both districts 
was completely overwhelmed. Previous to 1933, one or two Negro legislators were 
always elected from St. Louis; after that year no Negro has ever been elected. Negro 
leaders have been working to stop this gerrymander. (Memorandum by David M. 
Grant in Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 6, p. 1 3 16.) The rc-appor- 
tionment of 1931 in Detroit also served to prevent Negroes from electing a congress- 
man. The Negro majority in the First District was wiped out by putting some of its 
Negro constituents in the predominantly white Thirteenth and Fifteenth Districts. 
Both of these cases of gerrymandering were perpetuated by the Democratic party, 
apparently not because it was making a racial discrimination against Negroes but because 
Negroes were tied to the Republican party before 1933. A more exhaustive study needs 
to be made to determine whether Negro areas have ever been gerrymandered in the 
North on account of race prejudice. 

BB Recently a congressman was successful in forcing the New York Legislature to 
promise to make the long overdue adjustments. 

50 Since there are no registration or voting statistics in the North which differentiate 
Negroes from whites, all quantitative studies of Negro voting and nonvoting are based 
on differences between areas inhabited mainly by Negroes and areas inhabited mainly 
by whites. 

5T Edward H. Litchfield, "A Case Study of Negro Political Behavior in Detroit," 
Public Opinion Quarterly (June, 1941), pp. 267-274. Litchfield found that this 
greater political apathy among Negroes existed even when economic status is held 
constant. In the absence of figures on income, measures of economic status used to 
compare Negroes and whites may be called into question. Rents, for example, are not 
comparable when Negroes are segregated and crowded. Such weaknesses of economic 
indices' do not apply, however, to differences wit Am the Negro group. 

68 Harold F. Gosnell, Negro Politicians (1935)1 P- '7- In Cleveland, too, it has 
been claimed that Negroes vote more than whites, although statistics have not been 
compiled to prove this. See memorandum prepared for this study by Harry E. Davis, 
cited in Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 6, p. 1279. 



1328 An American Dilemma 

58 One student report* that, while Negroes vote much less than whites in Detroit, 
they register for voting almost to the same extent. This is because some Negro men 
hope to get jobs in the Ford factories by registering and forming Republican clubs. 
(My interviews.) See also: T. R. Solomon, "Participation of Negroes in Detroit Elec- 
tions," unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan (1939), pp. 101-102. Quoted 
in Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 6, p. 1308. 

00 Tingsten, of. cit., Chapter 3, has a complete summary of all these studies. Although 
Gosnell, Arneson, and others have made such studies for two or three such communities 
in America, it is difficult to do this, since voting statistics are not broken down by race, 
and it is difficult to find suitable economic indices. (See: Harold F. Gosnell, Getting 
Out the Vote (1927); Harold F. Gosnell and Norman N. Gill, "An Analysis of the 
1932 Presidential Vote in Chicago," The American Political Science Review (Decem- 
ber, 1935), pp. 967-984; Ben A. Ameson, "Non-Voting in a Typical Ohio Com- 
munity," The American Political Science Review (November, 1925), pp. 816-822; 
W. Donaldson, "Compulsory Voting," National Municipal Review (July, 1915), 
pp. 4.60-465. There is, however, a simple substitute for voting statistics in America and 
that is the already collected public opinion polls made by Gallup, Fortune magazine and 
others. Many of these polls give information as to whether the informant voted or not 
in the previous election, and they have a rough estimate of the informant's economic 
status. A retabulation of several such polls ought to provide a reasonable estimate of the 
extent of nonvoting in different income groups. 

81 Tammany sought the Negro vote in New York City as early as 1886 when they 
got John A. Nail, a saloon-keeper and leading Negro citizen, to set up a Negro Demo- 
cratic club. After 1900 Ferdinand Q. Morton took over leadership of Negro Demo- 
crats. He was skillfully supported after 1920 by Mrs. Bcssyc Beardcn. The Garvey 
movement helped the Democratic party in New York to a large extent. (Bunche, "The 
Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 6, pp. 1335-1356.) For a detailed description of 
Negroes in recent New York politics, see Claude McKay, Harlem ( 1 940) , pp. 1 24- 1 3 1 . 
08 Henderson, of. cit., p. 19. 
88 Litchfield, of. cit., pp. 271, 273. 
04 Gosnell, Negro Politicians, p. 36. 

85 In St. Louis, for example, Negroes were given only three upper-bracket political 
jobs by the Republicans. The incoming Democrats, despite a general curtailment due 
to the depression, opened up eleven more jobs to Negroes and built one hospital and 
three community centers for them. (Democratic Campaign Booklet, prepared by Negro 
Division of the Democratic Campaign Headquarters of St. Louis. Quoted by Bunche, 
"The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 6, pp. 1315-1316, 1320.) 

88 New York was something of an exception, since the nominal Republican, La 
Guardia, was the mayor during the depression after beating Tammany candidates. 
La Guardia supported Roosevelt nationally, however. Chicago, too, was something of an 
Exception since the pre-depression Republican mayor, Thompson, was very pro-Negro. 
After Thompson's defeat in 1 93 1, however, he was rapidly forgotten, and the. Negro 
vote shifted to the Democratic party after a few years. 

87 The figures for 1932 and 1936 are from Henderson, of. cit., pp. 19-21. The 
figure for 1940 is from H. F. Gosnell, "The Negro Vote in Northern Cities," National 
Municipal Review (May, 1941), p. 267. Since Gosnell used a slightly different basis 
tix calculation than Henderson, the 1936 and 1940 figures may not be ex'Hy com- 



Footnotes 1320 

parable. Henderson showed a Negro vote of 59.5 per cent for the Democratic candidate 
for Mayor in 1939. 

•'Litchfield, of. cit., p. 271. The percentage Democratic among Detroit Negroea 
in 1930 was 19.3. 

69 In addition to the factors mentioned as causing the shift in the Negro vote toward 
the Democratic party, Gosnell observes that there was one other factor that influenced 
the local elections if not the national ones. As Northern city administrations fell into the 
hands of Democrats after 1930, the Negro underworld was forced to back them. 

"This year one syndicate had 1,500 policy writers on the streets canvassing for the 
Democratic ticket. One of the leaders of this syndicate recently made a settlement with 
the federal government of $500,000 for his back income taxes in 1938. A rival syndi- 
cate that sponsored a Willkie meeting was raided and practically closed down. The 
police have this element of the Negro community well under control." (Gosnell, "The 
Negro Vote in Northern Cities," National Municipal Review, p. 267.) 

70 Litchfield, of. cit., p. 273. 

71 Gosnell, Negro Politicians, p. 352. 

72 Davis, in Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 6, pp. 1 289-1 290. 

78 Litchfield, of. cit., p. 272. Negroes, by economic class, had about the same propor- 
tions Democratic as the city as a whole. This comparison, however, has methodological 
weaknesses. Henderson found a similar class differential in voting among Chicago 
Negroes. Henderson, of. cit., pp. 30-31. 

74 The estimate that there are as many Negroes voting today in the United States 
as there are Southern whites voting in seven Deep Southern states was made in the 
following manner: to get the approximate number of Negro voters in all Northern and 
Western states and in the Border states of Delaware, West Virginia, and Maryland, the 
proportion of all voters for President in 1940 to the total population in 1940, for each 
state, was applied to the Negro population of the respective state. That is, it was assumed 
that Negroes voted in the same proportion in these states as did whites. The only 
empirical evidence we have on this point is Gosnell's finding that in Chicago Negroes 
voted more than did whites and Litchfield's finding that in Detroit Negroes voted less 
than did whites. (See Section 4 of this chapter.) If Negroes voted less than did eligible 
whites in the entire North, we feel that this is compensated for by the fact that many 
of the foreign-born whites are not citizens and so cannot vote. A similar procedure was 
used to estimate the number of Negroes voting in the Border states of Missouri and 
Kentucky except that the percentage was arbitrarily reduced by 10 per cent before being 
applied to the Negro population, in order to compensate for the minor restrictions on 
Negro voting in some areas of those states. Our estimates showed that over 1,263,000 
Negroes voted for President in 1940 in the North and West, and that over 348,000 
Negroes voted in the five Border states. For the 12 states of the Upper and Lower 
South we used Bunche's estimate of 250,000 Negro votes. The total number of Negro 
votes in the United States was thus about 1,861,000. 

To determine how many Southern states had this many whites voting, we subtracted 
the estimated Negro vote from the total vote for each state, and added these white 
votes together (beginning with the states that disfranchised the Negroes most) until our 
total was close to 1,861,000. The total white vote for the six Deep Southern states of 
Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas and Georgia was 1,430,000. 



1330 An American Dilemma 

By adding Florida, the total was brought up to 1,905,000, which is dote to the total 

number of Negro vote*. 

"Gosnell, Negro Politicians, pp. 364-367; Bunche, "The Political Statu of the 
Negro," VoL 6, p. 1272 passim. 

"Lewinson, of. cit., p. 130. 

77 See Raper, of. cit., pp. 27 ff. 

78 Editorial in the Montgomery Advertiser (April 23, 1940). Cited in Raper, of. 
cit., p. 45. 

78 Ibid., p. 50. 

80 According to a Negro political leader in an interview in November, 1939. See 
Bunche, "The Political Statue of the Negro," Vol. 4, p. 923. 

81 Ibid., p. 994. 

82 Raper, of. cit., p. 1 3. 

88 Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 4, pp. 866-867. 

84 Ibid., p. 911. 

85 Ibid., p. 985. 

88 Ibid., Vol. 6, p. 1490, and Lewinson, of. cit., pp. 1 50-1 51. 

87 Bunche, "The Political Status of the Negro," Vol. 4, p. 906. 

88 Idem. 

88 Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 782. 

90 Gosnell, Negro Politicians,, p. 373. 

81 Gosnell describes the political loyalty of the Negroes in the following terms: 

"The greatest contribution which the rank and file of the Negro group had to offer 
to the white political leaders was personal loyalty. The politician who won their confi- 
dence could count on their support even in the most adverse of circumstance. It was 
common belief among certain white politicians that the Negro vote was influenced 
primarily by large expenditures of money. It is true that colored party workers demand 
compensation for their services on behalf of given candidates. Other things being 
equal, the colored voters, like the white voters in many parts of the United States, 
support the candidates who spend the most money. However, these candidates had to 
measure up to given standards of acceptability if the money spent was to yield the best 
returns. In other words, money, jobs, and other rewards might not influence the Negro 
voters to support a candidate who was regarded as hostile to the interests of the race in 
preference to one who had a reputation of fair dealing in race matters. This is not to 
say that the favored candidate, if he wanted a large vote, could neglect to spend the 
money that was commonly put into districts of the same economic status. Another 
evidence of the loyalty of the colored voters was their behavior when the political 
fortunes of their favorite candidates were sinking. The Negroes, like other minority 
groups, do not enjoy supporting losing causes, but when their friends are going down 
they stick with them to the last." (Negro Politicians, pp. 365-366.) 

88 Henderson, of. cit., pp. 78-79. 

"Gosnell, Negro Politicians, p. 367. 

M Negro political leaders have sometimes claimed that Negroes control the "balance 
of power" in as many as 1 7 states. This estimate is based on the dubious assumptions that 
all Negroes of voting age do vote, that the Negro vote is perfectly organized and flex- 
ible, tiat white voters are always divided as closely as they were in 1940, and that white 
voters would be uninfluenced if an organized Negro movement were afoot. 



Footnotes 1331 

•■The tradition of « "Black Cabinet" dates further back. (See James Weldon 
Johnson, Along This Way [1934], p. 239.) 

M Archie C. Edwards, quoted by Laurence J. W. Hayes, The Negro Federal Govern- 
ment Worker, Howard University Studies in the Social Sciences (19+1), pp. 73, 153. 
According to Kiplinger, at the end of 1941 there were more than 150,000 Negroes in 
the federal civil service, and they were increasing as the war boom continued. (W. M. 
Kiplinger, Washington Is Like That [194.2], p. 148.) 



Chapter 13. Trends and Possibilities 

*We are not overlooking the watchdog service on behalf of the Negro interests 
carried on primarily by the national office of the N.A.A.C.P. (see Chapter 39) . W. E. B. 
Du Bois, a former leader of the organization, gives in his autobiography an inside view 
of how political strategy appeared to Negro leadership up until recently: 

"We had calculated that increased independence in the Negro vote would bring a 
bid for the Negro vote from opposing parties; but it did not until many years later. 
Indeed, it was not until the re-election of the second Roosevelt in 1936 that the Negro 
vote in the North came to be eagerly contended for by the two major parties. In 1914 
we tried to make congressional candidates declare themselves as to our demands, but 
were only partially successful. The Sixty-fourth Congress saw eleven bills introduced 
advocating color caste and the state legislatures continued to be bombarded by similar 
legislation. Thus, in 1 91 6, we found ourselves politically helpless. We had no choice. 
We could vote for Wilson who had segregated us or for Hughes who, despite all our 
requests, remained doggedly dumb on onr problems."* 

2 I have observed in the big cities a certain amount of anti-Semitism among Negroes, 
which is rather natural as Jews in the role of businessmen and real estate owners are 
frequently the ones among the whites who are in closest contact with the Negro and are 
thus likely to be identified as the exploiters of the Negro people. Rarely, however, does 
an anti-Semitic tone creep into the Negro press. This is not only due to the fact that 
Jewish merchants usually contribute so large a part of the tiny local advertising for 
every Negro paper, but more fundamentally to a clear knowledge by almost everybody 
writing or talking in the Negro group that as a people they cannot afford any negative 
racialism but have to stick to racial equalitarianism. 

8 Robert E. Park points to one important aspect of this general "law" at the end of 
the following statement: 

"The freedman was not able at once to enter into the spirit and tradition of a free 
competition and industrial society. He had no conception, for example, of the secret 
terror that haunts the free laborer; the fear, namely, of losing his job and of being 
out of work. On the contrary, his first conception of freedom was that of a condition 
in which he would be permanently out of work. So far, therefore, from being possessed 
by that mania for owning things which is the characteristic, as the communists tell us, 
of a capitalistic society, his first impulse and aim were to get as deeply in debt as 
possible. If, therefore, the agents of the 'Third International' find that such Negroes 

'Dusk of Dawn (1940)1 P- *37- 



I33 4 An American Dilemma 

are ai yet not ripe for communism, it is undoubtedly because they hare not had as yet 
the opportunity to realize the evils of a free and competitive society." 1 

4 The Communists have tried to circumvent this difficulty. The church is often the 
only meeting place. b But the great majority of Negro preachers will not only keep 
them out of their churches, but use all their influence to stamp out Communism as a 
"Godless," anti-religious creed. 

*Negro Americans, What Now? (1934), p. II. 

6 Ibid., p. 68. Compare James Weldon Johnson, Along this Way (1934), p. 411. 

7 James Weldon Johnson, Negro Americans, What Now?, p. 9. 

8 The following figures taken from a survey made by Fortune magazine show to what 
a great extent Negroes support the New Deal: 

Per cent in Favor 
"Do you approve: 

"in general of F.D.R.? 84.7 

"of his economic objectives? 87.3 

"of Wages and Hours Legislation? 91.3 

"of F.D.R.'b attitude toward Business? 85. 2 

"of F.D.R.'s Advisors and Associates? 73-6" 

These figures are quoted by courtesy of Fortune magazine. "The Fortune Quarterly 
Survey: XIII," Fortune (July, 1938), pp. 36-37 and 74-80. 

9 The most comprehensive and penetrating study of the subject is still, after half a 
century, James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (1893). 

10 W. E. B. Du Bois, "The Negro Citizen" in Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in 
American Civilization (1930), p. 466. 

11 Du Bois, "The Negro Citizen," of. cit., pp. 465-466. 

"I do not for a moment argue that political power will immediately abolish color 
caste, make ignorant men intelligent or bad men good. We have caste and discrimination 
in the North with the vote, and social progress in some parts of the South without it. 
But there is this vast difference: in states like New York, where we are beginning to 
learn the meaning and use of the ballot, we are building a firm and unshakeable basis 
of permanent freedom, while every advance in the South, unprotected by political 
power, is based on chance and changing personalities. I maintain that political power 
is the beginning of all permanent reform and the only hope for maintaining gains. 

".There are today a surprisingly large number of intelligent and sincere people, both 
white and black, who really believe thaj the Negro problem in the United States can 
ultimately be solved without our being compelled to face and settle the question of the 
Negro vote. 

"Nearly all of our social studies apparently come to this conclusion, either openly 
or by assumption, and do not say, as they ought to say, that granted impulse by philan- 
thropy, help by enlightened public opinion and the aid of time, no permanent improve- 
ment in the economic and social condition of Negroes is going to be made, so long as 
they are deprived of political power to support and defend it. 

"Nowhere else in the world is there any suggestion that a modern laboring class can 

* Introduction to Charles S. Johnson's Shadow of the Plantation (1934), p. xxii. 
b See J. G. St. Clair Drake, "The Negro Church and Associations in Chicago," unpublished 
manuscript prepared for this study ( 1 940) , p. 409. 



Footnotes 1333 

permanently better itielf without political power. It may be a question, it certainly 
ii a question, as to just how labor is going to use this power ultimately so as to raise its 
economic and social statue. But there is no question but that such power must be had."* 

12 See, for instance, Booker T. Washington, The Future of the American Negro 
(1899), pp. 141, 156 and 212. 

18 "The more I consider the subject, the more strongly I am convinced that the most 
harmful effect of the practice to which the people in certain sections of the South have 
felt themselves compelled to resort, in order to get rid of the force of the Negroes' 
ballot, is not wholly in the wrong done to the Negro, but in the permanent injury to 
the morals of the white man. The wrong to the Negro is temporary, but to the morals 
of the white man the injury is permanent. I have noted time and time again that when 
an individual perjures himself in order to break the force of the black man's ballot, 
he soon learns to practise dishonesty in other relations of life, not only where the Negro 
is concerned, but equally so where a white man is concerned. The white man who 
begins by cheating a Negro usually ends up cheating a white man. The white man who 
begins to break the law by lynching a Negro soon yields to the temptation to lynch 
a white man. All this, it seems to me, makes it important that the whole Nation lend 
a hand in trying to lift the burden of ignorance from the South." b 

"These disfranchisement measures, harsh and severe as they are in many features, 
meet with little or no opposition from the nation at large. Although the clear and 
unmistakable intent of the Federal Constitution is set at naught, yet the nation suffereth 
it to be so. There is no moral force in the nation it present that will lead to their 
undoing, and no political exigency seems to demand it. That they violate the spirit, if 
not the letter, of the Federal Constitution is notorious. Every fourteen year old child 
in America is fully aware of this fact, and yet the nation winks at the violation of its 
own fundamental law. Men of the highest patriotic and personal probity ignore their 
oath to execute the law, and condone its annulment. If there is a growing disrespect 
for law in the attitude of the American mind, the cause is not far to seek nor hard to 
find. If one portion of the organic law may be violated with impunity, why not another 
if it seems to conflict with our interests or with our prejudices?" 

14 "I am not saying a word against all legitimate efforts to purge the ballot of igno- 
rance, pauperism, and crime. But few have pretended that the present movement for 
disfranchisement in the South is for such a purpose; it has been plainly and frankly 
declared in nearly every case that the object of the disfranchising laws is the elimination 
of the black man from politics." 3 

"More and more I au convinced that the final solution of the political end of our 
race problem will be for each state that finds it necessary to change the law bearing 
upon the franchise to make the law apply with absolute honesty, and without oppor- 
tunity for double dealing or evasion, to both races alike. Any other course my daily 
observation in the South convinces me, will be unjust to the Negro, unjust to the 
white man, and unfair to the rest of the states in the Union, and will be, like slavery, 
a sin that at some time we shall have to pay for."* 

* Ibid., pp. 464-4*5- 

"Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (190M first edition, 1900), pp. 165-166. 
" Kelly Miller, Out of the House of Bondage (1914), p. tjo. 

* W. E. B. Uu Bois, Tie Souls of Black Folk (1903), p. 175. 
•Washington, Uf from Slavery, pp. 86-87. 



1334 An Ams&ican Dilemma 

15 "There U a growing school of thought in the South which hold* that any nun, 
no matter what hi* race, who U qualified to rote ought to be permitted to vote, and that 
it it wholly unjust for election officials to disqualify thousands of Negroes arbitrarily 
while permitting other thousands of white illiterates to troop to the polls. It is the view 
of the element that an educated and respectable Negro is a greater asset to the com- 
munity and more deserving of the franchise than an unlettered white swineherd from 
the pine barrens. It cannot be raid that this view is held by anything remotely approach- 
ing a majority of the Southern whites, but it undoubtedly is gaining in favor. As recon- 
struction and its atrocities recede further and further into the background, more and 
more white Southerners are coming to feel that the cry of 'white supremacy,' raised so 
often in the past, is in the twentieth century a mere rawhead and bloodybones without 
substance or meaning."" 

16 The relevant section of the Fourteenth Amendment reads: ". . . when the right 
to vote at any election for the choice of Electors for President of the United States, 
Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the 
members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such 
State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way 
abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation 
therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens 
shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State." 

There was some discussion about applying the penalty to the South demanded by this 
section of the Constitution after the disfranchising laws were adopted by the South. 
In 1904, the so-called Crumpacker Resolution was before Congress demanding that 
the representation of the disfranchising states be reduced after a careful investigation. 
In 1904 the Republican Party platform carried the same demand. By the end of the 
first decade of the twentieth century discussion on this point was dead. 

There was some question as to the constitutionality of such a resolution. Some held 
that the Fifteenth Amendment superseded the Fourteenth, and that a disfranchising 
state's representation should not be reduced but the disfranchising stopped. James G. 
Blaine, the great statesman of the last decades of the nineteenth century, for example 
said: 

"Before the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, if a State should exclude the 
negro from suffrage the next step would be for Congress to exclude the negro from 
the basis of apportionment. After the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, if a State 
should exclude the negro from suffrage, the next step would be for the Supreme Court 
to declare the act unconstitutional and therefore null and void." b 

The relevant section of the Fifteenth Amendment reads: "The right of citizens of 
the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any 
State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." 

17 Compare Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal Status of the Negro (1940), pp. 
388 ff. J. W. Johnson comments from the Negro side: "More than once he took his 
case to the Supreme Court of the United States, but the Court pointed out that he had 
failed to show that the state had abridged or denied his right to vote or that persons 
who prevented him from voting had done so because of his race, color or freviout 
condition of servitude. So, unable to prove that the committee which had met him at 

'Vfeginius Dabney, Liberalism in the South (1932), pp. 153-254. 
* Tmmty Yean of Congress (1886), Vol. a, pp. 418-419. 



Footnotes 1335 

the polli with shotguns was actuated by any such base and unconstitutional motives, he 
found his case thrown out. In the last analysis, he lost his vote because of the attitude 
of the Supreme Court."* 

18 Thomas P. Bailey, Race Orthodoxy it. the South (1914), pp. 60-61. 

19 Marian D. Irish, "The Southern One-Party System and National Politics," The 
Journal of Polities (February, 1942), p. 82. 

20 "A Minority of Our Own," New York Times (April 3, 1942). 

21 "For the nation, therefore, the fair position would seem to be that the South is 
entitled to work out this extremely important and extremely delicate question in the 
way in which they have begun, without further disastrous interference such as occurred 
during the reconstruction period." b 

22 "For the dominant political party in a third of the United States to rule that in 
1942 only qualified 'white voters' shall be allowed to participate in the selection of tne 
officials of our democratic government would be an anachronism too dangerous to 
democratic principles and Christian ideals to be preserved for the sake of old days and 
old ways." c 

2S Woofter, of. cit., p. 151. 



Chapter 24. Inequality of Justice 

1 "In many a small town and city [of the South], the mayor and councilmen offer 
for election with a complete list of police and other public officers.'" 1 

2 Willis D. Weatherford and Charles S. Johnson, Race Relations (1934), p. 61. 

* W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), p. 176. Italics ours. 

*As early as 1904, Murphy recognized the "morbid and exaggerated solidarity" 
among Negroes against the white agencies of justice as the "blind moving of the instinct 
of self -protection." 6 Weatherford observes how the reaction breaks down "... one of 
the most powerful deterrents of crime; namely, the loss of status among those who arc 
of the same class as the possible criminal."' 

The Negro spokesmen generally do not deny the charges against their people of 
being inclined to shield criminals of their own race. But they unanimously point to the 
defects in the working of justice as the explanation: 

"The Negro feels that he cannot expect justice from Southern courts where white 
and black are involved. In .his mind accusation is equivalent to condemnation. . . . The 
very spirit in which, he feels, the law is administered makes it difficult for the colored 

* Negro Americans, What Now? pp. 56-57. 

"T. J. Woofter, Jr., The Basis of Racial Adjustment (19*5)1 p. »«7- 

* Statement by Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, in Jessie 
Daniel Ames, The Changing Character of Lynching, published by C ommiaiion on Interracial 
Cooperation (July, 1941)1 P- 7°- See also Dabney, op. cit., pp. »53-*5+- 

'Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," unpublished manuscript prepared for this 
study (1940), p. 14. . 

'Edgar Gardner Murphy, Problems of the Present South (19091 first edition, 1904 J, 

p. 174- 

'Weatherford and Johnson, of. cit., p. 43°- 



j3$6 An American Dilemma 

citizen to exercise cheerful co-operation and acquiescence."' Robert R. Moton, a most 
conservative Negro educator and leader, writes in the same vein: 

"In the light of these facts [the attitudes and activities against the Negro in the 
First World War] it ought not be difficult to understand why the reproach is so often 
hurled at the Negro that he does not cooperate with officers of the law in apprehending 
criminals and those accused of crime. To the Negro the law where these practices obtain 
appears not as an instrument of justice, but as an instrument of persecution; govern- 
ment is simply white society organized to keep the Negro down; and the officers of the 
law are its agents authorized to wreak upon the helpless offender the contempt, the 
indignation, and the vengeance that outraged law and order feels when stimulated by 
prejudice. There is no such hue and cry over crime when the victim is a Negro and the 
perpetrator cither white or black as when the victim is white and the suspect is black 
or supposed to be black." b 
and: 

"The Negro knows, perhaps better than he knows anything else, that his chances of 
securing justice in the courts in those sections of the country where discrimination is in 
other things legal and common are so slim that in most instances he has nothing to gain 
by resorting to the courts even for litigation with members of his own race; while it is 
accepted by most as a foregone conclusion that no court anywhere will render a judg- 
ment against a white man in favour of a Negro plaintiff. A Negro defendant may 
occasionally get a favourable judgment as against a white plaintiff, but the reverse is a 
far more frequent possibility, so much so that a Negro very rarely brings suit against 
a white man for any cause in those states where relations between the two races are 
more or less strained. It is figured that to do so will involve a man in fruitless litigation, 
with the original loss augmented by the cost of the action. In spite of all the injustices 
tnd abuses from which Negroes suffer, one seldom hears of a court action brought by 
Negroes against any white person in our Southern states." 

A recent investigator of a Southern community, Hortense Powdermaker, testifies 
concerning the attitudes among the Negroes: 

". . . many of the Negroes have long since concluded that their best course is to keep 
clear of legal complications wherever possible. To go to 'court for any cause would 
be to solicit more trouble than the matter at issue might be worth. Since no Negro can 
expect to find justice by due process of law, it is better in the long run to suffer one's 
loss — or to adjust it oneself. From this angle, the 'lawlessness' sometimes ascribed to the 
Negro may be viewed as being rather his private and individual 'law enforcement' 
faute de mieux. The feeling against going to court has in it an element of race-solidarity. 
Some Negroes will criticize one of the race who takes legal action against another 
Negro. Such criticism is part of a definite counter-current against the still prevalent 
tendency to take one's troubles to a white man." d 

On this point the Southern white liberals — who, in this region, have to defend the 
principle of legality, since conservatism there is married to the tradition of illegality — 
agree without reservation with the Negro leaders. Baker reported this more than thirty 
years ago. One of the Southern liberals told him frankly: 

"We complain that the Negroes will not help to bring the criminals of their race 

"Kelly Miller, Race Adjustment (1908), p. 79. 

"What th* Negro TMnkt (19*9), pp. 154-155. 

'' Moton, of. cit., pp. 141-142. 

* After Freedom (1939), p. ix6. 



Footnotes 1337 

to justice. One reason for this is that the Negro has too little confidence in onr court*. 

We must give him that, above all things."" 

Woofter eloquently expresses the view of Southern liberalism today when he says: 

"In the successful adjustment of the legal relationships of the two races democracy 
is vitally involved. The right to a fair trial by an impartial jury of peers is one of the 
bed-rocfes upon which freedom rests, and if it cannot be preserved when the courts 
serve two races, then democracy itself rests on quicksand. The problem of legal justice 
is, therefore, fully as important to the white race as to the Negro race. Any tendency 
to weaken the feeling that the court system is entirely impartial, unaffected by passion 
or prejudice, and meticulously just, or any tendency to strengthen the feeling that the 
court can be hiased or made the instrument of a particular class, is a tendency which 
may wreck society ," b 

• For example, Robert A. Warner describes the situation in New Haven, Connecticut, 
in these terms: 

"Only occasionally are justice betrayed and the colored people robbed of the protec- 
tion of the law, when the judges of the city court suspect acts of violence in which 
Negroes are involved are simple assaults. One such case was appealed to Criminal 
Superior Court successfully. A white man, drunk, was surprised in the act of stealing 
the car of a reputable Negro couple. When they chased and overtook him, he slashed 
the woman so severely that a blood transfusion was necessary to save her life. The city 
court disposed of the case with a cursory $25 fine and costs for breach of the peace, 
and suspended judgments or penalties for the motor vehicle violations involved. The 
higher court gave the miscreant a deserved year in jail." (New Haven Negroes [1940], 
p. 224.) 

8 The classic case study on this subject is the survey undertaken by The Chicago 
Commission on Race Relations. (The Negro in Chicago [1922].) 

7 In Detroit a federal housing project, the Sojourner Truth Homes, was the scene 
of a riot between whites and Negroes. The project was designed for Negro defense 
workers. On the day set for occupancy, February 28, whites who lived nearby picketed 
the project. Moving vans containing the furniture of prospective Negro tenants were 
stopped. When one van tried to pass the line, the white men climbed all over the true*-; 
a stone was thrown, hitting a Negro driver. Then mounted police charged in. Life 
magazine reports: "Cops charged down on Negro sympathizers of excluded tenants. 
Police devoted most attention to Negroes, made no effort to open picket lines for vans. 
Said one inspector: 'It would be suicide if we used our sticks on any of them [the 
whites]."' (Life [March 16, 1942], pp. 40-41.) 

8 Henry Hill Collins, Jr., America's Own Refugees (1941)1 P- 156. See also, David 
W. Anthony, "The Cranbury Terror Case," The Crisis (October, 1939), pp. 295-296. 

'Of 1,247 Negro lawyers, judges, and justices reported in the United States in 1930, 
only 436 were from the whole South, where over three-fourths of the Negro popula- 
tion were concentrated. (U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 
1920-1932, pp. 9 and 293.) 

" Ray Stannard Baker, Tollovnng the Color Line (1908), p. 49- The statement was made 
by a Mr. Hopkins, leader of the Civic League of Atlanta, composed of the foremost white 
citizens of that city. 

*T. J. Woofter, Jr., The Basis of Racial Adjustment (1915), p. 115. 



1 338 An American Dilemma 

10 Statement* in this paragraph are the conclusions the present author has reached after 
having interviewed a great number of white and Negro lawyers in Northern cities. 

11 £. Franklin Frazier, Negro Youth at the Crossteays (1940), pp. 34-3 5 and 169. 
"Hinton Rowan Helper, The Impending Crisis of the South (i860; first edition, 

1857), p. 140. 

""Notes on Virginia: 178 1-1782," in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, H. A, 
Washington (editor) (1859), Vol. 8, pp. 403-404. In two paragraphs Cash, in his 
Mini of the South, gives the common sense of the long-drawn-out discussion about 
whether slavery was cruel or not: 

"Wholly apart from the strict question of right and wrong, it is plain that slavery was 
inescapably brutal and ugly. Granted the existence, in the higher levels, of genuine 
humanity of feeling toward the bondsman; granted that, in the case of the house- 
servants at least, there was sometimes real affection between master and man; granted 
even that, at its best, the relationship here got to be gentler than it has ever been else- 
where, the stark fact remains: It rested on force. The black man occupied the position 
of a mere domestic animal, without will or right of his own. The lash lurked always in 
the background. Its open crackle could often be heard where field hands were quartered. 
Into the gentlest houses drifted now and then the sound of dragging chains and shackles, 
the bay of hounds, the report of pistols on the trail of the runaway. And, as the adver- 
tisements of the time incontestably prove, mutilation and the mark of the branding 
iron were pretty common. 

"Just as plain was the fact that the institution was brutalizing; — to white men. 
Virtually unlimited power acted inevitably to call up, in the coarser sort of master, that 
sadism which lies concealed in the depths of universal human nature — bred angry 
impatience and a taste for cruelty for its own sake, with a strength that neither the 
kindliness I have so often referred to (it continued frequently to exist unimpaired side 
by side, and in the same man, with this other) nor notions of honor could effectually 
restrain. And in the common whites it bred a savage and ignoble hate for the Negro, 
which required only opportunity to break forth in relentless ferocity; for all their rage 
against the 'white-trash' epithet concentrated itself on him rather than on the planters." 
(Wilbur J. Cash, The Mini of the South [1941], pp. 82-83.) 

14 John Codman Hurd, The Lata of Freedom and Bondage in the United States 
(1858-1862), Vol. 1, pp. 222-309; Vol. 2, pp. 2-218. 

15 See: William Goodell, The American Slave Code in Theory and Practice (1853) ; 
John Codman Hurd, The Laze of Freedom and Bondage in the United States (1858- 
1862) ; and George M. Stroud, A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several 
States of the United States of America (1856). 

16 Compare William Sumner Jenkins, Pro-Slavery Thought in the Old South (193s), 

pp. I53-I5+- 

"Goodell, of. eit., pp. 122-127, 201-224; Stroud, of. cit., pp. 20-28, 67-755 
Hurd, of. eit., Vol. 2, pp. 79-80 and 96. 

18 For a summary of these insurrections and their effects on the whites, see Harvey 
Wish, "American Slave Insurrections before 1861," The Journal of Negro History 
(July, 1937), pp. 299-320. See also Chapter 35, Section I, of this book. 

19 Gilbert T. Stephenson, Race Distinctions in American Late (1910), pp. 36 S. 

80 B. Schrieke, Alien Americans (1936), pp. 135-136. 

81 See Frank Shay, Judge Lynch (1938). 



Footnotes 1339 

"Guy B. Johnson, "Patterns of Race Conflict," in Race Relations and the Race 
Problem, Edgar T. Thompson (editor) (1939), pp. 131 ff. 

M It has become customary in sociological literature to refer to the slavery system and 
the ante-bellum South as a social order in balance and equilibrium, "There was no 
serious race problem under slavery. The problem arose with the sudden and complete 
destruction of the old social arrangement, and the necessity for making a new racial 
adjustment under the irreversible conditions of a tremendous Negro population growth, 
economic interdependence, and the partial acculturation of the Negro group." (Charles 
S. Johnson in Weatherford and Johnson, of, cit., p. 543. Compare William Graham 
Sumner, Folkways [1906], pp. 77 and 90 ; Robert E. Park, "The Bases of Race Prej- 
udice," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science [Novem- 
ber, 1928], pp. 1 3-1 5 ; Bertram W. Doyle, The Etiquette of Race Relations in the South 
t I 937]» PP- 7 ff-) This view is considerably exaggerated, to say the least. 

24 There are, however, advantages to be gained by holding the Negro in a subordinate 
position. "Three gains are seen as accruing to the middle-class white group; they are the 
economic, sexual, and prestige gains. The white middle class is so placed that it makes 
all of these gains from the Negroes and some of them from the lower-class whites." 
(John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town [1937], p. 99.) 



Chapter 25. The Police and Other Public Contacts 

1 Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," unoublished manuscript prepared for this 
study (1940), p. 20. 

2 A great many of these arrests occur on streetcars and buses. A Negro may be arrested 
for demanding the right change from the conductor or for refusing to give up his seat 
in the colored section of the car to a white person." He may be arrested for being in 
the white section of town after dark. b Raper cites the following case. 

". . . Mrs. Edna Lewis, prominent Negro Baptist from Akron, Ohio, . . . was attend- 
ing the Baptist World Alliance in Atlanta in August, 1939. When driving downtown 
she had asked a policeman how to reach Fort Street. Instead of directing her, he said, 
'All you darkies want to go to darkeytown.' 'Well,' replied Mrs. Lewis, '1 happen not 
to be any more darkey than you are.' The policeman, indignant and amazed stammered 
out, 'Why — why — I'll have you put in jail for that.' Whereupon, he arrested her, called 
a nearby patrol wagon and sent her off to the police station on a charge of 'disturbing the 
peace.' At the sergeant's desk she was told she could post a bond of $12 or remain in 
jail until Monday." 

In July, 1942, in Rome, Georgia, Mrs. Roland Hayes, wife of the famous tenor, 
went with her daughter into a shoe store where she had dealt for three years. It was a 
hot day, and they sat under the fan. A clerk asked them to move back into the section 
reserved for Negroes. Mrs. Hayes refused, saying it was hot, and that she preferred to 
remain under the fan. Words were exchanged, and Mrs. Hayes told the clerk he was 
behaving like Hitler. 

* Raper, of. cit., pp. 6-7. 
"Ibid., pp. 56-57. 
' Ibid., pp. 57-5«. 



1340 An American Dilemma 

When M|>. Hayes later went into the stoic to rectify the matter, a policeman caught 
him by the belt as he started to leave. When he stated that his wife did not curse (as the 
clerk contended that she had), an nn-uniformed man hit him in the mouth. The 
policeman handcuffed Mr. Hayes and took him and his wife and daughter to the police 
station. In the car, Mr. Hayes was struck again. Mr. Hayes and his wife were put in a 
cell, later released on $50 bond.* 

In both Mrs. Lewis' and Mr. Hayes' cases, further action did not follow because 
of the ensuing publicity, but the ordinary Negro in similar circumstances would hare 
been fined or imprisoned. 

8 Guy B. Johnson observes: 

". . . for the most part each plantation or household was a little realm in which the 
slaveowner was lord and master and had jurisdiction over the punishment of his slaves 
for all except those serious offenses which were recognized as crimes against the state. 
This fact is of great significance for the understanding of racial conflict, for it means 
that white people during the long period of slavery became accustomed to the idea of 
'regulating' Negro insolence and insubordination by force with the consent and approval 
of the law.'* 

4 "In the rural areas the punishment of Negroes is largely in the hands of white 
planters. They whip Negroes both for infractions of the caste rules and for minor 
:rimes, such as fighting or theft. Furthermore, the planter for whom the Negro works 
either participates in the punishment himself or gives his permission. Some planters 
assert that they are solely responsible for their own Negroes and that no one else has any 
right to punish them." c 

5 Compare John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (1937)) pp. 122 ff. 
and Chapter 8, and Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, of. cit., pp. 55-56, 336 if., fassim. 
See also Chapter 27, Section 1. 

6 Raper, of. cit., p. 6. "The conductors in charge of trains operated in these [Jim 
Crow] states are in practically every instance given police powers to enforce the regula- 
tion.'" 1 Some street car conductors in Southern cities carry guns and use them to 
threaten Negroes. 

7 Raper, of. cit., especially pp. 6-10 and 35-63. 

8 Ibid., p. 7. 

8 Ibid., pp. 13-18 and appendices 1, 6, and 9. 

10 Ibid., p. 14. 

11 "When a department goes on civil service, the more flagrant abuses of 'log rolling' 
are eliminated, but the department even -then is not immune to political bias. Civil service 
commissions sometimes reflect factionalism. Even if the commissioners achieve absolute 
impartiality, there is still plenty of opportunity to leave off the person with a high civil 
service ranking and appoint others with lower ratings, for the common practice is to make 
a selection from the three highest ranking applicants, which means the third highest 
may secure the appointment. The other two would then remain on the list, to be called 
back along with a new third, and again the first and second ranking applicants can be 

"See Tim* (July 27, 194a), p. 17. 

'* "Patterns of Race Conflict" in Race Relations and the Race Problem, Edgar T. Thomp- 
son (editor) (1939), p. 130. 

'Allison Dvm, B. B. Gardner, and M. R. Gardner, Deep South (1941), pp. 55-56. 
'Charles & Mangum, Jr., Legal Status of the Negro (1940), p. 183. 



Footnotes 1341 

ignored. And *o on until the desired number of appointments have been made. The only 
circumstances under which the highest ranking applicant would necessarily be appointed 
b for all eligible persons on the list to be appointed."" It is understood that Negroes 
cannot apply for police positions. 

12 Ibid., p. 14. "Where the police department is directly under the city adminis- 
tration, that is, 'in politics,' each political faction has its own list of prospective officers, 
who work in the campaign on promise of a job if successful at the polls. But this does 
not mean that the particular person who becomes a policeman took an interest in the 
election ; he may have been sponsored by a politically potent father, uncle, lodge buddy, 
or perhaps a former employer. Under such a system, victory for the contesting political 
party may mean the dismissal of half or more of the force." b 

13 Ibid., p. 1 5. 
"Ibid., p. 14. 
15 Ibid., p. 16. 

19 Ibid., pp. 19 and 20. 

17 Ibid., p. 20. 

is lbid.,p. 21. 

"The fact that Negroes are used unofficially by the police force seems to contribute 
to the high homicide rate among Negroes, simply because the lives of the Negro 
informers, spotters, and stool pigeons are cheap to the Negroes who are wanted by the 
police and who are being reported, often as not, by fellow criminals trying to protect 
their own skins. The law is white. So too arc the officials who administer it. The Negro 
who works with the police becomes a party to the 'crime' of subjecting a member of his 
group to an unfriendly court. He is by definition of the hunted man, a traitor to his 
own race — and his life may be the price."* 

19 The hardships of the white policeman should not be forgotten when accounting 
for his intense race prejudice. When he patrols the Negro sections of Southern cities, 
he is in considerable danger of personal violence and knows it. Dr. Raper describes the 
daily routine as follows: 

"Police service to Negro communities is limited largely to radio cruising cars. A map 
o,f their routes through Atlanta's Negro sections, however, shows that they do not go 
through the areas where most Negro homicides occur, but rather stay on the main 
thoroughfares which are given over largely to business purposes. Too often the police 
go into the Negro community only when called, as it were, to umpire Negro brawls, 
or even more often to pick up members of the 'enemy' faction. When poolroom oper- 
ators or restaurant keepers are unsympathetic with boisterousness, the whole group may 
be taken off together in 'Black Maria.' Managements do not, as a rule, follow such a 
practice, however, for to do so would be to go out of business shortly. 

"The real function served by the police in many Southern Negro communities seems 
to be limited to rounding up vagrants, loiterers, crap shooters, non-cooperating prosti- 
tutes, and drunks. These occasional arresting excursions serve several purposes: they 
keep the Negroes intimidated, they maintain arrest quotas, they earn money for the 
police court, and sometimes they help preserve order. For, as pointed out by more than 
one police official, most of the Negro killings grow out of these social gatherings. 

'Raper, of. at., p. 17. 

h Ibid., p. 16. 

* Ibid., pp. 21-23. 



1342 An American Dilemma 

Though nearly all rapotoible Negro people want better police serv ic e s in their com- 
munities, they do not commonly agree that the picking op of people for trivial offences 
ia desirable. They expect the police officen to be quite discriminating and perhaps to 
use more insight than they have, for from the white policeman's point of view, Negro 
gangs matt be broken up upon sight or there is likelihood that banter will be challenged 
by heavy threats, and somebody fatally wounded with a razor, ice pick, or pistol."* 

20 "It is a common belief of many whites that Negroes will respond only to violent 
methods. In accordance with their theory of the 'animal-like' nature of the Negro, they 
believe that the formal punishments of fines and imprisonment fail to act as deterrents 
to crime.'* 

"Much of the beating of Negroes by the police is based on the general belief that 
formal punishments by fine or jail sentence fail to act as deterrents to Negro criminals. 
This belief is combined with the feeling that legal technicalities frequently prevent 
Negro lawbreakers from being punished through the courts. Thus, the police tend to 
revert to direct action and to administer punishment themselves. They claim that their 
action is justified because it reduces crime." 6 

21 Raper, of. cit., p. 35. 

23 In the North, there is much killing of Negroes by the police, but it seems to be 
more a part of the regular warfare against criminals than it is an expression of race 
prejudice. It is the present writer's impression that brutality other than killing is much 
less common in the North than in the South. It is to be regretted that no quantitative 
information is available on police brutality other than killing. 

88 Raper, of. cit., pp. 52-53. Compare Hid., p. 35. 

24 For substantiation, see Hid., pp. 41-52. 
"Ibid., p. 53. 

W. E. B. Da Bois sums up the situation thus: 

"These districts are not usually protected by the police — rather victimized and 
tyrannized over by them. No one who does not know can realize what tyranny a low- 
grade white policeman can exercise in a colored neighborhood. In court his unsupported 
word cannot be disputed and the only defense against him is often mayhem and 
assassination by black criminals, with resultant hue and cry.'" 1 ' 

28 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1010-1933, pp. 322- 
324.; and Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1030, Population, Vol. IV, Table 13. 
The census figures for the South do not include Negro women officers who arc, how- 
ever, few in number. 

27 Raper, of. cit., p. 27. 

28 Ibid., p. 18. 

"The Universities of North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama and perhaps other states 
sponsor institutes for police officers." {Ibid., p. 18.) 

29 1 have been made aware that this recommendation seems Utopian. Even most 
Northern police systems are far from reaching this standard. But considering both the 
very large proportion of all young men who go through college and the high crime rate 
which makes the police so particularly important in America, it seems to the foreign 

' Ibid., pp. 22-23. 

*D»vis, Gardner, and Gardner, op. cit., p. 4.6. 

'Ibid., p. 50Z. 

4 Dusk of Dawn (194.0), pp. 1 82-1 S3. 



FooTNcrm 1343 

observer th*t it is an irrational practice to keep the policemen's professional standard 
so unusually low. 

80 For discussions on the problem of improving the police standards, see August 
Vollmer, The Police and Modern Society (1936), especially pp. 216-234; and the 
National Resources Committee, Urban Government (1939), pp. 276-291. 

81 "After several years' experience in rural Black Belt communities, the writer h 
thoroughly convinced that the local whites would be thrown into a panic if they knew 
the contents of the letters regularly going in and out of the Negro community. No 
matter how poor and illiterate the small town Negro family may be, and how cowed 
by the potential mob, regular inquiry will be made at the general delivery window. 

"Most sharecropper families have at least one member who can read and write, and 
all have mail boxes by the roadside. The R.F.D., however, may not be considered 
dependable in times of strife, and especially important, or should we say delicate, letters 
are carried personally to the post office. 

"Sometimes the local post office may net be considered safe, and letters may be 
posted in the nearest city. This is particularly true when people arc under surveillance, 
for whatever reason, and wish to conceal the destination of their letters. The files of 
Washington officials, as well as the Commission on Interracial Affairs and the N. A. A. 
C. P., bear eloquent testimony to the sense of security that Negroes and poorer whites 
feel even in the local postal service in the rural South."* 

82 Raper testifies that they sometimes start out by approximating federal standards 
but sooner or later become appreciative of local practices, and continues: 

"On the basis of wide personal observation, the writer knows of only one instance 
in the South where absolute equality between the races was practiced by a local admin- 
istrator. This was in Atlanta, for a few months shortly after the emergence of the 
New Deal, when Miss Louisa deB. Fitzsimmons was in active charge of relief admin- 
istration."" 

88 Raper, of. cit., p. 12. 



Chapter 26. Courts, Sentences and Prisons 

1 Through Afro-America (1910), pp. 97-98. 

2 Ibid., pp. 96 and 97. 

*Virginius Dabney, Liberalism in the South (1932), p. 256. 
* Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," unpublished manuscript prepared for 
this study (1940), pp. 64 ff. 
8 Ibid., p. 89. 
"Letter, April 15, 1 940. 

7 Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal Status of the Negro (1940), p. 343. 

8 Raper, of. cit„ p. 67. Compare ibid., pp. 1 56 ff . 

9 Ibid., p. 155. 

10 Mangum, of. cit., Chapter 1 2. 

11 Raper, of. cit., pp. 79 and 80. 

12 "In most courts where Negro jurors will not be used or will be used only under 

"Raper, of. cit., pp. 10-11. 
"ibid., p. 8, footnote 1. 



1344 An American Dilemma 

the »terneit infractions from the judge, a Negro lawyer would be a real handicap to a 
client. The general white populace, including the jurors, would feel that such a Negro 
client was uppity — if not actually trying to insult the community." (Hid., p. 91.) 

18 A Northern Negro lawyer complains: 

". . . many of them [Negroes] who have the means prefer white lawyers in the 
same manner that a person prefers to buy at a big, well-equipped store. My office is 
not so well equipped and manned as to indicate that I could handle very important and 
intricate cases . . ." (Letter, March 20, 1940.) 

14 A white lawyer from the Upper South writes in a letter: 

"When the cases involve no such issues [on the race question] but are merely caws, 
I have noted that cases between Negro and Negro are handled somewhat differently 
than cases between white and white. I mean a spirit of levity, an expectation of some- 
thing 'comical' appears to exist. The seriousness in the white vs. Negro case is decidedly 
Licking. As you know it is a rare case indeed in which a Negro who has murdered 
a Negro receives the extreme penalty, either death or life imprisonment here, regardless 
of the facts. Only the other day in a local case a Negro who murdered another with 
robbery as motive, a charge that would have been as between white and white, or Negro 
and white victim, good for the electric chair, was disposed of by a jury with a 1 5 year 
sentence. The punishment as between Negro and Negro, as distinguished from white 
vs. white, or Negro vs. white victim, is decidedly different and clearly shows the 
racial approach to the question. In short the court -room feeling is that the Negro h 
entirely inferior, with punishment for crimes by him against his own kind punished 
with Jess punishment than when the white man is involved." (Letter of June 19, 
1940.) 

19 The author can pen>onally testify to a few cases of a white upper class person 
securing leniency for a Negro accused of a crime against another Negro. 

16 Edgar G. Murphy, for example, wrote: 

"Petty crimes are often forgiven him, and in countless instances the small offences 
for which white men are quickly apprehended are, in the negro, habitually ignored. 
The world hears broadly and repeatedly of the cases of injustice, it hears little of those 
more frequent instances in which the weaknesses of a child-race are accorded only an 
amused indifference or a patient tolerance by their stronger neighbors." {Problems of 
the Present South [1909; first edition, 1904], p. 176.) 

17 A generation ago Baker observed: 

"One thing impressed me especially, not only in this court but in all others I have 
visited: a Negro brought in for drunkenness, for example, was punished much more 
severely than a white man arrested for the same offence. The injustice which the weak 
everywhere suffer — North and South — is in the South visited upon the Negro. The 
white man sometimes escaped with a reprimand, he was sometimes fined three dollars 
and costs, but the Negro, especially if he had no white man to intercede for him, was 
usually punished with a ten or fifteen dollar fine, which often meant that he must go 
to the chain-gang." (Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color Line [1908], p. 49.) 
See also Allison Davis, B. B. Gardner, and M. R. Gardner, Deef South (1941), p. 504.. 

18 See Chapter 10, Section 4. The Southern legal codes contain a number of laws 
making it possible for the employers in rural districts to utilize the legal machinery 
for their own economic purposes. Among them the vagrancy laws: 

".-. . they afford a legal means for recruiting temporary peons. The device is simple: 



Footnotes 1345 

Employer! let it be known that they need additional laborers. If such an announcement 
brings oat a sufficient number of workers, there is no excuse for invoking the vagrancy 
laws; but if a sufficient number is not forthcoming, any person without visible and 
obvious means of support is subjected to choosing between accepting the local labor 
opportunity or being drawn into court, where he may readily be fined or imprisoned. 
If fined, however, he may still be forced to accept local employment, for an employer 
may arrange with court officials to pay his fine and let him work it out. Such prisoners 
are ready victims of peonage, they are court wards and their employers exercise close 
surveillance over their movements, having virtual licence to keep them in debt at the 
commissary. The worker has little choice, for the piison sentence hangs o\cr his head 
should he not work out the fine satisfactorily. 

"The inclusiveness of the vagrancy charge may be seen from the Florida statute 
which defines persons subject to arrest for vagrancy as 'rogues, vagabonds, idle or 
dissolute persons, common pipers and fiddlers . . . person 1 ; who neglect their calling, or 
are without reasonably continuous employment or icgular income, and who have not 
sufficient property to sustain them.' Under such a law a dozen potential workers can 
be picked up at a crap game or just around the corner, for being unoccupied. And 
should they not readily submit, they can be picked up for disorderly conduct or resist- 
ing arrest." (Raper, of. cit., pp. 187-188.) In April, 1942, the United States Depart- 
ment of Justice began investigating such a cabC in Georgia. 

19 Raper, of. cit., p. 107. 

20 Ibid., pp. 1 37-141. 

21 Ibid., pp. 1 89- J 95. 

23 Mangum, of. cit., p. 274. 

23 On February 18, 1936, at Raleigh, North Carolina, a white man was executed 
for killing a Negro. This datum was so important because it was recorded in the press 
to be the first time that such a thing had ever occurred in the South. (See Raper, of. 
cit., p. 166.) 

21 Kelly Miller, Race Adjustment (1908), p. 80. 

SB U.S. Bureau of the Census, Prisoners in State and Federal Prisons and Rrjottna- 
tories: 1930, p. 29. In 1938, the proportion was 45. 0; in 1937 it was 44.;. 

36 Sixteenth Census of the United States. 1940, Population, Preliminary Release, 
Series P-10, No. 1. 

27 Raper, of. cit., pp. 163-168. 

28 Frank Tannenbaum, Darker Phases of the South (1924), Chapter 3; Raper, of. 
cit., pp. 171-172; George Washington Cable, The Silent South (1885); Robert E. 
Burns, / Am a Fugitive From a Georgia Chain Gang (1932); Jesse F. Stciner and 
Roy M. Brown, The North Carolina Chain Gang (1927); John L. Spivak, Georgia 

Mggtr (I932)- 

29 See Raper, of. cit., Appendix 10, "Women Criminals in Atlanta, August 1939." 

80 See: The Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, "Legal Aid," Vol. 9, pp. 319-324; 
Reginald Heber Smith, Justice and the Poor (1919). The Annals of the American 
Academy of Political and Social Science (March 1926) are entirely devoted to a 
discussion of legal aid societies in the United States. For a discussion of the relative 
lack of these societies in the South, see ibid., pp. 20-26. 

81 Reports from several Negro lawyers, even in the Deep South, suggest that the 
mere presence of a large, interested, and well-behaved Negro audience in court has 



JM& An American Dilemma 

* beneficial influence upon the impartiality of the legal procedure*. It alto stimulate* 
the Negro lawyer. One of them, from a small city in the Lower South, writes: 

"I have found that a courtroom of Negro spectators gives the Negro lawyer a feeling 
of support. He has potential clients, and certainly he will override any fears which 
may reside in his heart and soul to win more clients. So, he becomes more effective at 
the bar. Then too, the Negro spectators convey an interest which is compelling to the 
judge, in deciding cases which are affected with a public interest." (Letter, April 14, 
1940.) 



Chapter 27. Violence and Intimidation 

*The patterns of extra-legal violence and intimidation have been felt by poor 
whites, to a certain extent, as well as by Negroes — in spite of the fact that, in recent 
years, poor whites have come to employ violence against Negroes more than do upper 
class whites. Even during slavery white aggression turned against other white people 
who did not conform or who were obnoxious for one reason or another. The class 
angle became more important when, in the later decades of the nineteenth century, 
small white farmers were pressed down into tenancy, or, as industry developed, became 
a white proletarian class of industrial workers. Southern white sharecroppers and textile 
workers could certainly not be dealt with as Negro labor, but part of the sanctions 
against the lower caste were transferred and applied to the lower class. Nearly one-half 
of the fatalities in labor struggles for each year between 1934 and 1940 occurred in 
the South which had scarcely one-fourth of the nation's population and less than one* 
fourth of its industrial workers. Nearly one-half of the Southern labor fatalities have 
been Negroes, though they constitute only one-fifth of the Southern industrial popula- 
tion. (Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," unpublished manuscript prepared for 
this study [1940J; and Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, 
Vol. IV, Table 18 and State Table n.) 

2 The custom of dueling when one's "honor" was challenged was quite common 
among the upper classes of the South in the nineteenth century. This was part of the 
Southern pattern of taking the law into individual hands, but it is one type of extra- 
legal violence which has been completely done away with. Dueling never had any 
significance for Negroes or poor whites. 

3 Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," pp. 278-295. 

4 To the average Northerner, who has little contact with poor white Southerners 
but some contact with Southern Negroes, the carrying of knives and other weapons is 
a "Negro custom." Actually, of course, it is a Southern custom. 

"Most men, Negro and White, carry guns, and many of them also have knives. The 
most common type, familiarly called a 'crab-apple switch,' is a rather long pocket 
knife with a sharp four-inch blade." (Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom [1939], 
pp. 169-170.) 

8 Amendment II of the United States Constitution reads in part "the right of the 
people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." 

9 Excellent studies of lynching include: The National Association for the Advance- 
ment of Colored People, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States: 1889-1018 
(1919) ; Frank Shay, Judge Lynch (1936) ; Walter White, Rofe and Faggot (1929) ; 



Footnotes 1347 

Arthur Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching (1933); John Weldon Hoot, "Lynch Law, 
the Practice of Illegal Popular Coercion," unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of 
Pennsylvania (1935). 

7 Compare Donald R. Young, American Minority Peoflei (1932), pp. 254 ff., and, 
by the tame author, Research Memorandum on Minority Peoples in the Depression 

(>937)» PP- 17* *• 
•White, of. cit., pp. 19 ff. 

•Earle F. Young, 'The Relation of Lynching to the Size of Political Areas," 
Sociology and Social Research (Match-April, 1928), pp. 348-353; and National 
Resources Committee, Our Cities (1937), p. 16. 

10 Commission on Interracial Cooperation, The Mob Still Rides (193s), pp. 15-16, 
and Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching, pp. 29-30. 

11 Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching, p. 36. 
u I6id., pp. 36-37. 

18 William Archer, Through Afro-America (1910), pp. 216-217; Thomas P. 
Bailey, Race Orthodoxy in the South (1914), p. 44; Sir Harry H. Johnston, The 
Negro in the New World (1910), p. 462. Similar statements have been made by E. G. 
Murphy, The Basis of Ascendancy (1909), p. 52, and more recently by Frank Tanncn- 
baum, Darker Phases of the South (1924), pp. 32-33 ; Walter White, Rope and Faggot 
(1929), pp. 62 ff.; John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (1937), pp. 
163-164; Hortcnse Powdermaker, After Freedom (1939), p. 52; E. Franklin Frazier, 
"The Pathology of Race Prejudice," The Forum (May, 1927), pp. 856-862; W. F. 
Cash, The Mind of the South (1941), pp. 114-117. 

14 White, of. cit., pp. 57 ff.; Tannenbaum, of. cit., pp. 34 ff. 

15 Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town, pp. 321-326 and 338; White, 
of. cit., Chapter 4. 

10 Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching, pp. 16-19 an ^ 32-33, fassim. 

17 Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," p. 275. Also see Raper, The Tragedy of 
Lynching, pp. 13-14. 

18 Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching, pp. 10 ff. fassim. 

19 Hid., pp. 11-12. 

20 Hid., pp. 12-13; White, of. cit., pp. 3, 26 and 38. 

21 Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching, pp. 8 ff. and 44 ff.; White, of. cit., pp. 3-18 
and 54-81; Tannenbaum, of. cit., 25-26. 

22 Willis D. Weatherford and Charles S. Johnson, Race Relations (1934), p. 57; 
White, of. cit., pp. 103-105 fassim. 

28 Weatherford and Johnson, of. cit., p. 57; White, of. cit., p. ill; Tannenbaum, 
of. cit., pp. 19-20. 

24 T. J. Woofter, Jr., in Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching, pp. 30-31 ; C. I. Hov- 
land and R. R. Sears, "Minor Studies of Aggression: VI. Correlation of Lynchings with 
Economic Indices," reported in John Dollard et al., Frustration and Aggression (1939), 
p. 31 ; and Buell G. Gallagher, American Caste and the Negro College (1938), pp. 
381 ff. 

25 Of. cit., p. 11. Compare p. 12. Ray Stannard Baker {Following the Color Line 
[7908]) earlier made a similar statement: "... a community will rise to mob Negroes 
w to drive them out of the country . . because the Negro is becoming educated, 



134-8 An American Dilemma 

acquiring property and 'getting out of hit place'" {Hid., p. 8i), and he talks about 
their "fear" of the Negro. {Ibid., pp. 7-8.) 

98 Tannenbaum, of. cit., pp. 8-9. 

27 White, of. cit., pp. 1 1 1 ff. 

™Ibii., pp. 40 ff. 

"William J. Robertson, The Changing South (1927), p. 99. The phenomenon 
was observed also by Andre Siegfried, who pointed out that the Klan movement was 
inspired by the Protestant clergy; see America Comes of Age (1927) pp. 132-135. 

80 Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching, pp. 2, 21 fasiim. 

81 "Village life is dull everywhere, but in the South the situation is in many respects 
worse than in any other part of the country. The single crop so characteristic of the 
South has its influence in denying the rural population varied, interests. The single 
crop, with its reduction of the farmer to the status of a city worker, who has to depend 
upon a money economy for nearly all of his needs, with its greater emphasis upon a 
money crop for sale rather than a varied crop for use, with its tendency to neglect the 
other subsidiary activities that are the very foundation of diversified farming, with its 
large tenancy, its frequent change of place, its intermittent periods of idleness, its 
monotonous food, its indebtedness, lack of interest in the farm, in its appearance, and 
the too frequent absence of numerous cattle and their almost human appeal to tender- 
ness and care — the single crop has made the rural community in the South much more 
a burden spiritually and has meant much greater need for external excitement, partly 
expressed in intense religious emotions and protracted meetings." (Tannenbaum, of. 
cit., pp. 21-22.) 

82 White, of. cit., pp. 9 ff. 

88 For a general consideration of the nature of the lynching mob, sec Richard T. 
LaPiere, Collective Behavior (1939), pp. 538-542. 

84 Charles S. Johnson describes the effects on the Negro community: 

"During and shortly after a lynching the Negro community lives in terror. Negroes 
remain at home and out of sight. When the white community quiet; down, the 
Negroes go back to their usual occupations. The incident is not forgotten, but the routine 
of the plantation goes on. The lynching, in fact, is part of the routine. . . . The effect 
on children is profound and permanent. After a time the Negro community returns 
to 'normal.' Life goes on, but Negro youth 'let white folks tend to their business.' 
Contacts with whites are avoided as far as possible. The youth may work for white 
people but intimacy is avoided. The Negro servant or laborer continues friendly to his 
employers. The employers may even be < liked and regarded as 'good white folks,' but 
ultimate trust is held in abeyance." (Growing Uf in the Black Belt [1941], pp. 
317-318.) 

85 Murphy wrote: 

"It has become increasingly obvious, however, that whatever the practise of lynching 
may or may not be, it is not a remedy. It does not prevent crime. Through the morbid 
interests which it arouses, and through the publicity which it creates, it inflames to 
the utmost the power of criminal suggestion and aggravates all the conditions of racial 
suspicion and antagonism. The so-called 'remedy' has always been followed by new 
outbreaks of the disease, the most atrocious crimes coming at short intervals after the 
previous exercise of the mob's philosophy of 'prevention.' " (Edgar G. Murphy, 
ProbUms of the Present South [1909; first edition, 1904], p. 178.) 



Footnotes 1349 

Miller observed: 

"In the first place it causes the whites to hate the Negro, as it is a part of human 
nature to hate those whom we have injured. In the second place it causes the Negro 
to hate the whites. It is universally conceded that lynching has no deterrent effect upon 
the class of crimes alleged to excite its vengeance. On the contrary, it probably has the 
opposite effect. The criminals and outlaws of the Negro race, who care nothing for 
life or death, may be thus hardened into resolves of revenge, and lie waiting to strike 
the hated race where the blow will be most keenly felt." (Kelly Miller, Race Adjust- 
ment [1908], p. 69.) 

Similarly Stone: 

"But the point I would urge is that the illegal execution of Negroes by lynching, 
even when torture is added, has an inciting rather than a deterring influence upon the 
large number of potential criminals." (Alfred H. Stone, Studies in the American Race 
Problem [1908], p. 465.) 

80 Moorfield Storey, Problems of Today (1920), pp. 128 ff.; Weatherford and 
Johnson, of. cit., pp. 437 ff. 

37 James Weldon Johnson, Along This Way (1934), pp. 361-374. 

38 Donald Young points to the conflict of "interests" as a basic cause of lynching and 
suggests that the decrease in Negro lynchings in the South "may be ascribed not so 
much to a recognition of the evils of lynching, fer se, as to decreasing clashes of inter- 
ests between black and white in the South." {American Minority Peoples, p. 256.) 
He follows out the thought by stating: 

"This suggests the futility of anti-lynching laws, of interracial commissions, and of 
educational programs in warring against mob action. Laws taking the prosecution of 
mob members out of the local courts into the federal would be only a well meant 
gesture, for even federal judges arc human, reflect local sentiment, and must depend 
on the cooperation of local witnesses who are convinced that lynching is justified to 
preserve group welfare. It is for this reason that local legal authorities arc usually without 
either the power or the will to prevent or prosecute such offenses. To impose a heavy 
fine on the county in which lynchings take place, a suggestion based on the theory that 
the substantial property owners of the community would be spurred to prevent them 
in order to save their pocketbooks, could have but little effect, for the stronger belief 
would still persist that such coercion was necessary to protection. 

"Interracial commissions and other educational programs arc valuable to the extent 
that the clash of group interests is fictitious, and can be shown to be so. Usually such 
programs reach only the more substantial elements in a community, people who as a 
rule arc neither leaders of nor participants in mob action. Why should they be? They 
have achieved personal security, and are not directly in conflict with the minorities 
who arc the object of lynchings. Their interest is a secondary one, derived from the 
masses directly in conflict with Negroes, Chinese, strikers, or other competing groups. 
This is the fundamental explanation of the fact that mobs, with few exceptions, are 
composed of the handicapped social classes who cannot be reached by appeals to justice 
and humanity." (Ibid., pp. 256-257.) 

This reasoning — which, incidentally, is also adhered to by many among the young 
Negro intellectuals under Marxist influence — is not convincing to us. Collective "inter- 
ests" do not exist as solid and unchangeable social entities. The "interests," as they are 
felt, depend upon the actual bonds of identification ; a "redefinition of the situation" 



1350 An American Dilemma 

will change the "interest." Sach a redefinition can be accomplished by education and 
propaganda, and also by lam and the administration of laws. (See Chapter 38, Sec* 
tion 6.) 

** See Chapter 25, Section 5. Allison Davis and John Dollard mention fire inci- 
dents in New Orleans between 1936 and 1938: 

"Three of these men [five colored men killed by white policemen] were killed in 
city jails while awaiting trial. The other two were shot while in custody. All were 
accused of having attacked white men or women. By means of detailed accounts in the 
newspapers, these symbolic 'legal lynchings* were made known to the colored popula- 
tion and served as a means of further intimidation." {Children of Bondage [1940], 
p. 24.8.) 

40 ". . . lynchings often happen. They are different to what they used to be though. 
They used to be big mobs hunting for a nigger, but now you just hear about some nigger 
found hanging off a bridge." (Interview in Charles S. Johnson, Growing Uf in the 
Black Belt, p. 5.) Also see Jessie Daniel Ames, The Changing Character of Lynching 

(I942). PP- 8-9. ... 

The following quotation suggests that secret vigilante lynching has become quite 
significant. It is from a pamphlet entitled Lynching Goes Underground ([January, 
1940], pp. 7-8), sponsored by Senators Wagner and Capper and by Representatives 
Gavagan and Fish. The title page reads: "The author of this report, who must remain 
anonymous, is a native white Southerner who has lived all hi? life in the South and still 
lives there. He has made a number of investigations of lynchings." 

"With regard to the whole problem of lynching your investigator desires to make 
the following statement. It is his considered judgment that, for various reasons, lynching 
is entering a new and altogether dangerous phase. Lynchings in the past have been 
characterized by the mob, the faggot, the rope. Hundreds of people, often thousands, 
poured out to participate or witness the lynching of a man or woman accused of some 
crime, often of the most trivial nature and often without any real charge at all. Pictures 
of the mobbed and mobbers have been taken and widely circulated. Souvenirs of the 
lynched man or woman, in the form of fingers, toes and other parts of the body, have 
been brazenly displayed by members of the mob. 

"Public opinion is beginning to turn against this sort of mob activity. Sentiment is 
growing against lynching. Agitation for Federal and state anti-lynching laws gives pause 
to the lynching crowd. Lynching, they say, must go on, but it must be done quietly so as 
not to attract attention, draw publicity. Thus those who must rule by terror and intimida- 
tion turn to new methods. The old mob is disappearing but the work of the mob goes 
on. A Negro is accused of some crime, real or alleged. A few white men gather, formulate 
their plans, seize their victim. In some lonely swamp a small body of men do the job 
formerly done by a vast, howling, bloodthirsty mob composed of men, women and 
children. The word is then passed that the matter has been handled to the satisfaction 
of those in charge of such matters. 

"Your investigator has probed numerous lynchings. His acquaintance with lynchers 
and the lynched extends over a lifetime. It is his judgment that countless Negroes are 
lynched yearly, but their disappearance is shrouded in mystery, for they are dispatched 
quietly and without general knowledge. . . . 

"Year'inyestigator was informed by competent observers that since the notorious 
doubfe blow torch lynching which occurred at Duck Hill, Mississippi, in 1937, word 



Footnotes 1351 

has been pasted that in the future all difficulties between Negroes and whitei will be 
handled by a small group of white men already appointed for that purpose. He was 
similarly advised that in the vicinity of Cleveland, Mississippi, at least four Negroes had 
been lynched within the past four or five months." 

41 « 'Let t ]j e ] aw take fa course,' under mob surveillance, is doubtful gain, for in such 
a situation the courts are virtually prostituted to mob demands." (Raper, "Race and 
Class Pressures," p. 277.) See also Chapter 26, Section 2, of this book. 

42 W. £. B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn (1940), p. 264. 

43 The Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago (1922), 
p. 1. There were 17 other persons injured whose race was not recorded, bringing the 
total of injured up to 537. 

44 Du Bois, Dusk of Down, p. 264. 

48 The Chicago Commission on Race Relations, op. cit., p. 72. 

49 Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn, p. 252. 

47 Baker, of. cit., p. 1 5. 

48 The Chicago Commission on Race Relations, of. cit., p. 67. 



Chapter 28. The Bans of Social Inequality 

1 James Bryce, The Relations of the Advanced and the Backward Races of Mankind 
(1902), p. 43. 

2 This assertion has also been expressed in the literature; see, for instance, £. B. 
Reuter, The American Race Problem (1927), p. 388. 

8 James Weldon Johnson, in his autobiography, discusses the Jim Crow arrangement 
in railway traveling and gives the following exemplification of the point in the text: 

"It was the usual 'Jim Crow' arrangement: one-half of a baggage coach, unkempt, 
unclean, and ill smelling, with one toilet for both sexes. Two of the seats were taken 
up by the pile of books and magazines and the baskets of fruit and chewing gum of the 
'news-butcher.' There were a half-dozen or more Negroes in the car and two white 
men. White men in a 'Jim Crow' car were not an unusual sight. It was — and in many 
parts still is — the custom for white men to go into that car whenever they felt like 
doing things that would not be allowed in the 'white' car. They went there to smoke, 
to drink, and often to gamble. At times the object was to pick an acquaintance with some 
likely-looking Negro girl.J' (Along This Way [1934]. PP- 86-87.) 

4 "The practice depends upon the individual white man. Negroes and whites occa- 
sionally shake hands under a variety of conditions: when a salesman is trying to sell 
goods, when a former employer meets a respected Negro who has worked for him, when 
whites are attending public programs or meetings of Negroes, and occasionally on the 
streets. The white man makes the first approach." (Charles S. Johnson, Growing Uf in 
the Black Belt [1941], p. 277.) 

5 See W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn (1940), p. 259; James Weldon Johnson, 
Along This Way, pp. 298, 299; R. E. Park and E. W. Burgess, Introduction to the 
Science of Sociology (1921), pp. 230-251; Charles S. Johnson, Patterns of Negro 
Segregation, prepared for this study (1934), p- 6. 

6 The one-sidedness of the segregation system is so entrenched that it also dominates 
the interracial work. Particularly in the South and when more than one individual 



1352 An American Dilemma 

from each group is involved, this activity can ordinarily be observed to take the form 
of white people coming to the Negroes — attending their church meetings, concerts, 
lecture programs, or arranging an interracial conference of leaders or students in a 
Negro college. Negroes are not supposed to take the initiative. James Weldon Johnson 
observes: 

"There, interracial intercourse, when it does take place, is more often than not a one- 
sided arrangement. In such instances, the whites come into our midst, but, no matter 
how sincerely they desire the closer relationship, they fear to offend public sentiment by 
having us go into their midst. Few there are who dare defy that sentiment. The situa- 
tion of those who genuinely wish to defy it and dare not is near to pathetic. The culti- 
vation of social and intellectual intercourse between members of the two races in the 
South cannot progress very far until the whites are as free to act as we are." {Negro 
Americans, What Now? [1934], p. 83.) 

The greater freedom of the Negro of which Johnson speaks is the freedom to receive 
white people without being ostracized by his own group. 

7 This sudden change of attitude has, as is well known, its exact counterpart on the 
white side. It has been repeatedly pointed out by Negro authors that a dark-looking man 
who speaks Spanish, French, or some other foreign language and appears as a South 
American (or Italian, or Indian) will be excepted from the ordinary Jim Crow practices 
against American Negroes. This story from Booker T. Washington's Uf from Slavery 
may illustrate the point: 

"I happened to find myself in a town in which so much excitement and indignation 
were being expressed that it seemed likely for a time that there wauld be a lynching. 
The occasion of the trouble was that a dark-skinned man had stopped at the local hotel. 
Investigation, however, developed the fart that this individual was a citizen of Morocco, 
and that while travelling in this country he spoke the English language. As soon as it was 
learned that he was not an American Negro, all the signs of indignation disappeared. The 
man, who was the innocent cause of the excitement, though, found it prudent after 
that not to speak English." ([1929; first edition, 1900] p. 103.) 

8 Booker T. Washington tells us about his early childhood: 

". . . the plantation upon which I was born, in Franklin County, Va., had, as I 
remember, only six slaves. My master and his sons all worked together side by side with 
his slaves. In this way we all grew up together, very much like members of one big 
family. There was no overseer, and we got to know our master and he to know us." 
{The Story of the Negro [1909], Vol. I, p. 149.) 

9 18 Stat. L. 33s, Chap. 114. 

10 Gilbert T. Stephenson, Race Distinctions in American Lata (1910), p. 10; 
Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal Status of the Negro (1940), p. 28. 

11 Stephenson, of. cit., p. 11. 

12 Ibid., pp. lie ff.; Mangum, of. cit., p. 29. 
18 Stephenson, of. cit., pp. 171 ff. 

14 See W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction (1935), especially pp. 674 ff. 

15 For an up-to-date account of the Jim Crow legislation, see Mangum, of. cit., 
especially pp. 181-222. 

is "The two races have not yet made new mores. Vain attempts have been made to 
control the new order by legislation. The only result is the proof that legislation cannot 
: mores." (William Graham Sumner, Folkways [1906], p. 77.) 



Footnotes 1353 

17 "No small part of the motive back of the South's legal separation of the races in 
transportation and education is the fact that services for the two races can be made 
unequal only when administered to them separately. The phrase 'separate and equal' 
symbolizes the whole system, fair words to gain unfair ends." (Arthur Raper, "Race 
and Class Pressures," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study [1040], p. 3.) 

18 Henry W. Grady, The Neto South (1890), pp. 244-246; italics ours. In this con- 
text Grady furnishes his audience the following illustrative information: 

"The Negroes of Georgia pay but one-fortieth of the taxes, and yet they take forty- 
nine per cent of the school fund. Railroads in Georgia provide separate but equal can 
for whites and blacks, and a white man is not permitted to occupy a colored car." (Ibid., 
p. 246.) 

This information is, of course, inaccurate even today and was still more so in 
Grady's time. 

19 Referring to the Jim Crow arrangement in the railway system, William Archer 
remarks: 

"Remember that the question is complicated by the American's resolute adherence to 
the constitutional fiction of equality. As there are no 'classes' in the great American 
people, so there must be no first, second, or third class on the American railways. Of 
course, the theory remains a fiction on the railroad no less than in life. Everyone travels 
first class; but those who can pay for it may travel in classes higher than first, called 
parlour-cars, drawing-room cars, and so forth. The only real validity of the fiction, 
it seems to me, lies in the unfortunate situation it creates with regard to the negro. If 
our three classes (or even two) were provided on every train, the mass of the negro 
population would, from sheer economic necessity, travel third. It might or might not 
be necessary to provide separate cars on that level; but if it were, the discrimination 
would not be greatly felt by the grade of black folks it would affect. In the higher-class 
cars there would be no reasonable need for discrimination, for the number of negroes 
using them would be few in comparison, and personally unobjectionable. The essential 
elbow-room would seldom be lacking; conditions in the first and second class would be 
very much the same as they are at present in the North." (Through Afro-America 
[1910], pp. 72*73-) 

20 Idem. "But elbow-room is just what the conditions of railway traveling preclude; 
wherefore I hold the system of separate cars a legitimate measure of defense against con- 
stant discomfort. Had it not been adopted, the South would have been a nation of saints, 
not of men. It is in the methods of its enforcement that they sometimes show themselves 
not only human but inhuman." (Ibid., p. 72.) 

21 Edwin R. Embree, Brown America (1933; first edition, 193 1), p. 20c. 

22 Cited in Charles S. Johnson, Patterns of Negro Segregation, p. 207. 

23 Quoted from ibid., pp. 195-196. Similar remarks arc: "We have always had caste 
in the world"; "I imagine the average [Negro] is probably happiest when he is waiting 
on white folks and wearing their old clothes." (See idem.) 

24 William M. Brown, The Crucial Race Question (1907), p. 118. 
26 Charles S. Johnson, Patterns of Negro Segregation, p. 193. 

20 The full gamut of interest motives is suggested by John Dullard (Caste and Class 
in a Southern Town [ 1937J, pp. 98-1 87) in his theory of gains. It should be noted that 
Dollard considers these gains — which he classifies as economic, sexual, and prestige — as 
a weans of interpreting and ordering the facts of Negro-white relations in the South. 



1354 An American Dilemma 

He does not mean that the gains theory is held consciously and unqualifiedly by the 
majority of Southern whites who receive these gains from Negro subordination. 

27 Race Orthodoxy in the South (1914), p. 48. 

28 The popular theory usually does not reach the level of articles and books any more ; 
even the recent scientific literature on the Negro problem is likely to avoid this central 
notion. Thomas P. Bailey, a Mississippi professor writing just before the First World 
War, gives perhaps the clearest pronouncement in print of the prevalent view: 

"Some representatives of the humanitarian group feel it difficult to understand why an 
illiterate and even vicious white man should object to dining with a highly cultured 
negro gentleman. To them the attitude of the 'low' white man seems essentially illogical 
and absurd; but it is not so to the men who know the 'low-grade' white man from the 
inside. The whole picture changes when one knows 'what it is about.' Social attitudes 
at bottom are concerned with marriage, and all it stands for. Now, race conscience may 
prevent the enlightened humanitarian from encouraging in any way the interbreeding of 
the two races. Race-pride will deter the average man who is willing to acknowledge 
the excellence of certain individual negroes. But may it not require race enmity to pre- 
vent the amalgamation of the 'lower' grades of the higher race with the higher grades 
of the lower race?" (Of. cit., pp. 11-12; second and third italics ours.) 

*» Thomas N. Page, The Negro: The Southerner's Problem (1904), p. 292. See 
also Chapter 3, Section 3, and Chapter 4. Under the influence of modern research this 
doctrine is in process of disappearing from the literature but it lives on in the convic- 
tion of white people. It has even today the gist exemplified by the quotation in the text. 

80 Again the prevalent sentiment is best exemplified by a citation of old literature. The 
rhetorical intensity of the following paragraphs from Henry W. Grady gives something 
of the emotional tone of even present-day popular views: 

"But the supremacy of the white race of the South must be maintained forever, and 
the domination of the negro race resisted at all points and at all hazards, because the 
white race is the superior race. This is the declaration of no new truth; it has abided 
forever in the marrow of our bones and shall run forever with the blood that feeds 
Anglo-Saxon hearts." (Of. cit., p. 104.) 

"Standing in the presence of this multitude, sobered with the responsibility of the 
message I deliver to the young men of the South, 1 declare that the truth above all others 
to be worn unsullied and sacred in your hearts, to be surrendered to no force, sold for 
no price, compromised in no necessity, but cherished and defended as the convenant of 
your prosperity, and the pledge of peace to your children, is, that the white race must 
dominate forever in the South, because it is the white race, and superior to that race 
with which its supremacy is threatened." (Ibid., pp. 107-108.) 

81 See Chapter 3, Section 2. James Weldon Johnson observes that in the South ". . . 
a white gentleman may not eat with a colored person without the danger of serious loss 
of social prestige; yet he may sleep with a colored person without incurring the risk 
of any appreciable damage to his reputation," and concludes, "Social equality signifies 
a series of far-flung barriers against amalgamation of the two races; except so far as it 
may come about by white men with colored women." (Along This Way, pp. 312-313.) 

82 "The intelligent Negro may understand what social equality truly means, but 
to the ignorant and brutal young Negro, it signifies but one thing: the opportunity 
to enjoy, equally with white men, the privilege of cohabiting with white women. Thh 
the whites of the South understand; and if it were understood abroad, it would serve 



Footnotes 1355 

10 explain some things which have not been understood hitherto. It will explain, in part, 
the universal and furious hostility of the South to even the least suggestion of social 
equality." (Page, of. eit., pp. 112-113.) 

** "Even the most liberal Whites in the community claim that the equality for which 
the Negroes ask is not possible without the 'social equality' — the intermingling and inter- 
marriage — they so deeply fear. They also hint that the Negroes 'unconsciously' do 
desire this sort of social equality." (Hortense Powdermakcr, After Freedom [1939], 
p. 3 50.) 

8 * Bailey, of. cit., p. 42. 

m The Baits of Racial Adjustment (1925), pp. 240-241. Woofter distinguishes 
between contacts which are "helpful" and those which are "harmful." In the latter 
category he places "social intermingling" along with "vice" and "crime," "violence, 
economic exploitation, unfair competition, and demagogic or exploitative political 
contacts." {Ibid., p. 21 5.) 

89 Ibid., pp. 235 ff. 

87 Ibid., p. 239. 

88 Liberalism in the South (1932), p. 254. Dabney continues: 

"The argument runs that such laws were desirable twenty or thirty years ago when 
the great majority of blacks were unclean in person and slovenly in attire, and when 
the ubiquitous saloon and its readily purchased fire water were conducive to clashes 
between the lower orders of both races. It is contended that these reasons for separating 
the races in public gatherings and on public conveyances do not now obtain to anything 
like the same extent, and that the Negroes should no longer be humiliated in this 
manner." 

88 Ibid., p. 255. 

40 "Here, as elsewhere, however, it has been rather the social inequality of the races, 
than any approach to equality, which has been responsible for the mixture, in so far as 
such has occurred. It was the social inequality of the plantation days that began the 
process of mixture. ... If race-amalgamation is indeed to be viewed as always an evil, 
the best way to counteract the growth of that evil must everywhere be the cultivation 
of racial self-respect and not of racial degradation." (Josiah Royce, Race Questions, 
Provincialism and Other American Problems [1908 J, pp. 21-22.) 

41 See Chapter 27, Section 3. W. F. Cash, in his The Mind of the South (1941), 
gives, with much insight and understanding, the story of how in the Old South the sex 
relations of white men with Negro women tended to inflate white womanhood (pp. 84 
ff). The Negro woman, torn from her tribal restraints and taught an easy complaisance, 
was to be had for the taking: 

"Boys on and about the plantation inevitably learned to use her, and having acquired 
the habit, often continued it into manhood and even after marriage. For she was natural, 
and could give herself up to passion in a way impossible to wives inhibited by Puritanical 
training. And efforts to build up a taboo against miscegenation made little real progress." 
{Ibid., p. 84.) 

The white women were naturally disturbed by what they could not help knowing 
about. The Yankees were not slow to discover the opening in the Southern armor: 

"And the only really satisfactory escape here, as in so many other instances, would 
be fiction. On the one hand, the convention must be set up that the thing simply did not 
exist, and enforced under penalty of being shot; and on the other, the woman must be 



1356 An American Dilemma 

compensated, the revolting; suspicion in the male that he might be slipping into bestiality 
got rid of, by glorifying her; the Yankee must be answered by proclaiming from the 
housetops that Southern Virtue, so far from being inferior, was superior, not alone to 
the North's bat to any on earth, and adducing Southern Womanhood in proof." {Ibid., 
p. 86.) 

After the War this led to "the Southern rape complex." {Ibid,, pp. 116 ff.) Every 
attempt to rise socially on the part of the Negro became an insult to the white woman: 

"What Southerners felt, therefore, was that any assertion of any kind on the part 
of the Negro constituted in a perfectly real manner an attack on the Southern woman. 
What they saw, more or less consciously, in the conditions of Reconstruction was a 
passage toward a condition for her as degrading, in their view, as rape itself. And a 
condition, moreover, which, logic or no logic, they infallibly thought of as being as 
absolutely forced upon her as rape, and hence a condition for which the term 'rape* 
stood as truly as for the de facto deed." {Ibid., p. 116.) 

". , . the increased centrality of woman, added up with the fact that miscegenation, 
though more terrifying than it had been even in the Old South, showed little tendency 
to fall off despite efforts to build up standards against it, served to intensify the old 
interest in gyneolatry, and to produce yet more florid notions about Southern Woman- 
hood and Southern Virtue, and so to foster yet more precious notions of modesty and 
decorous behavior for the Southern female to live up to." {Ibid., p. 128.) 

* 2 The "woman on the pedestal" pattern is found outside the American South, of 
course. It is a general trait in Western civilization and had extreme expression among the 
feudal nobility of the Middle Ages and the court nobility of France after Louis XIV. 
It was given added impetus by the loss of the economic function of middle class women 
at the end of the 18th century. But nowhere did it appear in such extreme, sentimental, 
and humorless form and so far down in the social status scale as in the American South. 
(For a general description of the Romantic "pure woman" ideology, see Ernest W. 
Burgess, "The Romantic Impulse and Family Disorganization," The Survey [Decem- 
ber 1, 1926], pp. 290-294.) 

* 8 All the moral conflicts involved in preserving the institution of color caste in a 
democracy, but quite particularly the association of the caste theory with sex and social 
status, explain the fear complex upon which most investigators of the race problem in 
the South have commented. Thomas F. Bailey was early outspoken on this point: 

"But the worst has not been told. The veriest slavery of the spirit is to be found in 
the deep-seated anxiety of the South. Southerners are afraid for the safety of their 
wives and daughters and sisters; Southern parents are afraid for the purity of their 
boys; Southern publicists are afraid that a time will come when large numbers of 
negroes will try to vote, and thus precipitate race war. Southern religionists are afraid 
that our youth will grow up to despise large numbers of their fellow-men. Southern 
business men are afraid that agitation of the negro question will interfere with business 
or demoralize the labor market. Southern officials are afraid of race riots, lynchings, 
savage atrocities, paying not only for negro fiendishness but also for the anxiety caused 
by fear of what might be." (Of. eit., pp. 346-347.) 

44 Thomas Carlyle, Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question (1853; first printed 
in Fitter's Magazine [December, 1849]), p. 28. 

4t Quite ordinarily this attitude is directly associated with cherished memories from 
slavery. The pattern was set early after the Civil War. Again Henry W. Grady can be 



Footnotes 1357 

used to illustrate the consolidation of white thinking on race relations after Reconstruc- 
tion. He talked touchingly of the relations that "did exist in the dav s of slavery" 

" — how the negro stood in slavery days, open-hearted and sympathetic, full of gossip 
and comradeship, the companion of the hunt, frolic, furrow and home, contented in 
the kindly dependence that has been a habit of his blood, and never lifting his eyes 
beyond the narrow horizon that shut him in with his neighbors and friends But this 
relation did exist in the days of slavery. It was the rule of that regtme. It has sun ived 
war, and strife, and political campaigns in which the drum-beat inspired and Federal 
bayonets fortified. It will never die until the last slaveholder and slave have been gathered 
to rest. It is the glory of our past in the South. It is the answer to abuse and slander. 
It is the hope of our future." (Of. ctt , pp. 152-153, compare Pigc, of. ctt., pp. 80, 
164 fasstm.) 

48 "For those still living in the county there is, it would appear, one unfiiling rule 
of life. If they would get along with least difficulty, they should get foi themselves a 
protecting white family. 'We have mighty good white folks friends, and ef you have 
white folks for your friends, dey can't do you no harm,' " (Charles S. Johnson, 
Shadow of the Plantation [ 1934], p. 27.) 

47 Woofter remarks: 

"The liberality with which these colored beggars are treated is often more of a 
liability than an asset to racial adjustment, because suits emotional but unscicntilic giving 
often leaves the givers with a paternalistic feeling toward the whole raie and a belief that 
by giving small alms they have discharged their full civic duty towaid then eolored 
neighbors." (Of. ctt., p. 199 ) 

48 Dollard, of. ctt., pp. 389-432. 

49 It was part of Washington's tactics to exaggerate this point. An interesting com- 
parison can be made between his first book, published in 1899, an d his liter writings. 
In the former, The Future of the American Negto, he painted the cruelties of slavery 
in glaring terms, in the latter he rather elaborated on the lighter sides of the institu- 
tion. This was part of his attempt to gain the assistance or at least the tolerance of the 
Southern whites, and he had found out that this appealed to the- Northern philanthropist 
also. In his last book, The Story of the Negro { 1 909) , he wrote, for instance, in explain- 
ing why "a mob in the South . . . does not seek to visit its punishment upon the innocent 
as well as upon the guilty". 

"In the South every Negro, no matter how worthless he may be as an individual, 
knows one white man in the town whose friendship and protection he can always count 
upon, perhaps he has gained the friendship of this white man by reason of the fact that 
some member of the white man's family owned him or some of his relatives, or it may 
be that he has lived upon this white man's plantation, or that some member of his family 
works for him, or that he has performed some act of kindness for this white man which 
has brought them into sympathetic relations with each other. It is generally true, as 1 
have said before, that in the South every white man, no matter how bitter he may seem 
to be toward the Negro as a race, knows some one Negro in whom he has complete con- 
fidence, whom he will trust with all that he has. It is the individual touch which holds 
the two races together in the South, and it is this individual toueh between the races 
which is lacking, in a large degree, in the North." (Vol. I, p. 189.) 

This was a gross overstatement even when Washington wrote, and is still less accurate 
today. (See Chapter 27, Section 2.) 



1358 An American Dilemma 

M Kelly Miller, Race Adjustment — Essays on the Negro in America (1908), p. 93. 

01 "Vudaman, declaiming violently against Negro college*, ha* actually, in ipecific 
instances, given them help and encouragement. I told how he had cat off an $8,000 
appropriation from Alcorn College because he did not believe in Negro education: but 
he turned around and gave Alcorn College $14,000 for a new lighting system, became 
he had come in fersonal contact with the Negro president of Alcorn College, and liked 
Aim." (Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color Line [1908], p. 250.) 

ea Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (1927; first edition, 1 91 2), p. 79. 

•* Robert R. Mourn, What the Negro Thinks (1929), p. 27. 

B4 «i*he very existence of a lazy, shiftless, incompetent, irresponsible mass of laborer* 
that require the closest supervision all the time necessarily lowers the economic energy 
and standards of the white people. Many a white man excuses his easy, sauntering way 
of transacting business by speaking of the ridiculous rush and hurry-scurry of the North. 
But much of our Southern lassitude is caught from the ways of the negro rather than the 
wile* of the hookworm. ... In a thousand ways negro economic inefficiency retard* the 
development of the South. And this constant doing of less than our best, this easy-going 
lack of regard for time, this willingness to put up with inefficient service and to over- 
look small pilfering because one 'expects that from a negro 9 — what is all this but an 
insidious form of psychological economic unfreedom?" (Bailey, of, tit., p. 342.) 

66 George W. Cable, The Negro Question (1903 ; first edition, 1890), p. 23. 

56 The Basis of Ascendancy (1909), p. 233. 

5T Problems of the Present South (1909; first edition, 1904), pp. 274-275. Murphy 
continued: 

"It has fixed its barriers — in no enmity of temper but in the interest of itself and its 
civilization, and not without regard to the ultimate welfare of the negro. It cannot base 
its social distinctions on an assertion of universal 'inferiority' — for in that case every 
gifted or truly educated negro might shake the structure of social usage. It bases its 
distinctions partly upon the far-reaching consideration that the racial stock of the two 
families of men is so unlike that nothing is to be gained and much is to be lost from 
the interblending of such divergent types; partly upon the broad consideration of practi- 
cal expediency, in that the attempt to unite them actually brings unhappiness; partly 
upon the inevitable persistence of the odium of slavery; partly upon a complex inde- 
finable, but assertive social instinct." (Ibid., pp. 275-276.) 

68 Willis D. Weatherford, Negro Life in the South (191 5), p. 173. 

68 Page, of. tit., p. 307. 

60 Negro Americans, What Now? p. 84. 

61 John Dollard reports from his study of a community in the Deep South that it is 
rather the white middle class that shows the most bitter resentment against the Negroes 
(of. tit., p. 77). But Dollard reports that there were very few lower class whites in this 
community, and he did not study them intensively (ibid., p. 99). Davis, Gardner, and 
Gardner also report from their community study that "it is the lower-middle-class whites 
who take it upon themselves to control the urban Negroes and to keep them in hand." 
(Allison Davis, B. B. Gardner, and M. R. Gardner, Deep South [1941], pp. 56-57.) 

43 "la many instances it was noticed that lower-class whites living in Negro neighbor- 
hood* treated their Negro neighbors in much the same way as they did their white 
neighbors. There were the usual gossiping, exchange of services, and even visiting." 
(Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, of. tit., p. 50.) 



Footnotes 1359 

■* Charles S. Johnson, Growing Vf in the Black Btlt, p. 284. 

" Ibid., pp. 283-284- 

"Frank U. Quillin, The Color Line in Ohio (1913), pp. 97-104. 

M Dusk of Dawn, pp. 8 ff. Du Bois tells about when he entered high school ". . . 
there came some rather puzzling distinctions which I can sec now were social and racial; 
bnt the racial angle was more clearly defined against the Irish than against me. It was a 
matter of income and ancestry more than color." (Ibid., p, 1 4.) Another description of 
the status of Negroes in a small New England city may be found in Robert A. Warner's 
New Haven Negroes (1940). 

87 According to some observers, there was a noticeable decrease of friendliness toward 
Negroes in the North even before the Great Migration. Ray Stannard Baker, for ex- 
ample, expresses this opinion in Following the Color Line (pp. 188 ff.). It may have 
been due to the passing of the Abolitionist fervor or to the beginning of the Negro 
migration from the South (partly for the purpose of breaking strikes) or to the "new 
immigrants" from Southern and Eastern Europe. Counterbalancing factors were the im- 
proved educational and economic status of Northern Negroes and the practical absence 
of forced residential segregation. If there was such a trend, it was not important, and 
the increase of anti-Negro sentiment in the North may — for all practical purposes — be 
said to have begun with the Great Migration. 



Chapter 29. Patterns of Social Segregation and Discrimination 

1 The actual patterns of segregation and discrimination — even if not their motivation 
— are facts subject to simple observation and, consequently, to quantitative measurement 
and analysis. When the attitudes and popular theories of white persons with respect to 
Negro persons are manifested in such concrete acts as passing laws, signing restrictive 
covenants, and demanding certain signs of deference, these actions can be counted and 
classified, and differences noted in them relative to type, region, time periods, social 
class, sex, age and so on. Residential segregation is visible in the layout of the community, 
and some of its concomitants — such as a differential in the proportion of Negroes seen 
on various streets or in various stores — can be made graphic by simple enumeration. 
Studies have been made — using census data — of the proportions of Negroes residing in 
the different sections of cities. (See, for example, T. J. Woofter, Jr., and Associates, 
Negro Problems in Cities [1928] ; and United States Federal Housing Administration, 
Homer Hoyt, The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighborhoods in American 
Cities [1939].) There has not been, however, a systematic effort to relate the facts 
of residential distribution to differentials in patterns of ways of limiting contacts with 
Negroes and treating them as inferiors. The provision of Buch things as separate public 
toilets, drinking fountains, and railroad station entrances for Negroes is visible in signs 
and posters or in the structure of buildings. Prohibitions agam6t intermarriage and 
against the U9e of the same schools or the same railway cars arc easily detcctible in laws 
and court decisions, as well as in collected statistics and by direct observation. The extent 
of separation of Negroes and whites in business and in professional and friendly associa- 
tions can be discerned by scanning membership lists or by brief interviews with secretaries. 
For the measurement oi segregation and discrimination in interpersonal relations, the 
investigator could obtain short-period diaries of Negroes, and perhaps whites, living in 



1360 An American Dilemma 

different areas and of different statutes and with different personal characteristics. This 
source wocld provide exact information on such things as the use of the term "nigger" 
and the refusal to let Negroes enter by the front door and sit in the presence of "whites, 
ft is especially important to get precise information about interpersonal relations between 
Negroes and whites since these probably form the most sensitive index of the condition 
of and trends in the Negro problem as a whole. Only quantitative data could really 
indicate how segregation and discrimination curtail the number and scope of personal 
contacts over the color line, and how they change the character of those contacts which 
remain. Only quantitative data — along with other information — could permit an 
empirical analysis of the causation of those patterns. 

Since no systematic quantitative study has been made, we shall be forced to give the 
same sort of impressionistic survey which we have just criticized. We have the advantage, 
however, of Charles S. Johnson's summary of general patterns of segregation and dis- 
crimination in thirteen communities {Patterns of Negro Segregation [1943] ; this study 
was carried out as part of our inquiry), as well as a diverse variety of local studies and 
of published and unpublished statements. For the etiquette of race relations, there is the 
study by Bertram Wilbur Doyle, The Etiquette of Race Relations in the South (1937). 

2 Mississippi has "... a criminal statute punishing anyone for publishing, printing, 
or circulating any literature in favor of or urging interracial marriage or social equality." 
(Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal Status of the Negro [1940], p. 237.) 

3 Louis Wirth and Herbert Goldhamcr, "The Hybrid and the Problem of Mis- 
cegenation," in Otto Klineberg (editor), Characteristics of the American Negro, pre- 
pared for this study} to be published, manuscript page 160. 

The Supreme Court has never directly passed upon the constitutionality of the laws 
against intermarriage. It is, however, commonly upheld on the ground that the pro- 
scription is not discrimination but applies to both the Negro and the white partner. 
(Compare Mangum, of. cit., pp. 288 ff.) 

4 The existing statistical knowledge about recent intermarriage is limited to three 
areas. Wirth and Goldhamer have complied in detail statistics for Boston and for New 
York State outside of New York City. (Op. cit., manuscript pages 37-71.) Panunzio 
has calculated summary figures for Los Angeles County. (Constantine Panunzio, "Inter- 
marriage in Los Angeles, 1924-1933," The American Journal of Sociology [March, 
J942], p. 699.) Of all marriages involving Negroes in Boston in 1934-1938, 3.7 per 
cent were with whites. For New York State exclusive of New York City, the correspond- 
ing figure in 1934-1936 was 1.7 per cent. For Los Angeles County in the period 1924- 
1933, there were only four cases, although there were 51 cases of intermarriage with 
Asiatics and Indians. California has had a law prohibiting Negro-white intermarriage 
since 1 850, but there were three cases of Negro males born outside the United States 
and one case of a white female born outside the United States, who were allowed to 
marry into the other group. If the number of intermarriages be considered, not as 
relative to the total number of marriages involving Negroes but as relative to the total 
number of marriages involving whites, the percentage drops to an insignificant fraction. 
Thus even the relative numerical significance of intermarriage is much greater for 
Negroes than for whites. The data show intermarriage higher in urban than in rural 
areas, but this is only among marriages between Negro males and white females, and not 
between white males and Negro females. The former type of intermarriage is mnch 
more common, and the light female finds she can get a better man among her own 



Footnotes 1361 

peopl e es p ec ially from the ranks of dark superior Negroes, while the light male can 
also marry "upward" by seeking a white wife, from whom he does not expect economic 
advantage anyway. It may also be that the white woman has more sexual attraction for 
the Negro male than the white man has for the Negro female, since sex contact between 
the former pair is more forbidden, even in prostitution. In socio-economic status, the 
Negro male who intermarries is high, while the white male, the white female, and the 
Negro female are low. The white females, by marrying into the lower caste, go upward 
in class, but the white male usually cannot get such an advantage because the better 
class Negro female finds it to her advantage to marry the darker Negro of high socio- 
economic status. Whites who intermarry are not predominantly foreign-born as is some- 
times thought. Among white males who marry Negroes, there are about as many native- 
born of native parentage as there are foreign-born, relative to their respective population. 
Among white females who marry Negroes in Boston and New York State (outside of 
New York City) the relative proportion of native-born of native parentage is actually 
higher than that of foreign-born. Among both males and females, the native-born of 
foreign parentage have the least amount of intermarriage, which fact perhaps reflects the 
general ambitiousness of this element of the population. Finally, it should be mentioned 
that those who intermarry tend, to an unusual extent, to be marrying for a second or 
third time. Over 30 per cent of Wirth's sample of Negro and white brides were pre- 
viously married. The proportion was almost as high for Negro grooms though much 
smaller for white grooms. 

It is possible to get trends in intermarriage for Boston only. In that city, between 1900 
and 1904, 13.6 per cent of all marriages involving Negroes were interracial. (Alfred 
Holt Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem [1908], p. 62.) Between 1914 and 
1918, this percentage had dropped to 5.2, and between 1919 and 1913 to 3.1. In 
1 934-1938, it had risen slightly to 3.7. (Wirth and Goldhamcr, of. tit., Table IV, 
manuscript page 41.) Needless to say, Boston is not typical of the entire United States, 
and it experienced accretions to its Negro population since 1900. 

Holmes cites a study by Hoffman which indicates that intermarriage was declining 
already in the last few decades of the ninetccntli century in four Northern states. (S. J. 
Holmes, The Negro's Struggle for Survival [1937J, p. 174.) 

6 According to W. J. Cash {The Mind of the South [1941], p. 313), when the red 
light districts of Southern cities were suppressed, prostitution took to hotels, where 
Negro bellboys took on the economic and sexual functions of pimps. There are also 
isolated cases recorded of more permanent relations between Negro men and white 
women. (See, for example, Walter White, Rope and Faggot [1929 J, pp. 71 ff., and 
Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deef South [1941], pp. 

33-37-) 

The toleration in the South is abetted by prohibiting Negro men from protecting 
their women against the white man's advances. In the city studied by Allison Davis and 
John Dollard {Children of Bondage [1940], pp. 245-246), a Negro minister who 
protested in his pulpit against interracial liaisons was warned by a group of white busi- 
nessmen. 

7 John Dollard, Class and Caste in a Southern Town (1937), pp. 141-142; Hortense 
Powdermaker, After Freedom (l939)i PP- ' 8l S - 

8 For an excellent description of the scope and rigorousness of this etiquette, see 
Doyle, op. cit. This book interprets the etiquette as a meant of accommodating what 



i$6& An American Dilemma 

wis previously, and might again become, a conflict relation between Negroet and white*. 
This interpretation, in onr opinion, is quite in error since only a amall proportion of 
Negroet feel accommodated when performing self •abasing actions demanded by the 
etiquette. Actually, the majority of Negroes are at bottom embittered by the perform- 
ance of these actions and keep it up only to avoid violence and greater humiliation. 
Not only are Negroes resentful, but they are also in constant fear — despite the etiquette 
and perhaps because of the etiquette. It is easy to slip and to violate a complex etiquette 
or to have one's actions misinterpreted as a violation of the etiquette. Such a situation 
creates a fear in the Southern Negro which is not known to the Northern Negro. In 
one sense, therefore, the Northern Negro without the etiquette and with police and 
court protection is better "accommodated" than the Southern Negro with his etiquette. 
Even whites cannot be said to be "accommodated" to Negroes by the existence of the 
etiquette, since they are — for the most part — acutely aware of the deference accorded 
them and are constantly on their guard lest it be neglected — indicating that the Negroes 
are attempting to leave their lowly place. On neither side is there accommodation in the 
sense that the course of race contacts runs so smoothly — oiled by the performance of the 
etiquette — as to pass unnoticed. Rather, the course of race contacts is the result of an 
oblique and repressed but continuous struggle — for most Southern Negroes and whites — 
with the performance of the etiquette being one of the tributes demanded by the whites 
for being on top in the struggle. 

9 Edgar Gardner Murphy, Problems of the Present South (1909; first edition, 1904), 
p. 278. Italics ours. 

10 Violence did occur, however, in the upper middle class area of Kenwood in 
Chicago, in December, 1940, when a white family had a party where Negroes were 
present. Lower class persons in a neighboring block learned of the event while it was in 
progress and formed a mob outside the home. After windows were broken, police pro- 
tection had to be sought to evacuate the members of the party. When the white owner 
returned to his home the next day, he was shot at. He moved to a new residence under 
police protection. This incident is, of course, far from typical and it was complicated 
by the fact that the Kenwood area was being threatened by Negro residential invasion 
and by the fact that the white person in question was known to be a Jewish radical. 

In Princeton, New Jersey, a white woman who proposed to have a dinner to which 
Negroes would be invited was visited by a delegation of leading white women of the 
town and was told that such things were just not done. 

11 Charles S. Johnson, Patterns of Negro Segregation, pp. 145-146. 

12 In America the modern usage of one common set of titles (outside the caste sphere) 
hat developed out of an earlier system of differentiated titles, where the ones now used 
referred to upper class status: 

"Class lines in New England were also indicated by the forms of address in vogue. 
Some of the titles denoting good repute were: 'esquire' or 'gentleman' for wealthy land- 
owners and, merchants who had belonged to the English upper middle class; 'master* 
for clergymen who possessed the degree of master of arts; 'mister* for professional 
people and substantial landowners and merchants (about one man in fourteen was 
addressed as Mr.); and 'goodman' for ordinary yeoman farmers. Such military titles 
as captain and ensign also signified an honorable station. Indentured servants, tenants, 
and wage-earners were unceremoniously called by their family or given names. Church 
pews were assigned on the basis of social status, while the names on the student register 



Footnotes 1363 

at Harvard College were lifted, not alphabetically, but according to family rank." 
(Curtis P. Nettels, The Roots of American Civilization [1938], p. 327.) 

11 John Dollard describes typical Negro behavior in relation to whites in Southern- 
town as "white-folks manner": 

"There is a continual flow of agreement by the Negro while a white man is talking, 
inch as 'Yes, boss,' 'Sho nuff,' 'Well, I declare,' and the like. The Negro must maintain 
a position of continuous affirmation of the white man's wishes and ideas, showing 
thereby his lack of contrary intent, independence, aggressiveness, and individuality. A 
'good nigger' from the white man's point of view is one who has mastered this tech- 
nique." (Of. cit., p. 180.) 

When whites tell jokes about Negroes a main point is to "give an image of a high- 
toned, pleading voice, full of uncertainty, begging for favor. Evidently this whining, 
cajoling tone is one of the badges of inferiority which Negroes accept and cultivate. 
The whites imitate it with an evident hostile relish. It establishes at once by its difference 
from ordinary white speech the inferior position of the Negro as a suppliant." {Ibid., 

P- 257-) 

14 Uem. 

JB Gustavus Myers, America Strikes Back (1935). It is interesting to note that the 
South has similarly been accustomed to accusing the Northern Yankees of "materialism." 

18 To illustrate the extent to which the etiquette has broken down — or never existed 
— we may cite Charles S. Johnson's summary of the etiquette in eight counties of the 
rural South. (Growing Up in the Black Belt [1941], pp. 277-280.) 

"Where taboos are rigid: 

1. Negroes may never marry whites in any of the counties studied. 

2. Negroes may never dance with whites in any of the counties studied. 

3. Negroes may never eat with whites in any of the counties except Bolivar and 
Coahoma (Mississippi) and Davidson (Tennessee). 

4. Negroes may never play games with whites in any counties except Bolivar, David- 
son, and Madison (Alabama). 

5. Negroes must always use 'Mr.' and 'Mrs.' when addressing whites in all counties. 

6. Whites never use 'Mr.' and 'Mrs.' when addressing Negroes in Bolivar, Coahoma, 
Johnston (North Carolina), Macon (Alabama) and Shelby (Tennessee). 

7. Negroes never drink with whites in Madison and Shelby counties except occa- 
sionally among the lower classes. 

8. Negroes never enter white people's houses by the front door in Coahoma and 
Johnston. 

9. Negroes must give whites the right-of-way on the sidewalks in Bolivar and 
Madison. 

10. Negro men must take off their hats in banks, stores, and so forth, where whites 
need not, in Madison. 

11. Negroes cannot touch a white man without his resenting it in Bolivar and 
Madison, 

12. Negroes must always say 'Yes, sir,' and 'Yes, ma'am,' when addressing whites in 
all counties except Davidson and Johnston." 

"Where the etiquette is relaxed: 

I. Negroes drinx with whites sometimes in Bolivar, Coahoma, Davidson, Greene, 
Johnston, and Macon. 



13^4 An American Dilemma 

2. Negroes and white* shake hands sometimes in all counties. 

3. Negroes enter white people's houses by the front door sometimes in Bolivar, 
Davidson, Greene, Madison, and Shelby. 

4. Whites use 'Mr.' and 'Mrs.' sometimes in Davidson, Greene, and Madison when 
addressing Negroes. 

5. Whites and Negroes play games together sometimes in Bolivar, Davidson, and 
Madison. 

6. Negroes most use 'Yes, sir,' and 'Yes, ma'am,' sometimes in Davidson and Johnston. 

7. Negroes may touch a white man without causing resentment in Davidson, Johnston, 
Macon, and Shelby." 

"Where the etiquette is confused: 

1. Negroes attend theaters patronized by whites in all counties but Madison. 

2. Negroes can try on hats in all stores in all counties but Shelby. 

3. Negroes can try on gloves in all stores in Bolivar, Davidson, Johnston, and Macon, 
and in no stores in Greene. 

4. Negroes must occupy a separate section while being waited on in all stores in 
Coahoma, Macon, and Madison; in some stores in Davidson, Greene, Johnston, and 
Shelby; and in no stores in Bolivar. 

5. Negroes may sit in all public parks in Bolivar, Coahoma, Greene, and Macon; in 
some parks in Davidson and Shelby; and in none in Johnston and Madison. 

6. Negroes use hotels with whites in none of the counties. 

7. Negroes use some restaurants with whites in Coahoma, Davidson, Madison, and 
Shelby only, and these are separated by partition. 

8. Negroes serve on juries sometimes in Coahoma, Greene, and Shelby, never in 
Bolivar, Johnston, and Madison. 

9. Negro lawyers may try cases in all counties except Madison. 

10. Negroes are segregated in all courts except in Coahoma. 

11. Whites work for Negroes sometimes in Bolivar, Davidson, Greene, Johnston, 
and Madison; never in Coahoma, Macon, and Shelby. 

12. Whites work with Negroes usually in Coahoma and Greene; sometimes in David- 
son, Johnston, and Madison; seldom if ever in Shelby. 

13. Whites are served by Negro doctors in Davidson, Greene, Johnston, Madison, 
and Shelby; not in Bolivar, Coahoma, and Macon. 

14. Negroes usually vote in Coahoma, Davidson, Johnston, Macon, and Shelby; 
sometimes in Greene and Madison. 

15. Negroes and whites worship together sometimes in Coahoma, Davidson, Greene, 
Macon, and Madison; never in Bolivar, Johnston, and Shelby. 

16. Negroes drink with whites in drug and liquor stores in Coahoma; at beer 'joints' 
in Bolivar; when each party is about half drunk from whisky in Greene; and among 
the lower classes occasionally in all counties." 

17 C. V. Roman, American Civilization and the Negro (1921 ; first edition, 19 16), 
p. 58. 

18 Interview by Charles S. Johnson, Patterns of Negro Segregation, pp. 52-53. 
Other cases of this sort are cited by Johnson (ibid.') ; by R. R. Moton (What the Negro 
Thinks [1929], p. 181); and by John A. Kenney ("The Inter-Racial Committee of 
Montdair, New Jersey," Journal of the National Medical Association [July-September, 
>93»J> PP- 102-103). 



Footnotes jjgr 

» U.S. Federal Housing Administration, op. eU., p. 63. These cities do not constitute 
a representative sample of American cities, as Hoyt is well aware. They do not include 
the seven most important cities in the country from the standpoint of total numbers of 
Negroes. They are especially biased for the North: although 40 of the 64 cities were 
in the North, they included only 3 of 28 Northern cities containing the largest num- 
bers of Negroes. New York, Chicago, or Philadelphia alone— none of which was 
included in the sample— had more Negroes than all the included 40 Northern cities 
put together. Of the 32 cities in the study containing the smallest proportions of non- 
whites, all were in the North except two in the Border states-, of the 16 cities contain- 
ing the largest proportions of nonwhites all but one were in the South. For these reasons 
we shall not draw the conclusion that Hoyt does, that ". . . the degree of nonwhite 
concentration in any city increases directly with the number and proportion of non- 
white persons in the population." (Ibid., p. 68.) On the basis of our own impression- 
istic observations of cities not in Hoyt's sample, we are inclined to believe that the 
correlation between concentration and proportion of Negroes is not large, and whatever 
correlation there is would be due to the relation between number and proportion. In 
other words, we should guess that the concentration of Negroes in a city is far more 
related to their number than to their proportion in a city. We should also guess that 
any generalization of this sort would have to be qualified for differences between 
South and North. 

20 Using an even less refined technique, one based on wards rather than blocks, 
Burgess reported that Negroes showed the greatest concentration of any ethnic group 
in a group of major cities — except for Philadelphia where the Italians were more 
concentrated than the Negroes. (Ernest W. Burgess, "Residential Segregation in 
American Cities," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social 
Science [November, 1928], pp. 108-109.) For Chicago alone, there is a study of 
residential concentration of Negroes by Mary Elaine Ogden, "The Chicago Negro 
Community — A Statistical Description" (mimeographed), Chicago: W.P.A. District 3 
(1939). This study was done under the direction of Horace Cay ton and W. Lloyd 
Warner. 

21 Sec Burgess, of. cit., p. 1 10. 

22 For a discussion of these movements and the forces behind them, see I.yonel C 
Florant in Chapter z of Samuel A. Stouffer and Associates, "Negro Population and 
Negro Population Movements, 1860-1940," unpublished manuscript prepared for 
this study (1940). 

23 Woofter has adopted a four-fold classification of cities based on the patterns of 
residential segregation found in them. This is better than our two-fold classification 
in many respects and deserves to be quoted here: 

"The first group is typified by New York and Chicago, where the concentration of 
Negroes is great and yet where it affects only a small part of the whole city area. In 
Chicago this pattern seems to be changing as the Negioes spread more southward. . . 

"The second group is typified by Richmond, and includes most of the large southern 
cities where Negroes are highly concentrated in several rather large parts of the city 
and lighdy scattered in others, thus leaving a large proportion of the white people in 
areas from 10 to 90 per cent. Negro . . . 

"The third group is typified by Charleston, and is limited to the older southern 



1366 An American Dilemma 

cities and town* which hare a heavy percentage of Negroes Li their total population, 
and consequently a heavy scattering of Negroes throughout the city. . . 

"Group four is composed of cities with light colored infusion, where the diffusion 
of Negroes affeeta only a very small area of the city and is somewhat scattered within 
xhharea . . ." (T. J. Woofter, Jr., and Associates, Negro Problems in Cities f 102ft 1 
P. 3«.) l V J ' 

;;»«■» p. 37. 

Woofter's maps show this concentration of Negroes outside the central business 
districts of cities to be typical. (Ibid., pp. 40-67.) See also Burgess, of. cit., p. 108. 

86 " 'Segregation' in Harlem?" Column Review (December, 1941), p. 5. While 
McKay is incorrect in saying that there is no segregation of Negroes in New York, 
he is correct in pointing out that Harlem is not a self-sufficing community in the sense 
that New York's Chinatown is. Chinatown has not only segregation, but also an alien 
culture and its own internal government. Negro communities are, on the other hand, 
more of an integral part of American life than even Greek and Italian communities. 
(Burgess, of. cit., p. no.) 

Harlem is, in one sense, less integrated into New York than the Black Belt is into 
Chicago: Harlem's cultural and commercial center is near its geographical center at 
135th Street and 7th Avenue and zones of decreasing concentration of Negroes and 
Negro activities encircle it. The Chicago community, on the other hand, is a long thin 
'trip, with poor Negroes at one end near poor white areas and wealthy Negroes at the 
other end near wealthy white areas. (See E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family its 
Chicago [1932], and "Negro Harlem: An Ecological Study," American Journal of 
Sociology [July, 1937], pp. 72-88.) 

27 Document in possession of the Social Science Research Committee of the Univer- 
sity of Chicago. ("History of Grand Boulevard," document number 7.) 

28 See Charles S. Johnson, Negro Housing (1932), pp. 35-37. 

29 This was the famous case of Buchanan v. Warley. 245, U.S. 60, 38 S.Ct. 16, Nov. 
5, 191 7. For a discussion of the laws and court cases, see Richard Sterner and Associates, 
The Negro's Share, prepared for this study (1943), pp. 205-209. 

80 "Iron Ring in Housing," The Crisis (July, 1940), p. 205. This and other descrip- 
tions of the extent and legal status of restrictive covenants may be found in Sterner and 
Associates, of. cit., pp. 207-208. 

81 Some have mistakenly thought that the Supreme Court's decision in the recent 
(1940) case of Hansberry v. Lee made restrictive covenants illegal. Actually nothing 
was decided except that Negroes could move into the West Woodlawn area of Chicago. 
The case was so decided because 9; per cent of the white property owners of that 
area had not signed the restrictive covenant, which — by its own terms — called for 95 
per cent of the signatures. 

82 From document in possession of the Social Science Research Committee of the 
University of Chicago. 

83 Woofter brings out the nature of the surroundings to a Negro neighborhood in his 
maps in Negro Problems of Cities. Burgess adds corroborating facts (of. cit., p. 108). 

** See Chapter 28, Section 4. Mangum describes these laws thus: 
"These states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, 
Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Penn* 
fjfamit, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin. The statutes are more or lest 



Footnotes 1367 

specific concerning placet which are meant to be regulated. Some of them contain long 
lifts of places of public resort, while others mention only a few or none at all. The 
rtatntei differ in the type or types of remedy to be employed in seeking redress. Thus 
seven states provide for a criminal prosecution only, one makes a provision for a civil 
action alone, seven allow both a criminal action and either a suit for a penalty or a 
civil action for damages, while the remaining three permit both types of redress but 
state that success in an action of either kind shall bar all other proceedings." {Of. cit., 
pp. 34-35) 

85 For example, in May, 1942, New York State added prohibitions against discrim- 
ination by public golf courses and by sports promoters in state-wide contests. 

88 The partial futility of the civil rights law in New Jersey is indicated by the 
following comment made by a city official in Atlantic City: 

" 'I think the southerners handle them better because they don't assert their rights. 
They are not permitted in the bars, etc. This equalization law is not a benefit for the 
man who runs the place. In New Jersey they have a state law that they are to be 
admitted to restaurants and theaters, but the courts wouldn't recognize it here. It is 
seldom a sensible colored man will thrust himself in where he is not wanted. In New 
York they have hired lawyers and prosecute such cases to the bitter end; they do not 
succeed in getting very far, not for the present time. I was in a restaurant in Philadel- 
phia one time and a colored couple came in. The manager told them all the tables were 
reserved. They walked out. That's what overcomes the law. 1 kept a hotel for thirty 
years. They knew I didn't care for their trade, and they never came. I told them, "You 
know it is not fair to make me lose my trade." You can't throw them out, but the 
majority arc satisfied to keep to themselves. They understand in the moving pictures 
that they are to sit on the left side. Our colored people are a nice class.' " (Quoted in 
Johnson, Patterns of Negro Segregation, pp. 200-201.) 

87 For example, Princeton University, in New Jersey — a state with a civil rights law 
— permits no Negro to enroll as a student. 

The American Red Cross refuses to permit Negro women to assist in its civilian 
first-aid training program unless they can form their own segregated units on their own 
initiative. It has also refused to accept Negro blood donors. After protests it now 
accepts Negro blood but segregates it to be used exclusively for Negro soldiers. This is 
true at a time when the United States is at war, and the Red Cross has a semi-official 
status. 

The United Service Organizations — a body created to give civilian aid in the present 
war effort — refuses to let Negroes participate in many of its activities in several 
Northern states. For that matter, so does the Office of Civilian Defense — a government 
agency which has refused to permit Negroes to serve as volunteer airplane spotters in 
at least one Northern state. 

38 Johnson, Patterns of Negro Segregation, p. 7. 
m IJem. 

40 Idem. 

41 While the teachers and principals of Negro schools in the South are uniformly 
Negro, the controlling and supervising officials are white. In 1940, Wilkerson found 
Negroes on the school boards only in Washington, D. C, West Virginia, Oklahoma and 
Missouri among all Southern states. He was able to find only 18 Negroes holding stole 
administrative or supervisory positions. (Doxey A. Wilkerson, "The Negro in American 



1368 An American Dilemma 

Education," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study [1940], VoL 1, pp. 163- 

J74) 

**In another important case (Donald Murray v. the University of" Maryland, 1936), 
the Maryland Circuit Court of Appeals decided that Negroes must be admitted to the 
law school of the University of Maryland, and several Negroes have taken advantage 
of the ruling. 

48 Mangum, of. eit., p. 79. 

44 Ibid., pp. 80-82. 

48 Wilkerson, of. eit., Vol. 1, pp. 209-212. Concerning the illegal situation in the 
southern half of New Jersey, see Marion M. T. Wright, The Education of Negroes in 
Neto Jersey (1941), pp. 183-193. 

48 In May, 1942, a Negro minister of New York City was named to the board of 
Union Theological Seminary. This was apparently the first time since Reconstruction 
that a Negro attained such a position in a predominantly white educational institution. 

4T Only two Southern states make legal provision for the extension of public library 
service to Negroes. 

"In West Virginia, a state law requires all libraries receiving public funds to give 
service to Negroes, and in Texas the law requires commissioners' courts to make proper 
provision for library service to Negroes through branches of the county int library." 
(Tommie Dora Barker, Libraries of the South [1936], pp. 51-52.) As a result, over 
one-third of the public libraries serving Negroes in 13 Southern states in 1935 were 
in West Virginia and Texas. 

48 Referring to what happened to the proposed training school for delinquent Negro 
girls in Georgia, Dabney reports: 

"Talmadge even vetoed an appropriation voted almost unanimously by the Georgia 
Legislature in 1941 for the operation of a training school for delinquent Negro girls. 
The building had been paid for with the nickels and dimes of Georgia's Negro women, 
and had been presented by them to the state four years before. It had never been 
opened, for lack of funds — and doubtless won't be, as long as Georgia sends Talmadges 
to the gubernatorial mansion, although Georgia has a training school for delinquent 
Negro boys. So has every other Southern state except Mississippi, which has practically 
as many Negroes as whites, but no training school for either delinquent colored boys 
or delinquent colored girls." (Virginius Dabney, Below the Potomac [1942], p. 214.) 

48 Of. eit., p. 234. 

60 Many authors have observed that the coming of the cheap automobile has meant 
for Southern Negroes, who can afford one, a partial emancipation from Jim Crowism. 

"Race is most completely ignored on the public highway; there a Negro in a moving 
automobile has not only a legal right to half the road, but in practice is accorded it. 
The mechanics of the situation ensures that only the person careless of his own life 
will dare claim more than his share. Some [white] people, observing this equality, fear 
it is a bad precedent. Effective equality seems to come at about twenty-five miles an 
hour or above. As soon as the car is stopped by the side of the road, to pick wild flowers 
or fix a puncture, the color of the occupants places them in their traditional racial 
roles." (Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," unpublished manuscript prepared for 
this study [1940], p. 9.) 
*f Muigum, nf. eit., pp. 181-182. 
**/*W., pp. 182 and 203-204. 



Footnotes 1369 

E * Johnson, Patterns of Negro Segregation, p. 47. 

** In Atlanta formerly, Negroes not only had to sit in separate section* of the car, 
but also had to enter by a different door. With the adoption of the one-man car this 
practice was abandoned. According to Johnson (Hid., p. 50), the one-man car has 
reduced friction since there is no confusion as to where to enter and conductors do not 
fun with the seating. 

"Mangum, of. tit., pp. 32-65. 

56 Only in New York and New Jersey do the Civil Rights Acts prohibit racial 
segregation in cemeteries. {Ibid., p. 156.) 

"/***., p. 175. 

88 See Mangum, op. cit., pp. 26-68, passim. 

88 See, for example, Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, op. cit., p. 4.63. 

90 There are exceptions: In the first half of 1942, there was a fight to get Negroes 
and Orientals into the American educators' national honor fraternity, Phi Delta Kappa. 
After numerous debates, threats of secession, and temporary compromises the fight was 
won. Previously, however, even the local chapters could not admit Negroes. 



Chapter 30. E facts of Social Inequality 

1 Gilbert T. Stephenson, Race Distinctions in American Law (1910), pp. 20 ff.; 
Charles S. Mangum, Jr., The Legal Status of the Negro (1940), pp. 18 ff. 

2 Stephenson, of. cit., p. 28. 

'Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Bcecher Stowc, Booker T. Washington (1916), pp. 
108 ff.; see particularly Washington's correspondence with Edgar Gardner Murphy, 
idem. 

* The New Republic (December 4, 191 5), pp. 113-114. 

B "He [the Negro] feels that it is a libel against his race to say that segregation and 
discrimination are necessary to protect the white man's civilization, the sanctity of his 
home, or the integrity of his race. He feels that it is an unwarranted insult both to his 
person and to his character to establish that there is any place to which the public is 
admitted that will be defiled by the mere presence of a black man in the enjoyment of 
equal privileges with others. He maintains that prejudices of individuals that make 
for discrimination against his race should be properly regarded as purely private and 
personal without any title whatsoever to recognition and support by public authority." 
(Robert R. Moton, What the Negro Thinks [1929], pp. 238-239.) 

'William Archer, Through Afro-America (1910), p. 212. 

''Democracy and Race Friction (1914), pp. 184-18$. 

"Any one acquainted with southern conditions in the 'black belt' today will realise 
that this is no mere possibility, but is to a very large extent a reality. There exist in the 
minds of both blacks and whites two conceptions of conduct, recognised as valid in two 
different spheres and with little in common. This explains the paradoxical fact that 
a moral lapse of a negro often does not make him lose social standing with the negroes 
nor with the whites, while the condemnation of a white by his fellows for committing 
the same offence will often be shared by the negroes also. Each is judged by the social 
standards of his group and the other group accepts those judgments as valid for the 



137° A* American Dilemma 

individual and the cate concerned; there is little free immediate functioning of social 
unctions independent of race distinctions." (Ibid,, pp. 14-15.) 
a Ihid., p. 110. 

9 See the series on present Negro youth problems prepared for the American Youth 
Commission: Ira DeA. Reid, In a Minor Key (1940) ; Allison Davis and John Dollard, 
Children of Bondage (1940); W. Lloyd Warner, Buford H. Junker, and Walter A. 
Adams, Color and Human Nature (1941) ; E. Franklin Frazier, Negro Youth at the 
Crotsways (1940); Charles S. Johnson, Growing Uf in the Black Belt (1941); Ira D. 
Walker, Vincent J. Davis, Donald W. Wyatt, and J. Howell Atwood, Thus Be Their 
Destiny (1941); and Robert L. Sutherland, Color, Class, and Personality (1942). 
These studies have confirmed and given definiteness to the observation of Booker T. 
Washington: 

"The Negro boy has obstacles, discouragements, and temptations to battle with that 
are little known to those not situated as he is. When a white boy undertakes a task, it is 
taken for granted that he will succeed. On the other hand, people are usually surprised 
if the Negro boy does not fail. In a word, the Negro youth starts out with the presump- 
tion against him." (Uf from Slavery [1929; first edition, 1900], p. 36.) 

10 James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiografhy of an Ex-Coloured Man (1927; first 
edition, 191 2), pp. 79-80. 

"Beyond that there is a type of Negro already referred to, whom the majority of 
whites never see and consequently do not know. They own their own homes, so the 
white landlord does not see them; they carry insurance with a Negro insurance com- 
pany, so no white collector comes to the door; their groceryman is a coloured man; they 
travel by auto rather than by street car or train; as a rule they live in the segregated 
residence districts; their physician, lawyer, dentist, and often their banker is a Negro. 
As a result of all this, there is a constantly diminishing contact between the correspond- 
ing classes of the two races, which for the whites as a whole is fast approaching the 
zero point." (Moton, of. cit., pp. 17-18.) 

11 Ray Stannard Baker observed long ago: 

" Here is a strange thing. I don't know how many Southern men have prefaced their 
talks with me with words something like this: 

" 'You can't expect to know the Negro after a short visit. You must live down here 
like we do. Now, I know the Negroes like a book. I was brought up with them. I know 
what they'll do and what they won't do. I have had Negroes in my house all my life.' 

"But curiously enough I found that these men rarely knew anything about the better 
class of Negroes — those who were in business, or in independent occupations, those who 
owned their own homes. They did come into contact with the servant Negro, the field 
hand, the common laborer, who make up, of course, the great mass of the race. On the 
other hand, the best class of Negroes did not know the higher class of white people, and 
based their suspicion and hatred upon the acts of the poorer sort of whites with whom 
they naturally came into contact. The best elements of the two races are as far apart 
as though they lived in different continents; and that is one of the chief causes of the 
growing danger of the Southern situation." (Following the Color Line [1908], p. 44.) 

13 Edgar G. Murphy may again be used to express the views of the enlightened and 
responsible Southerner: 

"Of the destructive factors in negro life the white community hears to the ntter- 
mont, hears through the press and police courts; of the constructive factors of negro 



Footnotes 1371 

progress — the negro tchool, the saner negro church, the negro home — the white com* 
inanity is in ignorance. Until it does know this aspect of our negro problem it may 
know more or less accurately many things about the negro; but it cannot know the 
negro. . . . Seeing the negro loafer on the street, the negro man or woman in domestic 
service, the negro laborer in the fields, is not seeing the negro. . . . And at the point 
where this lower contact ceases, at the point where the negro's real efficiency begins, 
and he passes out of domestic service or unskilled employment into a larger world, the 
white community loses its personal and definite information; the negro passes into the 
unknown. As the negro attains progress, he, by the very fact of progress, removes the 
tangible evidence of progress from the immediate observation of the white community. 
Thus the composite idea, the social conception of the negro which is beginning to obtain 
among us, is determined more largely by the evidences of negro retrogression or negro 
stagnation than by the evidence, the real and increasing evidence, of negro advance- 
ment." {Problems of the Present South [1909; first edition, 1904], pp. 167-168.) 

18 Du Bois may be quoted to illustrate the Negro point of view: 

"And here is a land where, in the higher walks of life, in all the higher striving for 
the good and noble and true, the color-line comes to separate natural friends and 
co-workers; while at the bottom of the social group in the saloon, the gambling-hall, 
and the brothel, that same line wavers and disappears." (W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls 
of Black Folk [1903], p. 186.) 

14 W. E. B. Du Bois gives the Negro angle to the situation when he writes of the 
"best elements" of the two groups: 

". . . it is usually true that the very representatives of the two races, who for mutual 
benefit and the welfare of the land ought to be in complete understanding and sym- 
pathy, are so far strangers that one side thinks all whites arc narrow and prejudiced, 
and the other thinks educated Negroes dangerous and insolent. Moreover, in a land 
where the tyranny of public opinion and the intolerance of criticism is for obvious 
historical reasons so strong as in the South, such a situation is extremely difficult to 
correct. The white man, as well as the Negro, is bound and barred by the color-line, 
and many a scheme of friendliness and philanthropy, of broad-minded sympathy and 
generous fellowship between the two has dropped still-born because some busybody has 
forced the color-question to the front and brought the tremendous force of unwritten 
law against the innovators." (The Souls of Black Folk, p. 184.) 

18 Moton, of. cit. t pp. 4-5. 

18 The series of investigations on Negro youth recently prepared for the American 
Youth Commission (see footnote 9 in this chapter) present a large amount of interview 
material in which this view is confirmed. 

Charles S. Johnson, whose study concerned the rural Deep South and who has most 
explicitly analyzed his findings as to the attitudes of Negro youth toward the dominant 
caste controls, concludes: 

"Among the youth of all areas, social classes, and individual temperaments, two 
characteristics were observed which were fairly common: (a) they were race conscious 
to the extent of recognizing themselves as different and apart from the rest of the 
community; and (b) they entertained a conviction that Negroes, as a race, were treated 
unfairly and were suppressed economically." (Growing Uf i» the Black Belt [1941], 

The Southern caste order makes the expression of antagonism inadvisable and even 



I37 2 An American Dilemma 

dangerous. "Outward snbmissiveness and respect may thus be, u often at not, a maik 
behind which these youth conceal their true attitudes." {Ibid., p. 296.) In this situation 
voluntary withdrawal becomes the natural solution. Johnson observes that: "In most 
cases the youth expressed themselves as preferring not to associate with whites, and 
viewed their segregation with indifference." (Ibid., p. 288.) 

Davis and Dollard, who studied two small cities in the Deep South, give much the 
same picture, except that the urban youth seem to invest more explicit dislike and even 
hatred in their attitude of withdrawal: 

"This finding runs counter to the widespread social dogma which states that the 
southern Negro doe9 not experience his caste restrictions as punishments. The dogma, 
popular as it may be, is not borne out by the thousands of pages of interviews which 
have been recorded for Negroes of all social classes in Old City and its rural back' 
ground, in Natchez, and in New Orleans. Within their conversation groups these 
Negroes in the Deep South were often found detailing the instances in which they 
had been threatened or humiliated by white people and expressing great hostility and 
resentment toward the local white group. In fact, the antagonism voiced by the local 
white people toward Negroes, although it was certainly violent, and fully supported 
by group approval, was scarcely more violent than that which Negroes, including the 
youngest adolescents, expressed to the white group as a whole. 

". . . indeed it becomes clear that only a vested societal interest in caste can account 
for the established dogma that most Negroes are completely 'accommodated' to their 
aste status and that they are simple-naturcd, childlike beings with childish needs. 
It is necessary for the society to inculcate strong defensive teachings of this kind to 
prevent general human recognition of the basic deprivations and frustrations which 
life in a lower caste involves. But it is certain that the sting of caste is deep and sharp 
for most Negroes," (Of. cit., pp. 244-245.) 

17 Arthur F. Raper, Preface to Peasantry (1936), p. 276. 

18 Negro Youth at the Crotstaayi (1940), pp. 70-71. 

19 Some communities — notably in Texas, the Far West and New England — exclude 
Negroes entirely. 

20 "Across the Tracks is a life but little known to the Whites, who rarely go there. 
Everything that happens on the white side, however, is known to the Negroes, who 
have constant access to white homes and business places. This disparity of information 
is both a natural and a significant factor in the relations of the two groups." (Hortense 
Fowdennaker, After Freedom [1939], pp. 11-12.) 

il "Almost every white woman feels' that she knows all about her cook's personality 
and life, but she seldom does. The servant is quite a different person Across the Tracks 
and is not as a rule communicative about the life she leads there. She, on the other 
hand, has ample opportunity to know intimate details concerning her mistress's life and 
family. Under hex mild 'Yes, Ma'am,' and 'No, Ma'am,' there is often a comprehen- 
sion which is unsuspected and far from mutual." (Ibid., p. 119.) 

33 This is somewhat less true in the coal and steel industry in the South and, gener- 
ally, in the North. See Appendix 6. 

38 There are some quantitative studies which bear out this point. The Chicago 
Commission on Race Relations made a study of all articles dealing with Negroes in 
three leading Chicago newspapers during 1916-1917. Of the 1,338 articles, 606 dealt 
with crime and vice, riots and clashes. In 1 91 8, the same three newspapers published 



Footnotes 1373 

275 articles "favorable" to Negroes and 165 "unfavorable." (The Chicago Commission 
on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago [1922], pp. 524, 532.) 

In a study of 28 Texas newspapers, Ira B. Bryant, Jr., classified news about Negroes 
as social, anti-social and neutral. The "anti-social" news was practically all about crime. 
In the 16 urban newspapers, 84.4 per cent of all Negro items were anti-social, 12.8 
per cent were social and 6.6 per cent were neutral. In the 12 rural newspapers, 59.8 
per cent of all Negro items were anti-social, 24.5 per cent were social, and 15.7 per 
cent were neutral. ("News Items about Negroes in White Urban and Rural News- 
papers," Journal of Negro Education [April, 1935], pp. 169-178.) 

On the other hand, Robert A. Warner reports that the newspapers of New Haven, 
Connecticut, are uniformly friendly to Negroes and do not report any undue selection 
of crime news to the exclusion of other types of news. (New Haven Negroes [1940], 
P- 27S-) 

In a study of 60 issues of 1 7 white newspapers from various sections of the United 
States, from July 15, 1928, to March 21, 1929, Gist found that 46.9 per cent of all 
news space devoted to Negroes was "anti-social." Gist felt that this was unusually low 
since at that time newspapers were giving an unusual amount of space to Negro voting 
in the election of 1928. (Noel P. Gist, "The Negro in the Daily Press," Social Forces 
[March, 1932], pp. 405-411.) 

In a study of 4 Philadelphia newspapers for the yeais 1908, 1913, 1918, 1923, 
1928, and 1932, Simpson found that the percentages of Negro crime news in all 
Negro news space ranged from 51. 1 per cent to 73.6 per cent. He further found that 
the total amount of news space devoted to Negroes was progressively declining over 
this 25-year period: the number of Negro news inches per 10,000 Philadelphia Negroes 
fell from 159 in 1 908 to 32 in 1932. (George E. Simpson, The Negro in the Phila- 
delphia Press [1936], pp. 115-116.) 

24 Time (September 8, 1941), p. 13. 

25 James Bryce, The Relations of the A dvanccd and the Backward Races of Mankind 
(1902), pp. 31-32. 

20 W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction (1935), p. 52. 
27 Concerning the Southerner who says he knows the Negro, Moton observes: 
"When one of these says he 'knows the Negro' it means that he has had them under 
his control for very practical purposes and has come to a pretty wide and thorough 
knowledge of the habits, mannerisms, foibles, weaknesses, defects, deficiencies, virtues, 
and excellencies of this particular type of the race. It means, too, that he is thoroughly 
familiar with the ethical, social, and moral code that obtains among white men of his 
class in dealing with Negroes of this class and under the conditions obtaining in these 
fields. In such a declaration he means to say that he knows how to get the required 
amount of work from any given group of such Negroes, that he knows the conditions 
under which they will work best, the amount of pressure they will stand, what abuse 
they will submit to, what they will resent, under what conditions they will remain 
cheerful, when they will become sullen, what and when to pay them, what food to 
provide, what housing to furnish, what holidays to recognize, and what indulgences 
to grant. Such a man knows, too, to what extent public opinion in his own race will 
support him in his relations with his men. He is familiar with all the local prejudices 
and practices involved in race adjustments; he is adept according to these in 'keeping 



*374 An American Dilemma 

the Negro in hit place'; and above all else he can be counted on to be firm and resolute 
in all hit dealing* with black folk of every type and clan. . . . 

"Thus a great part of 'knowing the Negro* is a thorough understanding of the 
operations of this type of interracial sentiment and of how to employ it in managing 
the Negro and 'keeping him in his place.' Where firmness is required rather than 
sympathy, where ruthlessness is the order of the day rather than consideration, a 
white man who 'knows the Negro' is the most effective agent procurable. What he 
doesn't know about the Negro is the factor that produces the race problem." (Of. eU,, 
pp. 6-7 and 8.) 

"Perhaps no single phrase has been more frequently used in discussing the race 
problem in America than the familiar declaration, '1 know the Negro . . .' 

"Negroes have always met this remark with a certain faint, knowing smile. Their 
common experience has taught them that as a matter of fact there are vast reaches of 
Negro life and thought of which white people know nothing whatever, even after 
long contact with them, sometimes on the most intimate terms." (Jbid., p. I.) 

28 Baker, op. cii., pp. 38-39. As early as 1899, ex-Governor Northen of Georgia, 
in a speech at Boston, noted that the two races were drifting apart in the South. 
("The Negro at the South," p. 7, quoted by Walter F. Willcox, "Negro Criminality," 
Journal of Social Science [December, 1899], pp. 87-88.) 

29 For an example of how laughter is a part of the interracial etiquette, see Jonathan 
Daniels, A Southerner Discovers the South (1938), pp. 255-259. 

80 P. 67. 

81 Baker, of. eit., p. 39. 

82 Kelly Miller, Race Adjustment, Essays on the Negro in America (1908), p. 92. 

83 1 have the impression that Southern radio stations make less use of national net- 
works than do Northern radio stations. If this were found to be a fact, an analysis of 
the reasons for it would be suggestive. 

84 Scott and Stowe, of. cit., pp. 115 ff., and Alfred Holt Stone, Studies in the 
American Race Problem (1908), pp. 242 IF. 

88 "The Bases of Race Prejudice," The Annals of the American Academy of Political 
and Social Science (November, 1928), p. 13. 

80 Quoted from John Temple Graves, "The Southern Negro and the War Crisis," 
The Virginia Quarterly Review (Autumn, 194.2), pp. 504-505. This article, too, is 
an example of the recent tendency toward increased unfriendliness toward the Negro 
on the part of Southern liberals. 



Chapter 31. Caste end Class 

1 ". . . the Negro group has gradually ceased to exhibit the characteristics of a caste 
and has assumed rather the character of a racial or national minority." (Robert E. Park, 
"Introduction" to Bertram Wilbur Doyle, The Etiquette of Race Relations in the 
South [1937], p. xxii.) See Donald R. Young, American Minority Peofles (1932) 
and, by the same author, Research Memorandum on Minority Peoples in the Depression 

(1937)- 

2 Many Negro social scientists, and some white ones, are reluctant to use the term 
"caste" because of its connotations of invariability and accommodation. They point oat, 
with good reason, that the use of the term "caste" has sometimes blinded social 



Footnotes 1375 

•dentist* to many important fact* about the relation* between Negroes and white* and 
hai sometimes been used as an excuse for conditions which are undesirable from the 
Negroes' point of view. Charles S. Johnson, for example, ably presents the case against 
the concept of "caste" (Growing Uf in the Black Belt [1941], pp. 325-327). He 
point* out that there is much tension and friction between Negroes and whites, and 
some social scientists seem to presume that a caste system is so "accommodated" that 
there is little or no tension or friction. The Negro in the South occupies a subordinate 
position, but "he is struggling against this status rather than accepting it." There it 
constant change, contrary to the beliefs of many who use the term "caste": ". . . the 
attitude* of the white group are constantly changing, and at many points in the rela- 
tionship between the two races there is a blurring of caste distinctions." Thus, he says, 
the term "caste" is inapplicable since: "A caste system is not only a separated system, 
it is a stable system in which changes are socially impossible; the fact that change cannot 
occur is accepted by all, or practically all, participants." 

We are in agreement with Charles Johnson's description of the facts, and we respect 
his right to choose any definition of caste he desires, but we do not agree with his 
definition ; we do not believe that such a caste system as he has defined ever existed, and 
we point out that he is forced to use some other word to mean what we mean by caste. 
Johnson uses the older terms "race" and "race system" in exactly the same way as we 
use "caste" and "caste system." While the former terms now enjoy a peculiar popu- 
larity in Negro circles (for example, certain militant Negroes use the term "race man" 
to refer to any Negro), partly in reaction to white prejudice, we believe the term 
"caste" — with its socially static connotation — is less dangerous and inaccurate than the 
term "race" — with its biologically static connotation. 

8 To this censoring attitude corresponds, as a reaction, an exaggerated interest in 
European nobility. A Scandinavian, conditioned for a long time to look upon nobility 
with complete unconcernedness — sensing only a slight, pleasant and favorable associa- 
tion to the old history — will invariably be much astonished the first time he sees his 
democratic American friend make so much fuss over a prince or a count who happens 
to be around. The author has observed that European governments, public agencies, 
and business concerns have not been slow to adapt themselves to this American peculiar- 
ity by attempting, whenever practical, to include nobility as political or business repre- 
sentatives to this country. All wavering from the principle of merit and efficiency must, 
however, in the long run, be expensive to those countries, particularly as it tends to 
preserve the American misconception of the role played by nobility in Kurope. 

The point has, however, a much closer bearing to the problem under study in this 
book. To the author it has become apparent that the Northern romanticism for the 
"Old South" has the same basic psychology. It is, likewise, only the other side of 
Yankee equalitarianism. The North has so few vestiges of feudalism and aristocracy of 
it* own that, even though it dislikes them fundamentally and is happy not to have 
them, Yankees are thrilled by them. Northerners apparently cherish the idea of having 
had an aristocracy and of still having a real class society — in the South. So it manufac- 
ture* the myth of the "Old South" or has it manufactured by Southern writers working 
for the Northern market. Henry W. Grady, Southern spokesman to the North, describe* 
the ante-bellum South in dithyrambs: 

"That was a peculiar society. Almost feudal in its splendor, it was almost patriarchal 
in its simplicity. Leisure and wealth gave it exquisite culture. Its wives and mothers, 
exempt from drudgery, and almost from care, gave to their sons, through patient and 



'37^ 



An American Dilemma 



constant training, something of their own grace and gentleness, and to their homes 
beauty and light. Its people, homogeneous by necessity, held straight and simple faith, 
and were religious to a marked degree along the old lines of Christian belief. This 
same homogeneity bred a hospitality that was as kinsmen to kinsmen, and that wasted 
at the threshold of every home what the more frugal people of the North conserved and 
invested in public charities. The code duello furnished the highest appeal in dispute. 
An affront to a lad was answered at the pistol's mouth. The iense of quick responsibility 
tempered the tongues of even the most violent, and the newspapers of South Carolina 
for eight years, it is said, did not contain one abusive word. The ownership of slaves, 
even more than of realty held families steadfast on their estates, and everywhere 
prevailed the sociability of established neighborhoods. Money counted least in making 
the social status, and constantly ambitious and brilliant youngsters from no estate married 
into the families of planter princes. Meanwhile the one character utterly condemned 
and ostracized was the man who was mean to his slaves. Even the coward was pitied 
and might have been liked. For the cruel master there was no toleration. . . . 

"In its engaging grace — in the chivalry that tempered even Quixotism with dignity 
— in the piety that saved master and slave alike — in the charity that boasted not — in 
the honor, held above estate — in the hospitality that neither condescended nor cringed — 
in frankness and heartiness and wholesome comradeship — in the reverence paid to 
womanhood and the inviolable respect in which woman's name was held — the civiliza- 
tion of the old slave regime in the South has not been surpassed, and perhaps will not 
be equaled, among men." (The New South [1890], pp. 153-159 fassim.) 

It would be interesting to investigate in further detail the role of this projected 
Yankee class romanticism in the original creation and the tenacious upholding of the 
myth of the "Old South" and the whole "pautres honteux" mentality of the region. 
As in the case of the Europeans, it is only natural that the Southerners, when they 
found out that they could sell their region with all their troubles, sorrows, and unsolved 
problems as "glorious," to the Yankees, availed themselves of this easy escape. And, 
both in the defensive position before the Civil War and the poverty and drudgery 
afterward, they had, of course, also reason of their own to indulge in mythological 
romanticism. But it is likewise natural that it has been Southerners who themselves have 
found that this easy way of appealing to the North is too expensive in the long run 
and hinders both progress at home and a real understanding on a deeper level with the 
powerful Yankees. 

4 When the Fortune survey asked the g question, "If you had to describe the class to 
which you belong with one of these three words [upper, middle, lower], which would 
you pick?" they obtained the following results: 





Pros- 
perous 

»3.6% 
74-7 

0-3 

M 




"People who are 


! actually — 




"Answered that they are: 


Upper 
Middle 

7.9% 
89.0 
0.6 
*-5 


Lower 
Middle 


Poor 

4-5% 
70-3 
19.1 

6.1 


Negro 


Upper Class 
Middle Class 
Lower Class 
Don't Know 


4.6% 
89.4 

3-i 
2.9 


16.1% 

3J-7 
36.2 

MJO" 



Footnotes 1377 

Fortune commented: ". . . every class and occupation, including even the unemployed 
and the lowly farm hand, decisively considered itaelf middle das . . " (These figures 
are reprinted through the courtesy of Fortune magazine and are from "Fortune Survey: 
XXVII," Fortune [February, 1940], p. 20.) For a further discussion, see George 
Gallup and Saul Forbes Rae, The Pulse of Democracy (1940), pp. 169-170. 

5 The leading users of the concepts of caste and class have been a group of investi- 
gators centered around Professor W. Lloyd Warner of the University of Chicago: 
John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (1937) (This book was only slightly 
influenced by Warner and used the concepts of caste and class in a less doctrinal way 
than the following books) ; Allison Davis and John Dollard, Children of Bondage 
(1940); W. Lloyd Warner, Buford H. Junker, and Walter A. Adams, Color and 
Human Nature (1941); Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, 
Deep South (1941); W. Lloyd Warner and Paul S. Lunt, The Social Life of a Mod- 
ern Community (1941). 

In addition there are a few sociologists outside the Warner group who stress problems 
of class stratification — notably Louis Wirth and Robert S. Lynd. Many writers have 
employed the concept of caste as central to a study of some aspect of the Negro pioblem. 
Few have done this with such insight as Buell G. Gallagher {American Caste and the 
Negro College [1938].) 

6 There has been some attempt to consider "social classes" in America before Warner, 
however. Those interested in philanthropy did so early. William G. Sumner had a class 
stratification scheme borrowed from Galton, based on biological ability (Folkways 
[191 3 j first edition, 1906], pp. 39-53) and he wrote an essay on "What Social Classes 
Owe to Each Other" (1883). Far more realistic was Thorstein Veblen in his Theory 
of the Leisure Class ( 1 899) . In recent years, much influence in the direction of think- 
ing in terms of class stratification emanated from the work of Alba M. Edwards of the 
United States Census Bureau (Social-Economic Grouping of the Gainful Workers in 
the United States: 1030 [ 1938].) 

T Speech at New Haven, March 6, i860, in the Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, 
John G. Nicolay and John Hay (editors.) (1905; first edition, 1894), Vol. V, pp. 360- 
361. 

8 Young, American Minority Peoples, p. 417. 

Davis and Dollard, op. cit., p. 1 3. Compare the other works cited in footnote 5 of 
this chapter. Davis and Dollard continue: 

"A class is composed of families and of social cliques. The interrelationships between 
these families and cliques, in such informal activities as visiting, dances, receptions, teas, 
and larger informal affairs, constitute the structure of a social class. 

"The forms of participation of the social clique and class arc of an intimate type 
which implies that the individuals included have equal status in the sense that they may 
visit one another, have inter family rituals such as meals or tea together, and may inter- 
marry. Other types of cliques and larger groups which are organized upon a different 
basis, such as by common occupation, or recreation (card-playing, golfing, etc.) or 
church membership, or lodge membership, are not necessarily class-typed. Social partic- 
ipation of this kind, therefore, may not be used by the observer as a reliable index of 
class position." (Idem.) 

From a scientific point of view this definition of class has the advantage that: "Social 



1378 An American Dilemma 

classes may be determined objectively by using records of intimate social participation 
between the inhabitants [ot a community]." (Idem.) 

Social classes, bat not castes, are supposed to overlap somewhat in their membership. 
"Participation lines are not rigidly drawn. In this respect, social classes are to be con- 
trasted with the color castes, of Negroes and whites, which are mutually exclusive in 
their social life." {Idem.) 

Warner himself is not so explicit about how one class can be distinguished from 
another, although he is quite clear as to the criteria of status. 

"Great wealth did not guarantee the highest social position. Something more was 
necessary. 

"In our efforts to find out what this 'something more' was, we finally developed a 
class hypothesis which withstood the later test of a vast collection of data and of subse- 
quent rigorous analysis. By class is meant two or more orders of people who are 
believed to be, and are accordingly ranked by the members of the community, in 
socially superior and inferior positions. Members of a class tend to marry within their 
own order, but the values of the society permit marriage up and down. A class system 
also provides that children are born into the same status as their parents. A class society 
distributes rights and privileges, duties and obligations, unequally among its inferior 
and superior grades." (Warner and Lunt, of. cit., p. 82.) 

"We eventually became convinced that the cliques were next in importance to the 
family in placing people socially. ... As we define it, the clique is an intimate nonkin 
group, membership in which may vary in numbers from two to thirty or more people. 
At such it is a phenomenon characteristic of our own society. When it approaches the 
latter figure in size, it ordinarily breaks up into several smaller cliques. The clique 
is an informal association because it has no explicit rules of entrance, of membership, 
or of exit. It ordinarily possesses no regular place or time of meeting. It has no elected 
officers nor any formally recognized hierarchy of leaders. It lacks specifically stated 
purposes, and its functions are less explicit than those of the family, the association, or 
the institution. The clique may or may not include biologically related persons; but all 
its members know each other intimately and participate in frequent face-to-face 
relations." (Hid., pp. 110-111.) 

10 In Davis, Gardner, and Gardner we find a statement which suggests that class 
consciousness is a basic criterion of class: "Members of any one class thus think of 
themselves as a group and have a certain unity of outlook." (Of. cit., p. 71.) In general, 
however, members of the Warner group-do not emphasize class consciousness. 

11 "In both Yankee City and Old City, individuals recognize their class members by 
characteristic traits, ranging from dress and speech to education and family connections. 
Class distinctions arc always made on the basis of possible social intimacy, as in the 
following typical expressions: 'They go around with our friends.' 'We don't go around 
with those people. They don't fit in with our group.' '1 know I can't class with the big 
shots.' 'They are ignorant people, and we don't have anything to do with them.' Social 
classes are thus operating in our society as groups between which there is not intimate 
participation." (Davis and Dollard, of. cit., p. 259.) 

11 "In the study of human motivation in our society, the analysis of the social class 
pressures and rewards is of major importance. A child is trained principally by his 
family, his family's social clique, and his own social clique; the goals and sanctions of 



FOOTNOTO 1379 

both the family and the intimate social clique are determined principally by the class- 
ways, that is, by the criteria of status in their ftrt of the society." {Ibid., p. 16.) 

"For it is the members of the child's and his family's cliques who actually constitute 
that 'social environment 1 of which we have talked so loosely, and which, we have said, 
reinforces the child's habits. Through the demands and pressures of the family and of 
the clique, class learning is instilled and maintained." {Ibid., p. 262.) 

18 Actually, of course, there is a strong correlation between "social class" in Warner's 
tense, on the one hand, and income and occupation, on the other hand. One student has 
taken the population of Yankee City, grouped by Warner into classes on the basis of his 
information, and reclassified it according to Alba Edwards' socio-economic census group- 
ings. He found a high correlation between the two classifications. (Robert Dubin, 
"Factors in the Variation of Urban Occupational Structure," unpublished M.A. thesis, 
The University of Chicago [1940].) 

14 R. M. Maclver, Society: Its Structure and Changes (1931), p. 89. 

15 William Archer, Through Afro-America (1910), pp. 234 S. 

14 Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (1927; first edition, 1912), pp. 75-76. 
Johnson continues: 

"It is a struggle; for though the black man fights passively, he nevertheless fights; 
and his passive resistance is more effective at present than active resistance could possibly 
be. He bears the fury of the storm as does the willow-tree. 

"It is a struggle ; for though the white man of the South may be too proud to admit 
it, he is, nevertheless, using in the contest his best energies; he is devoting to it the 
greater part of his thought and much of his endeavour. The South today stands panting 
and almost breathless from its exertions." 

17 Robert R. Moton, What the Negro Thinks (1929), p. 8. 

18 As this is being written the Negro press is still vibrating over the first lynching for 
the year 1942, which occurred in Sikeston, Missouri, January 25. 

The N.A.A.C.P. reports that: "White citizens in Sikeston will not testify against 
each other in any prosecution for guilt in the lynching . . . and they use the threat of 
a race riot to prevent further investigation and publicity. . . . 

"The make-up of the mob was described as being 'juil folks' . . . The investigators 
said: 'We were given the definite impression that the lynchers would not be ostracized 
by the community; on the other hand those who might tatify agaimt ihe lynchers 
would be ostracized. . . . 

"'Young Prosecuting Attorney Blanton will hardly sacrifice both his career and 
personal friends, by prosecuting those friends who elected him to office. Even the most 
liberal of the planters said he would "not be inclined to testify." ' " (N.A.A.C.P. 
Press Release [February 13, 1942], pp. 1-2.) 

Although Governor Forrest C. Donnell nf Missouri ordered an immediate investiga- 
tion, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent their investigators into Sikeston, no 
indictments were ever brought. 

The way in which this solidarity on the white side elicits a corretponding solidarity 
on the Negro side is beautifully illustrated in this case. Negro columnists are com- 
plementing the American war slogan: "Remember Pearl Harbor" with the Negro slogan: 
"Remember Sikeston." 

19 Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, of. cit., pp. 48-49- 

20 W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn. (1940), pp. 130-131. 



1380 An American Dilemma 

21 Following the Color Line (1908), p. 11. 

22 Clande McKay, A Long Way from Horn* (1937), p. 227. 

8 * (1934), P- 7- 

24 Negro Americans, What Now?, p. 6. 

26 Archer observes: 

"Once let a dozen white men be killed by armed negroes in any city of the South, 
and a flame would burst out all over the land which would work untold devastation before 
either authority or humanity could check it. The incident would be taken as a declara- 
tion of racial war ; everywhere the white mob would insist on searching for arms in the 
negro quarters; the negroes would inevitably attempt some panic-stricken defensive 
organization; and the more effective it proved, the more terrible would be the calamity 
to their race. Not even in the wildest frenzy, of course, could the race, or a tenth part 
of the race, be violently wiped out; but they might be so dismayed and terrorized as to 
lose that natural buoyancy of spirit which has hitherto sustained them, and enabled 
them to increase and multiply. The prophets of extinction already read hopelessness and 
a prescience of doom in the negro tone of mind; but, so far, 1 think the wish is father 
to the thought. The race, as a whole, is confident, in its happy-go-lucky way. But would 
their spirit survive a great massacre, followed by an open and chronic Negerhetze? 
I doubt it . . ." (Op cit., pp. 206-207.) 

28 The only white passers the author has personally observed were two cases of white 
women married to Negro men, who found it convenient to call themselves Negroes. 
Donald Young informs us: ". . . occasionally persons of unmixed white ancestry have 
deliberately passed themselves off as Negroes, presumably in the main because of a 
preference for Negro associations and for employment opportunities, as in a colored 
orchestra." {Research Memorandum on Minority People: in the Depression, p. 28.) 
Sometimes white orphans have been brought up in Negro households and voluntarily 
retain the caste status of their foster parents. See a special investigation by Louis Wirth 
and Herbert Goldhamer, "The Hybrid and the Problem of Miscegenation," in Otto 
Klineberg (editor), Characteristics of the American Negro, prepared for this study; 
to be published, manuscript page 75. 

27 See ibid., manuscript pages 97-98 and quoted sources. 

28 Ibid., manuscript pages 83-84. 

29 Ibid., manuscript page 89. 

80 A Negro' 8 comment cited by Baker, op. cit., p. 161. 

81 Charles S. Johnson, of. cit., p. 301. 



Chapter 32. The Negro Class Structure 

x The resentment against the rising Negro takes concrete forms: ". . . 'even the rea- 
sonable Southerner,' " William Archer quotes a Southerner as saying, " 'feels a certain 
bitterness on the subject of education when he sees the black child marching off to a school 
provided by Northern philanthropy, while the child of the "poor white" goes into the 
cotton-factory.'" (Through Afro-America [1910], p. 17.) The fact that this is an 
exception, that white children on the average are much better provided for, and that 
employment in the cotton industry is one of the best protected caste monopolies in 



Footnotes 



1381 



breadwinning, does not meet the white wish that all Negroes should be below all whites, 
and no exception allowed. 

a Hortense Powdermaker, After Freedom (1939), pp. 5-6. 

8 See Wilbert E. Moore and Robin M. Williams, "Stratification in the Ante-Bellmn 
South," American Sociological Review (June, 1942), pp. 350-351. 

4 E. Franklin Frazier, The Free Negro Family (1932). 

6 "The Bases of Race Prejudice," Annals of the American Academy of Political and 
Social Science (November, 1928), p. 20. (Italics ours.) Park is, of course, not the 
first one to have pointed out the presence of caste and class structures in Southern society, 
nor to indicate the trend toward parallelism in class structures. 

*W. Lloyd Warner, "Introduction," to Dee? South by Allison Davis, Burleigh B. 
Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner ( 1 941), pp. 10 ff. 

7 W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn (1940), p. 183. 

8 Buell G. Gallagher has also suggested diagrams to describe caste and class in the 
South in recent years. He presents two diagrams: (i) "Economic," which is much like 
our second, or percentage, diagram. (2) "Social," which shows all Negroes below all 
whites. 

"Two caste patterns prevail, each governing etiquette and fixing status in its sphere. 
In economic status (1), the Negro caste is integrated (as an encysted group, not 
assimilated) , but in all other respects (2) every Negro is judged inferior to all whites 
in status." (American Caste and the Negro College [1938], p. 87.) 

Caste and Class in thi Amlrican South or ihe 1930*8 
(1) Economic (2) Social 



* M? EV 


A 

c 

c, 


E A*-.. . 7 

V * 3 * / 

-^1Je5ro < «v 


A C 

Legend A, B 
i, a, 3, a, b 


= Caste Line. 
d= Classes. 



Since Gallagher separates these two things, instead of integrating them into "status" 
— as do Park and Warner — he is considering something a little different than we are at 
this point: he is considering Southern white theory as well as practice, and neglecting 
factors other than "economic" and "social" that might go to make up status (such as 
status in court). Gallagher's presentation may be the most useful for many purposes, 
and it brings out the fact that a person may have one status in one situation and another 
status in another situation. 

Another caste-class diagram is suggested by Wilbert E. Moore and Robin M. Williams, 
but since it refers only to the prc-Civil War period and not to present conditions, we 
may neglect it here. (Of. cit., p. 349.) 

8 John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (1937), PP- 9 8 S. mi 173 ff. 

10 There were, of course, also other relations than that of servant-master to the 
better class of whites which molded this personality type. 



138a An American Dilemma 

Ralph Bnnche pays his tribute to • poring generation in the following word»: 
"The fine old gentlemen of the earlier days, with all of their old-fogeyism, tolerance 
and patience, worshipped a different god. They were nnder the spell of the aristocratic 
whites of their day; they took as their model the best educated and most cultured men 
of their period, and they attempted to acquire and did acquire many of the graces and 
talents of this group without, through lack of riches, being able to cultivate their more 
costly vices. 

"It does seem that the current generations of Negroes have lost something valuable 
in the transition, and this not merely in poise, dignity and the graces, but also to a 
damaging degree in the qualities of honor, principle, integrity and intellectual honesty." 
("Conceptions and Ideologies of the Negro Problem," unpublished manuscript, pre- 
pared for this study [1940], p. ill.) 

11 Marcus Wilson Jernegan, Laboring and Dependent Classes in Colonial America, 
1607-1783 ( 1 931), p. 9- See also Chapter 5, Sections 4 and 5; and Louis Wirth and 
Herbert Goldhamer, "The Hybrid and the Problem of Miscegenation" in Otto Kline- 
berg (editor), Characteristics of the American Negro, prepared for this study; to be 
published, manuscript pages 208 and 138-139. 

12 Wirth and Goldhamer, op. cit., manuscript page 1 34 and sources cited by them. 
18 "Along with the advantageous social position of the mulatto there has been a 

pronounced disadvantage for blacks in the ideological heritage of society generally. The 
concept of blackness has held, in the popular mind, an unfavorable connotation. 'Black 
is evil,' 'black as sin/ 'black as the devil,' are phrases which suggest the emotional and 
aesthetic implications of this association. The evil and ugliness of blackness have long 
been contrasted in popular thinking with the goodness and purity of whiteness. Whether 
with respect to men or things this color association has been deeply meaningful; it 
is an inescapable element of the cultural heritage." (Charles S. Johnson, Growing Up in 
the Block Belt [1941], p. 257.) 

"The interviews revealed results similar to those of the tests. Some of the reactions 
to blackness were as follows: 'Black is too black,' 'Black is ugly,' 'Black people are mean,' 
'Black isn't like flesh,' 'Black is bad because people make fun, and I don't think it looks 
good either,' 'Black people can't use make-up,' 'Black people are evil,' "White looks 
better than black,' 'No black people hold good jobs,' 'Black people can't look nice in their 
clothes,' 'You can't get along with black people,' 'Black looks dirty,' 'Black people have 
to go to the kitchen and scrub,' 'Even in college they don't want to take in black 
students.' Black youth are called by .such derisive names as 'Snow,' 'Gold Dust Boys,' 
'Blue Gums,' 'Midnight,' 'Shadow,' 'Haint,' 'Dusty,' 'Polish,' and 'Shine.' . . . 

"In the second place, the belief that 'black people are mean' can easily make such 
people 'mean' if the behavior toward them is habitually based on such an assumption 
In the end the reaction of such dark persons reinforces the stereotype." (Hid., pp. 
259-262.) 

"Donald R. Young observes rightly: "The common preference for the 'mammy* 
type of servant or the 'darkey* type of gardener, butler, odd-job man, and flunkey it 
not in opposition to this statement, for the very preference of these types helps keep 
them in the dead-end employments just mentioned, certainly not employments which 
lead to advancement." (American Minority Peoples [1932], p. 397.) 

15 Davis, Gardner, and Gardner tell us about the supreme importance of the com- 
plexion for class status in a Southern city. "Other qualifications being nearly equal. 



Footnotes 1383 

colored permits having light skin and 'white' types of hair will be accorded the highest 
station within the lower caste. This fact does not prevent the expression of strong 
antagonisms to light-skinned persons by the rest of die group. Such antagonism is an 
expression of the envy and humiliation of the darker individuals. 

"Since the system of classes operates within a caste system, the physical traits of the 
white caste must be accorded highest value; the darker individuals cannot but be condi- 
tioned to the all-important symbols of the upper caste, and so give them highest rank. 
The upper class, on the other hand, thinks of the lower class as black and woolly-haired, 
thus mentally associating the lowest social rank with the 'lowest' physical traits." (Of. 
eb. t p. 235.) 

"The high social value placed upon light skin color and white hair-form is even more 
clearly related to the operation of caste sanctions. While it is not true that these physi- 
cal traits alone assure a colored person an upper-class status, it is certain that, in most 
of even the older colored communities, social mobility proceeds at a faster pace for 
persons with these physical traits. It is commonly said by colored men of the upper 
and upper-middle classes today that they marry women for their 'looks,' while white 
men of parallel status marry for family status, money, and education." (Ibid., p. 244.) 

is «i t was observed m the testing program and in the direct interviews with the youth 
that they consistently rated their own complexions a shade or more lighter than they 
appeared to be. This prompted the study to attempt a more careful measurement of a 
tendency which seemed to have some significance. It suggested a type of unconscious 
response to the color evaluations which they gave in other situations. They could escape, 
in their own minds at least, some of the unfavorable association, by appraising them- 
selves as lighter than they were." (Charles S. Johnson, Growing Up in the Black Belt, 
p. 265.) 

17 Following the Color Line (1908), pp. 157 ff.; Through Afro-America (1910), 
pp. 225 ff. 

18 This "peculiar inconsistency" on the color question has been observed and dis- 
cussed by every author on the Negro problem during recent decades. Recently much new 
material has been made available by the studies on Negro youth, prepared for the 
American Youth Commission (see footnote 9 to Chapter 30), all of which have attached 
great importance to the color factor in the personality development of Negro youth. 
One of the studies — Color and Human Nature (1941) by W. Lloyd Warner, Buford 
Junker, and W. A. Adams — was mainly directed on this problem. This new material 
rather tends to confer the impression that color and color preference in the Negro com- 
munity is even more important than was earlier assumed in the general literature on the 
Negro problem. 

19 "It often happens that darker children in families feel that their parents give pref- 
erence to the children of lighter complexion. Even such inadvertent and casual com- 
parisons as 'better hair,' 'nicer complexion,' 'prettier skin,' 'nicer shade' affect the 
more sensitive young people and contribute to their feelings of inferiority. Children 
may apply color values unfavorably to one or the other of the parents and find them- 
selves apologizing for the dark complexion of a parent. They may even harbor resent- 
ment against the parent who was biologically responsible for their own undesirable 
appearance. By far the most frequent instances of color sensitivity, however, occur out- 
aide the home as the child attempts to make adjustment to new groups." (Charles S, 



1384 An American Dilemma 

Johnson, Growing Up in the Black Belt, p. 267. Compare Allison Davis and John 
Dollard, Children of Bondage [1940], p. 254. passim.) 

For a discussion of how the color problem enters in the school see, Davis and Dollard, 
op. tit., p. 253; E. Franklin Frazier, Negro Youth at the Crossways (1940), pp. 96 ff.; 
and Anonymous, "The Revolt of the Evil Fairies," The New Republic (April 6, 1942), 
pp. 458-459- 

20 The few attempts made to tabulate and correlate color of Negro husbands and 
wives confirm this observation. See: M. J. Herskovits, The American Negro (1928), 
p. 64; E. B. Reuter, Race Mixture (1931 ), pp. 1 58-159; E, Franklin Frazier, The 
Negro Family in the United States (1939), pp. 572 St 

21 Wirth and Goldhamer have surveyed the various studies bearing on the problem; 
op. tit., pp. 142-147. 

22 ". . . dark color is widely looked down upon in the Chicago Negro community. 
Instead of being regarded as a proud racial distinction, it is taken as a reminder of tradi- 
tional servitude and as a badge of lowly status. The distribution of our cases in each 
social class according to color also suggests . . . that dark-skin persons in the higher ranks 
of Negro society find themselves a minority in competition with individuals of lighter 
color. These higher positions call for personalities strong enough to cope with potential 
conflicts over appearance in relation to social acceptability." (Warner, Junker, and 
Adams, op. til., p. 31.) 

"Our results indicate that there is little correlation between class and color in the 
southern rural area. Differences in complexion and hair create problems of adjustment, 
but do not mark class lines within the rural Negro group." (Charles S. Johnson, Grow- 
ing Up in the Black Belt, p. 272.) 

23 Before Emancipation and, in the mulatto societies, for a considerable time after- 
ward, it was a point of pride to have a white (illegitimate) father, particularly if he 
belonged to the aristocratic classes. This is not true any more. The studies of Dollard, 
Powdermaker, and otiiers show that even in the South it is rather a disgrace. Davis, 
Gardner, and Gardner, for example, say: "Whereas in Old County of a generation 
ago an individual's status was increased by his kinship to white persons of the middle 
or upper classes, today both miscegenation and illegitimacy are rather heavily tabooed in 
the colored upper and upper-middle classes." (Op. tit., p. 247.) 

2 * "Although mulattoes on the whole appear to be proud of their lighter complexions, 
they are at a disadvantage when the question of paternity is raised by their darker 
associates. Such derisive terms as 'Yellow Pumpkin,' 'Yellow Bastard,' are used in this 
connection. The youth commenting on this shade of complexion made such statements 
as these: 'Yellow people are not honest' (meaning that they are probably illegitimate), 
'Yellow is the worst color because it shows mixture with whites,' 'Yellow is too con- 
spicuous' (like black), 'Yellow people don't look right,' 'Real yellow people ain't got 
no father,' 'Yellow don't have no race, they can't be white and they ain't black either,' 
'Anything that is too light looks dirty,' 'Yellow is mixed bad blood,' 'Light people get 
old too quickly,' 'Yellow don't hold looks so long,' 'White colored people is all bastards.' " 
(Charles S. Johnson, Growing Up in the Black Belt, pp. 262-263.) 

25 See E. B. Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States (191 8), especially pp. 19, 
102-104, and Everett V. Stonequist, The Marginal Man (1937), especially Chapter 6. 

28 Robert E. Park in the "Introduction" to Stonequist, op. cit., p. xv. 

2T Stonequist writes about the mulatto that he is ". . . not the dejected, spiritless 



Footnotes 1385 

outcast; neither is he the inhibited conformist. He is more likely to be restless and race- 
conscious, aggressive and radical, ambitions and creative. The lower status to which he is 
assigned naturally creates discontented and rebellious feelings. From an earlier, spon- 
taneous identification with the white man, he has, under the rebuffs of a categorical 
race prejudice, turned about and identified himself with the Negro race. In the process 
of so doing, he suffers a profound inner conflict. 

"After all, does not the blood of the white man flow in his veins? Does he not 
share the higher culture in common with the white American? Is he not legally and 
morally an American citizen? And yet he finds himself condemned to a lower caste 
in the American system' So the mulatto is likely to think to himself. Living in two such 
social worlds, between which there is antagonism and prejudice, he experiences in him- 
self the same conflict. In his own consciousness the play and the strife of the two 
group attitudes take place, and the manner in which he responds forms one of the most 
interesting chapters in the history of the Negro." (Op. cit., pp. 24-25.) Stoncquist 
makes similar statements about the unhappiness of mulattocs as over against dark Negroes, 
on pages 24-27, 110-113, 144-145 and 184-189 of The Marginal Man. 

28 The theory of the "marginal man" was originally developed for Jews and other 
white immigrants in America, and for them it probably has validity and a strong 
empirical basis. It was transferred uncritically to the Negro situation where its validity 
it questionable. Stoncquist uses two types of c\idence to support his theory that the 
mulatto has greater personality difficulties than the full-blooded Negro. 

(1) He quotes autobiographical statements by mulattoes who complain bitterly about 
being colored. Du Bois' famous statement is quoted, for example: 

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at 
one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world 
that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One feels his two-ness — an American, a 
Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one 
dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." (The Souls 
of Black Folk [1903], p. 3. Quoted in ibtd,, p. 145.) 

In practically all these quotations (many of them are from Du Bois), however, the 
mulatto is not complaining because he wants to be associated with the white world over 
against the black world. He is complaining because of the treatment accorded him as a 
Negro. When Du Bois speaks about his "double consciousness" — having loyalties and 
feelings of both Negroes and Americans — he means Negroes and Americans, not — as 
Stonequist makes out — Negroes and whites. It is the antithesis between the American 
Creed and the Negro's actual status to which Du Bois calls attention, not the mulatto's 
character as a marginal man. It may justly be said that the American Negio is a marginal 
man, but it cannot be claimed, from these quotations, that the mulatto is any more 
"marginal" than is the black man. 

(2) Stonequist reports the results of a questionnaire study. He finds, for example, that 
the 45 Negroes who could possibly pass for white or Indian or Mexican in a sample 
of 192 Negro college students had greater "psychological difficulties with which to con- 
tend" than the darker Negro students. This sample, however, cannot be regarded as 
representative of the entire Negro population. (Op. cit., pp. 1 89-1 90.) 

It should be noted that there is some pragmatic truth in the theory that the mulatto 
has more Weltsckmcrz. In so far as there is still a correlation between color and class 
status, this is true, because upper class Negroes are more articulate and more sensitive to 



1386 An American Dilemma 

the discriminations directed againtt all Negroes. But at f ar a* his color it concerned, die 
mulatto hat lest of a personality problem than does the dark Negro, and he certainly 
hat no loyalty to hit white ancestors. 

» Of. cit., p. 135. 

«° Dollard, of. cit.; Powdermaker, of. cit. } and Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, of. cit. 
Also the studies of Negro youth prepared for the American Youth Commission, cited 
in footnote 9 of Chapter 30, have been framed with a main view on the Negro class 
system. 

81 Many earlier studies of the Negro, which could not be described as "community 
studies," also divided the Negro population into three classes. 

m If we add together all the following occupational groups of male Negroes, we 
arrive at a figure of 80 per cent of all male Negro gainful workers in 1930: owners of 
less than 20 acres of land used for agriculture, agricultural cash tenants having lets 
than 50 acres, agricultural share tenants having less than 50 acres, all agricultural share- 
croppers and wage laborers, and all nonagricultural gainful workers in the unskilled and 
semi-skilled groups in Edwards' social-economic classification. For purposes of general 
description, this would seem to be a most useful description of the Negro lower 
classes denned in purely occupational terms. One of the major weaknesses of the 
definition is that it includes all servant employees, and in the Negro world some of 
these have middle or even upper class status. On the other hand, some skilled workers 
with restricted employment opportunities — especially in building construction — will 
have lower class status in the Negro community. (Sources: (1) United States Bureau 
of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1020-1032, pp. 602-60;. (z) United 
States Bureau of the Census, Alba M. Edwards, Social-Economic Grouping of the 
Gainful Workers of the United States, S030 [1938], pp. 58-59.) 

For the Southern rural population Charles S. Johnson estimates — ". . . on the basis 
of occupation, income, education, family organization, relationship to property, and 
general community recognition of standing" — that the lower class amounts to 82 per 
cent, while the middle class takes 12 per cent and the upper class only 6 per cent 
(Grouting Uf in the Black Belt, p. 77). Johnson's criteria, could, of course, be varied 
according to the needs of the investigator and different percentages would result, but 
no one has ever said that the bulk of Southern rural Negroes are not lower class. Frazier 
informs us that in urban communities in the Border cities like St. Louis and Washington, 
the lower class comprises "about two-thirds of the Negro population." (Frazier, Negro 
Youth at the Crosstoays, p. 263.) Warner, Junker, and Adams tell us that the "great 
masses of Chicago Negroes belong to the lower class." (Of. cit., p. 22.) Davis, Gardner, 
and Gardner state that "the overwhelming majority of colored persons are considered 
lower class, according to the colored group's own standards." And that "in most Ameri- 
can colored societies the middle and upper classes together ... do not include more 
than one-fourth of the population." (Of. cit., p. 222.) These estimates are not very 
exact and they are apparently not made on similar criteria. In this context our only point 
is that all authors include the majority of the Negro population in the lower data. 

""The critical fact is that a much larger proportion of all Negroes are lower class 
than is the case with whites. This is where caste comes to bear. It puts the overwhelming 
majority of Negroes in the lowest class group and keeps them there." (Davis and 
Dollard, of. cit., p. 65.) 

** Thomas Nelson Page's vision was "... a vast sluggish mass of uncooled lava 



Footnotes 1387 

orer * luge lection of the country, burying some portions and affecting the whole. It 
is apparently harmless, but beneath its surface smoulder fires which may at any time 
bunt forth unexpectedly and spread desolation all around." {The Negro: The Southern- 
er's Problem [1904], p. 64.) 

w Charles S. Johnson, Growing Uf in the Black Belt, pp. 75 ff., 98, 280 fastim. 
Compare Charles S. Johnson, Shadow of the Plantation (1934), p. 6. 

"Within the lower classes a distinction should be made between the 'folk Negro' and 
the rest of the population. This distinction is important and more cultural than eco- 
nomic; it refers to the family habits and values evolved by the Negro culture under the 
institution of slavery. Many of the naive traits and customs of the 'folk Negro' are 
out of line with the practices of the larger society, but were at times in the past essential 
to group survival in cultural isolation. Stripped of their basic African culture by the 
exigencies of life in America, they evolved a social life and .1 culture of their own which 
was adequate for survival in their peculiar status in America. The customs, beliefs, and 
values developed hare been a response to their limited roles within the American social 
order, even when many of the traits of the group have been borrowed from early 
American settlers and crude pioneers in the cotton country. In a sense, they have been 
repositories of certain folkways now outgrown by those groups which were more rapidly 
absorbed into the larger currents of American life. The patterns of life, social codes and 
social attitudes, set in an early period, have because of the cultural as well as geographical 
isolation continued to be effective social controls. In the social consciousness of the group 
and in its social life, there has been a considerable degree of organization and internal 
cohesion. 

"The 'folk Negro' organization of life and of values has been essentia] to survival 
and to the most satisfying functioning of the members of the group in their setting. 
Many things for which the larger dominant society has one set of values, meanings, and 
acceptable behavior patterns — marriage, divorce, extra-marital relations, illegitimacy, 
religion, love, death, and so forth — may in this group have quite another set. This helps 
to explain types of personalities developed under the peculiar circumstances of life of 
the 'folk Negro' and makes their behavior more intelligible. The increase of means of 
communication and the introduction of some education is breaking down the cultural 
isolation of this group." (Charles S. Johnson, Growing Uf in the Black Belt, pp. 75-76.) 

86 "The upper class of the Negro population is that group possessing in general a 
family social heritage known and respected by the community, a substantial amount of 
education, an occupational level which is achieved by special foimal preparation, a 
comfortable income, ownership of property, stability of residence, superior cultural 
standards, a measure of personal security through influential connections, or the ability 
to exert economic or other pressure in the maintenance of this security, or any com- 
bination of most of these characteristics. Further, this group is conceived by itself as a 
class and is so recognized by others; it is recognized by similar groups in other areas; 
and is regarded, whether with approval or disapproval, by other classes as a different and 
an exclusive society. In this classification are usually the Negro doctor's families, some 
teachers and school principals, successful landowners, and even families without large 
possessions but with superior education and a significant family history. The distinction 
may be clarified by the observation that the typical rural preacher, although a 'profes- 
sional,' doei not normally belong in the class. The physician almost always does. Most 
of the preachers, especially in the Southern rural areas, are about as unlettered 11 theii 



1388 An American Dilemma 

congregations. Further, the economic and social limitations of their calling restrict their 
entree to this class." (Ibid., pp. 73-74.) 

87 Hortense Powdermaker speaks of a "lag" in a process of acculturation. "The upper 
class enforces strict Puritanical standards formed after the white model. The morals 
they enforce, however, correspond to those of a generation ago more closely than those of 
today. While they observe and inculcate in their children the Puritanical code of which 
their ancestors were deemed incapable, the descendants of the whites from whom they 
learned these ideals of behavior are tending to greater laxity." (Of. cit., p. 3;;.) 

88 See Chapter 39, Section 6. Hortense Powdermaker sees an interesting parallel 
which emphasizes the paradoxical situation of the Negro upper class in the caste conflict: 

"There is a further analogy between the position of the Negro upper class and that of 
the Poor Whites, one at the top, the other at the botton of the social ladder within its 
group. Each serves as agent for its race toward the other, taking actions and expressing 
sentiments to which the group as a whole is not ready to commit itself. The Poor 
White, in his occasional violent expressions of race antagonism, acts for those Whites 
who tacitly condone and overtly deplore such behavior. He is rewarded by his fellows 
chiefly in resentment, since he embodies, in addition to traits of his own which they 
dislike, their own least worthy impulses. The Negro upper class acts out for its race 
the denial that Negroes are inferior; it demonstrates that they too can be educated, 
moral, industrious, thrifty. This class also reaps a share of resentment from other mem- 
bers of its race, but here resentment is far less keen and less conscious, and is offset by 
jubstantial advantages, among which is to be numbered a very gratifying prestige. Each 
of these two classes is set apart from the rest of its race, experiencing different con- 
flicts and holding different attitudes; and each awakens in the other race a special 
hostility strongly tinged with fear." (Of. cit., pp. 334-335.) 

89 Writing of the upper class in 1 899 — when he could still speak of it as "the germ 
of a great middle class" — Du Bois observed: 

". . . in general its members are curiously hampered by the fact that, being shut 
off from the world about them, they are the aristocracy of their own people, with all the 
responsibilities of an aristocracy, and yet they, on the one hand, are not prepared for 
this role, and their own masses are not used to looking to them for leadership. As a class 
they feel strongly the centrifugal forces of class repulsion among their own people, 
and, indeed, are compelled to feel it in sheer self-defense. They do not relish being mis- 
taken for servants; they shrink from the free and easy worship of most of the Negro 
churches, and they shrink from all such, display and publicity as will expose them to the 
veiled insult and depreciation which the masses suffer. Consequently this class, which 
ought to lead, refuses to head any race movement on the plea that thus they draw the 
very color line against which they protest." (The Philadelphia Negro, p. 177.) 

w Dusk of Doom, p. 185. 

41 Frazier, Negro Youth at the Grosnoayj, p. 28. 

Chapter 33. The American Pattern of Individual Leaderxhif and Most Patrioity 

1 The American Commonwealth (1910, £rst edition, 1893), Vol. 2, p. 373. 
5 The contrary tendency in American history and social science in recent decades is 
evide&tly a reaction to this popular attitude. It goes, as reactions usually do, to the 



Footnotes 1389 

opposite extreme; and so American social speculation, on the scientific level, is dominated 
ay a rather doctrinal stress on trends and mechanical forces and by an underestimation 
of, not only the personal accidents in history, but also the importance of ideas and 
ideals. Charles and Mary Beard's The Rise of American Civilization (1927) is visibly 
marked by a materialistic conception oi history as dominated by economic interests. 
They do this even though they are good Americans, and as authors have enough feeling 
for their audience to populate their pages with outstanding personalities, to paint them a 
little in the fashion of angels and devils, and often to forget their philosophical inten- 
tion to show up individuals as marionettes in the power of deeper forces. A sociologist 
such as William Ogburn is even more typical of this scientific reaction toward a mechani- 
cal view of social change. The reaction has influenced a small group of intellectuals 
around the great universities and the periodicals devoted to social criticism and reform, 
but has as yet not disturbed the ordinary American's ways of thinking. And even the 
little crowd of intellectuals themselves are influenced only on a rather abstract plane 
of their thinking. In their daily affairs they usually think and act according to the 
popular attitude, and, indeed, they have to do so if they do not want to doom themselves 
to isolation. 

8 Fifteenth Census of the United States: xg$o, Population, Vol. II, p. 375 and 
Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population, Preliminary Release, Series 
P-IO, No. I. 

4 See the classic study by A. A. Berle and Gardiner C. Means, The Modern Cor- 
poration and Private Property (1932), especially pp. 277-287. 

It is not surprising that big business in America, organized as it is, has been unusually 
reluctant to share its control over labor conditions with trade unions or to allow govern- 
ment interference in the public interest. 



Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 

1 An interesting parallel, which cannot be followed up here, would be with similar 
problems and tendencies in the relations between the wider society and other distinct 
minority groups such as the other color castes — Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Mexicans — 
and immigrant groups — Jewish, Czech, Polish, Italian. 

8 This pattern has sunk deep into the entire class structure of the Negro community. 
It is commonly known that Negro domestics often consider it a degradation of their 
social status to work in a Negro family. An upper class Negro friend of mine testifies: 

"I know of a good many instances, especially in Washington, and one or two of them 
are personal, where Negro domestics flatly refuse to work for Negroes, for fear that they 
will lose caste by doing so. My wife, who happens to fall in the category of the 'volun- 
tary' or 'sociological' Negro, once hired a domestic at a wage admittedly higher than this 
girl had ever gotten before, when I chanced into the room. The young lady, a dark 
brown skin, promptly arose, exclaimed: 'Oh, I didn't know you were colored— \ don't 
work for colored,' and left without further ado. On another occasion we had employed 
a nice, inefficient but highly religious old lady in the same capacity. She had to attend 
church each Sunday morning, and would cook the dinner early and depart. After a few 
Sundays, she explained to us the reason for the generous portions of our larder with 
which she sallied out these Sunday mornings. She had a long tram ride to her home, she 



1390 An American Dilemma 

laid, and on her car the would always encounter a number of her friends who were 
employed at domestics in white families. These friends were always well laden with 
tidbits, it seems, and she solemnly declared that this was the first time she had ever 
worked for colored; none of her friends ever had, though they knew she was so 
engaged, and that she wanted to show her friends that 'colored folks are just as good 
to work for as white folk.' Thus we sacrificed half of each Sunday dinner to maintain 
the prestige of the race." 

1 It should be noted that Negro leadership does not fer se raise an individual's status 
in the eyes of white people in general. Only a few white people know about the leader- 
ship function he performs; to others he is just another Negro. His class status, on the 
other hand — which might be a function of his leadership — is easier to observe from his 
dress, manners, occupation, and so on, and may more generally command white respect. 
(See Chapter 30, Section 2, and Chapter 32, Section 4.) Whites will, however, regularly 
show respect if they come to know about an individual Negro's accomplishments or even 
if they come to know quite in abstracto that he is a "distinguished Negro." 

* In this analysis of the relation between social class and leadership, color will be left 
out of account. It is true that most Negro leaders, particularly on the national plane, 
have been mulattoes and sometimes near-white or passable. (Compare E. B. Reuter, The 
Mulatto in the United States [191 8].) This fact is, however, the less astonishing when 
we remember (l) how greatly mixed the entire Negro population is (Chapter 5), 
and (2) how color is an important factor in determining social class in the Negro com- 
munity (Chapter 32). It is plausible that a light color is often an asset to a Negro leader 
in his dealings with both whites and Negroes, but it is also certain that a dark color 
is sometimes advantageous for a Negro leader. The two tendencies do not cancel each 
other since they occur in different types of leadership. 

But color, independent of its relevance for class, is probably a minor factor for Negro 
leadership. Reuter's assertion that the mulatto is "the most vital point" in the race 
problem (ibid., p. 87, passim) seems, for the reasons given, much exaggerated. 
An analysis directed to this particular relationship could only be warranted in a study 
which proceeded to distinguish between all the different factors determining leadership 
in the Negro community, that is, besides color: education, occupation, wealth, family 
background, and so forth. This we cannot undertake in the present abstract overview. 

A story related to us by £. Franklin Frazier (conversation, July 1 1, 1942) might be 
repeated, however, to illustrate that dark color is sometimes an asset for a Negro leader. 
At a convention called to elect a bishop of one of the major Negro denominations, two 
candidates presented their qualifications. The first was very dark in color, and his 
keynote speech was that a dark man should lead the Negro people. The electors were 
predominantly dark and their applause indicated that his election was practically 
clinched. The other candidate, a light man, met a hostile audience. He agreed that 
dark Negroes needed dark leaders, but said that sometimes admiration for dark skin 
mi more important than dark skin itself. He then pointed to his opponent's wife and 
to his own wife in the audience. The opponent's wife had light skin, but his own wife 
had dark skin. He won the election. 

Marcus Garvey's dark skin was an asset, but so may be Walter White's extremely light 
•kin, since there mxf be a feeling that this man who could pass is making a personal 
sacrifice by being a "voluntary" Negro. 

*A field interview by Ralph Bunche and myself with a local Negro leader of the 



Footnotes 1391 

type characterized in the text, and with some other people in the Southeastern coast city 
where he lives, is presented in excerpts in: Ralph Bunche, "A Brief and Tentative 
Analysis of Negro Leadership," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), 
PP. 94-" I- 

•A word might also be said about the "shady" upper class — the big-time gamblers 
and lords of vice and crime. In spite of the fact that they have, in a sense, upper class 
status and may be personally popular, they cannot be used as regular leaders because they 
do not fit. the American idea of what a leader should be. They do act as "behind the 
scenes" political leaders, especially in the North. 

7 J. G. St. Claire Drake, "The Negro Church and Associations in Chicago," unpub- 
lished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), p. 402; and Allison Davis, Burleigh 
B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South (1941), pp. 236-239. This theme 
appears in literature, too. See Walter White, The Fire in the Flint (1924). 

8 The Negro: The Southerner's Problem (1904), p. 64. 

8 The best published study of Northern Negro political leaders is Harold F. GosneU's 
Negro Politicians (1935). 



Chapter 35. The Negro Protest 

x See Melville J. Herskovirs (The Myth of the Negro Past, prepared for this study 
[1941], pp. 91 ff.) for a short survey of the slave revolts and for references to the 
literature. 

2 Growing Uf in the Black Belt (1941), p. 243. 

8 Quoted from W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction (1935), pp. 14-15. 

4 Ibid., p. 122. 

8 Booker T. Washington, The Future of the American Negro (1902; first edition, 

1899)1 P- 132- 

Race Adjustment, Essays on the Negro in America (1908), pp. 17-18. 

''Patterns of Negro Segregation, prepared for this study (1943), p. 263. 

8 From a perspective of almost 40 years after he first opened attack on the "Tuskegee 
Machine," Du Bois comments upon it as follows: 

"It arose first quite naturally. Not only did presidents of the United States consult 
Booker Washington, but governors and congressmen: philanthropists conferred with 
him, scholars wrote to him. Tuskegee became a vast information bureau and center of 
advice. It was not merely passive in these matters but, guided by a young unobtrusive 
minor official who was also intelligent, suave and far-seeing, active efforts were made to 
concentrate influence at Tuskegee. After a time almost no Negro institution could 
collect funds without the recommendation or acquiescence of Mr. Washington. Few 
political appointments were made anywhere in the United States without his consent. 
Even the careers of rising young colored men were very often determined by his advice 
and certainly his opposition was fatal. How much Mr. Washington knew of this work 
of the Tuskegee Machine and was directly responsible, one cannot say, but of its 
general activity and scope he must have been aware. . . . The control was to be drastic. 
The Negro intelligentsia was to be suppressed and hammered into conformity. The 
process involved some cruelty and disappointment, but that was inevitable. This was the 
real force back of the Tuskegee Machine. It had money and it had opportunity, and it 



1392 An American Dilemma 

found in Tuskegee tools to* do its bidding. . . . Things came to such a pass that when 
any Negro complained or advocated a course of action, he was silenced with the remark 
that Mr. Washington did not agree with this. Naturally the bumptious irritated, ycung 
black intelligentsia of the day declared, 'I don't care a damn what Booker Washington 
thinks. This is what I think, and / have a right to think.' " (W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk 
of Dawn [1940], pp. 73-75). 

*Du Bois testifies: "The Guardian was bitter, satirical, and personal; but it was 
well-edited, it was earnest, and it published facts. It attracted wide attention among 
colored people: it circulated among them all over the country: it was quoted and 
discussed. I did not wholly agree with the Guardian, and indeed only a few Negroes 
did, but nearly all read it and were influenced by it." (Ibid., p. 73.) 

10 Du Bois was then professor at Atlanta University. He had there started what has 
been called "the first real sociological research in the South" (Guy B. Johnson, "Negro 
Racial Movements and Leadership in the United States," American Journal of Sociology 
[July, 1937], p. 65.) When he did not get the support he hoped for to fulfill his 
plan to study the Negro problem — because Booker T. Washington and his group did 
not endorse it, or so he believed — and later, when the N.A.A.C.P. was founded, he 
left the University entirely. Another reason why he left was that he thought that his- 
connection with the University increased its difficulties in getting foundation support. 
(See Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn, pp. 68-95 fassim.) 

11 Ibid., p. 72. 

12 James Weldon Johnson, Along This Way (1934), p. 313. 
18 Following the Color Line, p. 219. 

14 For the history of the Niagara Movement, see Ralph J. Bunche, "The Programs, 
Ideologies, Tactics, and Achievements of Negro Betterment and Interracial Organiza- 
tions," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (194.0), Vol. 1, pp. 15 if., and 
W. E. B. Du Bois* autobiopraphy, Dusk of Dawn, pp. 88-95. 

"Emmett J. Scott, The American Negro in the World War (1919), pp. 92-104 
and 426-457; Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn, pp. 245-256; James Weldon Johnson, Along 
This Way, pp. 3 1 8-3 1 9. 

18 James Weldon Johnson describes "the spirit of defiance born of desperation" 
after the First World War and attributes to it the new racial radicalism of the period: 

"With the close of the war went most of the illusions and high hopes American 
Negroes had felt would be realized when it was seen that they were doing to the 
utmost their bit at home and in the field. Eight months after the armistice, with black 
men back fresh from the front, there broke the Red Summer of 19191 and the mingled 
emotions of the race were bitterness, despair, and anger. There developed an attitude 
of cynicism that was a characteristic foreign to the Negro. There developed also a 
spirit of defiance born of desperation. These sentiments and reactions found varying 
degrees of expression in the Negro publications throughout the country; but Harlem 
became the centre where they were formulated and voiced to the Negroes of America 
and the world. Radicalism in Harlem, which had declined as the war approached, 
burst out anew, But it was something different from the formal radicalism of pre-war 
days; it was a radicalism motivated by a fierce race consciousness." (Black Manhattan 
[1930J, p. 446-) 

? For the history of the Garvey movement and a bibliography, see Bunche, of. cit.. 



Footnotes 1393 

Vol. 2, pp. 393 S. The descriptive facts about the movement in this section are taken 
from Bunche. 

18 Quoted from Amy Jacques Garvey (editor), Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus 
Garvey (1923), pp. 8-9. 

18 Quoted from Hid., p. 77. 

80 Quoted from Hid., p. 5. 

81 Of. sit., Vol. 2, p. 412. 
88 Dusk of Dawn, p. 277. 
88 Black Manhattan, p. 256. 

84 James S. Allen, The Negro Question in the United States (1936), especially 
pp. 177-194. 

86 First edition 1845. ' n » ts & n d form, after many additions through the decades 
until Douglass' death in 1895, it is called The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. 

29 An example of pseudo-history, fantastically glorifying the achievements of Negroes 
is: James Morris Webb, The Black Man the Father of Civilization; Proven by Biblical 
History (1910). 

27 The combination of scholarly and protest motives in the work of the Association 
is seen in its statement of purposes and achievements (taken from the inside cover ol 
The Journal of Negro History for January, 1942): 

"Its purposes: 

1. To collect sociological and historical data. 

2. To publish books on Negro life and history. 

3. To promote the study of the Negro through clubs and schools. 

4. To bring about harmony between the races by interpreting the one to the 
other. . . . 

"Its achievements: 

1. It has directed the attention of investigators to this neglected field. 

2. It has extended the circulation of The Journal of Negro History and The 
Negro History Bulletin into South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. 

3. It has published twenty-seven volumes of articles and documents giving fact< 
which are generally unknown. 

4. It has produced twenty-nine monographs on Negro Life and History, 

5. It has organized and stimulated the studies of local clubs and classes, which 
have done much to change the attitude of communities toward the Negro. 

6. It has collected thousands of valuable manuscripts on the Negro which have 
been made accessible to the public in the Library of Congress. 

7. It has had thirteen young men and women trained for research in social 
science and for instruction in colleges and universities." 

The protest purpose of the Association is more revealed in its annual meetings and 
in its other activities than in the Journal. 

88 Lawrence Reddick, "A New Interpretation for Negro History," The Journal of 
Negro History (January, 1937), p. 17. 

89 The Association is connected with The Associated Publishers, a publishing firm 
also headed by Dr. Woodson. This firm publishes many scholarly and popular books 
on iifc Negro — some at the direction of the Association — and has agents to increase 
their sale in Negro communities all over the country. 



J394 An American Dilemma 

*° This occnrs in the week which includes Lincoln'* birthday, February is. It hat 
been going on tince 1926 and Menu to be growing rapidly in popularity. 

n E. B. Renter, The American Race Problem (1927), p. 300. 

•* Herskovits, of. tit., p. 32. In reviewing this book, Alain Locke hat pointed out 
that Herskovits* type of propaganda might come to increase race prejudice rather than 
to decrease it, in that if white people come to believe that Negroes have a strong 
African heritage they would think that Negroes were unassimilable. (Alain Locke, 
"Who and What Is a Negro?" Offortunity [March, 1942], p. 84.) Frazier further 
criticizes the practicality of Herskovits' propaganda by asserting that if whites came to 
believe that the Negro's social behavior was rooted in African culture, they would lose 
whatever sense of guilt they had for keeping the Negro down. Negro crime, for 
example, could be explained away as an "Africanism" rather than as due to inadequate 
police and court protection and to inadequate education. (E. Franklin Frazier, speech 
to the West Harlem Council of Social Agencies, New York City [December 5, 1941].) 
There is, perhaps, a measure of truth both in the claims of Herskovits and in those of 
his critics, but both make certain assumptions about the causes of race prejudice which 
are not only unproved but are not stated explicitly. 

88 "In the South the prestige of the Negro group suffers from persistently unfavor- 
able judgments on the part of the white community; of equal significance is the fact 
that Negro youth do not as a rule take pride in the qualities for which Negroes are 
most appreciated by the whites. Only a few of them, for example, recognize loyalty, 
uncomplaining industry, and patience as having racial prestige value comparable to the 
importance given these traits by the white group when they wish to speak favorably 
of Negroes. It is a convenience in the biracial situation to be regarded as loyal, tractable, 
happy and hard working; few of the interviews with these youth revealed, however, 
that they were proud of these racial virtues. Indeed, few of the comments assumed these 
virtues to be racial, or the qualities to be virtues." (Charles S. Johnson, Growing Vf in 
the Black Belt, p. 242.) 



Chapter 36. The Protest Motive and Negro Personality 

1 James Weldon Johnson, Negro Americans, What Notv? (1934), p. 103. This 
formula has many variations. Booker T. Washington retells from a conversation he once 
had with Frederick Douglass: 

"At one time Mr. Douglass was traveling in the State of Pennsylvania, and was 
forced, on account of his colour, to ride in the baggage-car, in spite of the fact that 
he had paid the same price for his passage that the other passengers had paid. When 
some of the white passengers went into the baggage-car to console Mr. Douglass, and 
one of them said to him: 'I am sorry, Mr. Douglass, that you have been degraded in 
this manner,' Mr. Douglass straightened himself up on the box upon which he was 
sitting, and replied: 'They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within 
me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this 
treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me.' " (Booker T. Washington, Uf 
from Slavery [1901s first edition, 1900], pp. 99-100.) 

a Hooker T. Washington, The Future of the American Negro (1902; first edition, 



Footnotes 139$ 

'Our discussion of Negro sensitiveness does not assume that light-colored Negroes, 
because of their color, are my more sensitive or emotionally unbalanced on the average 
than dark Negroes. (See Chapter 32, Section 3, for a criticism of this theory.) It may 
be, however, that upper class Negroes are more sensitive because of their status and 
education, and since upper class Negroes tend to be of lighter color, there is an appar- 
ent — but no directly causal— connection between color and sensitiveness. 

4 Charles S. Johnson, Growing Uf in the Black Belt (1941), p. 312. 

6 Following the Color Line (1908), p. 27. 

*E. Franklin Frazier, Negro Youth at the Crosstoays (1940), pp. 44.-5 1. 

7 IbU., pp. 50-51. 

s lHd., p. 56. "Coat-tail" is the Negro word for flatter, and a "peckerwood" is a 
lower class white man. 

8 Allison Davis and John Dollard, Children of Bondage (1940), pp. 87-88. 

10 "Conceptions and Ideologies of the Negro Problem," unpublished manuscript 
prepared for this study (1940), p. 161. 

11 See John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (1937), pp. 250 and 
286 ff. 

12 Dollard, of. cit., pp. 267 ff. 

18 ". . . since the hostility of Negroes against whites is violently and effectively 
suppressed, we have a boiling of aggressive effect within the Negro group." (Dollard, 
of. cit., p. 269.) Dollard goes even further and suggests a purpose on the side of the 
whites: "One cannot help wondering if it does not serve the ends of the white caste 
to have a high level of violence in the Negro group, since disunity in the Negro caste 
tends to make it less resistant to the white domination. If this should be a correct 
observation, it need not follow that the tolerance of violence is a matter of conscious 
policy on the part of the white group ; instead it would seem to be pragmatic, unfor- 
malized, and intuitive, but nonetheless effective." (Ibid., p. 280 ; compare p. 285.) 

14 This phenomenon is often commented upon in the Negro world: 

"It is common for educated and upper class Negroes to develop an aloofness, a social 
exclusiveness and snobbishness, which is at times even more sharp than in the white 
society, because the Negro finds in it both a means of defense against inferiority feeling 
and a form of escape. Negroes who hold good jobs, as for instance, teachers, are 
notoriously passive and comformist. Their jobs give them economic and social status 
which they are determined to hold even at the expense of surrendering their intellectual 
independence. The Negro radicals, few as they are, have rarely been recruited from 
among Negroes holding good jobs." (Bunche, op. cit., p. 174.) 

18 Just as lower class Negroes manifest their frustrated antagonism against whites by 
showing antagonism against upper class Negroes, so upper class Negroes do the same 
against lower class Negroes. They sometimes even go so far as to blame the whole caste 
system on the low standards of behavior of lower class Negroes. Charles S. Johnson 
quotes an illustrative statement by a senior postal clerk in Indianapolis: 

"We have a very low class of Negroes in Indianapolis. That is one reason why it is 
difficult for us to insist on all of our rights. We can't go to the white people and ask 
that certain Negroes be admitted to places and others refused. I can't blame white 
people, though, for drawing a line." (Patterns of Negro Segregation, prepared for 
this study [1943], P- *83.) 

18 "It is interesting to notice here that the chief device employed by upper-din 



J 396 An American Dilemma 

colored speaker* for dissolving the antagonism of a lower-class audience was to emphasize 
the solidarity of the caste, to invoice the ideals, that is, of 'race pride' and 'race loyalty.' " 
(Allison Davis, Burleigh 8. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deef South [1941], 
p. 236.) 



Chapter 37. Cotnfromise Leader ski f 

1 "In many respects the Negro is a model prisoner — the best in this country. He 
accepts the situation — generally speaking — bears no malice, cherishes no ill will or 
resentment, and is cheerful under conditions to which the white man refuses to 
reconcile himself. 

"This adaptability of the Negro has an immediate bearing on the question before 
11a. It explains why the Negro masses in the Southern states are content with their 
situation, or at least not disturbing themselves sufficiently over it to attempt to upset the 
existing order. In the main, the millions in the South live at peace with their white 
neighbours." (Alfred Holt Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem [1908], 

P- 235) 

2 For another statement in the same direction, see Booker T. Washington, The 
Story of the Negro (1909), Vol. 1, pp. 190-191. 

* Thus Joe Louis enables many lower class youths (in fact, many Negro youths and 
adults in all classes) to inflict vicariously the aggressions which they would like to carry 
out against whites for the discriminations and insults which they have suffered. A 19- 
year-old Washington youth, a high school graduate, said: 

" 'I've tried to follow in Louis' footsteps, but I'm not big enough. I've heard all of 
his fights and seen him several times here in Washington. I've thrilled at every damned 
"peck" he knocked over and helped raise hell in the U street celebrations after each 
one. When he lost, I felt pretty bad, though I'll ever feel something was wrongs — 
crooked. He sure proved something was wrong the way he beat up Schmeling the 
second time!'" (E. Franklin Frazicr, Negro Youth at the Crossways [1940], p. 179.) 

"Likewise, a ten year old son of a laborer would rather be Joe Louis than any other 
Negro in the country because he 'would get a lot of fun going in the ring and beating 
up somebody.' He added, 'Joe Louis has done a lot to make the colored race recog- 
nized.' " (Ibid., p. 180.) 

An upper class lad — a 17-year-old and college freshman — spoke o£ Joe Louis' fight 
with Schmeling as follows: 

" 'I was hitting every blow with him and taking with him those he got. And when 
he lost, I really felt sick. Somehow I didn't even want to go on the street the next day. 
One thing he's done, he's certainly made the so-called white fighters have a wholesome 
respect for his fists. I suppose symbolically that's the only way white people can be 
made to respect Negroes in other walks of life."' (Ibid., p. 190.) 

Charles S. Johnson observes: 

"In a few areas of the South, the disposition of Negro youth to celebrate too jubi- 
lantly the fistic triumphs of Joe Louis has been brusquely and sometimes violently 
discouraged, indicating that the symbolism was as significant for the white as for Negro 
youth." (Growing Uf in the Black Belt [1941], p. 246.) 



Footnotes 1397 

4 Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," unpublished manuscript prepared for 
this study (1940), pp. 54-55. 

5 Ralph Bunche also observes that "It is common for Negroes to have one set of ideas 
which they express before Negroes and a totally different set for use when in the 
presence of whites," and tells the following story: 

"I once heard a Negro black-face comedian on the stage of the Howard Theatre in 
Washington enact this phenomenon most humorously. He was mimicking a 'big Negro 
leader' in an address to a Negro audience. After citing the grievances of the Negro 
people, the speaker, first looking about very cautiously to make sure there were no white 
eaves-droppers present, proclaimed (loudly at first, stentorian m the middle, and then 
dwindling to a bare stage whisper at his climax) : 'What we cullud folks has to do is to 
RISE UP AND STRIKE DOWN these, hyah, damned white folks!' (last two words 
written in very small type.)" ("Memorandum on the Conceptions and Ideologies of 
the Negro Problem," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study [1940], p. 97.) 

Ralph J. Bunche, "A Brief and Tentative Analysis of Negro Leadership," unpub- 
lished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), pp. 34-35. 

7 Quoted in ibid., p. 81. 

8 Idem. 

9 Quoted in ibid., p. 82. 

10 "The stories of the demeanor of Negro college presidents and the administrators 
of other Negro institutions, when they appear before white legislators, governors, 
educational officials of the state and philanthropic foundations, are legiun, and these 
would be extremely revealing sources of information on how the Negro leader can 'go 
into an act' when he wants something from responsible white men. . . . Just recently 
a prominent Negro Republican politician demonstrated to the Committee how Negroes 
can 'strut' as a means of winning their favor — and he got it. The strategic personal 
adjustment to the attitudes of the dominant group made by the individual Negrc 
leaders afford a wide vista and a very challenging subject for research." (Ibid., p. 35.) 

11 Quoted in ibid., p. 125. 
™Ibid., p. 126. 

13 Ibid., p. II. See also Chapter 22, Section 5, of this book. 

14 "As an example, note the frantic scramble for the Negro bishoprics and the 
leadership contests within the lodges." (Bunche, "A Brief and Tentative Analysis of 
Negro Leadership," p. IO.) 

15 Negro Americans, What Now? (1934), PP- 85-86. 

16 Bunche, "A Brief and Tentative Analysis of Negro Leadership," p. 10 (italics 
ours). See also, Chapter 36, Section 5, of this book. 

17 Ibid., p. 32. 



Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories 

1 W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction (1935), p. 703. 

2 Ralph J. Bunche, "Memorandum on Conceptions and Ideologies of the Negro 
Problem," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), p. 23. 

8 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), p. 201. 

* "Programs, Ideologies, Tactics, and Achievements of Negro Betterment and Inter- 



1398 Ah Amejucah Dilemma 

racial Organizations," unpublished manuscript prepared for thk study (1940), VoL I, 
p. 13. 

* Bunche, "Conception* and Ideologies of the Negro Problem," p. 98. 

* Booker T. Washington, The Future of the American Negro (1899), pp. 86-87. 

* Ibid., pp. 85, 93, 176, 177 fassm. 

8 There were some Negro leaders (Isaac Myers, Josiah Weirs, Peter H. Clark, John 
M. Langston, Sella Martin) even during the Reconstruction period who advocated 
labor solidarity and trade unionism as a vital concern for the Negro people. Du Bois 
says: "The Negroes, especially the Northern artisans, tried to keep in touch with the 
white labor movement." (Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, p. 360.) The Negro unions 
sent delegates to the National Labor Union Convention in New York in 1869, and 
Isaac Myers, their leader, appealed for solidarity between the white and Negro 
laborers. The white labor movement responded rather coolly and in December of 1869 
the Negroes held their own convention (The National Negro Labor Convention) in 
Washington at which 159 delegates were present. {Ibid., p. 362.) 

There was even some interest in the international labor movement. In 1870 Sella 
Martin was sent as a delegate of the colored workers to the World Labor Congress in 
Paris, but international labor was as uninterested in Negro labor as was the American 
movement, and interest in international labor soon died among American Negro labor 
nnionists. (Ibid., pp. 360-361.) For a complete account of the Negro labor movement 
during Reconstruction, see ibid., pp. 354-367; see also, Guion G. Johnson, "History of 
Racial Ideologies in the United States with Reference to the Negro," unpublished manu- 
script prepared for this study (1940), Vol. 2, pp. 239-244, especially p. 239. 

8 Harris, in discussing the young intellectuals, says: "To have confined their propa- 
ganda to the Negro bourgeoisie would have caused the Negro radicals to compromise 
with the theories to which they were committed. Their acceptance of the theory of the 
class struggle and their application of it to the race question caused them to champion 
labor solidarity between white and black workers." (Sterling D. Spero and Abram L. 
Harris, The Black Worker [1931], p. 391.) 

10 "Conceptions and Ideologies of the Negro Problem," pp. 1 31-133. 

11 Ibid., p. 1 30. 

18 "Programs, Ideologies, Tactics and Achievements of Negro Betterment and Inter- 
racial Organizations," Vol. 1, pp. 1 47- 148. 

18 In passing it should be observed that the academic radicalism of Negro intellectuals, 
exemplified by the citation from Bunche, can easily come to good terms with the type 
of liberal but skeptical laissez-faire (do nothing) opinion so prevalent among white 
social scientists writing on the Negro problem. Both groups are critical of the fight for 
suffrage and civil rights. (See Chapter 39, Section 9.) Both assume that the economic 
factor is basic. And — since neither party is very active in trying either to induce or to 
prevent an economic revolution — it does not make much difference if the Negro 
radicals look forward to an economic revolution and the white sociologists do not. (See 
Appendix 2.) 

"Gnnnar Myrdal, Population: A Problem for Democracy (1940), pp. 87-88. 

11 'Tcpgrams, Ideologies, Tactics and Achievements of Negro Betterment and Inter- 
racial Organizations," Vol. 4, p. 778. 

u Nt$n Americans, What Now? (1934), pp. 66-67. 

" W.'E. B. Dn Bois, Dusk of Dawn (1940), p. 309. 



Footnotes 1399 

18 Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe, Booker T. Washington (1916), p. 40. 
18 Dn Bois, Dusk of Doom, pp. 309-310. 
10 Ibid., ? . 306. 

21 Ibid., p. 215. 

22 James Weldon Johnson, of. cit., p. 15. 

28 Examples are: E. B. Reuter, in the last chapter of The Mulatto in the United 
States (1918), and Donald R. Young, American Minority Peoples (1932), pp. 578- 
593 fassim. 

84 Quoted in Scott and Stowe, of. cit., p. 189. 

88 Cited in Bnnche, "Conceptions and Ideologies of the Negro Problem," p. 121. 

88 The Negro in the New World (1910), pp. xi-xii. 

"Robert R. Moton, What the Negro Thinks (1929), p. 38. 

88 "Conceptions and Ideologies of the Negro Problem," pp. 113-114. 

28 Dusk of Dawn, pp. 173-220 fassim. 

80 Ibid., p. 321. 

81 Ibid., p. 208. 

82 James Weldon Johnson, of. cit., p. 71. 
m Ibid., pp. 77-78. 

84 "Conceptions and Ideologies of the Negro Problem," pp. 1 22-1 24. 

8B /*W.,p. 55. 

88 Ernest Sutherland Bates, American Faith (1940), p. 438. 

87 Samuel A. Stouffer and Lyonel C. Florant, "Negro Population and Negro Popula- 
tion Movements, i860 to 1940, in Relation to Social and Economic Factors," unpub- 
lished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), pp. 44-50 (revised by Lyonel C. 
Florant under the title, "Negro Migration — 1860-1940" [1942]). See also, Bunche, 
"Conceptions and Ideologies of the Negro Problem," pp. 51-55. 

88 Du Bois observes that "there is no likelihood just now of [the Negroes] being 
forcibly expelled" but continues: 

"So far as that is concerned, there was no likelihood ten years ago of the Jews being 
expelled from Germany. The cases are far from parallel. There is a good deal more 
profit in cheap Negro labor than in Jewish fellow citizens, which brings together 
strange bed-fellows for the protection of the Negro. On the other hand one must 
remember that this is a day of astonishing change, injustice and cruelty; and that many 
Americans of stature have favored the transportation of Negroes and they were not all 
of the mental caliber of the present junior senator from Mississippi. As the Negro 
develops from an easily exploitable, profit-furnishing laborer to an intelligent inde- 
pendent self-supporting citizen, the possibility of his being pushed out of his American 
fatherland may easily be increased rather than diminished. We may be expelled from 
the United States as the Jew is being expelled from Germany." {Dusk of Dawn, p. 306.) 

Unlike Du Bois, I am inclined to believe that it is less the economic rise of American 
Negroes to economic independence and more their submergence into unemployment 
and public relief which will spell the danger. If I am right, the security for the 
American Negro will be, first, an economic policy which will avert more unemploy- 
ment, and second, a continued fortification of the American Creed. 

88 Malcolm Hailey, An African Survey (1938). 

40 Dusk of Dawn, p. 199. 



1400 An American Dilemma 

41 Ralph J. Bunche, "A Brief and Tentative Analysis of Negro Leadership," unpub- 
lished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), p. 29. 

48 Bunche, "Conceptions and Ideologies of the Negro Problem," pp. 140-141. 

43 James Weldon Johnson, of. cit., p. 13. 

44 Trevor Bowen, Divine. White Right (1934), pp. vi-vii. 

45 Bertram Schricke, Alien Americans (1936), p. 151. 

46 Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, p. a. 

* 

Chapter 39. Negro Improvement and Protest Organizations 

1 Reform groups have occasionally become political parties in the United States. In 
8 sense the Republican party began as a rather radical reform group. All but one or two 
of the small "third parties" in the history of the United States have been radical, and 
many of them had a nucleus in a reform group. The reforms sought have been specific 
—as in the case of the Prohibition party — or general — as in the case of the Socialist 
party. The third parties have been both short- and long-lived. Their death has not 
always meant failure to attain the reforms sought: in some cases one or the other of the 
major parties has incorporated some of the third party's aims into its own program and 
has succeeded in bringing it into law. 

2 Ralph Bunche, "The Programs, Ideologies, Tactics and Achievements of Negro 
Betterment and Interracial Organizations," unpublished manuscript prepared for this 
study (1940), Vol. 2, pp. 419-423. 

8 Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 423. 
*Ibid., Vol. 3, pp. 425 ff. 
B Ibid., Vol. 3, pp. 427-428. 
'Ibid., Vol. 3, pp. 428 ff. 

7 Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 434. 

8 "49th State," Com fast (March, 1936), p. 17. Cited in Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 3, 

p. 439- 

9 The highest proportion of Negroes, of all Negroes interviewed, who have admitted 
pro-Japanese inclinations, in a confidential poll conducted by Negro interviewers, is 1 8 
per cent. But in a similar poll of Southern white industrialists, asked to choose between 
complete Negro equality and German victory, they chose the latter by a heavy majority. 

10 Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 2, p. 301. 

11 Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 307. 

18 Affiliated is The Housewife's League, working for the promotion of race business. 
According to a pamphlet published by The Housewife's League: "A belief in the future 
of Negro Business and a desire to assist in every way by patronizing and encouraging 
the same, is all that is necessary to become a member." (Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 305.) 

18 Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 2, p. 314. 

14 Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn (1940), p. 280. 

u Ibid., p. 281. 

18 See Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 380 ff., for a critical account of the latter 
organization. 

17 Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 306; Vol. 4, pp. 672 ff. 

16 Ibid., Vol 4, pp. 668 ff. 



Footnotes 1401 

»»/*«., Vol. j, pp. 319 ff. 

30 Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 323 ff. 

» Ibid., Vol. a, pp. 3ss ff. 

22 The Congress had gotten into debt to the Communist party. Davis, who as secretary 
had carried the chief responsibility for its work, had apparently become skeptical about 
the possibility of carrying on the Congress according to the original plans. (See Bunche, 
op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 369-371. See also Lester B. Granger, "The Negro Congress — Its 
Future," Opportunity [June, 1940], pp. 1 64.-166.) 

The third Congress was much affected by the international situation. This was the 
time of the Hitler-Stalin pact, which opened the Second World War, and the American 
Communists agitated violently against American participation in the "imperialist" war, 
against Roosevelt's aggressive policy toward Germany, his rearmament program for 
America, and the aid to Great Britain. The Communists staged the Congress excellently 
for their purposes. According to Bunche: 

"The Negro rank and file did not know what it wag all about except when pcrfervid 
speeches were made demanding anti-lynching legislation, the franchise, and full 
democracy for the Negro. The more subtle aspects of the line that was being followed 
were over the heads of most of the rank and file, but the Congress was well organized 
and the speeches were all of a pattern." {Op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 360.) 

John L. Lewis, though not a Communist himself, gave the tone of the meeting in 
his keynote speech. He came out violently against the President's foreign policy and 
wanted the Congress to join forces with Labor's Non-Partisan League. President A. 
Philip Randolph spoke after Lewis and gave a carefully prepared address, later printed 
under the title The World Crisis and the Negro People Today. He pointed out that the 
Soviet Union was a totalitarian country pursuing power politics, and that the Com- 
munist party depended on Russian orders. He warned the Congress to stick to its 
principle and remain nonpartisan. Only if the Congress abstained from any political 
alignment and retained a minimum program of action was there hope that it could 
establish an effective national Negro pressure group on the basis of all Negro organ- 
izations. 

"The procedure, conduct and policies of the Negro Congress, as set up in this third 
national meeting, will make its influence in the affairs of the American Negroes, short 
lived. The American Negroes will not long follow any organization which accepts 
dictation and control from the Communist Party. The American Negro will not long 
follow any organization which accepts dictation and control from any white organ- 
ization." {The World Crisis and the Negro People Today [1940], p. 25 ) 

During Randolph's speech the Communists arranged a demonstration and walked out, 
leaving only a third of the audience when he finished talking. Thereafter nearly all 
speeches followed the "party line," and the Negro protest was skillfully draped in 
Communist slogans. 

28 Bunche, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 372 ff. 
24 The Southern Frontier (June, 1942). 

26 Like the National Negro Congress, with which it has strong relations, it has partly 
been under Communist influences. 

28 Bunche, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 378-379- 

27 Cited in ibid., Vol. 1, p. 27. 

28 James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan (1930)1 PP- HO *• 



I40« An American Dilemma 

* Of. eit., Vol. I, p. 29. 

M The Arid Test of Democracy, Leaflet (1940) ; cited in ibid., p. 44. 

91 la the following itatei and regions the branches hare formed conferences which 
hold periodic state or regional conventions: Virginia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, New 
Jersey, South Carolina, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Texas; 
and Southern, Northwest and New England regions. (Information from Roy Wilkins, 
memorandum [August II, 1942].) 

83 A branch is "... a constituent and subordinate unit of the Association, subject to 
the general authority and jurisdiction of the Board of Directors of the Association. Its 
objects shall be to promote the economic, political, civic and social betterment of 
colored people and their harmonious cooperation with other peoples." (Quoted in 
Bunche, of. eit., Vol. 1, p. 36.) 

"Information from Roy Wilkins, memorandum (August 11, 1942). 

M The local Youth Councils are an intrinsic part of the structure of the Association. 
"This is an attempt by the Association to canalize . . . the current tendencies of restless 
youth to organize and to attract young Negroes to the organization. . . . The Youth 
Councils devote themselves to the broad program of the Association, with special atten- 
tion to the problems of youth and employ similar tactics." (Bunche, of. eit., Vol. 1, 
p. 42.) 

85 Information from Roy Wilkins, memorandum (August II, 1942). 
Concerning the last point, Wilkins comments: "Offhand, I do not believe we receive 

contributions from more than five foundations, and the largest gift from any of them 
is less than 1/80 of our total budget." 

86 The Negro College Graduate (1938), p. 349. 

"Greene found that only 10 out of 367 Negro "leaders" were not college or 
professional school graduates. His complete figures are as follows: 

Academic Preparation of Negro Leaders as Determined by the Number of Degrees they 

Received "In Course" 
Degree Number 

Bachelor's 1*7 

Master's 104. 

Doctoral 33 

Professional 87 

No degree indicated 10 

No report 6 

(Harry W. Greene, Negro Leaders [1936], p. 12.) 

Some of the persons in Greene's sample were selected because they were outstanding 
in academic fields. Still, the high educational level of nearly everyone on Greene's list 
is nothing less than phenomenal and is probably not paralleled among white leaders. 

88 The Detroit branch has secured 12,000 new members in a recent membership 
campaign and other branches have doubled, and in some cases, trebled their membership. 
(Letter from Walter White [July 29, 1942].) A great proportion of the members in 
tome branches as in Norfolk, Virginia, and Mobile, Alabama, are workers. (Roy Wilkins 
in memorandum [August 11, 1942].) 

88 Onp of the officers of the National Office is Branch Director, one is Field Secretary, 
HUB Brasch Coordinator, and one, Youth Director. The National Secretary and the 
Other national officers frequently visit the branches. 



Footnotes 1403 

40 Bnnche, of. cit., Vol. i, pp. 45-47. 

41 Program Book for N.AJI.C.P. Branches (1939), p. 1. Quoted in ibid., p. +5. 

A main tactic, for the branches as well as for the National Office, is legal redress. 
The great majority of the cases handled by the Association originate in the branches. 
The branches are advised to carry the financial and legal responsibility for local cases 
themselves as far as possible. When they cannot be so handled, the branches appeal to 
the National Office and its Legal Committee for assistance. If the National Office enters 
a case, it works in collaboration with the branches. (See ibid., p. 38.) It is held that 
neither the National Office not the branches should function, or could function, at 
a legal aid society: 

"It [the Association] only handles cases where it seems great injustice has been or 
is about to be done because of race or color prejudice, or cases where its entry will 
clearly establish a precedent affecting the rights of colored people in general." (E. 
Frederic Morrow, An Outline of Branch Function!} cited in ibid., p. 39.) 

Thus, even if the individual sufferings cannot be disregarded as a motive for action, 
the main consideration must be its importance as a test case. Bunch summarizes: 

"In the selection of the issues on which fights are to be waged, the branches are told 
to select 'live issues,' in which discriminations are glaring, 'where the correction of the 
injustices will benefit a large number of Negroes,' and where there is a chance to win. 
Publicizing the fight is regarded as an important element in the struggle, and the 
branches are advised never to 'start on a big campaign without telling the folks that 
count . . . what it is the branch is about to do,' and enlisting their support. The aid of 
the other organizations, such as interracial, civic, religious, and labor union groups, is 
also to be solicited in the campaigns, in efforts to bring maximum pressure to bear on 
officials, and to mold a favorable public opinion." (Ibid., pp. 49-59.) 

Publicity should be a vital part of the work of the branches, they are told. They are 
advised to build up a "contact list" of prominent people of both races, "who could 
assist in sending telegrams and letters of protest to officials when impending legislation 
is detrimental to the best interest of the group, or letters and telegrams urging enact- 
ment of impending legislation that will protect or enhance the best interests of colored 
people." (E. Frederic Morrow, An Outline of Branch Functions, p. I ; cited in ibid., 
pp. 49-50.) 

42 The Association has been unable, for financial reasons, to carry out its old plan to 
employ regional secretaries to supervise and stimulate the activity of the branches. 
(Information from Roy Wilkins in memorandum [March 12, 194']-) 

48 An account of the observations made of N.A.A.C.P. branches by interviewers for 
this study is given in Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 108 ff. See also White's and Wilkins' 
critiques. The present writer himself visited, in the years 1938-1940, a great many 
NJV.A.C.P. branches in all parts of the country. 

44 Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 1, p. 117. 

** Ibid., Vol 1, p. 118. 

**lbid., Vol. I, pp. 128-129. 

4T For a survey of the independent local organizations, see ibid., Vol. 4, pp. 587-667. 

**Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. II6-H7J compare ibid., Vol. 4, pp. 598 ff. 

"Interview (November, 1939); quoted in ibid., Vol. 1, p. 130. 

*°NAA.C^. Press Service, Series No. 22} cited in ibid., Vol 1, p. 40. (See alto 
ibid., Vol 1, p. 100.) 



I4$f An American Dilemma 

81 Ibid., Vol. I, pp. too ff. 
a ibid., Vol. i, p. log. 

58 Program Book for NA.A.C.P. Branches, p. 6j cited in ibid., Vol. I, p. 50. 
84 For a summary of N.A.A.C.P.'s achievements in the legal field, see ibid., Vol. I, 
pp. 55 ff.; and the critical memoranda by Walter White and Roy Wilkins. 
86 See Bundle, of. tit., Vol. 1, pp. 69 ff. 
88 Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 63 ff. 
"Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 78 ff. 

88 Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 98 ff. 

89 See #*V., Vol. 1, pp. 79 ff. 

60 See #*V., Vol. 1, pp. 83 ff. 

61 Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 83-100. 

88 ". . . instead of waiting until cases arose out of fundamental legal and cultural 
patterns which were viciously anti-Negro, we began as far as our means would permit 
to attack the fundamental evils." (Letter from Walter White [March 15, 1941].) 

This change is usually not seen or understood by the few social scientists, Negro or 
white, who have given some attention to the Association. Guy B. Johnson, for example, 
writes: 

"While the organization has carried on a great deal of educational work along the 
line of stimulating race consciousness and race pride and has taken the offensive in a few 
legislative ventures, it has for the most part found itself carrying on a defensive 
legalistic program. That is, it has largely been concerned with specific cases involving 
disfranchisement, segregation, discriminatory legislation, injustice in the courts, lynch- 
ing, peonage, etc." ("Negro Racial Movements and Leadership in the United States," 
in the American Journal of Sociology [July, 1937], p. 66.) 

08 E. Frederic Morrow, An Outline of Branch Functions, p. 1 ; cited by Bunche, 
of. tit., Vol. 1, p. 46. 

84 Program Book for N.A.A.C.P. Branches, p. 6; cited in ibid., Vol. 1, p. 50. 

80 Bunche, of. tit., Vol. 1, p. 51. 

66 ". . . the possible influence of reform organizations as well as of individual 
reformers in the field of race relations is definitely limited to the correction of partic- 
ular instances of injustice — especially those which are so outrageous as to exceed the 
limits of popular prejudiced approval — and to campaigns of public enlightenment 
concerning the basic community of interests among all people in the United States. 

"This is our reason for omitting discussion of the hundreds of organizations and 
movements for the improvement of race relations and the securing of justice for 
minorities in our country. What have such organizations as the National Urban League, 
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Association for 
the Study of Negro Life and History, the Commission on Interracial Cooperation 
accomplished to justify their existence? The answer is: Much in the way of fighting 
particular instances of atrocious injustice, a little in the way of the dissemination of 
interracial facts, and nothing so far as any general change in racial attitudes is concerned. 
Shortly after the World War, lynchings of Negroes declined rapidly, and a good share 
of the credit for this decline was claimed by the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. 
Seven Negroes were reported to have been lynched in 1929, counting only those who 
were killed by mobs and not those who were otherwise mistreated, and twenty in 1930. 
If the Commission wai responsible for declines in lynchings, is its negligence also 



Footnotes 1405 

responsible for this increase? Actually, of course, lynchings fluctuate in practical inde- 
pendence of the efforts of such organizations, which have no means of attacking the 
fundamental causes of lynching. All praise should go to the efforts of the interracial 
pioneers who are sacrificing much for their ideals and who have fought valiantly for 
the adjustment of interracial relations. Nothing, however, is to be gained by carrying 
our confidence in them to the extent of believing that they may do more than battle 
the symptoms of race prejudice, aj a fever may be reduced by the application of ice, 
affording some relief to the patient but not curing the disease." (Donald Young, 
American Minority Peofles [1932], pp. 589-590; compare Hid., fassim.) 

Young's proof against the claims of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation of a 
good share in the credit for the decline in lynching is not entirely convincing. No one 
denies that other factors than the fight of the organizations have influence on the 
yearly fluctuations — and even t!ie trend — of lynchings. But this does not exclude the 
fact that the organizations also have an influence, primarily on the trend., but also on 
the fluctuations. (See footnote ■ on p. 423.) 

87 "Now, while this legalistic approach has been successful in the sense that it has 
sometimes served as a goal to the South and that it has won numerous important legal 
cases — some of the United States Supreme Court decisions involving new precedents — 
it is doubtful whether it has brought the Negro any nearer his goal. The N.A.A.C.P. 
has been, from the standpoint of the southern white man, in the same class with 
abolitionists and carpetbaggers, an outside agency which has tried to impose its ideas 
upon him. Sociologically the weakness of the movement is inevitable and incurable; it 
attempts to undo the folkways and mores of the southern caste system by attacking the 
results and symptoms of the system. Paradoxically, if it leaves the attitudes and folk- 
ways of the white man out of its picture, it is doomed to fail; and if it takes those 
attitudes and folkways into account, it is either forced back to the gradual istic and 
conciliatory position of Booker Washington or forced forward into revolutionary 
tactics. One wonders then, whether its chief function, aside from its value in actually 
obtaining racial rights [n.b.], has not been to serve as a catharsis for those discontented, 
impatient souls who, while they see no hope of normal participation in American life, 
feel that they must never give in and admit that they are beaten down spiritually." 
(Guy B. Johnson, "Negro Racial Movements and Leadership in the United States," of. 
cit.; p. 67 [italics ours].) The obtaining of "racial rights" is, of course, the main 
purpose of the N.A.A.C.P. 

e8 ". . . it can scarcely be claimed that these victories [won by resort to court] have 
materially altered any of the fundamental conditions determining the relations between 
the races in the country." (Bunche, of. cit., Vol. I, p. 141 ; compare ibid., Vol. I, 
pp. 143-144; see also Chapter 38, Section 5, of this book.) 

89 Negro Americans, What Now? (1934), p. 39. 

n Ibid., p. 38. 

71 Bertram W. Doyle, The Etiquette of Race Relations in the South (1937), p. 162. 

""The interracial make-up of the N.A.A.C.P. is also an undoubted source of 
organizational weakness. There can be no doubt that the Negro leaders in the organ- 
ization have always kept a weather eye on the reactions of their prominent and influ- 
ential white sponsors to any innovation in the program of the organization. These 
white sympathizers are, in the main, either cautious liberals or mawkish, missionary- 
minded sentimentalists on the race question. Their interest in the Negro problem is 



2406 An American Dilemma 

motivated either by a aenae of 'fair play* and a desire to tee the ideala of the Conttito- 
tion lived up to, or an '1 love your people' attitude. Both attitude* ue far from touching 
the realities of the problem. But the evident concern for the opinion! of the white 
supporters of the organization, especially on the part of the National Office, has been 
a powerful factor in keeping the Association thoroughly 'respectable' and haa certainly 
been an influence in the very evident desire of the Association to keep its skirts free of 
the grimy bitterness and strife encountered in the economic arena. This has also been 
a responsibility of the Negro members of the Board, who, by and large, have never 
been distinguished for the advanced nature of their social thinking. At best they have 
been cautious, racially minded liberals, and not infrequently, forthright reactionaries. 
In general they have suffered from an intellectual myopia toward all but narrowly 
racial problems. The liberal, white or black, northern or southern, recoils from the 
shock of class conflict. Yet the twitchings of liberalism within him seek release; lacking 
the courage and conviction to face the harsher realities, he seeks to find release and 
solace in counterfeit substitutes, in political and social ersatz. He recognizes and revolts 
against injustices, but seeks to correct them with palliatives rather than solutions; for 
the solutions are harsh and forbidding, and are not conducive to optimism and spiritual 
uplift. 

"The N.A.A.C.P. is an interracial organization, and, though to lesser degree than the 
leas militant interracial groups, still leans heavily npon interracial good-will and under- 
standing. Such reliance is a basic weakness in any organization designed to work on 
behalf of an economically and politically oppressed group, and where 'good-will' and 
inter-group 'understanding' are only will-o'-the-wisps which confuse the problem and 
mislead thinking on it." (Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 147-148.) 

78 "It has not been able to become a solid political factor . . . through taking a strong 
hand for or against a particular party, because of the conflicting political interests of 
its membership. Thus, its politics is 'Negro' politics; its political interests are measured 
solely in terms of the attitude of a candidate or a party toward measures directly con- 
cerned with Negro welfare." (Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 1, p. $4.) 

71 Winning a greater membership is also important in order -to give the Association 
a solid financial basis. On the other hand, a main impediment to the organization in 
attempting to recruit a larger membership is its lack of financial resources. 

It is, of course, a vital necessity to the Association to keep independent as far as pos- 
sible from outside support in order to maintain freedom of action. It is a public secret 
that one of the foundations working in the' Negro field, that had earlier contributed to 
the Association, has tried to convince the N.A.A.C.P. that it should merge, first with the 
Urban League and, at a later occasion, with both the Urban League and the Commis- 
sion on Interracial Cooperation. The N.A.A.C.P. refused as it was not greatly dependent 
on support from foundations and Community Chests and felt that a merger would 
hamstring the program of the Association and infringe upon its freedom to challenge 
the interracial status qua. As a result, it lost its earlier support from the foundation. 

76 See Bunche, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 218 ff.; and Paul E. Baker, Negro-Whit* Aijust- 
***** (1934), pp. 21 ff. 

n Information from Lester B. Granger (letter, August 7, 1942). Some of the con- 
tributions have the form of membership dues. 
17 Bunche, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 265*. 
n td*m. "It tries to make the most out of the condition of racial separatism and 



Footnotes 1407 

appeal* to the eonacience and good will of the white community, especially the employ- 
ing dan. That the Urban League hat rendered valuable services for Urban League popu- 
lation! throughout the country is not disputed, but it is equally true that its policy 
operates within the genteel framework of conciliation and interracial good will. Its 
efforts have had to be directed at winning the sympathies of white employers, profes- 
sionals, and intellectual groups, and the top ranks of the hierarchy of organized labor. 
With its interracial basis, it must rely upon the good will of responsible whites." {Ibid., 
Vol. 2, pp. 265-266.) 

"As an interracial, dependent organization it can never develop a program which will 
•pur the Negro masses and win their confidence. It has not exerted, nor can it, any 
great influence upon the thinking of Negroes nor upon their course of action. It 
operates strictly on the periphery of the Negro problem and never comes to grips with 
the fundamentals in American racial conflict." (ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 271-272.) 

78 Letter from Eugene Kinckle Jones (August 8, 1940) . 

80 Memorandum by Eugene Kinckle Jones (June 17, 1941). 

81 Annual Conference of the Urban League in 1919, held in Detroit, Michigan. 

82 Spero and Harris quote several cases of strike-breaking. (Sterling D. Spero and 
Abram L. Harris, The Black Worker [1931], pp. 140-141.) See also, Bunche, of. cit., 
Vol. 2, pp. 268-269. 

Eugene Kinckle Jones states: "No local League has ever openly engaged in strike- 
breaking activities. The only case in our records . , . was ... on a job where we had 
furnished Negro workers on a project where the racial element was involved and not 
the question of wages and hours." (Memorandum, June 17, 1941.) 

For a complete evaluation of this question, see Horace R. Cayton and George S. 
Mitchell, Black Workers and the Nete Unions (1939), pp. 398-412. 

88 Bunche writes: "The labor policy of the Urban League has been spotty. The 
organization's interest in increased economic opportunity for the black worker has led 
it to exert effort toward the lifting of trade union barriers against the Negro worker, 
but these efforts to get the Negro into the labor unions have been, for the most part, 
confined to negotiations with prominent trade union officials. No effective program for 
carrying the message of organized labor to the rank and file of white and black workers 
has yet been devised by the League. Moreover, it is doubtful that if a program revolving 
about labor organization and white and black labor unity were instigated by the Urban 
League it could be executed through the branches as they are now constituted." (Bunche, 
of. cit., Vol. 2, p. 267. 

". . . basically the policy of the Urban League is not a policy of labor organization 
or of working class unity. It is a policy thoroughly middle class in its orientation and 
perspective, which is interested only in getting jobs for Negroes. The interracial and 
business class structure of the directing boards of the Urban League locals have often 
made it impossible for the work of the League to be as soundly liberal as the local 
executive secretaries might often wish it to be." ([bid., Vol. 2, p. 270.) 

"It [the League] apparently has never convinced itself that one Negro worker in a 
labor union may, in terms of ultimate benefits to the Negro group, weigh more heavily 
than ten Negroes placed in temporary jobs as marginal workers." (Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 271.) 

To this Jones replies: "Doctor Bunche evidently has in his mind the type of organiza- 
tion he would form to correct the problems as he sees them, and he judges the National 
Urban League on the basis of this conception while the National Urban League has 



1408 An American Dilemma 

never announced a plan to wive all of the labor problems of the Negro. ... It hat 
never announced that its programs is to organize Negro labor. It has sense enough to 
know that it could not be successful in this if it tried any more so than any other group, 
outside oi the workers themselves." (Letter, August 8, 1940.) 

And: "Such a program [of securing employment for Negroes] demands not only 
that Negroes be induced to prepare formally for jobs which the League helps to open for 
them, but also that labor unions be induced to welcome Negroes to membership and 
Negroes be educated to the value of collective bargaining as a necessary development in 
progressive society. ... I think that any student of social problems must confess that 
the real job of workers' education belongs to the workers themselves and is a part of the 
program of most well organized labor movements." (Memorandum, June 17, 1941.) 

The League also points to its Workers' Councils which have been organized during 
recent years to educate the Negro workers in the principles of collective bargaining. 
"The work of these Councils was not simply theoretical education. They actually organ- 
ized Negroes and got them into unions where union membership was a requisite for 
obtaining jobs. ... It was estimated that at least 1,000 Negro workers moved into union 
ranks within a space of two years as a result of the Workers' Councils' leadership." 
(Lester B. Granger, letter of August 7, 1942.) 

84 Concerning the effect of the War on the activity of the Urban League, Lester B. 
Granger informs that it "has been to intensify and emphasize some of its activities 
rather than to change its program; for instance, in the employment field, attention has 
been put on war jobs for Negroes on the semi-skilled and skilled levels. Employers have 
been approached with a new argument — that of the need for all-out 100% use of 
every available labor resource. As the public employment service became more and more 
important in filling war job orders, more attention has been given by the League to 
correcting unsound practices and inadequate policies of state employment services. This 
concern was increased when first the President federalized all state employment service! 
and merged them into the United States Employment Service, and when the War 
Manpower Commission, using the U.S.E.S. facilities, was given full authority in register- 
ing, classifying, assigning, and possibly drafting labor for war uses. In this situation, 
the professional placement experience of the Urban League has proven to be invaluable 
as an aid to educating and otherwise influencing public employment officials. 

"The League has given a good deal of attention to war housing of Negroes in such 
key cities as Buffalo, Detroit, Baltimore, Kansas City, New Orleans, and Atlanta. Work 
with local housing authorities has been accompanied by work with the National Housing 
Agency to insure a fair proportion of war housing for Negro workers. Local Urban 
Leagues have been active in the Civilian Defense program, recruiting and helping to train 
volunteer workers, assisting in the sale of defense and war bonds, disseminating informa- 
tion for consumers, and carrying on similar activities." (Letter of August 7, 1942.) 
88 Emily H. Clay observes on this point: 

"For the past couple of years the Southern Region of the Y.M.C.A., which occupies 
space on the tune floor with us, has had in its office a Negro Student Secretary. Also, 
for about two years (1924-1926) Mr. David O. Jones served as our General Field 
Secretary, resigning in 1926 to become president of Bennett College. During that period 
he spent part time in an office provided for him at our headquarters and part time, for 
co n ve ni e n ce, in an office provided on one of the local campuses [in a Negro university!. 



FOOTKOTSS I409 

Although it has been discussed from time to time, we have not had a Negro on our 
headquarters staff since 1926." (Letter, August 24, 1 94.2.) 
88 The Negro: The Southerner's Problem (1904), p. 16. 

87 Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe, Booker T. Washington (1916), p. 26. 

88 Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color Line (1908), p. 20. 

■• "A week after the Armistice one might have observed a subtle but ominous change. 
Distrust was awakened. What would be the attitude of the Negro troops when they 
returned from France? Rumors filled the air, and by the time the soldiers began to 
return suspicion and fear had taken deep hold upon both races. Mob violence, which had 
greatly declined during the war, burst out afresh. In city after city race riots flamed up, 
with casualties on both sides. The tension tightened everywhere, and with dread suspense 
the Nation awaited the outcome." {The Interracial Commission Comes of Age, leaflet 
[February, 1942].) 

90 A Practical Approach to the Race Problem, leaflet published by the Commission 
on Interracial Cooperation (October, 1939). 

91 Bunche, of. cit., Vol. 3, pp. 4.4.9 ff. 

92 Jessie Daniel Ames, Democratic Processes at Work in the South, Report of Com- 
mission on Interracial Cooperation 1030-1941 (October, 1941). On the activity of the 
state and local committees as of 1939-1940, see Bunche, op. cit.. Vol. 3, pp. 461 ff. 

•a «w e now ]j ave act j ve g tate Committees in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. . . the ground work is now being 
laid for the reorganization of active committees in Arkansas and Florida. . . . We have 
the following active local or county committees: Alabama — Jefferson County; Florida — 
Ocala; Georgia — Fulton-DeKalb County, Griffin, Macon Area (17 counties), and 
Savannah; South Carolina — Charleston, Florence, Greenwood County, and Sumter 
County; Texas — Austin, Dallas, and Houston; Tennessee — Memphis. There are also 
local committees in North Carolina and Virginia, but I cannot give you a current list of 
these just now. 

"Although the actual membership of our committees is not large, it is representa- 
tive of a great many organizations through which we are able to extend our program." 
(Letter from Emily H. Clay, [August 24, 1942].) 

The field staff now includes two full-time workers in addition to the white Director 
of Field Work in the Atlanta Office ; of the two field workers, one is a Negro. 

94 The Interracial Commission Comes of Age, leaflet (February, 1942). 

95 ". . . the Commission has refused to bind either itself or the state committees, with 
rigid rules and regulations. It still refuses to dictate a program to any state or community. 
It does, however, assist in setting up state and local committees and, if they request help, 
will cooperate in the development of a program upon which the community agrees." 
(Ibid.) 

94 The figure is an average from 1922 to 194.2. (Information from Emily H. Clay, 
letter, August 24, 1942.) 

97 Information from Emily H. Clay, letter, August 27, 1942. 

98 Quoted in Paul E. Baker, op. cit., p. 19. 

99 R. B. Eleazer in comment at the Seminar on American Racialism held by the 
American Missionary Association Division, New York City, January 16, 1942. 

100 Sections 7, 15, and 716 of the Penal Code of Georgia. (See Chapter 11, See* 
tion 9.) 



14.10 An American Dilemma 

101 Emily H. Clay, memorandum, August, 194s. 

us « A p rac tiaa Approach to the Race Problem," of. cit. 

108 Letter, August 13, 1942. 

104 Banche, of. cit., VoL 4, p. 551. 

«»/*«., Vol. 4, PP- 557 «- 

100 Questionnaire returned by Arthur Raper, formerly Research Secretary of the 
Commission, February 26, 1940; cited in Hid., Vol. 3, p. 460. 

107 "Six of the eight State Committees . . . have dues paying memberships, as follow*: 
Alabama — 61, $2.00} Georgia — 191, $2.00; Kentucky — 155, $1,005 Texas — 135, 
$5.00; Mississippi — 120, $2.00; South Carolina — 137, $1.00. Some of the local or 
county committees also have dues, among these the Fulton-DeKalb and Macon Area 
Committees, to which the members pay fifty cents annually." (Emily H. Clay, letter, 
August 24, 1942.) 

los fffo Crisis (j H ij Pj 191 8), p. in. (Italics ours.) 

10 * N.A.A.C.P. Press Release (December 12, 1941). 

110 The story is told by Earl Brown, "American Negroes and the War," Harfer's 
Magazine (April, 1942), pp. S4S-5S 2 - 

111 A. Philip Randolph, National Director, March-on-Washington movement, Madison 
Square Garden, June 16, 1942, pp. 13-14. 

112 Thlt demand is not only raised by critical Negro intellectuals (see Chapter 38, 
Section 5), but also by many conciliatory white friends of the Negro cause. Guy B. 
Johnson, for instance, in a commencement address at a Virginia Negro college (published 
in the Virginia Stats College Gazette [December, 1939]) pointed out: 

"The . . . great need in the strategy of the Negro group is an effective organization. 
Now I realize that there are many organizations, but there is not one which has the con- 
fidence of anything like a majority of the Negro population . . . 

"An organization such as I have in mind should be race-wide, drawing support from 
all segments of the Negro population. It should be militant but not so militant as to 
scare off the majority of Negroes who have to earn their bread and butter in the South. 
It should combine the idealism of the N.A.A.C.P. with the patience and opportunism 
of the Southern Commission on Interracial Cooperation. It should be realistic in its 
tactics." (Hid., p. 12.) 
And Johnson adds: 

"I am aware that all this sounds like the rankest sort of opportunism. That is exactly 
what it is, and, in my humble opinion, that is exactly what it takes to form a good 
strategy for a minority group organization. But whether you agree with me or not on 
this point, I believe you will agree that the Negro's bargaining power would be much 
stronger if he could consolidate his forces into one organization which would com- 
mand the respect and the support of many thousands of Negroes in all walks of life." 
(Ibid., p. 14; compare the discussion in The Crisis [July, 1939], p. 209 and [Septem- 
ber, 1939] pp. 271-272.) 

118 Race Adjustment (1908), p. 24. 

114 Negro Americans, What Note? pp. 81 and 87. 

118 The World Crisis and the Negro Peofle Today, p. 14. 

u *7*sV.,p. 21. 



Footnotes 141 i 

Chapter 4.0. The Negro Church 

1 A few had been ilavet in Portugal. Most of these were probably Christians, u were 
a few who had been converted in Africa and the West Indies. Some others had been 
converted to Islam in Africa. (Melville J. Herskovits, "Social History of the Negro" 
in Carl Murchiaon [editor], A Handbook of Social Psychology [1935], pp. 234-240.) 

'White and Black (1879), p. 132. 

■See Allison Davis, "The Negro Church and Associations in the Lower South," 
unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), pp. 36-37. 

* Charles S. Johnson, Growing Vf in the Black Belt (1941), pp. 135-136. 

8 For an imperfect but reasonable substantiation of these statements, see the manu- 
scripts prepared for this study, already referred to, by J. G. St. Clair Drake, "The 
Negro Church and Associations in Chicago" (1940); Allison Davis, "The Negro 
Church and Associations in the Lower South" (1940) ; and Guion G. Johnson and Guy 
B. Johnson, "The Church and the Race Problem in the United States" (1940). Also 
tee: Benjamin E. Mays and J. W. Nicholson, The Negro's Church (1933) ; and U. S. 
Bureau of the Census, Religious Bodies, 1036 (1941), Vol. 1. 

6 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Religious Bodies, 1936, Vol. 1, pp. 86 and 851. The 
total reported church membership was 55,807,366. The figure for white churches was 
calculated by subtracting the Negroes from the total, thus ignoring Orientals and 
Indians. 

7 Population is taken as of 1940. Sources: Religious Bodies, 1936, pp. 86 and 851; 
and Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1040, Population. Preliminary Release, 
Series P-IO, No. I. 

•Guy B. Johnson, "Some Factors in the Development of Negro Social Institutions 
in the United States," American Journal of Sociology (November, 1934), pp. 329-337. 
Also see Guion G. Johnson and Guy B. Johnson, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 29a; Hortense 
Powdermaker, After Freedom (1939), pp. 245-246; and Drake, of. cit., pp. 254-255. 
The Johnsons point out that ". . . almost every Negro religious body listed in the census 
has its white counterpart in doctrine and policy, except for minor variations." {Of. cit., 
Vol. 2, p. 292.) 

9 Drake, of. cit., p. 255. 

10 "T ne majority of Negro youth of all classes believe that God is white. To lower- 
class youth, He resembles a kindly paternalistic, upper-class white man. They believe that 
because of His goodness and justice, colored people will not suffer discrimination in the 
other world." (E. Franklin Frazier, Negro Youth at the Crossviays [1940], p. 133.) 

11 Drake, of. cit., pp. 426 ff. 

ia Charles S. Johnson, Growing Uf in the Black Belt, p. 135. 

" James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan (i93°)> PP- 165-166. For further dis- 
cussion of this point, see Chapter 43, Section 3, of this book. 

14 The Roman Catholic Church, though not state-supported, often gets persons from 
ali social classes in the same congregation. It is my belief that, for this reason, there is 
a relatively greater feeling of equality among Catholic laymen. 

18 Edwin R. Embree, Brown America (1933s first edition, 1931), pp. 208-209. 

"Thomas P. Bailey, Race Orthodoxy in the South (1914). PP- 343-3+5- 

17 Robert R. Moton, What the Negro Thinks (1929), p. 253. 



141 a An American Dilemma 

18 For a discussion of Southern church attitudes, see Virginias Dabney, Liberalism in 
the South (1932), pp. 287-308, and Wilbur J. Cash, The Mind of the South (1941), 

pp. 333-337- 

19 Baker quoted a Southern clergyman's description of the situation up to 1900: 
"The Rev. H. S. Bradley, for a long time one of the leading clergymen of Atlanta, 

now of St. Louis, said in a sermon published in the Atlanta Constitution'. 

" '. , . We have not been wholly lacking in our effort to help. There are a few 
schools and churches supported by Southern whites for the Negroes. Here and there 
a man like George Williams Walker, of the aristocracy of South Carolina, and a woman 
like Miss Belle H. Bennett, of the blue blood of Kentucky, goes as teacher to the Negro 
youth, and seeks in a Christly spirit of fraternity to bring them to a higher plane of 
civil and moral manhood, but the number like them can almost be counted on fingers of 
both hands. 

" 'Our Southern churches have spent probably a hundred times as much money since 
the Civil War in an effort to evangelize the people of China, Japan, India, South America 
Africa, Mexico, and Cuba, as they have spent to give the Gospel to the Negroes at our 
doors. It is often true that opportunity is overlooked because it lies at our feet.' " (Ray 
Stannard Baker, Following the Color Line [1908], p. 56.) 

Weatherford pointed out in 1912 that: "The Southern Baptist Convention has only 
been asking from its large membership $15,000 annually, or less than one cent per 
member . . ." (W. D. Weatherford, Present Forces in Negro Progress [1912], pp. 
164-165.) 

20 Quoted in Ray Stannard Baker, of. oil., pp. 121-122. 

21 Guion G. Johnson and Guy B. Johnson, of. cit.. Vol. 1, pp. 212-213. 

23 A study of 64 ministers in Chicago (pastors of churches cither owning or buying 
their buildings) revealed that: 

"'. . . four-fifths of the ministers of the regular sample condemned racial division, 
the accompanying attitudes or both. Yet only one-third of the regular sample were 
unwilling to grant that the religious needs of Negroes are best served by separate racial 
churches. Stated differently, all but one-fifth condemned racial division, but only one- 
third took the position that the separate Negro church does not serve the religious needs 
of colored people best . . .'" (Jesse H. Atwood, "The Attitudes of Negro Ministers of 
the Major Denominations Toward Racial Division in Protestantism," unpublished M.A. 
thesis, University of Chicago [1930], p. 78. Quoted in Drake, of. cit., pp. 283-284.) 

28 According to the 1936 census of Religious Bodies, the proportion in 1936 was only 
3.8 per cent in New Jersey, 1.4 per cent in New York, 2.1 per cent in Illinois, and 2.7 
per cent in Pennsylvania. (U. S. Bureau of the Census, Religious Bodies, 1036, Vol. 
I, pp. 878, 888, and 892.) These proportions do not include a significant number of 
Negroes who attend mixed Catholic churches, and the census, as we have pointed out, 
under-enumerates the Negro Catholics. The highest reported proportion of Negro 
Catholics, irrespective of whether they attended Negro or mixed churches, was 7.4 
per cent for Harlem in 1930. (The Greater New York Federation of Churches, The 
Negro Churches in Manhattan [1930], pp. II-18.) 

24 See Guion G. Johnson and Guy B. Johnson, of. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 198-200. 

26 There is one type of contact between Negro and white churches that usually 
causes unfriendliness. As Negro districts hare expanded in Northern cities, white 
congregations hare felt forced to sell their church edifices to Negro congregations. Not 



Footnotes 141 3 

only this, but the attendant financial difficulties promote ill-will. The whites usually do 
not realize that their church buildings have deteriorated in value since the time they were 
built, and the Negroes are often unwise in assuming obligations which they cannot 
meet. (See Mays and Nicholson, of. tit., pp. 181 ff.) 

28 "The Churches have either had nothing to say on the subjects of low wages and 
long hours in the mills, or have distracted attention from economic wrongs by stressing 
the calamities of individual sinfulness." (Broadus Mitchell and George S. Mitchell, 
The Industrial Revolution in the South [1930], p. I +4.) 

27 Booker T. Washington, The Future of the American Negro (1899), P- '7°- 

28 There are plenty of Negro preachers. In 1 930, Negroes constituted 9.7 per cent 
of the total population, but about 16.8 per cent of all clergymen. The actual figure is 
probably higher than this, since some Negro preachers have other occupations, and the 
latter may be the ones reported to the census-taker. (Fifteenth Census of the United 
States: 1030, Population, Vol. IV, pp. 32-33.) Many of these preachers — the so-called 
"jack leg" preachers — have no congregation. 

20 See Mays and Nicholson, of. eit., pp. 10 fassim. 

80 On the basis of their sample study of 18$ rural Negro churches and 609 urban 
Negro churches in 1930, Mays and Nicholson (ibid., pp. 171 and 261) report the 
following percentage distribution of church expenditures: 





x#5 Rural 


60; Urban 




Churches 


Churches 


Salaries 


69.9 


43-* 


Interest and Reduction of Church Debt 


2 


"•9 


Benevolence and Miscellaneous 






Items (including insurance, rent, heat, light) 


15.8 


11.0 


Education, Missions, etc. 


5-9 


6.6 


Repairs and Upkeep 


6.4 


«3 



Of the urban churches, 71.3 per cent reported that their buildings were under a 
mortgage. 

81 Fry's analysis of the 1926 Census of Religious Bodies indicates that the following 
percentages of Protestant clergymen reported that they graduated either from college 
or seminary: 

Negro WhtU 

Urban 3* *° 

Rural 17 47 

(C. Luther Fry, The United States Looks at Its Churches [1930J, pp. 64-66.) These 
figures are inflated by exaggeration in reporting and by overlooking some of the smaller 
churches. Mays and Nicholson (of. ett., p. 302) questioned 590 urban Negro ministers 
and found that only 27.7 per cent claimed to have graduated from college or seminary. 
They also reported that 57.5 per cent of 134 ruraI Ne 8 r ° ministers had only a 
grammar school education or less. (Ibid., p. 238.) 

In a study of 1,200 Negro ministers, Woodson found that 70 per cent had no college 



1414 An American Dilemma 

degree. He also found that those with a degree— either in theology or in liberal am, 
or both*— were mostly from unaccredited colleges. (Carter G. Woodson, Th» Negro 
Professional Man and the Community [1934], p. 64.) When we speak of the college- 
trained Negro clergymen, we must keep in mind that the standards of their colleges and 
seminaries in the South are pitifully poor in most cases. 

88 In 1930, clergymen still constituted 1 8.4 per cent of all professionals among 
Negroes and only 3.4 per cent among native whites. [Fifteenth Census of the United 
States: 1030, Pofulation, Vol. IV, pp. 32-33.) '• 

88 Davis, of. cit., pp. 120-125. Also see Willis D. Weatherford and Charles S. John- 
son, Race Relations (1934), p. 497; and the recent studies of The American Youth 
Commission, especially E. Franklin Frazier, Negro Youth at the Crosstoays (1940), p. 

133. 

84 Charles S. Johnson supports, and has some evidence to prove, the position that 
rural Negro youth are more dissatisfied with the church than urban Negro youth. (Grow- 
ing Uf in the Black Belt, pp. 145-164.) 

85 We may cite again Woodson's finding that only seven-tenths of 1 per cent of a 
sample of high school graduates expressed the intention of entering the ministry. (Wood- 
son, of. cit., p. 80.) 

88 On the basis of a sample study of 5,; 12 Negro college graduates, who were not 
quite representative of the total population of Negro college graduates, Charles S. 
Johnson reports the following percentage distribution suggesting the degree of adherence 
to the church on the part of this group: 

Not a member 5.3 

Inactive member 15.1 

Active member 48.1 

Officer 12.5 

Preacher 3-t 

Not given 15.9 

100.0 

(Charles S. Johnson, The Negro College Graduate [1938], p. 347.) 
87 Of. cit., pp. 102 and 139. 



Chapter 41. _ The Negro School 

1 Caroline F. Ware, Greenwich Village (1935), pp. 455-461. 

2 Cited by Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color Line (1908) p. 247. 

8 John Dewey, "The Determination of Ultimate Values or Aims through Antecedent 
or A Priori Speculation or through Pragmatic or Empirical Inquiry," in The Scientific 
Movement in Education, the Thirty-Seventh Yearbook of the National Society for the 
Study of Education, Part 2 (1938), pp. 475-476. 

4 Booker T. Washington, Uf From Slavery (1901 ; first edition, 1900), pp. 29-30. 

5 Sir George Campbell, White and Black (1879), p. 259. 

"James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (1910; first edition, 1893), Vol. 2, 
p. 520. 

7 Qfrtit., p. S3- 



Footnotes 141 5 

8 Bryce, of. ch., Vol. 2, p. 320. 

•The Southern pro-slavery theory was expounded upon the principle of equality 
among the whites just as much as of their superiority over the Negroes (see Chapters to 
and 31). One of the glaring contradictions between philosophy and life in the Old South 
was, therefore, its aristocratic educational system which left the masses of poor whites 
altogether uneducated. This was seen by some of the pro-slavery advocates. George Fitz- 
hugh, for instance, wrote: • 

"We need never have white slaves in the South, because we have black ones. Our 
citizens, like those of Rome and Athens, are a privileged class. We should train and 
educate them to deserve the privileges and to perform the duties which societv confers 
on them. Instead, by a low demagoguism depressing their self-respect by discourses on 
the equality of man, we had better excite their pride by reminding them tli.it they do 
not fulfill the menial offices which white men do in other countries. Society does not 
feel the burden of providing for the few helpless paupers in the South. And we 
should recollect that here wc have but half the people to educate, for half arc Negroes; 
whilst at the North they profess to educate all. It is in our power to spike this last gun 
of the abolitionists. We should educate all the poor." {Sociology for the South [1854], 
p. 93; compare pp. 144, 147 ff., 255 ff., passim.) 

10 Before the Civil War many of the Northern states had separate schools for Negroes, 
but these were not very inferior to those for whites. Most colleges — with the notable 
exceptions of Oneida Institute, New York Central College, and Obeilin College (whose 
President was Horace Mann, the greatest leader of public education in the United 
States) — refused to accept Negroes, but three Negro colleges — Avery College (Pennsyl- 
vania, 1849), Ashmun Institute (now Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, 1854), Wilber- 
force University (Ohio, 1856) — were established there. (Sec Doxcy A. Wilkerson, 
"The Negro in American Education," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study 
[1940], Vol. 1, p. 91.) 

11 Horace Mann Bond, The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order 
( J 934)> P- 2I - See also Willis D. Weathcrford and Charles S. Johnson, Race Relations 
( ! 934)> PP- 35°"3S 1 ' South Carolina and Georgia had such laws in the eighteenth 
century. 

12 W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction (1935), p. 638. The Census of 1870 
reports that 1 8.6 per cent of all Negroes 1 o years old and over were literate. (U.S. Bureau 
of the Census, Negroes In the United State*: 1020-1032, p. 231.) This figure includes 
the ante-bellum free Negro population (who could go to school in the North), and it 
probably includes many Negroes whose literacy consisted in nothing more than ability 
to write one's name. Too, it refers to a date five years after the end of the Civil War. 

13 Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, p. 123. 

14 They have been very differently judged. A Southern white liberal in the previous 
generation, Thomas Nelson Page, wrote: 

"But the teachers, at first, devoted as many of them were, by their unwisdom alienated 
the good-will of the whites and frustrated much of the good which they might have 
accomplished. They might have been regarded with distrust in any case, for no people 
look with favor on the missionaries who come to instruct them as to matters of which 
they feel they know much more than the missionaries, and the South regarded jealously 
any teaching of the Negroes which looked toward equality. The new missionaries 
went counter to the deepest prejudice of the Southern people. They lived with the 



1416 Am American Dilemma 

Negroes, consorting with them, and appearing with them on terms of apparent intimacy, 
and were believed to teach tocial equality, a doctrine which was the rarest of all to aroow 
enmity then at now." (The Negro: the Southerner' s Problem [1904], pp. 38-39.) 
Modern Southern liberals are much more appreciative. T. J. Woofter, Jr., for instance, 
writes: 

"For some time after the Civil War these boards gave considerable more than money. 
They sent some of the choicest spirits in their ranks as missionary teachers. Facing dis- 
couragement, ostracism, and many other difficulties, these white teachers preserved 
the link of connection between the white race and the training of Negroes in the higher 
schools. They have left their indelible imprints upon such institutions as Fisk, Howard, 
Atlanta, Tougaloo, Talladega, Lincoln, Straight, Hampton, Clark, and Meharry Medi- 
cal College, as well as upon a number of smaller denominational high schools. The 
character and devotion of many of the well-trained Negroes of today is due largely to 
the efforts of these missionaries, and the South and the Negro race owe them much 
gratitude." (Basil of Racial Adjustment [1925], p. 194.) 

Negroes have been almost consistently appreciative of the "Yankee teachers." Booker 
T. Washington said: 

"Whenever it is written — and I hope it will be — the part that the Yankee teachers 
played in the education of the Negroes immediately after the war will make one of the 
most thrilling parts of the history of this country. The time is not far distant when the 
whole South will appreciate this service in a way that it has not yet been able to do." 
(Of. cit., p. 62.) 
Du Bois amplifies the praise even more: 

". . . which once saintly souls brought to their favored children in the crusade of the 
sixties, that finest thing in American history, and one of the few things uiftainted by 
sordid greed and cheap vainglory. The teachers in these institutions came not to keep 
the Negroes in their place, but to raise them out of the defilement of the places where 
slavery had wallowed them. The colleges they founded were social settlements; homes 
where the best of the sons of the freedmen came in close and sympathetic touch with 
the best traditions of New England. They lived and ate together, studied and worked, 
hoped and harkened in the dawning light. In actual formal content their curriculum 
was doubtless old-fashioned, but in educational power it was supreme, for it was the 
contact of living souls." (W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk [1903], p. 
IOO.) 

18 Paul H. Buck, The Road to Reunion 1865*1000 (1937), p. 166. 
16 Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, p. 667. 
1T Of. cit., p. 60. 

18 The difference in opinion existed before the Civil War. Free Negroes in the 
South had hoped the whites there would let them have schools if they were of the 
"industrial" type. In 1853, Frederick Douglass expressed himself as in favor of "an 
industrial school" when Harriet Beecher Stowe offered some money either for this or 
for an "educational institution pure and simple." He wished established "... a series 
of workshops, where colored people could learn some of the handicrafts, learn to work 
in wan, wood, and leather, and where a plain English education could also be taught." 
Hi* Opinion was ". . . that want of money was the root of all evil to the colored people. 
They were shut out from all lucrative employments and compelled to be merely barbers, 
Waitcn, coachmen and the like at wages so low that they could buy up little or nothing." 



Footnotes 141 7 

(See Frederick Douglass, Life and Timet of Frederick Douglas) [1941; first edition, 
»893], P- 3I5-) 

"Armstrong was one of the few "carpetbaggers" who did not come from New 
England} rather, he had been a missionary to the natives in Hawaii. This may explain 
the differences between him and the other leading carpetbaggers with respect to their 
attitudes toward Negro education. General O. O. Howard, for example, the head of the 
Freedmen's Bureau, established Howard University in Washington, D. C, as a liberal 
arts college. Similarly, General Swayne established the liberal arts Talladega College; 
and E. M. Cravath left the Federal Army to build up Fisk — a liberal arts college. 

20 Most of the facts about the work of the foundations in the educational field have 
been taken from Weatherford and Johnson (of. cit., pp. 363-364); from a 
pamphlet by Robert M. Lester, Secretary of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, 
"Corporation Grants for Education of the Negro" (November, 1941)1 an{ l from 
Bond (of. cit., pp. 130-144). 

21 The Peabody Fund was discontinued in 1 91 4 and divided its money between the 
Slater Fnnd and the George Peabody College for Teachers, at Nashville. Although only 
whites are taught at this college, they are given some understanding of Negro needs 
and abilities. 

22 While everyone agrees that the Jeanes teachers have made a great improvement 
in Southern Negro education, they have been criticized as overworked, disorganized, and 
inclined to bow too much to Southern folkways. Regarding the latter point, one white 
school superintendent in Louisiana stated: 

"Somehow they see only the best things in the colored schools in their parish. That's 
what they talk about — the rosy things. They forget about all the bad things, they just 
ignore them — never talk about them. Why, I've been to their meetings, and to he.ir 
them talk every one of them comes from the best parish in the state. They just see the 
world through rosc-colorcd glasses. You sec, that has the effect of leaving people who 
might do something about colored schools in ignorance." (Interview in Charles S. 
Johnson, "The Negro Public Schools," Louisiana Educational Survey, Section 8 
[1942], p. 40.) 

When judging the Jeanes teachers and their work — as so much else in Negro educa- 
tion — it should be remembered, however, that they are nothing else than heroic attempts 
to mitigate in a small way what is actually the result both of the extreme poverty and 
cultural backwardness in the Southern rural Negro community, and the outright dis- 
crimination against the Negro schools, which keeps them on an often incredibly low 
standard in regard to both equipment and training of teachers. When the Jeanes 
teacher is viewed in this setting, she becomes a remarkable and pathetic figure in the 
history of Negro education. 

28 Schrieke describes the activities and problems of the General Education Board 
supervisors: 

"For the most part it was the work of the state agents for the Negro schools, who 
emphasized the needs and grasped the opportunities. Nobody who has not actually seen 
them in their work can realize the difficulties they must face almost daily. Although 
nominally officers of the state departments of education, their salaries are paid by the 
philanthropic foundations; they are supervisors of Negro education but have no authority 
whatever. For their success must depend entirely upon the goodwill they manage to 
create and upon their personal prestige. They live and work in the South with its 



I4i8 An Amekican Dilemma 

prejudice*. Of cause they are Southerners themselves and know how far they can go, 
but they are restrained in their efforts by the milieu. They have to be extremely 
careful not to arouse sentiments that would impede the progress of their work. For their 
success they most depend upon the traditional paternalistic attitude towards the Negro 
who keeps in his place. They hare a definite task, but they are subordinate to the state 
superintendent of education, who may be an educator and an organizer, but who may 
also be a politician, playing partisan politics." (B. Schrieke, Alien Americans [1936], 
pp. 163-164.) 

The present writer has been equally impressed by the activity of the state agents for 
Negro education. To Schrieke's evaluation I should like to add a few observations. The 
independence of the agents, since they drew their salaries not from state funds but from 
an outside agency which could keep a control over their selection, has given this group 
of public servants a rare spirit of zeal and devotion which is now upheld as a great 
tradition. To the outsider, it is striking that this group contains individuals who are 
extraordinary in their surroundings on account of freedom from prejudice and 
thorough knowledge and understanding not only of the Negro school but of the whole 
setting of social and economic problems in which it is enclosed. Their policy could be 
called "progressive opportunism." 

84 Between 1913 and 1932, some 5,357 Negro school buildings in 15 Southern 
states were constructed with Rosenwald aid. "The total cost of these buildings was 
(28,408,520 of which $18,104,155 (64%) came from tax funds, $1,211,975 (4%) 
from personal contributions of white friends, $4,366,519 (15%) from the Julius 
Rosenwald Fund . . . and $4,725,871 (17%) in a flood of small contributions from 
Negroes themselves— striking evidence of the desire of members of this race for 
schooling for their children." (Edwin R. Embree, Julius Rosenwald Fund: Review 0/ 
Two Decades, 1917-1036 [1936], p. 23.) 

Doxey Wilkerson makes the following comparison: 

"When the number of 'Rosenwald buildings' constructed during this 20-year period 
is compared with the total number of Negro schools in 1 2 States for which information 
is available, it will be seen that the number of buildings constructed with Rosenwald 
aid is equivalent to about one-fifth (20 per cent) of the total number of Negro school 
buildings in 1935-36. More than one-fourth of the Negro school buildings in 
Arkansas, Louisiana, and Maryland, and nearly one-third in North Carolina and 
Tennessee were constructed with Rosenwald aid. Similarly, in the 10 States for which 
information is at hand, the amount of money invested in 'Rosenwald buildings' is 
equivalent to nearly one-third (32 per cent) of the total value of Negro school 
property in 1935-36. In South Carolina the corresponding proportion is more than 
one-half, in Arkansas nearly three-fourths, and in Mississippi nearly nine-tenths." 
(Doxey A. Wilkerson, Special Problems of Negro Education [1939], pp. 32-33; 
Wilkerson's sources are David T. Blose and Ambrose Caliver, Statistics of the Education 
of Negroes: 1033-34 *>*<l'935"36> U.S. Office of Education, Bulletin No. 13 [1938], 
p. 22, and Negro Year Boot: 1937-38 [1937], p. 185.) See also, U.S. Office of 
Education, Biennial Survey of Education in the United States: 1934-36, Bulletin No. % 
(1938), Vol. 1, pp. 80-89. 

M For a recent, good impressionistic survey of both white and Negro colleges and 
universities in the South, see Virginius Dabney, Below the Potomac (1942), pp. 139" 
176 and 126-233. 



Footnotes 1419 

"Charles 8. Johnson, Shadow of the Plantation (1934), p. 129. 

w Page, of. tit., pp. 295-297- 

M Kelly Miller, Out of the Howe of Bondage (1914), pp. X 5 1-154. 

29 The latt point, and the entire caste issue, it illustrated by the following quotation 
from Thomas Nelson Page: 

"At this point, the question arises: How shall they [the Negroes] be improved? 
One element says, Improve them, but only as laborers, for which alone they are fitted; 
another, with a large charity, says, Enlarge this and give them a chance to become 
good mechanics, as they have shown themselves capable of improvement in the industrial 
field; a third class goes further yet, and says, Give them a yet further chance — a chance 
to develop themselves; enlighten them and teach them the duties of citizenship and 
they will become measurably good citizens. Yet another says, Give him the opportunity 
and push him till he is stuffed full of the ideas and the learning that have made the 
white race what it is. 

"The last of these theories appears to the writer as unsound as the first, which is 
certainly unsound. Keep them ignorant, and the clever and the enterprising will go off 
and leave to the South the dull, the stupid, and the degraded. 

"The question is no longer a choice between the old-time Negro and the 'new issue', 
but between the 'new issue', made into a fairly good laborer and a fairly enlightened 
citizen, who in time will learn his proper place, whatever it may be, or the 'new 
issue', dull, ignorant, brutish, liable to be worked on by the most crafty of those who 
would use him; a noisome, human hot-bed, in which every form of viciousness will 
germinate." (Of. cit., pp. 299-300.) 

80 "Student labor is two-fold in its object, instruction and production, knowledge 
and support) . . . To destroy the industrial system would . . . destroy its best results, 
and place it beyond the reach of the most needy and deserving class of pupils." (Report 
of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute [1875], pp. 6-7.) 

81 W'mfield H. Collins, The Truth about Lynching and the Negro in the South 
(1918), pp. 154-155. 

,2 Within the same city, public schools for whites offer different vocational training 
than do public schools for Negroes: 

"In Little Rock, for example, the white schools offer printing, aviation, automobile 
retail selling, and cosmetology; the Negro schools offer bricklaying, carpentry, automo- 
bile mechanics, and sewing. In Pine Bluff four vocations were offered in the white and 
Negro high schools — carpentry and automobile mechanics in both of them — with book- 
keeping and typing making up the third and fourth for the whites and cooking and 
sewing for the Negroes; in Anniston, Alabama, five for whites and none for Negroes; 
Phoenix City, two for whites, one for Negroes; Selma, similar number. In a few 
instances the Negroes had more courses, but in general they had fewer courses and 
more of the most menial ones." (Arthur Raper, "Race and Class Pressures," unpub- 
lished manuscript prepared for this study [1940], p. 230.) Raper bases his information 
on a questionnaire returned by 88 Negro high school principals of the South. 

"Charles S. Mangum, Jr., Legal Status of the Negro (1940), pp. 132-133. 

M A vigorous and detailed plea for giving the Negro special training to meet special 
problems may be found in Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro 
(»933>- 



1420 An American Dilemma 

Junes Weldon Johnson gives a good account of these idea* at they have become 
common among Negro intellectuals today: 

"The old pattern was designed to give us a sound general education, an education 
to fit as to take our places as intelligent American citizens. That idea of education is 
fundamental and right; for whatever may be the opinions and attitudes on the matter, 
the solid fact remains that we are, for good or ill, a part of American civilization. We 
may be segregated and Jim-Crowed, bnt there is no way to subtract or extract us from 
American life; so we must be prepared to keep adjusted to it, to keep pace with it. 
And that means that our institutions must give Negro youth as good, as broad, and as 
high an education as is correspondingly given to white youth. 

"But we need not only an education that will enable us to meet the general situation 
as American citizens, we need also an education that will enable us to meet our peculiar 
situation as Negro Americans. 

". . . the teaching of history to Negro youth should not confine itself to the experi- 
ences of the race in America, but should explore the achievements that lie in the African 
background. A study of the African cultural background will give our youth a new and 
higher sense of racial self-respect, and will disprove entirely the theory of innate race 
inferiority. . . . 

"What I have said about the teaching of American history is to be said also about 
the teaching of economics, political science, sociology, literature, and other of the arts. 
It is something pretty close to a waste of time for Negro students to study the laws of 
economics without being given an interpretation of the effects of those laws on the 
economic and industrial plight of Negro Americans. In teaching the science of govern- 
ment, what is purely academic should be supplemented by inferences drawn from 
government as it is constituted, maintained, and enforced in the United States and the 
various states, and from its operation on Negro Americans as a group. I do not in the 
least advocate that our colleges become any part of political machinery or touched by 
partisan politics, but I firmly believe that special political education of Negro youth is 
a proper and necessary function for them. The political history of the race should be 
reviewed; independent political thinking should be inculcated; political rights and 
responsibilities should be explained, and preparation for exercising those rights and 
assuming those responsibilities should be given." (Negro Americans, What Note? 

[»934)»PP- 48-49.) 

86 "The stimulation of race pride demands that colored pupils be taught more of the 
history and achievements of their own jace. The growing body of literature by colored 
writers should be studied and the accomplishments of colored men of mark held up 
as inspiring examples." (Woofter, of. cit., p. 183.) 

88 See Part VII. It is remarkable that segregation is upheld even in the institutions 
for higher learning and even in the graduate schools. This is, of course, related to the 
fact that colleges in America generally stress the social side of life so much (the so- 
called extra-curricular activities) and the scholarly side less. In the South this stress is 
even more apparent. Even the graduate schools in the South do not have much of the 
spirit of the age-old ideal of the "academic republic" where abstract truth-seeking is 
supreme and where age, nationality, language, and other individual characteristics are 
ignored. It is probable, however, that segregation will first break down, if ever, in the 
graduate institutions. 



Footnotes 142 1 

Wilkerson polled 838 student* in a white land-grant college in the Deep South on the 
inne of mixed education and reports the following reaction. 

Qnestions and Choices Percentage of Total 

Presented Students Students (N = 83 8) 

"I. If a few Negroes are admitted by order of court or legislature: 
'Should the other students leave in frotestf 

(a) Certainly should not 23 

(b) Probably should not 17 

(c) Can't say; not sure 9 

(d) Probably should 16 

(e) Certainly should 34 

"II. If a student plans to enter, but learns a few Negroes might be 

enrolled: 'Should he enter the institution anyway?' 

(a) Certainly should 21 

(b) Probably should 1 5 

(c) Can't say; not sure 7 

(d) Probably should not 19 

(e) Certainly should not 37 

"III. If a few Negroes arc admitted by order of court or legislature: 

'How should the other students treat themV 

(a) Go out of the way to be friendly to them 0.4 

(b) Make no advances but accept their presence in good grace 46 

(c) Can't say; not sure 7 

(d) Deliberately ignore them so they'll feel they are not 
wanted 27 

(e) Organize to make life miserable for them; try to force 
them to leave 20 

"IV. If court or legislature orders admission of Negroes: 'Out of a 
class of 100, how many might be Negroes before their fresence 
would create a serious problem?' 

O-i 49 

2-5 >9 

6-11 17 

16 and over 1 5" 

(Wilkerson, "The Negro in American Education," pp. 183-1 84.) 

87 See, for instance, Robert R. Moton, What the Negro Thinks (1929), p. 1 1 4. 

88 W. E. B. Du Bois, "Does the Negro Need Separate Schools?," Journal of Negro 
Education (July, 1935), p. 335. 

Booker T. Washington, in reply to an inquiry from whites on how to accomplish 
segregation in the North, said: 

"A6 a rule, colored people in the Northern States are very much opposed to any plana 
for separate schools, and I think their feelings in the matter deserve consideration. The 
real objection to separate schools, from their point of view, is that they do not like to 



1422 An American Dilemma 

feel that they are compelled to go to one school rather than the other. It Menu at if it 
was taking away part of their freedom. This feeling i» likely to be all the wronger where 
the matter is made a subject of public agitation. On the other hand, my experience is 
that if this matter it left to the discretion of the school officials it usually settles itself. 
As the colored people usually live pretty closely together, there will naturally be 
schools in which colored students are in the majority. In that case, the process of 
separation takes place naturally and without the necessity of changing the constitution. 
If you make it a constitutional question, the colored people are going to be opposed 
to it. If you leave it simply an administrative question, which it really is, the matter 
will very likely settle itself." (Quoted in Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe, 
Booker T. Washington [1916], pp. 42-43.) For another similar situation, see Moton, 
of. tit., pp. 112 S. 

••Schrieke, of. tit., pp. 166-167. 

40 The latter type may be exemplified by the following quotation from Schrieke: 

". . . the same curriculum is taught in the Negro schools as in the white, and the 
same books are supposed to be used. The children are grouped in grades, but, as a matter 
of fact, these grades have only a theoretical value which does not correspond with that 
which the white schools attach to it. I found pupils in an eighth grade studying com- 
mercial geography without maps, and in another place I found them studying the state 
history. In both cases they understood almost nothing of the subjects, with the result 
that the geography and history classes simply developed into very poor reading classes — 
poor because the worst kind of training in reading is the reciting of words and sentences 
which have no meaning for the reader. I have seen textbooks on literature used when 
the pupils did not understand one word of what they read. The English was far too 
difficult. I found seventh- and eighth-grade pupils unable to spell 'April* or 'cotton.' " 
{Of. tit., pp. 160-161.) 

41 The theory behind it may be exemplified by the following quotation from Willis 
D. Weatherford: 

"Perhap the weakest point in the Negro school is its maladjusted course of study. 
Most of the Negro children are located in the rural districts. These children, like the 
white rural children, arc being taught from books made almost entirely by city teachers 
and adapted to city children. They talk about problems and situations arising in urban 
communities. The city is glorified and the country neglected. This has a tendency to 
make the rural child dissatisfied with the rural surrounding, and desirous of getting 
away to the city . . . but if nine-tenths of the material in their readers and histories 
relates to things that do not concern their daily life, how can we expect their school 
work to give them any appreciation of their surroundings? . . . There is a great need 
that we have two sets of text books, one for the rural children and one for the urban . . . 
the body of the text for the rural child will deal with the materials at hand. It will 
teach him the beauty of nature, and it will help him observe the birds and bees, the 
flowers and plants and trees; it will help him see new beauty in the growing crops and 
the fallow fields. Who would dare say there was not as much real culture in studying 
the life about him as in studying the life offered by the city zoo? . . . What the rural 
child needs — and especially is this true of the Negro child — is a new ability to interpret 
the life that surrounds him." (Weatherford and Johnson, of. tit., pp. 360-361.) 



Footnotes 1423 

Chapter 42. The Negro Press 

I Wfllii D, Weatherford and Charles S. Johnson, Race Relations (1934), p. 48$. 
8 Frederick G. Detweiler, The Negro Press in the United States (1922), p. 79. 
•"The Negro Press — Today and Tomorrow," Opportunity (July, 1939), p. 205. 

4 Florence Murray (editor), The Negro Handbook (1942), p. 201. (The figures 
tie taken from a U.S. Bureau of the Census report for 1940.) 

B The Negro Handbook, p. 201 . 

•The U.S. Bureau of the Census reported that there were 210 Negro newspapers 
in 1940, but only 155 reported their circulation figures. These 155 newspapers reported 
«t combined circulation per issue of 1,276,600. (Cited in The Negro Handbook, p. 
201.) The eminent Negro journalist, George S. Schuyler, estimates that the total 
circulation of the weekly Negro newspapers is around 1,600,000 (Pittsburgh Courier, 
May 9, 1942). We feel conservative in speaking of the circulation as around one and 
a half millions. The Pittsburgh Courier has the largest circulation of all Negro news- 
papers; it sells about 141,500 copies weekly. The Chicago Defender is second, with 
a weekly circulation of about 83,500. (Ayer's Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals 
[1942], pp. 845, 217.) 

7 Estimate based on the assumption that there are one and a half million Negro 
newspapers sold per week. (See text footnote in this chapter.) Johns estimates that a 
third of Negro adults in Chicago "regularly read" Negro newspapers. (Elizabeth D. 
Johns, "The Role of the Negro Newspaper in the Negro Community," unpublished 
manuscript made available through the courtesy of the author [1940].) 

8 Detweiler, op. cit., pp. 6-7. 

In an unpublished study of certain localities in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, 
Charles S. Johnson found that more Northern newspapers were read than local ones. 
Cited by Detweiler, op. cit., pp. 10-11. 

10 The following historical notes are based mainly on G. James Fleming, "The 
Negro Press," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940); and Detweiler, 
op. cit. 

II Op. cit., p. 39. 

12 James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan (1930), p. 15. 

18 Irvine Garland Penn, Afro-American Press and Its Editors (1891), pp. 112-114. 

14 Fleming, op. cit., pp. II: 4-5. 

u Ibid., p. Ill: 12. 

10 In February, 1 91 9, the town of Somerville, Tennessee, decreed that no "colored 
newspapers" might be circulated in that town, but that tvety "darkey" must read a 
newspaper edited by a Confederate veteran. (Detweiler, op. cit., p. I.) In February, 
1921, an agent for the Philadelphia American was lynched in Athens, Georgia. Whites 
claimed that he had murdered a white woman; Negroes claimed that his only crime was 
to have tried to build up a Northern Negro newspaper's circulation. (Ibid^ p. 20; tee 
also pp. 19-22.) 

17 PM, although a daily, does not have complete coverage of the newt, and it has a 
higher price than usual. Its attention to national Negro issues and protests, however, it 
said to have given it a large circulation among Negroes in New York and Washington, 
especially those in the upper classes. PM docs not, however, give the Negro society, 



1424 An American Dilemma 

religious and organizational news. It does not, therefore, attempt to substitute for a 
Negro newspaper. Nevertheless, and in spite of tWi pronounced pro-Negro attitude, 
a New York Negro newspaper was disturbed by the competition and admonished 
Negroes to stick to the Negro press. Something like PM is the Chicago Sun, which is a 
newspaper also owned by Marshall Field. 

18 Fleming, of. cit., p. VII: 11. In a footnote on the same page, Fleming draws the 
following parallels: 

"In New York the Hearst Evening Journal (now the Journal-American) and the 
Amsterdam News (Negro) ; in Chicago Hearst's Herald Examiner and his American 
(now merged as the Herdd- American) and the Chicago Defender (Negro) ; in Pitts- 
burgh the Hearst's Sun-Telegraph and the Pittsburgh Courier (Negro)." 

19 "Gist of numerous interviews with editors and publishers." Ibid., p. VIII: 3. 

20 See Johns, of. cit., pp. 79 S. 

21 Fleming, of. cit., p. IV: 36. 
S /W,p. IV: 43. 

28 E. Franklin Frazier, Negro Youth at the Crossteays (1940), p. 289. 

24 Park, of. cit., p. 113. 

28 See Fleming, of. cit., Chapter VI. 

26 Ralph J. Bunchc, "The Political Status of the Negro," unpublished manuscript 
prepared for this study (1940), Vol. 6, p. 1303. Also see ibid., pp. 1251-1252, for 
a concrete example of attempted corruption of the Negro press. 

27 White neighborhood businesses might, however, have an interest that a Negro 
newspaper should not preach the advantages of Negro business too much. The duty 
to favor Negro business is, however, such an important part of the dominant Negro 
ideology that no Negro newspaper would dare to come out against it. But it is worth 
noticing that many Negro newspapers have kept cool or critical toward local movements 
with the slogan "Don't buy where you can't work." For such an attitude there are 
perfectly honest reasons (see Chapter 38, Section 6), but an additional reason might 
be the advertising from white businesses in Negro neighborhoods, which is usually 
much more substantial than the advertising from Negro businesses. 

In two cases I have been told by Negro editors that Jewish merchants in Negro 
neighborhoods have made representations as advertisers against an occasional story with 
an anti-Semitic tendency. In both cases the editors explained that there was no conflict, 
as they, themselves, were against any anti-Semitism among Negroes, and that the stories 
had been slips. 

38 This whole problem of the economy o£ Negro newspapers and the outside financial 
controls deserves study. In general terms the problem is often touched upon in Negro 
public discussion. P. B. Young, the editor of the Norfolk Journal and Guide, writes 
thus: 

"How to advocate our cause without suffering the prohibitions which modem business 
places upon agitation is a question which every Negro publisher has to answer in defining 
a business policy that will blend with the ideals for which the Negro press must con- 
tend." ("The Negro Press— Today and Tomorrow," p. 205.) 

29 See Fleming, of. cit., Chapter X. 

80 The A.N.P. asks for a small weekly fee. It is frequently accused of acting more 
as a publicity agent for some institutions and groups than as an impartial news service. 
The director ". . . denies that ANP ever 'sells out' its news service to any party, although 



Footnotes 1425 

he makes no secret of the fact that subjects of pictures are generally asked to under- 
write the cost of cut* and mats." {Ibid., p. X: 4.) 

"Edwin Mims, The Advancing South (1926), p. 268. 



Chapter 43.. Institutions 

1 "Should the Negro Care Who Wins the War?" The Annals of the American 
Academy of Political and Social Science (September, 1942), p. 84. 

3 The reader interested in the controversy may wish to compare the two points of 
view aa expressed in two pieces of research: E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family 
in the United States (1939); Melville J. Herskovits, The Myth of the Negro Past 
(1941). See also these authors' reviews of each other's books: Herskovits' review of 
Frazier: Nation (January 27, 1940), pp. 1 04-105; Frazier's review of Herskovits: 
Nation (February 14, 1942), pp. 195-196. 

Herskovits earlier took just the opposite stand from the one he now takes. In 1925, 
he was even more extreme than Frazier in denying an African tradition: "What there 
is today in Harlem distinct from the white culture which surrounds it is as far as I am 
able to see, merely a remnant from the peasant days in the South. Of the African 
culture, not a trace. Even the spirituals are an expression of the emotion of the Negro 
playing through the typical religious patterns of white America." ("The Negro's 
Americanism" in Alain Locke (editor), The New Negro [1925], p. 359.) 

8 "In the small upper class, where it [licensed marriage] has been accepted in form 
and in meaning, it is altered chiefly by the emphasis and symbolism it has acquired. For 
this class marriage is bound up with the moral and religious ideas of sin and virtue. It 
carries the stern obligation of continence and fidelity, and is regarded as a solemn 
contract upon which rest the stability and ultimately the meaning of the family. Since 
marriage is expected to be permanent and binding, it is entered into with deliberation 
and formality. To this group the courtship is highly important. Its form resembles that 
in analogous white circles today, but the emphasis and the somewhat ceremonial flavor 
are reminiscent of earlier white patterns. . . , 

"In such courtships the idea of sexual relations before marriage would be scandalous. 
It is considered essential that the girl be a virgin when she is married, and that the 
marriage be legal, usually with a church ceremony. No member of this class in Cotton- 
ville has had a divorce or separation. Their code requires that a marriage be maintained 
even if it is not sexually or temperamentally satisfactory. For them divorce carries the 
stigma it had in most white communities a generation ago, and which it still carries in 
certain rural white communities today. 

"Toward adultery also, this small group maintains an attitude more general among 
whites of a generation ago, regarding it as an unforgivable sin." (Hortense Powder- 
maker, After Freedom [1939J, pp. 149-150.) 

* We may present some samples of what is available in the way of legal divorce and 
desertion statistics: In Mississippi, in 1934, the divorce rate for Negroes was 4.4 per 
IOO marriages, while for whites it was 12.6 per 100 marriages (Frazier, of. cit., 
p. 379). In Chicago, in 1921, the Court of Domestic Relations reported that official 
recognition of desertion was given to 414 couples in which the husband was Negro. 
This was 15.6 per cent of all desertions recognized, and it is to be compared with the 



1426 An American Dilemma 

fact that Negroes constituted only 4.1 per cent of Chicago's population in 1910. (Figures 
on desertion from Ernest R. Mowrer, Family Disorganisation [1939]* p. 95. Population 
figures are from the Fourteenth Census of the United Stetes: ia»o, Population, Vol. 
Ill, Table 13.) 

* Some of the donbling up is dne to the presence of collateral relatives in the house- 
hold. In a study of 612 rural Negro families in Macon County, Alabama, 30 per cent 
of the families were found to contain 1 to 6 relatives. (Charles S. Johnson, Shadow 
of the Plantation [1934], p. 29.) 

6 Charles S. Johnson, "Negro Personality Changes in a Southern Community," in 
£. B. Renter (editor), Race and Culture Contacts (1934), p. 216. Most of the facts in 
this paragraph are taken from Charles S. Johnson and from £. Franklin Frazier. 

T Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deef South (1941), 
p. 113. 

* As noted in Chapter 40, Section 3, we hare calculated this figure simply by taking 
the total number of members reported by Negro churches (as reported in the census of 
Religious Bodies: 1936) and dividing it by the total Negro population in 1940. The 
resulting figure is much too low as a measure of the proportion of Negro church 
members because: (1) the Negro population grew between 1936 and 1940; (2) some 
of the smaller Negro churches are overlooked in the Census; (3) children are usually 
not included in the church figures but are included in the population figures. It it also 
to be noted that the figure cited in the text does not include Negroes who were members 
of "mixed" churches. 

'Richard Wright, 12 Million Black Voices (1941), p. 131. 

10 B. E. Mays and J. W. Nicholson, The Negro's Church (1933), p. II. 

11 J. G. St. Clair Drake, "The Negro Church and Associations in Chicago," unpub- 
lished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), pp. 388-39;. 

u For a discussion of the lower class Negro preacher, see Drake, "The Negro Church 
and Associations in Chicago," pp. 366-371. 

is «The Methodists and Baptists look down upon the Sanctified, considering their 
noise and dancing somewhat heathenish." (Powdermaker, of, cit., p. 234.) 

14 Drake, "The Negro Church and Associations in Chicago," p. 434. 

18 Of. eit^ pp. 102, 139, 253. 

10 Guion G. Johnson and Guy B. Johnson, "The Church and the Race Problem in 
the United States," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), Vol. 2, 
pp. 217 ff. 

17 Ibid., pp. 296-298. 

"Idem. 

19 ". . . Negroes regularly attend church whether Christians or sinners. They have 
not yet accumulated wealth adequate to the construction of clubhouses, amusement 
parks and theaters, although dance halls have attracted many. Whether they derive any 
particular joy therefrom or not, the Negroes must go to church, to see their friends, 
as they are barred from social centers open to whites. They must attend church, more- 
over, to find out what is going on ; for the race has not sufficient interests to maintain 
in every locality a newspaper of its own, and the white dailies generally mention 
Negroes only when they happen to commit crimes against white persons. The young 
Negro must go to church to meet his sweetheart, to impress her with his worth and woo 
her in marriage, the Negro farmer to find out the developments in the business world, 



Footnotes 1427 

the Negro mechanic to learn the needt of hit community and how he may supply 

them." (Carter G. Woodson, The History of the Negro Church [1911 ], pp. 267-268.) 
ao 

OaOANIZATIONS AND ACTIVITIES OF 6oQ UftSAN CHURCHES 







Number of 


Per Cent 


Organizations and Activities 


Churches 


Frequency 


Pleaching 




609 


100.0 


Union services and interchurch 


cooperation 


609 


1 00.0 


Missionary societies 




609 


100.0 


Clubs (Social, Educational, Kir. 


kancial) 


609 


100.0 


Sunday church school 




608 


99.8 


Poor relief 




59° 


96.9 


Revivals 




S61 


93.1 


Choirs 




5°3 


81.6 


Young People's work 




398 


65.4 


Prayer Meetings 




388 


63.7 


Recreational work 




191 


3M 


Pastors' aid boards 




77 


n.6 


Gymnasium classes 




30 


4-9 


Church papers 




ai 


3-6 


Extension work in missions 




21 


3-4 


Feeding the unemployed 




18 


3.° 


Junior churches 




»3 


a. 1 


Daily vacation Bible school 




10 


1.6 


Benevolent societies 




6 


1.0 


Clinic (free) 




S 


0.8 


Motion pictures 




s 


0.8 


Cooperate Y. W. and Y. M. C. A. 


s 


0.8 


Girl Scouts 




5 


0.8 


Boy Scouts 




5 


0.8 


Kindergarten 




4 


o-7 


Nurseries (day) 




3 


O.J 



Source: Benjamin E. Mays and Joseph W. Nicholson. The Nipo'i Church (IP33). pp. ISS-IS3. 

21 W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk ( 1 903), p. 190. 

M Allison Davis, "The Negro Church and Associations in the Lower South," unpub- 
lished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), pp. 63-64. 

23 Drake, "The Negro Church and Associations in Chicago," pp. 273-274. 

u lbid., pp. 274-277. 

25 The information for this paragraph on the relation of church to politics is taken 
from ibid., pp. 231-235, and from Harold F. Gosnell, Negro Politicians (193$), 
pp. 94-100. 

M Gosnell, of. cit., pp. 94-100. We have noted, in Chapter 22, Section 4, that the 
Northern Negro manifests unusual interest in politics. 

27 Davis, of. cit., p. 83; and Powdermaker, of. cit., p. 238. 

as The facts in the remainder of this paragraph are taken from Mays and Nicholson, 
of. cit., pp. 168-197. 

89 Ibid., p. 195. 

•°This can be inferred from Table 4 since practically all Northern Negroes are 



1428 An American Dilemma 

urban. It u aim direct!}' corroborated by Doxey A. Wilkerson, Special Problems of 
Negro Education (1939), p. 7. 

81 David T. Blose and Ambrose Caliver, Statistics of the Education of Negroes: 1933- 
1934 and 1935-1936, U. S. Office of Education, Bulletin No. 13, (1938), p. 2. Also 
see other statistics in that study. 

82 Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Population. Preliminary Release, 
Series P-10, No. 8. 

88 Charles S. Johnson, "The Negro Public Schools," Louisiana Educational Survey, 
Section 8 (1942), p. 66. 

84 Wilkerson records some of the other conclusions of such scholastic achievement 
tests: 

"They have demonstrated such facts as these: (1) that the extent of racial differences 
in scholastic achievement varies markedly among different school systems; (2) that such 
differences are greater in segregated than in nonsegregated schools; (3) that there is 
close correspondence between the extent of racial differences in scholastic achievement 
and racial differences in school environment; (4) that differences between the achieve- 
ments of white and Negro pupils in Northern school systems are attributable almost 
entirely to scholastic deficiencies on the part of Negro migrants from impoverished 
school systems in the South; and (5) that Negro graduates of Northern high schools 
maintain better scholastic records in Southern Negro colleges than do graduates of 
Southern Negro high schools." (Wilkerson, of. eit., p. 153.) 

One of the best of these investigations was the Rosenwald Survey of 10,023 children 
in the third and sixth grades in 16 Southern counties. This is reported in Horace Mann 
Bond, The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order ( 1 934), pp. 3 39-349. 
Other studies are listed by Wilkerson (of. cit,, p. 153): 

"Doxey A. Wilkerson, 'Racial Differences in Scholastic Achievement, 9 Journal of 
Negro Education III (1934), pp. 453-77, and 'A Racial Index Number of Relative 
Educational Efficiency for Virginia County and City Systems of Schools,' Virginia 
Teachers Bulletin IX (1932), pp. 1-5, 8-iz; Charles H. Thompson, 'A Study of the 
Reading Accomplishments of Colored and White Children,' unpublished master's thesis, 
The University of Chicago, 1920, and 'The Educational Achievements of Negro 
Children,' Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, CXL 
(1928), pp. 193-208; J. H. Johnston, 'Graduates of Northern High Schools as 
Students at a Southern Negro College,' Journal of Negro Education, II, (1933), 
pp. 484-6; T. E. Davis, 'A Study of Fisk University Freshmen from 1928 to 1930,' 
Journal of Negro Education, II (1933), pp. 477-83; and Forrester B. Washington, 
'The Negro in Detroit' (Detroit: Bureau of Government Research, 1926)." 

8E Ambrose Caliver, Vocational Education and Guidance of Negroes, U.S. Office of 
Education, Bulletin No. 38 (1938), p. 12. 

89 In Nashville, Tennessee, for example, the President of the Board of Education 
admitted in court (February 23, 1942) that there is a larger percentage of Negro 
teachers with college degrees in the schools of Nashville, than there is of whites. 
(NAA.C.P. news release [February 27, 1942]). 

* r Negro teachers in the city schools sometimes manifest their upper class status to 
the detriment of the lower classes of Negroes. Frazier (E. Franklin Frazier, Negro 
Youth at the Crossways [1940], p. 282) records that they sometimes use their teaching 
positions to advance their own status and cites the case of a school principal who did 



Footnotes 1429 

not wiah to hire the correct number of under-nourished pupils reported because the did 
not want to be known as the principal of a "poorhouse." Frazier and others report that 
light-skinned upper class Negro teachers sometimes make it hard for dark-skinned 
lower class pupils. {Ibid., pp. 96-99.) Davis and Dollard, for example, say about the 
dark-skinned pupil: 

"He finds that he is not granted these privileges ; instead he is stigmatized by teachers 
and their favored students on grounds of the 'ignorance' of his parents, the dialect 
which he speaks, the appearance of his clothes, and, very likely, the darkness of his 
akin. It does not take him long to discover that something is wrong and that the 
teacher's 'pets' of high status are the only ones who can make the prestige goal 
responses. If there is no reward for learning, in terms of privilege and anxiety- 
reduction, there is no motive for work. The lower-class child soon becomes a 'dummy'. 
Frequently he is openly aggressive toward the teacher; if not, he plays hookey, and he 
displaces his aggression from the powerful teacher to the more vulnerable upper-clast 
and upper-middle-class pupils. He becomes like his parents, 'bad' and 'ignorant.' " 
(Allison Davis and John Dollard, Children of Bondage [1940], p. 285.) 

88 Wilkerson, of. cit. t pp. 39-40. 

89 Ibid., p. 40. "From another point of view, though Negroes constitute about 24 
percent of the total rural population in these 1 8 States, they had only 7 percent of the 
rural high schools in 1933-34 and formed 4 percent of the rural high school enroll- 
ment. By contrast, whereas Negroes constitute about 21 percent of the urban population, 
they had 30 percent of the 1933-34 urban high schools and 14 percent of the urban 
high school enrollment. It is in rural areaa, primarily, that Negroes fail to share the 
benefits of public secondary education." (Ibid., p. 41.) 

40 There were 70 public junior colleges in these states for whites, enrolling 17,695 
students. {Ibid., pp. 44-4;.) 

41 Ibid., p. 64. 

* 2 Fred McCuistion, Graduate Instruction for Negroes in the United States (1939), 
p. 39. The five Negro institutions offering graduate work before 1937 are: Howard, 
Fisk, Hampton, Atlanta and Xavier. By 1939 nine Southern states had no provision for 
the education of Negroes on the graduate and professional level. Two other states 
claimed to offer graduate instruction in their public colleges (Texas and Virginia) but 
the quality of such instruction was very poor, and its range very limited. The remaining 
six states and Virginia, offered to Negro students scholarships which could be used either 
in the private universities within the state or in out-of-state universities. These scholar- 
ships, however, are not granted freely. The District of Columbia has Howard Univer- 
sity. 

48 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1900; translated by Henry Reeve; 
first edition, 1835), pp. 114-118; James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (1910; 
first edition, 1893), p. 294; Max Weber, "Geschaftsbericht," Verhmdlungen des 
Ersten Deutschen Soziologentages vom 10-22 Oktober, 1010 in Frankfort a.M. (1911), 
translated for private use by E. C. Hughes (1940), pp. 52-60. 

44 Drake, "The Negro Church and Associations in Chicago," p. 438. 

48 Davis, oj>.eit.,p. 139. 

"Herbert Goldhamer, "Voluntary Associations," unpublished manusciipt (1937), 

pp. 107-112. 



14JO An Amsmcaxt Dilemma 

* T J. G. St. Clair Drake, "Churches and Voluntary Associations in die Chicago 
Negro Community," W.P.A. District 3, Chicago: project under the supervision of 
Horace R. Cayton (December, 1940), p. 185. 

"0^«*.,p. 55. 

49 Drake, "Churches and Voluntary Association! in the Chicago Negro Community," 
pp. 207 and 282. (The latter page has statistical substantiation of the fact that lower 
class Negroes join fewer associations than do upper class Negroes.) 

*° Finding a Way Out (1920), p. 170. 

01 Out of 22 local Urban League secretaries responding to a questionnaire sent out 
for our study, all but one reported that lodges and fraternal orders were decreasing 
among Negroes in their respective cities, and that Negro youth were showing less and 
less interest in them. (T. Arnold Hill, "Churches and Lodges: Digest and Analysis of 
Questionnaires Submitted by Urban League Secretaries for 'The Negro in America,' " 
unpublished manuscript prepared for this study [1940], pp. 14-15.) Also see Drake, 
"The Negro Church and Associations in Chicago," p. 500; and Harry J. Walker, 
"Negro Benevolent Societies in New Orleans," unpublished manuscript available at 
Fisk University (Nashville, Tennessee) (1936), p. 305. 

83 Hil], of. cit,, p. 13, According to Drake, it was mainly the lower class Negroes who 
left the lodges within the past ten years, since they were primarily interested in the 
death benefits given by lodges until the latter became financially unstable during the 
1930's. ("The Negro Church and Associations in Chicago," pp. 500-502.) 

68 Criticism of the waste of money by Negro lodges and clubs is made by many 
Negro leaders. See, for example, James Weldon Johnson, Negro Americans, What 
Note? (1934), pp. 3**34- 

M As late as the 1930's, there were between 300 and 600 benevolent and mutual 
aid organizations among Negroes in New Orleans. This was much more than among 
whites in that city. (See Walker, of. cit., p. 18. This is, by far, the best study of Negro 
lodges that has come to our attention.) 

58 £. Nelson Palmer, "A Note on the Development of Negro Lodges in the United 
States," unpublished manuscript prepared for this study, under the direction of Guy B. 
Johnson (1940), p. 12. Palmer bases this statement on two sources: Howard W. Odum, 
Social and Mental Traits of the Negro (1910), p. 99; and Carter G. Woodson, "Insur- 
ance Business among Negroes," The Journal of Negro History (April, 1929), pp. 
203-204. 

M W. E. B. Du Bois (editor), Some £ forts of American Negroes for Their Own 
Social Betterment (1898), p. 17. 

07 The Story of the Negro (1909), Vol. 2, pp. 168-169. Both the Du Bois and the 
Washington evaluations are quoted in Palmer, of. cit., pp. 14-15. 

88 Also see Abram L. Harris, The Negro as Cafitdist (1936), p. 178. 

59 Cited in Hill, of. cit., p. 16. In a few communities in the Deep South, lodges 
have a few judicial functions. 

"On St. Helena Island, for example, a man rarely goes to court before first laying 
the case before his local lodge, 'praise house,' or church. Few cases even reach the 
courts, for most of them are settled satisfactorily by these lodge and church 'courts', 
including some rather serious offenses, such as theft and assault." (T. J. Woofter, Jr., 
Black Yeomanry [1930], pp. 238-242, summarized by Guy B. Johnson, "Some 



Footnotes 143 i 

Factor! in the Development of Negro Sochi Institutions in the United States," The 
American Sound of Sociology [November, 1934], p. 336.) 
•° Drake, "The Negro Church and Associations in Chicago," p. 440. 

Chapter 44. Non-institutional Asfeett of the Negro Community 

1 Negro spokesmen have glorified the Negro's ability to enjoy life and have found 
in it a means of group survival. James Wei don Johnson long ago said: 

"These people talked and laughed without restraint. In fact, they talked straight from 
their lungs and laughed from the pits of their stomachs. And this hearty laughter was 
often justified by the droll humour of some remark. I paused long enough to hear one 
man say to another: 'Wat's de mattah wid you an' yo' fr'en' Sam?' and the other came 
back like a flash: 'Ma fr'en'? He ma fr'en'? Man! I'd go to his funeral jes' de same as 
I'd go to a minstrel show.' I have since learned that this ability to laugh heartily is, in 
part, the salvation of the American Negro; it does much to keep him from going the 
way of the Indian." (The Autobiografhy of an Ex-Coloured Man [1927s first edition, 
191a], p. 56.) 
More recently, W. E. B. Du Bois has claimed: 

"This race has the greatest of the gifts of God, laughter. It dances and sings: it is 
humble; it longs to learn; it loves men; it loves women. It is frankly, baldly, deliciously 
human in an artificial and hypocritical land. If you will hear men laugh, go to Guinea, 
'Black Bottom,' 'Niggcrtown,' Harlem. If you want to feel humor too exquisite and 
subtle for translation, sit invisibly among a gang of Negro workers. The white world 
has its gibes and cruel caricatures; it has its loud guffaws; but to the black world alone 
belongs the delicious chuckle. . . . We are the supermen who sit idly by and laugh and 
look at civilization. We, who frankly want the bodies of our mates and conjure no 
blush to our bronze cheeks when we own it. We, who exalt the Lynched above the 
Lyncher, and the Worker above the Owner, and the Crucified above Imperial Rome." 
(Dusk of Dawn [1940], pp. 148-149.) 

2 "The death of Denmark Vesey and Nat' Turner proved long since to the Negro 
the present hopelessness of physical defense. Political defense is becoming less and less 
available, and economic defense is still only partly effective. But there is a patent defense 
at hand, — the defense of deception and flattery, of cajoling and lying. It is the same 
defense which the Jews of the Middle Age used and which left its stamp on their 
character for centuries. To-day the young Negro of the South who would succeed 
cannot be frank and outspoken, honest and self-assertive, but rather he is daily tempted 
to be silent and wary, politic and sly; he must flatter and be pleasant, endure petty insults 
with a smile, shut his eyes to wrong; in too many cases he sees positive personal 
advantage in deception and lying. His real thoughts, his real aspirations must be 
guarded in whispers; he must not criticize, he must not complain. Patience, humility, 
and adroitness must, in these growing black youth, replace impulse, manliness, and cour- 
age. With this sacrifice there is an economic opening, and perhaps peace and some 
prosperity. Without this there is riot, migration, or crime. Nor is this situation peculiar 
to the southern United States, — is it not rather the only method by which undeveloped 
races have gained the right to share modern culture? The price of culture is a Lie." 
(W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk [1903], pp. 204-205.) 



1432 An American Dilemma 

8 See, for example, B. Schrieke, Alien Americans (1936), pp. 150-151, and James 
Weldon Johnson, Negro Americans, What Now? (1934), pp. 85-86 fesshn. Negro 
intellectuals, as the group which is rising most rapidly, are especially jealous of each 
other. That it one reason why they are so critical of Negro leaders. A Negro friend of 
the author's, shortly after he confided that, in his opinion, certain Negro leaders accom- 
plished absolutely nothing for the race, received an excellent position in a white institu- 
tion dne to the efforts of one of the leaders he so severely criticized. 

4 Allison Davis, Burleigh B. Gardner, and Mary R. Gardner, Deep South (1941), 
p. 244. 

I "In spite of emancipation Negroes still feel it necessary to conceal their thoughts 
from white people. In speech and in manner they may convey the impression of con- 
currence and contentment when at heart they feel quite otherwise. In these recent 
days the psychologists have come to call this a 'defense mechanism,' and some are sure 
that it is the only thing that enables the Negro to survive in his contact with the white 
man. Negroes are sometimes warned, even now, that they dare not manifest any resent- 
ment toward mistreatment; that the safest policy to pursue is to acquiesce in the judg- 
ment of those white people who have manifested a friendly attitude toward them and 
appeal to their consciences for the redressing of wrongs and correction of abuses. Small 
wonder that the Negro is so generally secretive." (Robert R. Moton, What the Negro 
Thinks [1929], pp. 12-13.) 

6 Hortcnse Powdermaker, After Freedom (1939), p. 286. 

7 See Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men (1935), pp. 229-287, and Newbell N. 
puckett, Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro (1926). 

8 In 1930, 58.3 per cent of all Negroes living in the North and West were Southern- 
born, counting Missouri in the North. With continuing migration, a low birth rate, 
and a recalculation putting Missouri in the South, the proportion today would no doubt 
be higher. (U. S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1920-10 32, 
p. 22.) 

8 For an analysis of Negro words that refer to personality types, see Samuel M. 
Strong, "The Social Type Method: Social Types in the Negro Community of Chicago," 
unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago (1940). 

10 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Eleventh Census of the United States: xSgo, "Crime, 
Pauperism, and Benevolence," Vol. 1, p. 126. 

II See Guy B. Johnson and Louise K. Kiser, "The Negro and Crime," unpublished 
manuscript prepared for this study (194a), pp. 65 and 291 ff. 

12 Ibid., p. 95. A similar criticism of Negro crime statistics is given by one of the 
nation's leading students of crime: 

"Conclusions have been reached that the Negro is responsible for a 'larger proportionate 
share of crime'; and that 'the Negro has committed more crime than any other racial 
group'; and that 'the Negro crime rate as measured by all comparative records is greater 
than that of the white.' . . . The data hitherto compiled from the sources discussed, 
permit only one conclusion, namely, that the Negro appears to be arrested, convicted and 
committed to penal institutions more frequently than the white. Any other conclusion 
would be based on the assumption that the proportionate number of arrests, convictions 
or commitments to the total number of offenses actually committed is the same in both 
groups. This assumption is untenable, for there are specific factors which seriously 
distort the arrest, conviction and commitment rates for Negroes without affecting these 



Footnotes 1433 

rates for whites in a similar manner. No measurement has as yet been devised for the 
evaluation of these factors." (Thorsten Sellin, 'The Negro and the Problem of Law 
Observance and Administration in the Light of Social Research," in Charles S. Johnson, 
The Negro in American Civilization [1930], p. ++7.) 

18 "Negro Criminality," Journal of Social Science (December, 1899), pp. 78-98. 

14 Edwin H. Sutherland, "White-Collar Criminality," American Sociological Review 
(February, 1940), pp. 1-12. 

15 Johnson and Kiser, of. cit., p. 347. There are other ways in which white criminals 
divert suspicion from themselves to Negroes; see Hid., pp. 345-348. 

18 After making a special analysis of some statistics on homicides in the South collected 
for this study by George K. Brown, A. J. Jaffe concludes: "It appears statistically signif- 
icant that a Negro who murders a white man receives a much stiffer penalty than if he 
murders a Negro. On the other hand, a white man can murder another white man with 
about the same (or perhaps even more) impunity as one Negro can murder another. 
Also a white can murder a Negro with relative freedom from punishment." (Unpub- 
lished memorandum prepared for this study [August 19, 1940].) Brown's data are in 
Appendix B of Johnson and Kiser, of. cit. Johnson and Kiser also present some data 
which further corroborate this point; see ibid., pp. 358-362 and Appendix D. Independ- 
ently, Powdermaker has presented some similar data for Mississippi {of. cit., pp. 395- 

30). 

With respect to parole and probation, the U. S. Bureau of the Census reported: "It 
is quite apparent . . . that Negroes remain in the institutions to the expiration of their 
sentence in much greater proportions than do whites." {Prisoners in State and federal 
Prisons and Reformatories: 1939 [ 1941 ], p. 43.) With respect to length of prison term, 
it reported: ". . . among the State prisoners, the Negroes generally served longer periods 
of time than did the whites. ... h is quite apparent that whites served less time than 
Negroes in the Southern States, for murder, manslaughter, burglary, forgery, rape, and 
other sex offenses. The whites serve a little longer for aggravated assault, and for larceny 
. . . [and] for auto theft." {Ibid., p. 70.) 

The 'Detroit survey reported similar findings: 

"The Detroit survey disclosed that of the number of whites convicted of felonies 
13.5 per cent were given the alternative of a fine or a prison sentence while only 7.1 
per cent of the Negro felons were so favored. Over 12 per cent of the white defendants 
were placed on probation as compared with 7.2 per cent Negroes. Similar disproportions 
were revealed in the number of suspended sentences. The Detroit Survey is typical of 
situations throughout our state jurisdictions." (Nathaniel Cantor, "Crime and the 
Negro," The Journal of Negro History [January, 193 1 ], p. 63.) 

1T E. Franklin Frazier, "The Pathology of Race Prejudice," The Forum (June, 
1927), p. 860, 

18 Johnson and Kiser, of. cit., 41 1-412. 

19 Interview (November 18, 1942). 

80 Johnson and Kiser, of. cit., pp. 258-263. 

21 Ibid., p. 212. 

82 For examples of false accusations of rape for which Negroes have been arrested 
and punished, see The Negro Year Book: 1031-1932 (i93»). PP- *9i-*9 8 - Also 
see Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color Line (1908), pp. 8-9. 

28 R. M. Lightfoot, Jr., Negro Crime in a Small Urban Community (1934), pp. 30 



1434 An American Dilemma 

and 62; tee, alio, pp. 24.-28. For similar evidence of the high proportion of minor 
offense* among Negro arrest*, aee Maurine Boie, "An Analysis of Negro Crime Statistics 
for Minneapolis for 1923, 1924 and 1925," Opportunity (Jane, 1928), p. 173; H. P. 
Brinton, "Negroes Who Run Afoal the Law," Social Forces (October, 1932), pp. 98- 
99; B. P. Chamberlain, The Negro and Crime in Virginia (1936), p. 107; Ira DeA. 
Reid, Social Conditions of the Negro in the Hill District of Pittsburgh (1930), pp. 59- 
60 ; Detroit Bureau of Governmental Research, The Negro in Detroit (1926), Section 9, 
p. 8; and H. L. Andrews, "Racial Distinctions in the Courts of North Carolina," 
unpublished M.A. thesis, Duke University (1933), p. 50. This footnote and the quota- 
tion to which it refers is taken from Johnson and Kiser, of, cit., pp. 201-202. 

24 The Mayor's Commission on Conditions in Harlem, ''The Negro in Harlem: A 
Report on Social and Economic Conditions Responsible for the Outbreak of March 19, 
1935." typescript (1936), pp. 97-99- 

28 The study was made by New York City's Welfare Council. It is summarized in the 
Report of the Sub-Committee on Crime and Delinquency of the City-Wide Citizens' 
Committee on Harlem (1942), p. 5. 

20 Johnson and Kiser, op. cit., p. 216. 

37 "Many colored tenants do not regard the taking of small amounts of stock or cotton 
from their landlords as stealing but rather as a just compensation for the money stolen 
from them by their landlords in the reckoning of accounts or for the beatings admin- 
istered to them by their landlords. Under the systems of economic control and intimi- 
dation exercised by the landlord, the colored tenant often justifies his thefts on the 
grounds that his only means of securing his fair share of the proceeds from his crop 
is by the use of stealth." (Davis, Gardner, and Gardner, of. cit., pp. 395-396.) 

"One of my earliest recollections is that of my mother cooking a chicken late at 
night, and awakening her children for the purpose of feeding them. How or where 
■he got it I do not know. I presume, however, it was procured from our owner's farm. 
Some people may call this theft. If such a thing were to happen now, I should condemn 
it as theft myself. But taking place at the time it did, for the reason that it did, no one 
could ever make me believe that my mother was guilty of thieving. She was simply a 
victim of the system of slavery." (Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery [iooi; 
first edition, 1900], pp. 4-;.) 

28 "This system has many bad results. It encourages the Negro in crime. He knows 
that unless he does something pretty bad, he will not be prosecuted because the landlord 
doesn't want to lose the work of a single hand; he knows that if he is prosecuted the 
white man will, if possible, 'pay him out,' It disorganises justice and confuses the 
ignorant Negro mind as to what is a crime and what is not. A Negro will often do things 
that he would not do if he thought he were really to be punished. He comes to the 
belief that if the white man wants him arrested, he will be arrested, and if he protects 
him, he won't suffer, no matter what he does. Thousands of Negroes, ignorant, weak, 
indolent, to-day work under this system." (Baker, op. cit., p. 97.) 

29 Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay, Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas 

(1942). 

80 Some have claimed that Negroes had leu mental disease before Emancipation than 
afterward, supposedly because they received better care under slavery and did not have 
to worry about the struggle for existence. See: (1) J. W. Babcock, "The Colored 
Insane," Alienist end Neurologist (1895), pp. 423-447; (2) A. H. Witmer, "Insanity 



Footnotes 1435 

in the Colored Race in the United States," Alienist and Neurologist (January, 1891), 
pp. 19-30. 

81 The facta in this paragraph have been taken from (1) Benjamin Malzberg, "Men- 
tal Disease among American Negroes: A Statistical Analysis," in Otto Klineberg (editor), 
Characteristics of the America* Negro, prepared for this study, to be published, manu- 
script pages $-6; (2) Solomon P. Rosenthal, "Racial Differences in the Incidence 
of Mental Disease," Journal of Negro Education (July, 1934), pp. 484-493. 

88 Malzberg, of. cit., manuscript pages 7 ff. 

M Rate* standardized to hold age constant: New York City (19*9-1931): Negroes — 
*33> Whites — 104. (.Ibid., manuscript page zi.) 

M Iiid.y manuscript pages 8 ff. 

aB Their poverty and younger average age, in addition to their concentration in cities, 
would help explain why Negroes have more dementia praecox. (See Rosenthal, of. cit., 
p. 490) 

88 "Psychotic Symptoms and Social Backgrounds" in M. Bentley and E. V. Cowdry 
(editors), The Problem of Mental Disorder (1934), pp. 339*345. 

87 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics — S fecial Reforts, Mortality Summary 
for U. S. Registration States: Suicide (September 19, 1942), Table E. 

98 Frank Tannenbaum describes the lack of recreational patterns in the rural South, 
with special reference to the whites: 

"Studies of rural social life in single-crop areas have shown that there are few 
parties, few picnics, few dances, and fewer public meetings. In one locality over 70 per 
cent of the people had not attended a party during the year, over 90 per cent had 
not been to a dance, over 80 per cent had neither participated in nor attended an athletic 
exhibition, and over 70 per cent had not been to a public meeting. 

"And in one county only one family had seen a moving picture show during the 
year. . . . The weekly visit to the nearest town 19 the only break in the monotony of 
life. This monotony is so great that a public hanging has been known to attract mothers 
with children in their arms, who have come trooping for miles to get some contact with 
other people." (Darker Phases of the South [1924], pp. 1 39-140.) 

88 "Rural life has its period of intense work and its period of dull and uneventful 
calm. When the soil is being broken and prepared for crops, all hands strong enough 
for the plow are engaged from early sunrise to sundown. Again when the crop matures 
and particularly when the cotton is ready for picking, idleness and leisure are costly. 
Between seasons the most common answer to die question about how and where the 
children play is likely to be 'We don't do nothing, mostly just sit and talk.' " (Charles 
S. Johnson, Growing Vf in the Black Belt [1941], p. 170.) 

*° There seem to be few caste restrictions on hunting and fishing, partly because they 
supplement the food supply of meagerly fed plantation tenants, partly because there is 
an element of "sportsmanship" and "fair play" in hunting and fishing traditions. 
Negroes sometimes hunt and fish with whites; they are seldom deprived of their game; 
they are usually left undisturbed in the spots they have chosen to hunt and fish; and 
there are few segregated fishing and hunting places. (See Arthur Raper, Preface to 
Peasantry [1936], pp. 396-397-) 

41 See Charles S. Johnson, Growing Vf in the Black Belt, pp. 184-185 and zz8; for 
an excellent picture of this sort of amusement, see Richard Wright's story, "Big Boy 



1436 An American Dilemma 

Leaves Home," in Uncle Tom's Children (1938), and Zora Neale Hurston, Then- 
Eyes Were Watching God (1937), especially pp. 98-109 and 200-202. 

43 James Weldon Johnson tells of this recreation in a small Southern town: "We 
always went to the railroad station on Saturdays to see the four trains come in and go 
out. ... I never saw anybody that I knew getting off, but there was a faint excitement 
in watching the traffic. At any rate, I got an understanding of why country people love 
to meet passing trains." {Along This Way [1934I, p. 1 14.) 

43 Much of all the recreational life in the rural community is carried on in and around 
the church, which is the natural meeting place in the community (see Chapter 43, 
Section 3) ; in some areas the church tries to provide healthful organized recreation for 
the young people in the form of social and athletic clubs (see Charles S. Johnson, 
Growing Up in the Black Belt, pp. 175 ff.). 

44 In Charles S. Johnson's study of 916 families in the rural Deep South, only 1 7.4 
per cent of the families had radios (ibid., p. 55). Some of the younger children had 
never heard a radio {ibid., p. 183). The census figures indicate that only .003 per cent 
of the Negro families in the rural Deep South had radios as compared to 1 1 .9 per cent 
of the white families. {Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Vol. 
VI, State Tables 16 and 4.) 

45 In Charles S. Johnson's study 27.6 per cent of the homes had victrolas {Growing 
Up in the Black Belt, p. 56). Unfortunately, certain companies producing records have 
issued a special series for Negroes, "race records," many of which arc vicious and obscene, 
and these were widely sold in the rural areas. (Donald R. Young, American Minority 
Peoples [1932], pp. 306-307, and Forrester B. Washington, "Recreational Facilities for 
Negroes," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 
[November, 1928], p. 279.) 

40 For a discussion of how rural patterns of recreation are considered normal in the 
county and delinquent in the city, see Charles S. Johnson, Growing Up in the Black 
Belt, pp. 186-187. 

47 Black Manhattan (1930), pp. 162-163. 

48 For a discussion of amateur theatricals among Negroes, see Sterling A. Brown, 
"The Negro in American Culture: Section D — The Negro on the Stage," unpublished 
manuscript prepared for this study (1940), pp. 148 ff. 

49 In the past all-day excursions, especially where facilities were available along the 
Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and along the sea coast, were popular with rural Negroes; 
they even developed their own excursion steamers. (Washington, op. cit., p. 279.) This 
form of recreation seems to have disappeared. 

60 Young, op. cit., p. 296. 

B1 "In a recent survey of the Negroes of Richmond, Virginia, 698 men and 889 
women were asked what they did for amusement. 'Going to church* was placed first 
by 198 men and 331 women; 'movies and theaters' by 134 men and 254 women; 91 
men and 176 women 'played with their children* or 'enjoyed their homes and friends.' 
Reading was reported by 101 men and 88 women. And 91 men and 93 women 
had no amusements or recreations whatever. 'Smoking, hunting and fishing' were 
extremely popular with men. Society or lodge meetings, sewing and fancy work, 
were favorites of the women. Music, singing, and playing of musical instruments were 
named repeatedly by both men and women. Almost everything in life was mentioned 
by a sprinkling of both as an amusement: 'walking,' 'drinking,' 'eating,' 'sleeping,' 



Footnotes 1437 

'praying,' 'resting,' "working,' 'gardening,' 'traveling,' 'sitting around,' 'using snuff,' 
'helping to make others happy,' 'policy playing,' 'automobile riding,' etc." (Ibid., pp. 
269-270.) 

88 Charles S. Johnson, The Negro College Graduate (1938), p. 339. 

M Alain Locke, Negro Art: Past and Present (1936), pp. 34-42 and 93-1 17. 

"TAw* (May n, 1942), p. 53. 

86 Black Manhattan, p. 87. 

*• Brown, "The Negro in American Culture: Section D — The Negro on the Stage," 
p. 16. 

67 Ibid., pp. 7 and 12. 

88 James Weldon Johnson gives the following evaluation of the minstrel shows: 

"Minstrelsy was, on the whole, a caricature of Negro life, and it fixed a stage tradi- 
tion which has not yet been entirely broken. It fixed the tradition of the Negro as only 
an irresponsible, happy-go-lucky, wide-grinning, loud-laughing, shuffling, banjo-playing, 
singing, dancing sort of being. Nevertheless, these companies did provide stage training 
and theatrical experience for a large number of coloured men. They provided an 
essential training and theatrical experience which, at the time, could not have been 
acquired from any other source. Many of these men, as the vogue of minstrelsy waned, 
passed on into the second phase, or middle period, of the Negro on the theatrical stage 
in America; and it was mainly upon the training they had gained that this second 
phase rested." (Black Manhattan, p. 93.) 

69 Alain Locke, The Negro and His Music (1936), pp. 57 and 70. 

60 See Vernon Winslow, "Negro Art and the Depression," Offortunity (February, 
1 941), pp. 42 and 62. 

el Sterling A. Brown, "The Negro in American Culture: Section G — Music," 
pp. 208-212. 

82 Locke, The Negro and His Music, pp. 18-27. 

63 Ibid., p. 30. 

®* "Part of the 'coon-songs' popularity comes from the vicarious enjoyment by 
white audiences of things forbidden. Goldberg says that 'what the whites were thinking 
in the gilded Nineties, the blacks were singing.' (Isaac Goldberg, Tin Pan Alley 
[1930], p. 156.) The franker side of sex, the 'gold-digging,' fighting for one's man or 
one's woman, the various degrees of sexual proficiency, could be mentioned if the actors 
involved were Negro. But to approach the borderline between the genteel and the 
gross, to venture into the risque, to mention the unmentionable, was 'not damaging to 
one's social or business reputation,' if the songs were about Negroes. Negro life was the 
fantastic Cockaigne, beckoning to the inhibited, offering escape no less attractive for 
being droll. Today Hollywood stars, such as Mae West and Marlene Dietrich, in the 
roles of sirens of the 'nineties, sing as throatily as they are able, the hot numbers of 
Negro honkytonks as their mating-calls." (Brown, "The Negro in American Culture: 
Section G — Music," p. 90.) 

85 See, for example, Nick Aaron Ford, The Contemporary Negro Novel (1936), 
passim, especially pp. 94-102. 

88 Time (August 28, I933)> P- 3*- 

87 "The Negro-Art Hokum," Notion (June 16, 1926), p. 66a. 



1438 An American Dilemma 

Chapter 45. America Again at tie Crostnadi m the Nigra Problem 

1 A parallel analysis of the relationship between war and improvement m the statu 
of Negroes may be found in Guion G. Johnson, "The Impact of War Upon the 
Negro," Journal of Negro Education {July, 1941), pp. 596-611. 

2 Horace R. Cayton, "The Morale of the Negro in the Defense Crisis," unpublished 
manuscript of paper read to the 20th Annual Institute of the Society for Social Research, 
The University of Chicago (August 15, 1941), p. II. 

Cayton reflected pessimistically: 

"It is not that any of these men or groups are really interested in changing in any 
fundamental way, the position of the Negro in the United States. This would prove, in 
most instances, just as embarrassing to them as it would to those leaders who are 
interested in an immediate declaration of war. But the Negro presents a 'pat' argument 
for those who want to say that democracy should be built at home. Nevertheless, the 
Negro was thrilled to at last have national figures speak about this plight on the radio, 
from the platform and in the newspapers. Neglected, for the most part, by the pro-war 
groups, the anti-war crowd has made a deep impression on the Negro public." (Idem.) 

8 There is a question whether Negroes have identified themselves with other colored 
peoples as much as Southern whites have identified American Negroes with Japan. A 
confidential public opinion poll taken before Pearl Harbor showed that the South, with 
no Japanese population, was more anti-Japanese than Americans on the West Coast, 
who had a definite Japanese problem. Also symbolic is the following AP dispatch from 
Atlanta, Georgia (from the New York Herald Tribune [April 5, 1942], p. 3). 

"Atlanta children were heard reciting this wartime rhyme: 

'Eenie, meenie, minie, moe, 
Catch the emperor by the toe, 
If he hollers make him say: 
"I surrender to the U.S.A." * " 

This, of course, is a paraphrase of the doggerel containing an anti-Negro sentiment, 
known to tray American child (in two versions): 

"Eenie, meenie, minie, moe, 
Catch a nigger by the toe 
If he hollers, let him go 
Eenie, meenie, minie, moe." 

"Eenie, meenie, minie, moe, 
Catch a nigger by the toe 
*' If he hollers, make him pay 

Fifty dollars every day." 

* Raleigh Neat and Observer (May 3, 1942). 

"Earl Brown, "American Negroes and the War," in Harper's Magazine (April, 
1942), p. 546. 

e Hc*ace &. Cayton, "Fighting for White Folks?," Nation (September 26, 1942)1 
p. 268. 



Footnotes 1439 

7 "The Negro in the Political Life of the United States," Journal of Negro Eiuca- 

(Jnly, 19**), P- 583. 
•Cayton, "The Morale of the Negro in the Defense Crisis," p. 14. 
• "Shadow* of the Slave Tradition," Survey Graphic (November, 1942), p. 467 

10 New York Timet, April 3, 1942. 

11 Cited in New York Times, July 20, 1941. 

18 W. E. B. Dn Bois, Darkteater (1920), p.. 236. 
18 Guion G. Johnson, of. tit., pp. 609-610, 

** Letter (August 13, 1942). 

16 Cited from PM (August 16, 1942), p. 17. 
"Along This Way (1934), p. 41 >• 

17 American Unity and Asia (1942), p. 29. 
" Ibid., p. 25. 

19 Contemporary China. A Reference Digest, published by Chinese News Service, Inc. 
(August 10, 1942). 

20 The Negro Question (1890), p. 48. 

81 Following the Color Line (1908), p. 305. 



INDEX 



Abbott, Grace, on public relief, 354 

Abbott, Robert S., 914 

Ability to pay, 113, 334 

Abolitionist movement, 86, 87, 447, 736n.; 
and Negro church, 860; Negroes in, 737- 
738; and woman suffrage, 1075, 107611. 

Abortion, 176, 177, 1107, 1225-1116 

Absentee ownership, 244 

Abyssinian Baptist Church, 863n. 

Accommodating leadership, 507-508, 683, 

7*°, 735i 739-740, 74i-743i 86ii 9'°S 
and class, 727-7335 factors decreasing 
importance of, 722m; in the North, 722- 
723. 733. personalities, 734-735 
Vccommodation (see also Compromise be- 
tween accommodation and protest), 592, 
682, 1050, 105511.; in merging into class 
protest, 793; of Negro press, 913; and 
Negro schools, 880; nonpolitical agencies 
for, 858-859; under protest, 760; of 
upper class Negroes, 764-766 

Achievements: of N.A.A.C.P., 832-833$ 
Negro, books glorifying, 1393; Negro, 
personal, 734-735, 753) 9 6 °« 9«6-994. 
1428 

Actors, Negro; see Theater, Negroes in, 
and Movies, Negroes in 

Adams, James Truslow: cited, 1188-89; on 
the American dream, 5-6; on Negro back- 
ground, 44 

Adaptability, Negro, 1 396 

Administration: low standards of (see also 
Law, lack of respect for, in America), 
404, 43*-433i 434-435> 55«i moderniza- 
tion of, 436-437, 544> weakness of, 
7i6n., 1009 

Adult education, 3431 3* 8 > * 86 » 9<>6-9°7i 

7»3 
"Advancing" on credit basis, 247 
Advertising in Negro press, 922, 1424 
Advisors, Negro, in government bureaus 
{see also Officeholders, Negro and Fed- 
eral Council 503-504) 



Advisory Committee on Education, 1172- 
1273 

Africa: Garvey's "Empire" of, 7*7-748; 
post-war plans for 806-807 

African ancestry, 117-120, 1200, 1201 

African culture, 747-748, 752-753, 918 

African heritage, 698, 930 

African Orthodox Church, 8 6 in., 8640. 

African theme in art, 990 

Age : and class structure, 1 1 3 1 ; of Negro 
domestic workers, 1086 

Age structure of Negro population; see 
Population, Negro, age structure of 

Aggressiveness, Negro, 763-764, 957-958 

Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 
»97> 21*. 254, 558) >>83i 1252-1253; 
and cotton economy, 255-256; evaluation 
of, 265-270; influence of, toward mecha- 
nization, 260; loca'. administration of, 
258-259; and the Negro, 256-258; 
referenda, 488-489, 490, 1325; segrega- 
tion in, 1247-1248 

Agricultural Extension Service, 272, 343, 

347. "53 
Agricultural labor; see Agriculture, Negroes 

in 
Agricultural policy: constructive measures 

toward, 270-273 ; dilemma of, 264-265 
Agricultural reform; see Land reform 
Agriculture: Department of, 272, 343, 347; 

Negroes in, 225, 231-250, toot, 1386; 

over-population in, 950; problem of, 230- 

231; trends in, 251-253, 4631 types of, 

*35"*37 

Aid to the Blind, 3$8n., 359 

Aid to Dependent Children, 358n., 359- 
360, 1286 

Air Force, Negroes in, 421, 1308 

Aircraft production, Negroes in, 413-414, 
415, 424 

Alabama: birth control program in, 1226; 
death penalty in, 55+n.; educational re- 
quirements for voting in, 484; fines in, 
441 



\AAf, 



Index 



54911. i Negro police in, 543«M poll tax 
in, 1324 j terror organization in, 4495 
transportation, Jim Crow in, 635 5 voting 
in, 48811.! white primary in, 486 

Alabama Women's Democratic Club, 81211. 

Alabama Women's League for White 
Supremacy, Si an. 

Alcohol, use of, by Negroes, 980-981 

Alexander, W. W., 467, 843* *44> *47> >49 

Allen, James S., cited, 750 

Allen, William G., 737 

All-Negro communities, 48011., 488n., 621 

All-Negro political movements, 490, 50011., 
817-819, 851-852 

Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and 
Tin Workers, »n8 

Amalgamated Clothing Workers, tuo 

Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher 
Workmen, 11 23 

Amalgamation {see also Miscegenation), 
105-106, 113, 728, 808, 927; beliefs 
fostered to discourage, 1085 denial of, 
to Negroes, see Anti-amalgamation doc- 
trine} fear of, 586-587, 589, 590-5915 
feeling against, in the North, 57-58, 6031 
of foreign-born, 50, 51-535 Negro atti- 
tudes toward, 56-57, 1187 

Ambivalence of attitude: emotional and in- 
tellectual, 39-40 ) of Negro leaders, 772- 
773i 774. 775 1 of Negro upper class, 
794-797 i of whites, 957, 959, 1 1 89 

American Association of University Women, 

469 
American Civil Liberties Union, 81 2n., 

«55n. 
American Colonization Society, 805-806 
American Creed, xlvi-xlvii, 209, 581, 
7i7n.j acceptance of, in South, 461-462, 
690, 888, 893, 895, 8961 as basis for 
Negro struggle for equality, 7995 belief 
of Negroes in, 4, 510, 808-809, 88o, 900, 
9465 changing, 5745 conflict of, with 
caste system, 812, 8995 and democracy, 
7835 departure of South from, 875 de- 
velopment of new consciousness of, 5685 
economic phase of, 212, 2145 and educa- 
tion, 709, 879, 8S2, 893, 1 182 j and 
equality, 213, 429, 671-672, 11895 
formative stage of, 23-245 and freedom 
of mobility, 1985 gradual realization of, 
1021-10245 influence of, 80, 88-89, no, 
3*3i 4-*o, 585, 591, 662, 792, 1010, 
iozoj and living conditions, 1695 as na- 
tional conscience, 235 and national unity, 
7-8, 131 not lived up to, 13-14, 21, 52, 
3 •» 6- an obstacle to elimination of Negro 
population, 1705 restraining influence of, 
8ooi,revitalization of, 409, 4395 rooted 



in Christianity, 9-12, 7575 rooted in 
English law, 125 rooted in philosophy of 
Enlightenment, 8-9, 1181-11825 substan- 
tiation of, by science and education, 92- 
93i 9*"97i 1105 as system of ideals, 3-55 
as value premises for this book, 23-25, 

5*«i 573> 8S*-«5Ji 9*7 
American Federation of Labor, 402, 403, 
405n., 406, 855, 1096, 11025 discrimina- 
tion in, 1298-1299, 1 300 5 founding of, 
12975 principle of nondiscrimination in, 

79* 
American Federation of Musicians, 330 
American Institute of Public Opinion, 893n. 
American League for Peace and Democracy, 

8i2n. 
American Medical Association, 179 
American Red Cross, segregation policy of, 

«3»» »3«7 

American Revolution, 710, 9975 Negro 
soldiers in, 1308 

American society and the Negro problem, 
relationship between, lii-lv 

American Youth Commission, 649, 699^, 
893n., 1272 

Americanization: and class etiquette, 6145 
of immigrants, 927-9285 and race prej- 
udice, 603; of the South, ion 

Ames, Jessie Daniel, 8465 cited, 13355 on 
Interracial Commission, 844, 845 

Anarchism; philosophical, 4345 tendency to- 
ward, 16 

Ancestry: African, 117-120, 698, 1200, 
12015 Indian, ii3n.| pride of, 747, 
901 j qualification for voting, 480 

Anderson, Marian, 734, 735, 988, 99m. 

"Anglo-Saxon rate" 5 see "Nordic race" 

Anthony, Susan B., 1075 

Anti-amalgamation doctrine 52n., 53-58, 
586-587, 589-591, 928, 13545 bolstered 
by inferiority theory, 1025 Negro attitude 
toward, 62-655 psychological nature of, 
59-60 

Anti-democratic movement, 433 

Anti-lynching legislation, 502, 517, 565, 
829, 1350 

Anti-Semitism, 53, 852, 1x86, 1190, 1321, 
1331, 1424 

Anti-Slavery Convention, io76n. 

Anti-social tendencies, factors fostering, 

331-33* 
Anti-strike policy, 425 
Apathy: on Negro problem in the North, 

5165 political, 476, 483, 490, 493 
Apollo Theater, 329 
Appointive offices, Negroes in, 501-502, 503- 

504, S3S 
Archer, William, 676, 6975 cited, 562, 
6765 on anomalous position of Negro, 



Index 



1443 



in, 



64.1-64*} on conrti ud justice, 54.71 on 
Jim Crow in railway system, 58a, 13531 
on Negro body odor, 12131 on prohibi- 
tion, 4.57 1 on racial war, 13801 on 
Southern resentment against Negroes, 582, 
V3S0 

Arizona: expenditures for education 
1271 1 achool segregation in, 633 

Arkansas: no Negro police in, 54-3n.j poll 
tax in, 132+j riots in, 567, s68n.j terror 
organization in, 449; voting in, 4.83, 
4880.} white primary in, 486 

Armament industries; see War production 

Armed forces; see Army and Navy, Negroes 
in 

Armstrong, Henry, 734, 9030., 988 

Armstrong, Louis, 988 

Armstrong, Orland K., cited, to9on. 

Armstrong, S. C, 889, 898, 1417 

Army: discrimination and segregation in, 
744, 850, 1005; Negroes in, 419-423, 
1308-1309; Negroes in, and white 
Southerners, 563, 663 

Art: African theme in, 990; Negro, white 
patronage of, 990-991 

Artisan tradition, 280, 887, 889, 898, 1254- 

i*55 

Artists, Negro, 329-330, 654, 9*9i 99 1 

Ashby, William M., cited, 1176 

Associated Negro Press, 923, 1424 

Associated Publishers, 1393 

Assimilation; see Amalgamation 

Association of Southern Women for 
Prevention of Lynching, 565, 846 

Association for the Study of Negro Life 
and History, 75 1-752 $ purposes and 
achievements of, 1393 

Associations: in American life, 712, 810, 
811; Negro, see Organizations, Negro, 
also Business and professional organiza- 
tions, Improvement organizations, and 
Voluntary associations 

Atlanta Daily World, 9080.-909^ 

Atlanta riot of 1906, 567, 680 

Atlanta University, 326, 888, 889, S92, 
141 6, 1429 

Atlantic Charter, 806 

"Attitude," loose usage of term, 1138} rea- 
son for not using term, 1031 

Attitudes, race: inconsistencies of, 1140- 
1141; quantitative studies of, 1136-1143. 
1186 

Atwood, Jesse H, on separation of white 
and Negro churches, 1412 

Author's Preface, ix-xx 

Automobile industry: Negroes in, 4'3> 
IM9-II22J unionization of, 1121-1122; 
wages in, 11 21 



the 



Australian ballot, see Secret ballot, not 
used in parts of South 

Back-tc-Africa movement, 185-186, 698, 
746-7491 805-807 

Bahai Church, 87111. 

Bailer, Lloyd H., cited, 1121-1123 

Bailey, Thomas P.: cited, 562; on cheating 
of Negroes, 516} on race prejudice, 43, 
59on., 114m.) on religion, 869, on 
social attitudes and amalgamation, 587, 
1354; on Southern elections, 13171 on 
Southern fear complex, 1356; on South- 
ern lassitude, 1358 

Baker, Paul £., cited, 87m. 

Baker, Ray Stannard, 697} cited, 248, 567, 
1359; quoted, 38, 743, 843, 870, 1022, 
1 1 4on. { on Atlanta riot, 680 1 on attitude 
of Negroes to law, 1336-13371 on debt 
peonage, 123 6- 1237; on "fear" of Negro, 
I 347-'34 8 i on individualism in Negro- 
white relations, 1358; on legal injustice, 
>344> '434i on Negro education, 884; 
on Negro secretiveness, 658; on Negro 
sensitivity, 761-762; on Negroes in 
unions, 1256-1*57; on racial isolation, 
1370; on two parties in the South, 1317; 
on white prejudice, 43; on white sup- 
port of Negro churches, 1412 

Balanced personality, struggle for, 759- 
760, 766 

Baldwin, William H., 837 

Baltimore Afro-American, 9i8n. 

Bancroft, George, on national pride, 5 

Bancroft, H. H., 1190 

Banking, Negroes in, 314-315 

Baptism, 93on. 

Barbers, Negro, 1088, 1255 

Bargaining power, political, of the Negro, 
498-500, 505-508, 835, 853 

Barker, Tommie Dora, on Southed libra- 
ries for Negroes, 1368 

Barnett, Claude A., 503-504 

Barthe, Richmond, 989 

"Basic factor," in Negro problem, 72, 77- 
7 8 > 79°. 79>. 794i 834. '069 

Basie, Count, 988 

Bates, Ernest S., on colonization scheme, S05 

Bathing beaches, segregation on, 634 

Bean, Robert B., expos* of, 9 m. 

Beard, Charles, cited, 7 

Beard, Charles and Mary, 13891 cited, 

43*-433 
Bearden, Bessye, 1328 
Beauty industries, Negroes i», 310, 311, 

1088-1089 
Beecher, Henry Ward, 1075 
Beef production, 1245 



1444 



Index 



Behavior: affected by new inventions, 105* j 
at dob meeting*! 95 3n. 1 diversity of, 
9S*-957J and idealism, disparity be- 
tween, 21 1 influenced by social and cul- 
tural factors, 149} of middle and upper 
class Negro group, 6471 molding of, by 
caste system, 98) of Negro leaders, 770- 
771, 771-773 j of Northern Negroes, 491- 
491, 5 30 ) pattern of violence in, 53* j 
political, of Negroes, 495-4971 a result 
of compromise of valuations, 10281 vot- 
ing. 49i-49*» 5oo 

Beliefs, 1027, 1030-1031, 10611 conflict 
of, see Valuations, conflict of j emperical 
study of, 1137-11391 Negro, see Popular 
theories, Negro 

Bell, F., Franklin, 42m. 

Bellingers, father and son, 488n., 5oon. 

Benedict, Ruth, on race conflict, no 

Benevolent societies; see Voluntary associa- 
tions and Lodges 

Berglund, A., et at., cited, 1092 

Berlin, Irving, 987 

Berquist, F. E., cited, 1113H. 

Bethune, Mary McLeod, 503, 75 in., 816, 

9*7 
Betterment organizations) see Improvement 

organizations 
Bias (see also Samples, research, bias in) : in 
research on Negro problem, 137-138, 
149, 1035-1041) ways of mitigating, 
1 04 1 -1 045 

Bilbo, Theodore G., 806, 813 

Biology doctrine: as basis for inferiority 
theory, 57-60, 97) and conservatism, 91, 
1 1901 and equalitarianism, 84, 87-88, 
89; rationalized, 97-101, 102-106 

Bi-racial organizations, 691 

Birkenhead, Lord, quoted, 468 

Birth control, 164, 165, 166, 170, 175- 
178, 1105, 1206-1107, 1216-12191 
clinics, 178-180, 1226, 1228-1229) fa- 
cilities for Negroes, 1 78-1811 objections 
to, 1127 

Birth control movement in the South, 179 

Birth rate: effect of ill health on, 174-1751 
of foreign-born, i57n.j Negro and 
white, 161-1651 Negro, 1220, 1222 

Births, registration of, 159, 1220 

Black, Hugo, 467 

"Black baby" myth, 114, 1208-1109 

Black Belts, 621, 650, 1127 

"Black Cabinet," see Federal Council 

Black Codes, ' 228, 250, 281, 447, .558, 
tioi, 1236 

•Slack Hand" society, 517 



"Black Puritans," 931 

Black Shirt movement, S47 

Blaine, James G., 2i6n.; on Negro suffrage, 
1334 

Bledsoe, Albert T., on treatment of women, 
1074 

Blind, aid to, 359 

Blose, D. T., and Caliver, A., cited, 339, 
944. 947«-> 95on. 

"Blue Laws," 458 

Boas, Franz, 90, 122, 150, 1202-1203, 
1216, 12171 on mental make-up, 146 

Bodily action, etiquette of, 612-614 

Body odor, Negro, belief in, 107, 140, 121 3 

Bogardus, Emory S., n 36, 1186 

Boll weevil, 193, 234-235, 238, 1238 

Bolton, Euri Relle, 1137, 1186 

Bond, Horace Mann: cited, 320, 341, 887, 
928, 9+811., 1 27 11 on indirect taxes, 
1270 

Bond and bail system, 54S 

Border states: definition of, 10721 educa- 
tional facilities in, 895 1 institutional segre- 
gation and discrimination in, 631-6321 
prejudice of police and courts in, 5281 
primaries in, 4871 two-party system in, 
47+n. 

Boston Guardian, 913-914, 1392 

Bowen, Trevor, on Negro opinion, 809 

Boycott movement against discriminating 
establishments, 313-314, 803, 816, 839 

Brearley, H. C, on Negro-white killings, 
54*n. 

Bricklayers, Masons and Plasterers' Inter- 
national Union, 1102 

Briggs Manufacturing Corporation, 11 19 

Brigham, Carl C, 96, 1190, 11911 quoted, 
I48n. 

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, 1105 

Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and 
Enginemen, 1105 

Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Em- 
ployees, 1106 

Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators, and 
Paper-hangers, 1103-1104 

Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship 
Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and 
Station Employees, 1106 

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 1107 

Brotherhood of Timber Workers, 1095 

Brown, Anne, 1 1 84 

Brown, Earl: cited, 385, 414, 8511 on 
Negroes and the war, 1006 

Brown, Earl, tfnd Leighton, George R., 
cited, 415, 416, 420, 421, 1306 

Brown Sterling, 9891 cited, 989, 9911 on 
stereotypes in literature, 1196} on white 
appreciation of Negro tongs, 1437 



Indbx 



1445 



Biows, William M., died, 584 

Brown, W. O., on nttionalization of prej- 
udice, 1 188 

Bryant, Carolyn, on contraception, 1206 

Bryant, Ira B., Jr., cited, 1373 

Bryce, James, 711, 10390., 1331} on Amer- 
ican characteristics, 10, *i, 118*1 on 
definition of race, 113) on enfranchise- 
ment of Negroes, 13 161 on leadership, 
710) on legislation, 11831 on Negro dis- 
content, 657 ; on Negro education, 884; 
on repetition for emphasis, lviij on 
social relations, 574 

Buck, Paul H.: cited, 887-888! on manip- 
ulation of elections, 450 

Buck, Pearl, 414, 735; on treatment of Ne- 
groes in America, 1016-1017 

Budget: "emergency," 366) family, 367- 
370, 964) items in, 370-371, 1287) pub- 
lic, 333-33+ 

Building and loan associations, Negro-man- 
aged, 3«S-3i« 

Building trades: Negroes in, 282-283, 286, 
*94» 3 I *-3 1 *> 412, 1099-1105, i30ji 
public housing projects, 11 04; unioniza- 
tion in, 1102-1104 

Bunche, Ralph, 474n., 13151 cited, 473, 
478, 480, 483, 4*4, 488n., 498, 499-500, 
8i2n., 922, 1324, 1325-1326) on accom- 
modation to organized labor, 7931 on 
American freedom, 4; on avoidance of 
political issues, 453; on class conscious- 
ness, 789; on colonization schemes, 80 51 
on Communist party and National Negro 
Congress, 1401 j on evasiveness, Ameri- 
can, 784; on fight for democracy, 1007; 
on Garvey movement, 748} on Interracial 
Commission, 844, 8481 on. modeling of 
Negro behavior on Southern gentlemen, 
1382; on N.A.A.C.P., 820-830, 833n., 
835n.-836n., 1402, 1403, 1405-14065 on 
Negro aggression, 7631 on Negro Busi- 
ness League, 815-816} on Negro busi- 
nessmen and business ideology, 802, 8041 
on Negro double role, 772, 13971 on 
Negro leadership, 773-775, 13979 on Ne- 
gro organizations, 813-8191 on Negro 
provincialism, 785; on Negro thinking, 
808 1 on Negro upper class aloofness, 
13951 on passivity of masses, 7861 on 
political corruption, 1322; on race rela- 
tions, 84Bn.-, on redemption of Negro 
masses, 790; on Southern Negro Youth 
Congress, 818-8191 on strategy of Negro 
representation, 779* on suspicion of Ne- 
gro leaders, 7745 on Urban League, 840, 
1406-14071 on white defense mechanism, 
?6an. 



Bureaucracy, need for, 432-437 

Burgess, Ernest W., cited, 620, 11 81, 1365 

Burgess, J. W., 1315 

Burial business j set Undertakers, Negro 

Business: control of, 719; control of labor 
conditions by, 13891 and the law, 18-19} 
legal punishment as, 548-549, 551 j Ne- 
groes in, 304-332, 769, 795, 800-803, 
1261-12631 Northern, in the South, 4531 
resistance of, to organized labor, 389, 404, 
I095n.-io96n., 1123, 12971 small, de- 
cline of, 715 

Business cycles, effect of, on Negroes, 206- 
207 

Business and professional organizations, Ne- 
gro, 639, 800, 815-817 

Buttrick, Wallace, 891 

Buxton, Thomas F., cited, 1202 

Bynum, C. H., on approaching race prob- 
lems, 845^-84611. 

Byrd, Harry F., 274 

Cable, George Washington, 460 j quoted, 
1022 } on domestic service, 595 

Caldwell, Erskine, 468 

California, Negro migration to, 200 ; Negro 
population of, 12329 old age benefits in, 
1281 

Caliver, Ambrose, cited, 950 

Calloway, Cab, 988 

Campbell, George, 13151 cited, 12341 on 
Freedmen's Savings Bank, 3159 on migra- 
tion from plantation to plantation, 12411 
on Negro education, 884) on Negro land- 
ownership, 2371 on religious activity, 
860-861 

Canady, H. G., cited, 150 

Candy industry, Negroes in, 1 295-1 296 

Cantor, Nathaniel, on Detroit Survey, 1433 

Capital punishment, 554n. 

Capital Savings Bank, 315 

Carey, Henry C, cited, 118 

Carlson, Glen E., cited, 1 1 zon. 

Carlyle, Thomas, on Negro status, 593 

Carnegie, Andrew, vi, 891 

Carnegie Corporation of New York, v-viii, 
ix, xvii, 891 

"Carpetbaggers," 447i »3>* 

Carter, Elmer A., 9879 on birth control, 
1 207 1 on inconsistency between Ameri- 
can ideals and practices, 1008 

Cartwright, S. A., on disease among slaves, 
1215 

Carver, George Washington, 656, 734, 
903n., 1 184 

Casey, Albert E., cited, 1 264 

Cash, W. J., 468} on class in the Old South, 
13201 on frontier civilisation, 4511 on 



144* 



Inpkx 



interracial sex relations, 1355-1356] 00 

mechanization, 1*491 °a prostitution, 
1361, on slavery, 1338) on -the South, 
1071 
Caih tenant*, 237, 345 
Carte line, 668-669, 677-6781 character of, 
691-693) crossing, see Passing) function 
of, 6771 from Negro point of view, 679- 
6S3 

Caste struggle, 676-683 

Caste system (see also Discrimination), 19, 
54, 58-60, 69-70, 71, 75, 208, 459, 576, 
577> 645$ breakdown of, 678-679, 682, 
1002-1004, 10091 an( 3 class, 675, 689- 
*95> 7*7i 1129-1132, 1381 j and color, 
695-7001 concept of, 667-669, 1374- 
'37J> 13771 conflict of, with American 
Creed, 812} derived from slavery, 88, 
22 1 -2 24 s a deterrent to Negro scientists, 
93-94 5 education and, 894-8961 effect of, 
on Negro thinking, 783) an extension of 
the law, 535-536$ a factor in molding 
Negro behavior, 98 s interest motivation 
for, 585-5861 intermediary, 696, 698 s 
"meaning" of, 674-676; Negro humor an 
outgrowth of, 960-961 ; and Negro lead- 
ership, 720, 11331 Negro provincialism 
rooted in, 7855 Negro reaction to, 975- 
9761 in the North, 46} rationalization of, 
102-106, 145, 583, 586, 784, 9281 re- 
sponsibility of, for Negro failures, 759, 
775) social costs of, 10091 vested interests 
of Negroes in 629-630, 795, 797, 798n.-, 
870, 921, 940} white man's theory of, 
57-60 

Catholic Church; see Roman Catholic 
Church 

Catt, C. C, and Shuler, N. R., cited, 1075, 
io76n. 

Caueasoid-Negroid mixtures, 119, 123 

"Causes," in America, 712, 810 

Cayton, Horace, 863n.) cited, 1004, 1006- 
1007) on anti-war propaganda and the, 
Negro, 1438) on Negro morale in the 
war, 1008 

Cayton, H. R., and Mitchell, G. S., cited, 
1118, 1122-1123 

Cemeteries, segregated, 635, 636 

Centralization of government, 437, 464- 
4*5 > 7> 7 i Negro support of, 809 

Ceremonial distance, 621, 657 

Chambers, M. M., on objectives of N.Y.A., 
1283 

Chamblits, _ Rollin, on racial beliefs and 
segregation, 11 92-1 195 

Character requirement for voting, 446, 4*3, 

it** ^ . 

Character witnesses, 551, 552, 59a 



Charleston: Negro badness fa, ?»♦>> 

Charleston Nem and Cornier, 1313 
Chauvinism, 749, 785, 803-805, 808, 814. 

S<5» >53 

Cheating of Negroes by whites, 246-447, 
34 ». $'6, 559, 94911., 969. »»4*> » 333 

Checks and balances, system of, 718 

Chicago: Negro vote in, 49>n., 493, 494- 
495. 754-755. »3*9J Negro population 
in, 1 1 26-1 1271 riot of 1919 in, 5(71 
Chicago Defender, 914, 9i8n., 1423, 
1424; Chicago Sun, 1424 

Children: dependent, aid to, 358n., 359-360, 
1286) the main sufferers in crowded 
homes, 1292) Negro attitude toward, 935 1 
white and Negro, association of, 610, 648, 
1193 

China: industrialization of, 1017) national- 
ism in, 1018) post-war role of, 807 

Chinese in America: background of, 541 
restaurants and stores of, 310) segrega- 
tion of, 620 

Chotzinoff, Samuel, 989 

Christianity: American belief in, 3841 con- 
version of Negroes to, after Civil War, 
860) and equality, 584) moral problem 
of, 868-8703 and Negro protest, 757) 
radicalism of, 744-745) as a root of the 
American Creed, 9-123 and slaves, 859 

Chrysler Corporation, 1120 

Church, Negro: and American pattern of 
religion, 863-868) and business, 317, 
1264) as center of Abolitionism, 860 1 as 
community center, 867, 935-942, 1426- 
1427, 1436; criticism of, 876, 877) fu- 
ture of, 876-878) independence of, in 
North, 862-863,) as medium of escape, 
861, 873, 877} membership of, 863-864, 
865, 866n.-867n., 87m., 874, 1426) and 
mortician business, 317) partly supported 
by contributions of whites, 769, 770, 
141 2) a power institution, 873) and pro- 
test, 744-745, 757, 816) recreational ac- 
tivity of, 983, 1427 1 segregation of, 635, 
859-860, 868-872, 1412) social work 
programs of, 878; in "underground rail- 
road," 860 1 and unions, 7931 value of, 
32m.) weakness of, 872-876, 877 

Church, white: avoidance of practical prob- 
lems by, 1413; Negro membership in, 
869-870, 87m.) reactionism in, 10, it 

Church of God, 938 

Cigarette manufacturing, 1108 

Cities: American Creed in, 8951 caste in, 
693) education conditions in, 950 > em- 
ployment rates in, 1258-1259; growth of, 
in South, 289) interracial sex relations in, 
126) migration to, 74, 188-190, 191-196, 



Index 



»447 



279-280, 30a » Negro residence! Vn, 1125- 
itz8; Northern, segregation in, 616 ; po- 
litical machines in, 439; racial etiquette 
in, <i5( small, Negroes in, 386-3(7, 601 1 
unemployment in, 302 

City planning, 351-35*! 616-627 

Citizens' Fact Finding Movement, 81 in. 

Citizenship, education for, 778, 94.9 

Civil liberties, fight for, 790, 794. 

Civil Liberties Union 1 see American Civil 
Liberties Union 

Civil rights laws, 4i8n., 528, 533, 579, 
580, 60 in., 1367 

Civil service: discrimination in, 327-329, 
416, 8391 Negroes in, 4.97, 502, 504, 
778, »33M police systems and, S39> 544} 
reform of, 436 

Civil War, 431, 997; class differences not 
strengthened by, 460; economic interpre- 
tation of, 222; increased violence in pe- 
riod following, 533} lingering resent- 
ment in South over, 45 ; Negro troops in, 
738, 1308; Northern attitude toward, 45, 
471 slavery issue in, 431, 443 

Civilian Conservation Corps, 361-362, 426n., 
503, 1283 

Class: in American society, 6, 50-51; and 
caste, 58, 675, 693-695, 717, 1 129-1 132, 
1381; in church, 868; concept of, 667- 
669, 1130, 1377-1378; in early New 
England, 1 362-1 363; as escape from 
caste, 792; factors accentuating, 213, 671; 
factors hindering rigid system of, 670- 
671; Marxian theory of, 68, 73; "mean- 
ing" of, 670-674; the result of restricted 
competition, 673-674; as social continuum, 
675-676, 700 ; solidarity of, see Labor 
solidarity 

Class attitudes in South, on social inequality, 

592-599 

Class Consciousness, 674 

Class discrimination in Europe, 670 

"Class problem," 75 

Class stratification, Negro, 580, 593, 662, 
700-705, 764-765, 1386-1388} ia caste 
system, 689-693; and education, 875, 
879; importance of relationship to white 
society in, 695; and leadership, 727-733, 
1 390 1 in underworld, 704-705 

"Class struggle," 673 

"Classical" versus 'Vocational" education, 
888-889, 896-900, 906 

Clay, C. C, on economic life in the South, 

Clay, Emily H., on Interracial Commis- 
sion, >44> *4 fi i 1408-14091 >4«o 
Clergymen; see Ministers, Negro 
Cleveland, Negro vote in, 1327 



Closed shop, 4050. 

Closed union, 405n. 

Clothing, Negro, 962-963 ; expenditures for, 
370, 1287-1288 

Club activity, 952-953 

Cobb, W. Montague: cited, 12 14; on racial 
strength, 169 

Collective bargaining, political, of Negroes, 
498-500, 505-508; need for agency for, 
«35, 855 

Collective consumption, 333 

Colleges: discrimination in, 633; Negro, 
63*. 73*-733. 7«5> 881, 888, 889, 890, 
891, 892, 901, 904-905, 945, 951, 1415, 
1429; poll of, on mixed education, 1421; 
segregation in, 1420 

Collins, Henry Hill, on Cranbury Terror 
Case, 528 

Collins, Winfield H.: on "vocational" edu- 
cation, 898-899; on Negro laborers, 284 

Colonization schemes, 185-186, 698, 746- 
749. 805-807 

Color, 1382-1384; and caste, 695-700; con- 
sciousness of, in children, 1429; and 
leadership, 1390; question of, in World 
War II, 915, 1004, 1006, 1016 

Color bar; see Discrimination and Segrega- 
tion 

Color caste; see Caste system 

Color line; see Caste line 

Colored Clerks' Circle, 816, 1261 

Colored Merchants' Association, 815 

Commercial establishments, discrimination 
and segregation in, 636-638 

Commissary system, 247, 1090, 1095 

Commission form of government, 487, 1325 

Commission on Interracial Cooperation; see 
Interracial Commission 

Committee on Africa, the War, and Peace 
Aims, 807 

Committee on Discrimination in Employ- 
ment, 4i8n. 

Committee on Economic and Racial Justice, 
8 1 an. 

Committee for Improving the Industrial 
Conditions of Negroes in New York City, 

837 

Committee on Urban Conditions Among Ne- 
groes, 837 

Common-law marriage; set Marriage, com- 
mon-law 

Common welfare, 1046-1047 

Communism: experiments in, 7121 influ- 
ence of, on Negro intellectuals, 510; 
Marx's idea of, 105 m.; Negro attitudes 
toward, 508-510, 75*. 807, 1332 

Communist party, 81 in.; appeal of, to Ne- 
groee, 750; in National Negro Congiess, 



1448 



Index 



818, 1401 ) on Negro organizations, 8331 
Negroes in, 4951 and social equality for 
Negroes, 508 

Community, Negro: caste and class in, 1129- 
1132; church in, 867, 935-941, 1426- 
1427, 14361 as pathological form of 
American community, 927-930, 1268} 
protective, see Protective community 

Community leaders, 71 1-7 12 

Company town, 404 

Company unions, 1123, 1297 

Competition: freedom of, 6721 between 
Negro and white workers, 69, 193, 195, 
221, 262, 281, 291-29), 388, 397, 597, 
599, 894, 1098) of Negro newspapers, 
909-9101 of Negro ministers, 874) re- 
stricted, 674, 675) of white and Negro 
press, 915-916 

Compromise between accommodation and 
protest, 768-780, 782, 786, 843 

Compromise of the 1870*8, 88, 226, 431, 

447. 5°4. 739 
Comstock, Anthony, 1226 
Comstock Law, 1228 

Congress: Negro members of, 447, 497, 501, 
502; Southern members of disproportion- 
ate influence of, 464, 476-4771 Southern 
members of, not representative of region, 
516, 1329-1330 
Congress of Industrial Organizations, 402, 
410, 855, 1096, 1099, mo, mi, 1121; 
anti-strike policy of, 4251 founding of, 
1297-1298) principle of nondiscrimina- 
tion in, 792; 793, 1300 
Conservative party in America, 511 
Conservatism: American, 12-13; Catholic, 
131 1 1 Negro, 508-509, 963) of Negro 
press, 921 
Conservatism, Southern, 455-458, 464, 466, 
474> 5 1 7, 5*9; disregard of, for law and 
order, 440-441, 445, 533s and Negro 
problem, 456-457, 471-4725 rooted in 
pro-slavery philosophy, 441-445 
Conspicuous consumption; see Consumption,' 

conspicuous 
Constitution of the United States (see also 
Reconstruction Amendments), 828, 1334, 
1346) as basis of Negro struggle, 799, 
834; circumvention of, 336, 448, 480- 
486, 533, 548 s and democracy, 7; on 
equality, 526, 690, 1269) and issue of 
slavery, 86) Negro faith in, 510, 1007) 
on right to vote, 479; silent on educa- 
tion, 882n.) and woman suffrage, 1075- 
1076) worship of, 12-13 
Constitutional Guards, 449 
Construction industry) see Building trades 
Consumer Purchases Study, 257, 355, 356, 



3«4» 3«5» 3«*» 37*. 377. 379. '084. 
1262, 1284, 1286, 1291 

Consumption: collective, 333) conspicuous, 
367-368, 703, 921, 962, 963) education 
in, 367) food, 371-375 

Consumption industries, 411, 424, 425 

Contraception (see also Birth Control), 128, 
•33> 176* 180-181, 1205, 1206-1207, 
1226-1229 

Conversation, interracial, etiquette of, 61c- 
612, 1363 

Conversion to war production, 413 

Convict camps, Southern, 554-555 

Cook, Will Marion, 989 

Cooley, C. H., 91, 103m.) cited, 1216 

Cooper, M. R., on cotton production, 252 

Cooperatives, Negro, 455, 713, 718, 748, 
798, 802, 815, 816 

Copeland, Lewis C, quoted, 11 92 

Corn production, 1238 

Cornish, Samuel E., 737, 912 

Corruption: in court, 523 j in longshore in- 
dustry, 1098) of Negro leadership, 774- 
775, 778) of Negro press, 913^5 police, 
977) political, 434-435. 475. 47«. 497. 
498. 733. 8u, 8S7» I3i5> i3«->3*3> 
1325, 1326 

Cotton economy, 1244, 1246 

"Cotton mill campaigns," mi 

Cotton picker, mechanical, 1 249-1 250 

Cotton production, 232-234, 1238; and the 
A.A.A., 255-256) deterioration of, 189, 
'93. '991 effect of depression on, 251- 
252; effect of improvement in, 86; mech- 
anization of, 1 248-1250; Negro role in, 
205 

Cotton Stamp Plan, 256 

Council of Safety, 449 

County Agricultural Conservation Commit- 
tees, 2 58 

County Farm Demonstration Agents, 258, 

546, «»53 

Courts, Southern, 547-550; cost of, 549n.; 
discrimination in, 527, 548, 550-553) pro- 
tection of, 498-499; reform of, 555-557 

Craft unions, 294, 406, 412, 1297, 1299 

Craftsmen, Negroes as, 280, 887, 889, 898, 
1254-1255 

Crane, Albert L., on Negro characteristics, 

»45 

Crap-shooting, 964m 

Cravath, E. M., 141 7 

Credit agencies, 1253-1254 

Credit cooperatives, 273 

Credit system, 232-234, 247, 314, 1242; 
agricultural, 260; for Negro businessmen, 
308} reform of, 260, 272-273, 348 

Crime, Negro, 655-656, 968-979, 1432- 



Index 



1433 i MM of, 974-9791 distortion of, 
967-9701 Negroes as victims of, 656; 
types of, 971-974 

Crime, and social conditions, 557 

Crime news, 655-656, 918 

Crime prevention, 544-5+5. SSI-SS7 

Crime statistics, 33011., 54211., 553-554; 
criticism of, 967-970, 97a 

Crisis, 820, 821, 909, 914 

"Crisis" theory of social change, 105011., 
106 tn. 

Crop diversification, 253, 1238 

Crop restriction program, 488, 558, 1183 

Crossbreeding} see Amalgamation 

Crumpacker Resolution, 1334 

Collen, Countee, 989 

Cultural diversity, 3-5, 17 

Cultural lag, 930, 962, 1388 

Cultural level, raised, 592, 645-647 

Cultural similarity of Negroes and South- 
ern whites, 70m 

Cultural unity, xlviii, 1029 

Culture, African, 747-748, 752-753, 928 

Culture, American: absorption of, by Ne- 
groes, 38, 657, 8it, 879, 928-929; and 
education, 882-886; fragmentation of, 
713, 714; influence of Negroes on, 38; 
traits of, 709-716, 810-812, 882-886 

Culture, Negro, characteristics of, 689-705, 
750-754) 9 , 5-9*o, 930-942, 952-955, 
956-965 

Culture, political, 853, 856 

Culture, Western, 1356 

Cumulation, principle of; see Vicious circle, 
theory of 

Cuney, N. W., 478 

Custom and economic discrimination, 215- 
216 

Cynicism, Negro, 959 

Dabney, Virginius, 468, 1013; cited, 398, 
454, 45 7i I 3 2 4) on criticism of the 
South, 1 321 j on equal suffrage, 1334; on 
Jim Crow laws, 589; on justice for Ne- 
groes, 547; on poll tax, 48 jn.; on segre- 
gation, 1355; on training school for de- 
linquents, 13681 on women's rights in 
ante-bellum South, 1074-1075 

Dairy farming in the South, 235, 252 

Dancing: interracial, 608, 6105 Negro pro- 
fessional, 988; as recreation, 985 

Daniel Hand Fund, 89 m. 

Daniels, Jonathan, 468 

Daniels, Josephus: cited, 4475 quoted, 226 

"7 
Davenport, C. B., and Love, A. G., cited, 

»37 
Davis, Allison: cited, 495i 6 9'> 86l > »7on-- 



1449 

9540.1 on 



»7»n., 87»n., 875, 940, 941, 
emotionalism, 936n.-937n. 
Davis Allison, and Dollard, John: cited, 
1361; on class concept, 673, i377->379» 
on color of school children, 1429; on 
"legal" lynching, 1350; on Negro atti- 
tudes toward caste, 137a; on Negro lower 
class, 1386 
Davis, Allison, Gardner, B. B., and Gard- 
ner, M. R.: cited, 241, 245, 247, 489, 
700, 731, 935, 963, 1238, 1361; on 
cheating of Negroes, 12421 on class con- 
sciousness, 1378; on color, 1382-1383; 
on justification of petty theft, 1434; on 
Negro attitude toward color, 1192; on 
Negro lower classes, 1386; on Negro- 
white tension, 677-678; on police atti- 
tudes toward Negroes, 1342; on punish- 
ment of Negroes, 1340; on race pride, 
1396; on relations between Negroes and 
lower class whites, 1358; on social classes, 
1 1 30 n.; on taboo of miscegenation and 
illegitimacy, 1384; on tenancy, 1242-1243 
Davis, Jackson, 890, 891 
Davis, Jefferson, on slavery, 442-443 
Davis, John P., 817, 1401 
Davis, Michael M., on public health pol- 
icy, 1274 
Dawson, William, 50 m. 
Day, Caroline Bond, cited, 129, 1205, 1207 
Dayton trial, 458, 660 
Death penalty, 554, 566m 
Death rate, Negro, 122, 316, 344, 1*15, 
1221-1223, 1224, 1225; control of, 171- 
175; decline in, 141; future, 134; of 
slaves, 121, 1201*1202; and white, 141- 
142, 161-165 
Deaths, registration of, 159, 1218, 1221- 

1222 
Debt peonage, 228-229, -47-*4*> 1090, 

1236-1237, 1242, 1345 
Decentralization of politics in the South, 474 
Declaration of Independence, 6-7, 8 
Defeatism: economic, 1001 ; intellectual, 
19-21, 831; Negro struggle against, 758- 
759> 786; political, 812 
Defense plants; see War production 
Defense reactions (see also Rationalization) : 
Negro, 5«-57> &*> "43*J white, 30-32, 
88, 104-105, 283-284, 441-445, 4«o, 
96jn. 
Delany, Martin, 737 

Delaware: death penalty in, 554; Negro 
police in, 543n.; transportation Jim Crow 
optional in, 635 
Democracy: America's contribution to soci- 
ety, 5; and American Creed, 25, 783; 
building of, 6-7; to combat ignorance, 



i**o 



Indix 



3«4» *nd education, 6741 the free recog- 
nition of ability, 672; importance of, to 
Negroes, 656; issue of, in World War II, 
5(7, 1004, 1007, iot2j JefFersonian, 433- 
434; and justice, 523-526) maintained 
through electoral controls, 717, 7181 and 
moral education, 10291 Negroes and 745, 
850 j postulates of, 8) post-war, 1011- 
■ 1024) in public institutions, 58*1 reac- 
tion against, 4331 and religion, 9, 867- 
868, 141 1 j revival of, 431-437, 716, 745, 
755; and slavery, inconsistency between, 
85; in the South, 440-441, 460-461; 
theory of, 78-80; in trade unions, 406, 
407, 718 
Democratic party: Negro support of, 479n., 
492n., 494-49S> 497 » » tne South, 45a- 
455> 4*3. 464» 4*5. 474i 475> 477. 480, 
487, Sim- 
Demonstration projects, birth control, 1228- 

1229 
Dempsey, Jack, 99m. 
Denominations, Negro religious, 936, 939 
Dentists, Negro, 172, 325, 638, 1224 
Deportation; see Back-to-Africa movement 
Depression; see Great Depression 
Detroit: clashes between Negroes and police 
in, 527, 528, 529n.; housing project riot 
in, 568, 678, 1337; Ku Klux Klan influ- 
ence in, 410; Negro population in, 1326; 
Negro vote in, 494, 1328, 1329; racial 
friction in, 662 5 restriction of Negroes 
in, 5*7; Southern-born policemen in, 
529m 
Detweiler, Frederick G. : cited, 909, 912, 
92m., 1423; on Negro press as race or- 
gan, 908 
Dewey, John, 103m., 1183; on the Ameri- 
can Creed, 23 ; on educational philosophy, 
882-883; on moral nature of the social 
problem, xlvii; on political organization, 
7i7n. 
Dickerson, Earl, 987 
Dickinson, R. L., and Morris, W. E., on 

contraception, 1228 
Diet, Negro, 374, 375, 1290 
Differentials: age, within class structure, 
1131) in employment rates, 297-298; fer- 
tility, i34n., 1 21 2; in food consumption, 
1289; in illegitimacy, 933; income, 164- 
165, 215, 319-320, 1094-1095, 1096, 
1099, 1112-1113, 1116-1117, 1124, 
1232-4333; in punishment, 1433; in re- 
lief treatment, 199; in treatment by in- 
Ittrsnoe companies, 316; in school ez- 
^ pauritpxes, 337, 338-341; in susceptibility 
■t» disease, 1214-1215; in treatment by 
VJSA, 274-2751 in treatment of wit- 



nesses, 526-527; in vocational training, 
1419 
Differential reproductivily, 131-132, 134- 

>35 

Dillard, James H., 891 

Disciples of Christ, 938 

Discontent, Negro (tee also Protest, Negro), 
*6. 459. 5*5. 645> 744-745. 749» fostered 
by education, 879 

Discrimination, 29, 58, 214-215, 928, 1063, 
1 141; in armed forces, 744, 850,. 1005, 
1308-1309; in availability of medical fa- 
cilities, 172; beginning of, in slavery,* 
577-578; class, in Europe, 670; in com- 
mercial establishments, 637, 638; eco- 
nomic, 61, 65, 67, 106-107, 199, 208, 
215, 312-313. 327-3*8, 380-396, 588; 
in education, 61, 65, 107, 337-344, 632- 
633, 888, 893, 1367) effect of, on health, 
344; effect of, on whites. 643-644; fac- 
tors bolstering, 382; facts and beliefs re- 
garding, 605-606; and federal aid to edu- 
cation, 905; future, 904; in housing, 
107, 196, 348-353. 5*7i "indi^ect, ,, 277, 
358; in interpersonal relations, 606-618; 
against Jews, 28; in justice, 523-534, 
588, 967, 968-969, 974, 999, 1335-1337; 
legislation against, 418, 1367; in long- 
shore work, 1098; against minority 
groups, 52, 53} motivation for, 335-33*1 
in the North, 66-67, 599*6°4> 609, 610, 
612-613, 614, 617-618, 722, 999, 1010- 
1011, 1367; one-sidedness of, 799; by 
police and courts, 527, 534, 550-553; po- 
litical (see also Disfranchisement, Negro) , 
107, 274, 429, 459, 588; President's Or- 
der abolishing, in defense jobs, 412, 414- 
417, 8515 in prisons, 555; protest against, 
see Protest, Negro; in public places, 61, 
65, 628, 662; in public services, 169, 
170. 334-337. 588, 1000-1001; rank or- 
der of, 60-67, 587-588, 6o8n., 1142; ra- 
tionalization of, 88, 102-106, 145, 208, 
215-219, 283-284, 392, 591, 660, 784, 
897, 928, 1077; in recreational facilities, 
346-348; in relief, 356, 588; by semi- 
public organizations, 631, 1367; sensi- 
tiveness of Negroes to, 761-763, 958; so- 
cial, 573. 574. 587. 5*8, 599-6°4, 999J 
trend away from, 65-66, 924, 998, 1010- 
1011; unemployment a result of, 998; in 
unions, 408, 1103, 1296-1300; "voca- 
tional" education a rationalization for, 
897; wage, 3i9-3»o. 1094-1095, 1096, 
1099, 1112-1113, 1116-1117, 1124; in 
war plants, 415-418, 851, 1005, 1301- 
1302; in the West, 200 
Discussion of Negro problem, etiquette of, 
36-40 



Index 



l«Si 



Disease : biological susceptibility to, 107, 
140-141, 1*141 control of, 171-1754 en- 
vironmental factors in, 344; Negro-white 
differentials in, 1740.1 prevention of, 163, 
»7*. '74 

Disfranchisement, Negro, 61, 65, 107, 429- 
*3«>, 435-437. 440-44S. 45*-453> 475, 
47*i 5"-5i3, 5*3> 5»o, 642, 798, 811, 
829, 999-1000, 1313-1314} extra-legal 
techniques for, 484-486, 489, 514, 515, 
1325} illegal, effect of, on whites, 1333; 
legal, techniques of, 479-484, 489, 1317- 
1319; motivation for, 1323; need for 
abolishing, 518-519; in the North, 438; 
weakening of legal foundation for, 514, 

5'5» 5i8 

Disfranchisement, white, 476, 482, 1319 

Displacement of labor: by A.A.A., 267; by 
• mechanization, 106, 297, 1107, 1108, 
1248-1250 

Distribution: according to need, 3345 of 
A.A.A. benefits, 268-270; of agricultural 
products, 265; of arrests, 971, 9735 of 
church membership, 865; geographical, 
see Geographical distribution of Negroes; 
of Negro policemen, 543m ; of Negro re- 
ligious denominations, 865; of Negro resi- 
dences in cities, 11 25-1 128; of Negroes in 
industry, 1081; of public services, 336- 
337; work, rotation system, 1099 

District of Columbia; see Washington, D. C. 

Divorce, 933, 935, 1425 

Dixon, Dean, 989 

Doctors; see Medicine, Negroes in 

Dodd, William E. : cited, 131 1; on denial 
of freedom of speech, 1317 

Dollard, John: cited, 128, 562, 593, 607, 
693» 7»o, 763-764, 1207, 1358; on de- 
fensive beliefs, 1197; gains theory of, 
1353-1354; on middle class gains from 

' Negro subordination, 1339; on Negro 
hostility to whites, 1395; on Negro 
schools, 34on.; on race etiquette, 612, 
1363; on slavery, 222 

Domestic service, 284, 291, 293, 411, 652- 
653; 1 082-1 087; age of workers in, 
1086; hours of work in, 1086; for Ne- 
gro employers, 1389-1390; training of 
workers in, 1087; wages for, 1085-1086 

Donnell, Forrest C, 1379 

Do-nothing policy, 19, 91, 394, 831, 1031, 
i036n., 1047, 1048, 1050, 1052, 1053- 
1054, 1055, 1056, 1398; in agriculture, 
249-250 

Dorn, Harold F.: cited, 142, 162, 172, 175, 
177. 345>>., i»i8, 1215. i*73> on Negro 
life expectancy, 1221; on Southern hos- 
pitals, 32; 



Double role of Negroes, 143* 

Double standard: of conduct, 760, 772-773, 
1369-1370; in favor of Southerners, 7on.; 
of justice, 551; moral, 246-147, 590; 
for Negro achievement, 754, 779 

Douglas, Aaron, 989 

Douglass, Frederick, 491, &95n., 726, 913, 
987, 992, 1075, io76n., 1187; charac- 
terized by Kelly Miller, 7404 on "in- 
dustrial" education, 141 6; on inferiority 
doctrine, 1190-1 191 ; Negro protest voiced 
by, 737-738; on Negro unemployment, 
291-292 

Doyle, Bertram W. : on Negro education, 
1056; on noninterest of Negroes in vot- 
ing, 1326; on resistance to compromise, 
832 

Drake, J. G, St. Clair: cited, 732, 862n., 
866, 872n., 93S, 937, 940, 952, 9S4"!., 
9S5) 1332, 1430; on Negro club meet- 
ings, 9 53n. 

Dred Scott decision, 429 

Dressmakers, Negro, 1088 

Dubin, Robert, cited, 1379 

Dublin, Louis I.: cited, 119; on slave trade, 
1 18-119 

Dublin, L. T., and Lntka, A. J., cited, 1221 

Du Bois, W. E. B., 601, 726, 750, 820, 
827, 889, 890, 901, 91 %n. t 940, 987, 
1005, 1 1 32; cited, 69, 201, 222, 224, 

429, 439. 567. 576. 579. 745, 954n., 
1229-1230, 1392; on amalgamation, 
1187; on Booker T. Washington and the 
Tuskcgee Machine, 1391-1932; on co- 
operatives, 802, 816; on disfranchise- 
ment, 512-513, 1333; on dualism of be- 
ing a Negro American, 809 ; on education, 
887, 888, 902; on effect of Emancipa- 
tion, 738; on emigration, 807; on en- 
vironment, 96; on extravagance of Negro 
lodges, 955; on Freedmen's Bank, 1261; 
on Garvey, 749; on Guardian, 1392; on 
hospitals, 796; on intermarriage, 64; on 
labor movement in the South, 1187; on 
law and justice, 525-526; on mulattoes, 
1385; on N.A.A.C.P., 796-797; on Ne- 
gro class structure, 691; on Negro de- 
fense by deception, 1431; on Negro en- 
joyment of life, 1431; on Negro feeling 
of caste, 680; on Negro grievances in 
World War I, 850; on "Negro problem," 
785; on Negro thinking, 781, 1235; on 
Negroes in early labor movement, 1398; 
on police tyranny, 1 342 ; on political 
power and permanent improvement, 1331- 
i333i on possible expulsion of Negroes 
from America, 1399; on prejudice of 



1*5* 



Imudc 



Negroes toward other Negroes 1*430.; 
as protest leader, 742-7441 on racial be- 
liefs, 10 j 1 on racial equality, 1691 on 
racial isolation, 137x1 on racial status in 
Northern cities, 601, 13591 on rape of 
Negro women by whites, 1187) on res- 
taurant industry, 3 1 1 j on segregation, 
<49n.| on self-segregation, 797-798) on 
upper clan Negroes, 703, 13881 on vot- 
ing behavior, 491 1 on white and Negro 
incomes, 693m; on white prejudice, 421 
on white primary, 455 1 on whites' ignor- 
ing of Negro suffering, 6581 on World 
War I, to t2; on "Yankee teachers," 14 16 

Dueling, 1346 

Duggan, I. W., cited, 1x43-1x44 

Duke Endowment Fund, 313 

Duke family, and Negro education, 891a. 

Dunbar, Paul Lawrence, 989, 99Z 

Duncan, Todd, 988 

Dunham, Katherine, 988 

Dunning, W. A., 13 15 

Du Pont family, and Negro education, 89m. 

Durkheim, Emile, 10; 6n. 

Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, 565 

East, Edward M., oa offspring of Negro- 
white parents, 1208-1209 

East St. Louis, riots in, 567 

Eating, interracial, 608-609 

Economic determinism, 77-78, 1069 

Economic discrimination; see Discrimina- 
tion, economic 

Economic liberalism, 672; changed concep- 
tion of, 209-212 

Economic revolution, 106911. 

Economics, 1047-1048; as "basic" factor in 
caste system, 72, 834, 1069 

Education (see also Vocational training): 
adult, 343, 388, 713, 886, 906-907; and 
American Creed, 709, 879, 882, 893, 
1 182; in American thought and life, 882- 
886; in the Army and Navy 419; on 
birth control, 180; in citizenship, 778, 
949; for the consumer, 367; discrimina- 
tion in, see Discrimination! in education; 
emphasized by New Deal, 465-466; of 
employers, 401 ; and employment risk, 
30jj expenditures for, 1270-1273; 337, 
338-341, federal aid to, 343-344, 892- 
8931 905, 1272-1273; improvement in, 
413, 466, 715; inferiority of, in the 
South, 4; 1 intervemionism by, 211 ) to- 
ward migration policy, 387; passive, 886; 
'in period of Enlightenment, 1182; philos- 
ophy of, 882-8831 of policemen, 538-539> 
544-545 j private endowments for, 869, 
883, 890-893; on race relations, 49, 383- 



384, 3851 segregation in, 31^, 335, 341- 
342, 581, 587. 628, 632-633, 647, 795, 
880-8S2, 894, 901-902, 904, 945-946, 
1420; and social mobility, 674; audito- 
rial reform, 1049; of Southern fanners, 
273$ "spoon feeding," 886n.| of voters, . 
519s for women, 10760., 1077; of work- 
ers, in labor movement, 406 

Education, Negro, 942-952, 1415-1422-1 and 
churches, 862; as concerted action, 879- 
882; development of, in South, 887-893; 
equipment for, 904, 946-947, 1418; fu- 
ture of, 902-907; Interracial Commission 
activities in, 846; and life situations* con- 
flict of, 879-880, 884, 900, 946, 1260, 
1292-1293; of ministers, 321, i?$, 1413- 
1414; need for, 109-110; Negro attitudes 
toward type of, 900-902; in the North, 
879; post-Civil War, 690 j prestige of, J 
694, 704, 7°9j 729, 883-884, 913; ris-^.' 
ing level of, 199, 342, 514, 525, 556,* 
5«5» 728, 745, 7«o, 776. 877, 879, 88t* v 
895, 943-944, 952, 1000, 1005; of slave?. 
887; and social status, 702, 875, 8711 
883; state agents for 1417-1418; d* 
teachers, 3»9n., 891; "vocational" versus 
"classical," 896-900 ; whites' attitude to* 
ward, 893-896 

Educational requirement for voting, 483- 
484 

Edwards, Alba M., cited, 297, 310, 3ian., 
314, 318, 1377 

Edwards, Archie C, cited, 504 

Eighteenth Amendment, 457 

Eleazer, R. B.: cited, 846; on interracial 
work, 845 

Elections: -constitutionality of laws regulat- 
ing, 5i6n.-5i7n.; of court and police 
officials, 523, 524; direct, 433-436; gen- 
eral, 487-488; initiative and referendum, 
487; manipulation of, 450-451; of Ne- 
groes, 502-503; nonpartisan, 487-488, 
500; participation in, 713, 717, 718; 
and personalities, 453, 454, 474, 71611.3 
presidential, of 1928, 477; primary, 454> 
474, 475. 486-487, 489, 833; in the 
South, 475-47*» 1 322-1 323, 1325. 

Elks, Negro, 954n. 

Ellington, Duke, 734, 988, 989 

Emancipation: of slaves, effect of, 222-223, 
281, 578-579> 738, 1234-1235* of women, 
fight for, 1075 

Emancipation Proclamation, 431, 738 

Emhree, Edwin R., 6490.; cited, 142, 1215; 
on church segregation, 868; on hospitals 
for Negroes, 1224; on inconsistent beliefs, 
283: on patronizing of Negroes, 29; on 
plantation system, 1243; on race defini- 



Index 



1453 



tion, 1151 on Rosenwald schools, 1418; 
on Southern white attitudes, 582-583; on 
vicious circle, 1 06911. 

Emigration, Negro, from America, 186 

Emotionalism: religious, 563, 565, 861, 865, 
936-938, 941, 959; around segregation 
and discrimination, 591 

Employers: anti-union work of, 389, 404, 
10950.-1096^, 1113, 1297; attitudes of, 
to Negro workers, 1293-1294; education 
of, 4013 and workers, interrelation of at- 
titudes of, 393-394. «295 

Employment: discrimination in, see Dis- 
crimination, economic} planned, 3 8 6-3 S 8 

Employment booms, secondary, 411, 1007 

Enlightenment, philosophy of, 8-9, 83-84, 
89, 1181-1182 

Entertainment field, Negroes in, 329-330, 
6 54> 734. 750, 753, 959-960, 987-992 
_ Environment: a factor in susceptibility to 
,,. disease, 142, 144; effect of, on disease 
incidence, 344; influence of, on intelli- 
gence performance, 147, 151; in Negro 
life, li 

environmentalist™, 91, 92; trend toward, 
882, 1003, 1036, 1 189-1190 

7 .qualitarianism, xlviii, 8-9, 62-65; and 
caste interest, conflict between, 8993 in 
churches, 8713 in C.I.O., 792, 7933 and 
economic discrimination, 215-218, 8853 
and education, 8933 growth of, 6623 in- 
fluence of American Creed toward, 1 1 o, 
573. 574. 5*'. 670-672, 11893 moral, 
and biology, 83-84, 87-88, 893 in the 
North, 383, 384, 526-5293 reaction 
against, 87, 975 Revolutionary, 614; re- 
flections of, in science, 89-933 in Southern 
ideology, 670 

Equality: of endowment, 7593 on hospital 
staffs, 323; issue of, in World War II, 
10123 necessity for assertion of, 7583 of 
opportunity, 213-215, S84, 893 

Equilibrium concepts, 1065 

Erosion; see Soil erosion 

Escape reactions, 30-36, 75; in the North, 
473 role of ignorance in, 40-41 

Ethnic attachment, 619, 620 

Ethos, American; see American Creed 

Ethridge, Mark, 468, 1013; on social segre- 
gation in the South, 663 

Etiquette of racial behavior, 471, 573, 587, 
606-618, 761, 964, 135'. 1361-1364} 
gradual breakdown of, 615-616, 651, 
1363-1364; and institutional segregation, 
6283 and isolation, 653 

Eugenics, use of, in slave-breeding, 121-122 

Europe, class discrimination in, 670 

Europe, James Reese, 989 



Ever-Normal Granary Plan, 256 

Executive Order abolishing discrimination 
in defense jobs, 412, 414-417, 851, 1005 

Expenditures: for education, 337, 338-341, 
1270-1273; funeral, 12623 for house' 
hold help, 10843 on Negro churches, 
14133 on Negro schools, 1418 

Experimentalism of leaders, 710 

Exploitation: of Africa, 806; economic (see 
also Slavery), 208, 220-221, 4433 of im- 
migrants, 50, 2923 of Negro farmer, 3643 
of Negro and immigrant voters, 439, 4903 
of racial hostility, 789, 790, 1095^, 
I096n., 11233 sexual, 56-57, 59, 62, 63, 
578, 607, 1204; of whites' pretenses (if 
superiority, 762, 960, 1431; of workers, 
397. '090 

Extension Service, Department of Agricul- 
ture, 272, 343, 347, 1253 

Extradition, fight against, 828 

Fact Finding Committee of Georgia, 469 

Factories, segregation in, 636, 642, 653 

Fair F.mployment Practice Committee, 414, 
415-417, 851, I( >0S. 1303, 1306 

Fair Labor Standards Act; see Wages and 
Hours Law 

Family, Negro, 930-935; breaking up of, 
93', 933-93H budget of, 367-370, 964, 
1287; income of, 1270, 1283-1285, 1288; 
size of, 1286 

Family background, Negro upper class at- 
titude toward, 695, 697, 702 

Farm classification, 23 3n., 235, 239-240 

Farm Credit Administration, 1253-1254 

Farm and home demonstration work, 271- 
17* 

Farm lease, flexible, 278 

Farm mortgage loans, 272 

Farm Security Administration, 212, 273- 
»78, 343) 347. 426n., 755, 847. i»3*> 
12503 discrimination in, 546; educational 
function of, 275, 465; hostility toward, 
274; mistakes committed by, 276; Negro 
officials in, 326; rehabilitation program 
of, 276-277 

Farmers' cooperatives, 455 

Farmers' Union, 262 t 

Farming; see Agriculture 

Fascism, 6, 1 004, 1 3 1 1 ; and leadership con- 
cept, 709; no Negro tendency toward, 
508; unlikelihood of, in South, 458-462 

Father Divine Peace Mission, 865n., 866, 
87m. 

Faulkner, William, 468 

Fear complex of the South, 1356 

Federal budget; see Budget, public 

Federal Council, 503 



1454 



Imnx 



Federal Emergency Relief Administration, 

*7«» "77 
Federal Hbme Loan Banks, 273, 316, 34s 
Federal Homing Administration, 348-350, 

503, 1276} segregation policy of, 349- 

350, 6zj, 6*7 
Federal jobs, Negroes in; see Government, 

Negroes employed by 
Federal Land Banks, 1253 
Federal Public Housing Authority) see 

United States Housing Authority 
Federal Theater, 991 
Federal Writers' Project, 991 
Fee system for court officials, 548 
Ferebee, Dorothy Boulding, cited, 180, 1227 
Ferguson, G. O., 121 7; cited, 145) on Ne- 
gro inferiority, 145 
Fertility, Negro, 134, 1212, 1222 
Fertility differentials, 1340. 
Fertilizer industry: Negro employment in, 

287-288, 1096-1097; wages in, 1096- 

1097 
Fiction, stereotyped opinions about Negroes 

in, 101 
Fifteenth Amendment, 438, 445, 480, 1075, 

«334 
Fifth column activity, 814, 1400 
Finance, Negro, 314-318 
Fines, incomes from, 5490. 
First World Wars see World War I 
Fisher, Constance, on contraception, 1206 
Fisk University, 888, 889, 892, 1416, 1417, 

1429 
Fisk Jubilee Singers, 992 
Fitzgerald, Ella, 90311. 
Fitzhugh, George: on education for poor 

whites, 1415; on pro-slavery philosophy, 

442 j on slavery, 1073-1074, 1188 
Fleming, G. James: on Negro press, 913, 

914, 922, 923; on Negro society news, 

918-9191 on sensationalism, 917, 1424 
Flint-Goodridge Hospital, 323 
Florant, Lyonel C, on war housing condi- 
tions, 1308 
Florida: Negro police in, 543n.; poll tax 

repealed in, 4825 voting in, 48 8n., white 

primary in, 486 
Folk music, 753» V4> 9*9t 99*-993 
Folklore concerning Negroes, 53 
Folkways; set Mores 

Folsom, J. C, and Baker, O. E., cited, 238 
Food consumption, Negro, 37i-37S» 9*3- 

964, 1287, 12(8-1290; bad habits of, 373 
Food-expenditure unit, 373n., 374, 1289 
Food manufacturing, Negroes in, 289-291 
Food stamp plan, sn, 2(5, 363 
Forbes, George, 74* 
Ford, Henry, 424, 1121; hiring policy of, 

394 



Ford Motor Company, Negroes in, 394, 
1119, 1 120-1 121; training school of, 

1121 

Foreign-born groups; see Minorities 

Foreign-born Negroes; tee Immigration. 
Negro 

Foreign-language newspapers, 912 

Fourierists, 712 

Forty-hour week, 398 

"Forty-Ninth State," 807, 814 

Foster, Stephen, 987, 993 

"Four Freedoms," 9, 850, 1019 

Fourteenth Amendment, 438, 445, 515, 81I, 
1075, 1269, 1334 

Fraenkel, Osmond K., cited, 1310 

Franchise; set Suffrage and Disfranchise- 
ment 

Frazier, E. Franklin, 930, 974; cited, 124, 
332, 528, 690, 90m., ixto, 1366, 1390, 
1425; on behavior of Negro children, 
648) on contraception, 1207; criticism, 
of Herskovits by, 1394; on interracial 
sex relations, 1205; on Joe Louis' sym- 
bolism for Negroes, 1396; on Louisville 
Negro underworld, 12661 on mulattoes, 
1210-1211; on Negro conception of God, 
141 1; on Negro lower class, 1386; on 
Negro press, 92 1 ; on Negro recreational 
needs, 1274-1275; on Negro upper class, 
703; on pathology of Negro community, 
1268; on status of Negro teachers, 1428- 
1429; on techniques for "getting by," 
762; on Urban League, 84m.; on whites 
as menace to Negro homes, 969 

Frederick Douglass's Paper, 913 

Freedmen's Bureau, 224, 227, 314, 887 

Freedmen'B Savings Bank and Trust Com 
pany, 314-3'J. 1261 

Freedom: of competition, 672, 674; indi- 
vidual, with regard to intermarriage, 63, 
64; of mobility, 198; from want, 209- 
zio, 464 

Freedom's Journal, 912 

"Friendliness," scale of : to the Negro, 1036- 
1037; t0 ^e South, to37-i038 

Frissell, H. B., 79sn. 

Frontier civilization: pattern of, in South, 
451, 458, 459, 532; significance of, in 
American history, 433n.; and tradition 
of illegality, 17 

Fruit and vegetable production, 252 

Frustration, 688, 699-700, 1260; political, 
810-81 1 ; and religion, 859, 938; subli- 
mated into emotionalism, 861 

Fry, C. Luther, cited, 141 3 

Fugitive slave laws, 16 

Fundamentalism in Southern religion, 5 6 3> 
56s, 660, 869 



Index 



H55 



Funeral expenditures, it 6s 



Gabriel, Ralph H., on democracy and moral 

law, 10, i5, »3 
Gaines Case, (30, S33 
Gallagher, Buell G n 13771 cited, 5631 caste 

and class diagrams by, 1381 
Gambling, 31o-33'i 9+°i 9*3-9«4) 9*5» 

ii 66, 1167, 12691 laws against, 17 
Gamer, John N., 459-460, 4.94, 75* 
Garnet, Henry Highland, 737 
Garrison, William Lloyd, 806, 1075 
Garvey, Marcus, 746-749, 836n., 1390 
Garvey movement 698, 746-749, 806, 1328 
Gaudiness, Negro love of, 962-963 
Gebhard, John C, cited, 1262 
Geddes, Anne £., cited, 354 
General Education Board, 891, 893 
General Motors Corporation, 1 1 1 9 
Genetic composition of Negro people, izt- 
122, 124, 131-132, 590, 1 199-1200; 
present and future trends, 132-136 
Geographic conditions, effect of, on man, 

116 
Geographical distribution of Negroes, 183- 
185, 189, 190-191, 205-206) effect of, 
on reproduction rate, 161 ; of Negro po- 
licemen, 54311. 
Georgia: incomes from fines in, 549^; lib- 
eral influence in, 468, 469; Negro police 
in, 543n.j riot in, 567 s voting in, 488m; 
voting requirements in, 484, 1324; white 
primary in, 486 
Gerrymandering, 43on., 4370., 45o, 49 2 , 

633, 901, 1326-1327; "natural," 493 
Gibson, Truman, 422n. 
Gillard, John Thomas, cited, 8645.-86511., 

87on., 87m. 
Gist, Noel P., cited, 1373 
Glasgow, Ellen, 468 

Glass, Carter, on discrimination, 1313-1314 
"Glass plate," 680, 724-727 
Gleason, Eliza Atkins, cited, 1275 
God, Negro youth's conception of, 141 1 
Goldberg, Isaac, on white enjoyment of Ne- 
gro songs, 1437 
Goldhamer, Herbert, cited, 952 
Good Shepherd Church, 863n. 
Goodell, William, cited, 531-532 
Goodrich, Carter, cited, 232 
Gosnell, Harold F.: cited, 493, 494i 49S> 
498, 502, 941 j on Negro benefits from 
government, 501; on Negro political loy- 
alty, 1330; on Negro prostitution, 1268; 
on Negro underworld and election, 1329; 
on Negro underworld leaders, 1267 
Gould, Howard D., ii23n. 
Government: Jeffersonian distrust of, 16; 



increasing power of labor in, 788) Ne- 
groes employed by, 327-328, 41$, 788, 
1265-1266; non-criticism of, 1251-1252; 
reform of, 51 1-5 12 

Government jobs, discrimination in, 1306- 
1307 

Gradualism, 787-788, 845, 11 19 

Grady, Henry W., 230; on ante-bellum 
South, 1375-1376; on employment op- 
portunities for Negroes, 292; on racial 
separation, 581, 1353; on slaves, 1357; 
on white solidarity, 453-454; on white 
supremacy, 1354 

Graft; see Corruption 

Graham, Frank P., 467 

Granger, Lester B., 837, 987; cited, 417, 
1301, 1306, 1307; on Urban League, 
1408 

Grandfather clauses, 480, 829, 833, 1313, 
1318, 1323 

Grant, Madison, on racial definition, 1 14 

Grant, Ulysses S., on hope of freedmen for 
land, 1234 

Grants-in-aid system, 343, 892-893, 1215 

Graves, John Temple, 1013 

Great Depression, 348, 394, 1 243-1 244; ef- 
fect of, on migration, 196; effect of, on 
Negroes, 206-207, 295, 296, 315, 393, 
754-75 5) in the North 295; in the South, 
»97> 289, 463 

Great Migration {see also Migration), 46, 
183, 189, 191-196, 295, 329-330, 527, 
568, 599, 602, 652, 999, 1229-1232 

Great Revival of 1800, 938 

Greeley, Horace, 1075 

Green, H. M., cited, 172 

Green, Paul, 468 

Green, William, 718 

Greene, Harry W., on education of Negro 
leaders, 1402 

Greene, Lorenzo J., and Woodson, Carter 
G., on opposition of unions to Negroes, 
no2n. 

Grimke, Angelina and Sarah, 1075 

Gross reproduction rate, 161-162, 1211 

Guardian, Boston, 913-914, 1392 

Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 89an. 

Hacker, Louis, 13 15 

Hailey, Malcolm, cited, 807 

Hairdressers, Negro, 1088 

Haiti, immigration to, 186 

Hamilton, Horace C, on mechanization in 
the South, 1249 

Hammon, Jupiter, 992 

Hammond, J. H., on slavery, 443 

Hampton, Wade, on Reconstruction Amend- 
ments, 1313 



'45* 



Index 



Hampton Institute, 888, 889, 89*, 898, 899, 
1416, 1429 

Handy, W. C, 989 

Harlem, 61 in., 622, 1115-1126, 1366; 
business in, 1261 1 vice in, 1266 

Harlem Hospital, 323 

Harlem Riot of 193$, 568 

Harmon Foundation, 892n. 

Harper, William, on slavery, 87 

Harris, Joel Chandler, 987 

Harrison, Carter, 49m. 

Hart, Albert Bushnell, 1190 

Hart, Hornell, cited, 1 207-1 208 

Harvard University, 1264 

Hastie, William H., 42m., 503 

Haynes, George, 817) cited, 1302 

Hayes, Laurence J. W., cited, 327, 1265 

Hayes, Roland, 734, 988, 1340 

Hayes, Mrs. Roland, 1 339-1 340 

Health: affected by discrimination, 1721 ef- 
fect of, on birth rate, 174-175 

Health needs, Negro, 371 

Health services, 212, 323, 324, 546) fed- 
eral aid to, 1 2 73-1 2 74; segregation in, 

3*5 

Health standard, minimum, 366-367 

Hearst press, 916, 1424 

Helper, Hinton Rowan, 230, 1235; cited, 
444} on poor whites, 1311-1312) on 
slaveholders, 531 

Henderson, Elmer W., cited, 494, 50m., 
502, 1329 

Henderson, Fletcher, 988 

Henry, Patrick, on slavery, 22 

Herbert, Hilary A., cited, 1234 

Heredity, role of, in intelligence and per- 
sonality, 151-152 

Herskovits, Melville J., 137, 753, 930, 
1206} cited, ti8, 11911., 124, 132-133, 
1205, 1210, 1211-1212, 1411; on ab- 
sence of African culture traits, 1425; 
on ancestral cultures of Africa, 753; on 
slave trade, 1201-1202 

Heyward, Du Bose, 468, 987 

Hicks, John D., cited, 452 

High, Stanley, cited, 420, 1 307 

High schools, Negro, 950-951, 1429 

Hill, Lister, 467 

Hill, T. Arnold, cited, 953, 1430 

Himes, Norman, on clinic attendance, 1206 

Hinckley, E. D., 1136 

Hinrichs, A, F., i092n. 

Historians, Negro, 751-752, 1315 

History: of American idealism, 6-8) of Ne- 
groes in America, lii, 750-754} person- 
ification of, by Americans, 7101 teaching 
of, to Negroes, 1420} of this study, ix-xx, 
Iv-lviii 



Hoboes, Thomas, cited, 79 

Hodge, Charles, on treatment of women 
and minors, 1074 

Hoffman, Frederick L., on tuberculosis 
among Negroes, 142 

Hoffsommer, Harold, on public relief for 
Southern tenants, 1279 

Holiness Church, 864n., 87m., 938 

Holley, W. C, Winston, E., and Woofter, 
T. J., Jr.: cited, 254, 257, 259-260, 269, 
1247, > 2 54i on interest rates, 147 

Holmes, S. J.: cited, 1361} on birth control, 
1206 

Home Economics, Bureau of, 374 

Home Owners' Loan Corporation, 348 

Homicide, 174, 540, 542, 553, 554n. 

Hooton, Earnest A.: cited, 14.0 j on off- 
spring of white and Negro parents, 1208 

Hoover, Herbert, 478, 494, 121 8 

Home, Roman L., and McKibben, E. G., 
on mechanization, 1 249-1 250 

Horowitz, Eugene L., 1136 

Horst, Paul, on environment, 152 

Hoshor, John, cited, 87m. 

Hospital Construction Bill, 345 

Hospitalization, 344-345 

Hospitals: federal aid to, 345; for the in- 
sane, 979} Negro, 1224, 1273} Negro 
and white, 323-324} segregation in, 635- 

636. 79S-79* 

Hotels: discrimination in, 628} segregated, 
528, 588, 635, 795 

Housewife's League, 1400 

Housing: bad, effect of, 1290} conditions 
in, 375-379> <>i9» 1290-1292, 1308} de- 
fense, 418-419, 1308} discrimination in, 
107, 196, 348-353, 527} for lumber 
workers, 1095} Negro management in, 
326} nonsegregated units, 1276} reform 
in, 626} Sojourner Truth project, 568, 
6 7 s > 13375 subsidies for, 352n. 

Housing program, 211, 348-353} and 
family size, 1286} Negro work on, 1104- 
1105 

Housing segregation, 107, 308, 377, 379, 
567, 60 1*, 1366} and government agen- 
cies, 625-626} in the North, 618-622} 
sanctions for, 622-627 

Houston, riots of 1917 in, 567, 1309 

Hovland, C. L, and Sears, R. R., cited, 563 

Howard, O. O., 141 7 

Howard, Perry, 478 

Howard University, 324, 326, 343, 888, 
892, 1206, 1264, 1416, 1417, 1429 

Hoyt Homer, cited, 619, 1365 

Hrdliika, Ales, 11411., 138, 1212} cited, 
1210 

Hughes, Langston, 734, 989, 11 84 



Index 



H57 



Human inclinations, etiquette in cues in- 
volving, 616-617 

Humanitarianism, 6-7; of American Creed, 
598; in Reconstruction period, 739, 741 

Humor, Negro, 959-961, 1431 1 function 
of, in race question, 38-39) simulated, 
960 

Hurd, John C, cited, 531-532 

Hurston, Zora Neale, cited, 965 

Huxley, Julian S.; on adaptation to en- 
vironment, 1199; on miscegenation, 1209 

Huxley, J. S., and Haddon, A. C., on 
genetic racial differences, 14.6 

Idealism, American, xlvi, xlviii, 712, 810; 
and behavior, disparity between, 21-23; 
745. 75S~75*» »oo8; history of, 6-8; in- 
scribed in laws, 14 

Ideals: conflict of, 209; lip-service to, 21- 
23$ unity of, 3-5 

Ideology: business, 800-803; defense, 30-32, 
56-57, 62, 88, 104-105, 283-284, 441- 
445, 460, 96m., 1432; equalitarianism, 
see Equalitarianism; national, see Amer- 
ican Creed; Negro, see Popular theories, 
Negro; Northern, 603, 1375-1376; "pure 
woman," 1356; Southern (see also Liber- 
alism, Southern), 441-445, 670; work- 
ing class, 407; of World War II, 517, 
745. 755, 79°n-> 9^5. t°°4, 1006, 1007, 
1012, 1016 

Ignorance, mutual, of Negroes and whites, 
762, 956, 957 

Ignorance, Negro, 961, 970; simulated, 
961 1 of whites, 659 

Ignorance about social affairs, 1034 

Ignorance, white, about Negroes {see also 
Misinformation about Negroes), 40-42, 
»79> 339B-I 382, 600, 647, 1010, 
ii43n., 1293, 1370-13711 1373-1374; 
convenience of, 40-42, 48; as a factor 
in social inequality, 656-659; in the 
North, 383-386, 606, 644 > in the South, 

394-395 

Illegality: pattern of, 558-560, 1346; tradi- 
tion of (see also Law, lack of respect 
for, in America), 405, 435, 440, 441, 
448-451, 525, 526, 536 

Illegitimacy, 177-178, 93*. 933. 935 

Illinois: death penalty in, 55+°-» lynching 
in, 561; riots in, 567; school segrega- 
tion in, 633 

Immigrants: competition of, with Negroes, 
603; exploitation of, 50, 292; inferior 
schools for, 338; newspapers for, 911, 
912; physical changes in, 122, 1202- 
1203; voting among, 491; voting rights 
of, 4J« 



Immigration, 17, 50-52, 157-159, 166, 196, 
7»3» 7>4i 9*7. decline of, 715s legisla- 
tion on, 92, 196, 198; of Mexicans and 
Canadians, 159; Negro, no, 135, 165, 
166; restricted, 998, 1190 

Imperialism, American, 1020 

Improvement organizations, 744, 800, 812- 
852, 877 

Income: farm, 255, 1283-1285; Southern 
white, 45n., zo,yn. 

Income, Negro (see also Salaries and 
Wages), 307, 364-366, 1270, 1283- 
1285, 1288; of artists 329 330; differ- 
ential in, 164-165; of doctors, 324-325; 
and family size, 366-367; of teachers 
and ministers, 319-320, 321 

Inconsistency: between American ideals and 
practices 21-23, 745, 755-756, 1008; of 
attitudes in America, xlv, xlviii, 1140- 
1141; of beliefs, in, 283-284, 446; 
intellectual and moral, 39-40; of Negro 
clergymen, 940; in social orientation, 
32-53 ; of valuations, see Valuations, con- 
flicts of 

Independent Labor League of America, 
8i2n. 

India, potential revolt in, 1006 

Indians, American, assimilability of, 53 

Indiana: lynching in, 561 ; school segrega- 
tion in, 633 

"Indifferent equilibrium": in the North, 
392-394; in the South, 394-396 

Individual enterprise, decreased sanctity of, 
213 

Individualism, 709, 710; of immigrants, 
714; Negro, 961; Southern, 458-459 

Inequality; see Discrimination and "No 
social equality," doctrine of 

Industrial Congress of 1873, 1296 

"Industrial" education; see "Vocational" 
education 

Industrial Revolution, effect of, on Negroes 
and women, 1077 

Industrialization: future, of "backward" 
countries, 1017-1018; impact of, on 
Negroes, 645; in the South, 44, 199, 

263. 398, 463, 515 
Industry: Negroes in, 198, 199, 279-303, 
380, 424, 1079-1124, 1256-1259, 1295- 
1296, 1386; exclusion of Negroes from, 
389-390; history of Negroes in, 393-394 
Infant mortality, 162, 171, 174, 1213, 1224 
Inferiority doctrine, 54-55, 97-101, 577- 
578, 583, 642, 751; applied to women, 
1077; deliberate fostering of, 101-106; 
disproving of, 76; Negro attitude to- 
ward, 62-65, 208, 758-759, 760; un- 



U5* 



httaet 



■dcmnntD^ oty by pesefcrch mm! cductttioity 

Infiltration into Negro jobs 5 W White in- 
filtration into Negro job* 

Inflation, 399, 514, 

Initiative and referendum, 434, 4(7, 5001 
AAA. referenda, 488-489, 490 

Injustice, legal (set alto Justice, inequality 

&»>j 1J44-134-5 
Insecurity, Negro sense of, 964 
Institutional segregation: general char- 
acter of, 618, (17-631) in specific in- 
stitutions, 632-639 
"Institutional structures, influence of, to 
Institutions, Negro, 918-955 
"Instrumental norm," 1062-1063 
Insurance: discrimination in, 316, 12625 a 
feature of Negro lodges, 955 5 Negroes in, 
314, 316-317, 1262-1263 
Insurrections, slave, 567 
Integrity, scientific, scale of, 1040 
Intellectuals, Negro, 94-96, 749-750, 782, 
784, 788, 7&9-790. 821, 831, 833-834, 
840, 848, 889, 1432$ and back-to-Africa 
movement, 8061 fatalistic tendency of, 
19 j and labor solidarity, 1398) radical- 
ism of, 1398' 
Intelligence, white and Negro, 147 
"Intelligence profile," 1218 
Intelligence tests, 147, 150-151, 1217-1218 
Interests, harmony of, 1046-1047, to6m. 
Intermarriage (see alto Amalgamation), 
55, 60, 1 187, 1207) ban on, 63, 125, 
606-607, 617, 646, 668, 1142; Negro 
attitude toward, 62, 63-64) Negro-In- 
dian, 12035 statistics on, 1360-1361 
International aspects of Negro problem, 

1015-1018 
International Hod Carriers', Building and 

Common Laborers' Union, 1104 
International Labor Defense, 8i2n. 
International Ladies' Garment Workers' 

Union, 402, 1297 
International Longshoremen's Association, 

1 098-1 099 
International Timber Workers' Union, 

109 5-1096 
International Wood Workers of America, 

1096 
International Workers of the World, 1297 
Internationalism, America's role in, 6, 24 
"Interpretation" requirement for voting, 

4»4. 489 

Interracial Commission, xiv, 556, 565, 646, 
842-8504 854, 999, 1409-14101 criticism 
o& ..?4#->48, 1404-14054 purpose of, 
843-844, 845, 84^-847; tactics of, 845 

inferiiacial contacts: casual, 650-652, 656} 



criminal, 655-6561 economic, 652-655, 
6561 professional, 656 

Interracial cooperation of churches, low de- 
gree of, 868, 871-^72, 874 

Interracial meetings, 41-42 

Inttrracial Revitv), 9090. 

Interracial sex relations) ut Sex relations, 
interracial 

"Interracial Sunday," 872m. 

Interracial work: condemnation of those 
engaged in, 646, 6791 increasing re- 
spectability of, 646, 661, 847, 849 

Intimidation: of labor, by employers, 404, 
1297; of Negroes by whites, 485, 486, 
5»8, 530, 5661 «*8» 1J46. iJ47-»35i 

Irish, Marian D.: on Southern politics, 4301 
on unproportional representation in 
Congress, 516 

Iron and steel industry: Negroes in, 1115- 
1119; unionization of, 1117-11185 wages 
in, 1116-1117 

"Islamic" cults, 86211. 

Isolation: cultural breaking down of, 565) 
of Negro upper class, 730, 764-765} be- 
tween Negro and white groups, 3390., 
395, 615, 640, 644-650, 659, 663, 703, 
7*4-7*7> 74S» 7«o, 763, 797, 879, 956, 
957> 999i 1012, 1370-1371J between 
scholars and political agencies, 104.25 of 
Southern region, 44.45 and suspicion, 
7235 of white and Negro religious in- 
stitutions, 868 

Isolation-integration, scale of, 1039 

Isolationism, American: end of, 101 6, 
1018, 1 020 5 in World War II, 1004 

Ivy, James W., on education and social 
reform, 1049 

Jackson, Andrew, 433 

Jackson, L. P., cited, 123 

Jackson, Wilhelmina, cited, 485 

Jacksonian movement, 6 

Jaffe, A. J.: cited, i6t, 163s on differen- 
tials in punishment, 1433 

Janitors, Negro, 1089 

Japan, 10065 industrialization of, 1017 

Japanese in America: background of, 545 
restaurants and stores of, 310; segrega- 
tion of, 620 

Japanese propaganda, 1016, 14385 to 
Negroes, 814, 81411.-8150. 

Jeanes, Anna T., 890 

Jeanes Fund, 890, 891, 906 

Jeanes teachers, 141 7 

Jefferson, Thomas, 433, 717^, 805, 1182, 
13115 cited, 135 on moral danger of 
slavery, 5315 on Negro- white friction, 
90; on slavery, 85 



Index 



1459 



Jenkins, William Stunner, cited, 44.1 

Jenks, Albert E, cited, $0711. 

Jernegan, Mucus W., cited, us, 695-696 

Jews and Negroes, difference between 
problems of, 18-29 

Jim Crow) set Segregation 

Jim Crow laws; see Legislation, Jim Crow 

Job discrimination} see Discrimination, 
economic 

Job monopolies, Negro, 193, 197, 305, 
3*»i 395i 397, 4°6, *45> 652, 685, 686, 
690, 693-694, io79n.j breaking of {see 
alto white infiltration into Negro jobs), 
286 

Job monopolies, women's, 1077 

Job segregation, 106-107, 312-313, 327, 
1098 

Jobs, Negro: general characteristics of, 
1079-1082; outside agriculture, see In- 
dustry, Negroes in 

Johns, Elizabeth D., cited, 91211., 917, 
1423 

Johnson, Charles S., 750, 903^, 987; 
cited, 321, 324, 50m., 576, 610, 6 1 on., 
623-624} 635, 702, 821, 935, 946-947, 
948n., 949n., 1105-1106, 1107, 1273, 
1369, 1414, 1423, 1426; analysis of 
Negro humor by, 96011.; on cases in- 
volving 14th Amendment, 1312} on 
cheating of Negroes, 247; on color, 1382, 
1383, 1384) on concept of caste, 1375} 
on Denmark Vesey, 736-737} on discrim- 
ination in justice, 524-525} on dynamic 
character of race relations, 1129} on 
effect of lynching on Negroes, 1348; on 
"folk Negroes" and Negro upper class, 
1387-1388; on futility of civil rights 
law in New Jersey, 1367} on industrial 
status of Negroes, 393; on lynching, 
13501 on Negro behavior, 95811.-959^} 
on Negro church, 861-862, 867 j on Negro 
education, 894} on Negro lower class, 
1386, 1395; on Negro sensitivity, 761 } 
on Negro youth attitudes, 1371-1372, 
1394} on Negro's place in the South, 
584; on race etiquette, 1351, 1363- 
1364] on race pride, 6871 on segrega- 
tion, 631-632, 741 } on slavery and the 
race problem, 1339; on Southern rural 
life, 1435) on symbolism of Joe Louis, 
1396} on white protection of Negroes, 
13571 on white supremacy and poor 
whites, 598 

Johnson, C. S., Embree, E. R., and Alex- 
ander, W. W.: on farm organization and 
reform, 267 s on share-cropping, 208} on 
tenancy, 1236 

Johnson, Claudius O., cited, 49an. 



Johnson, Guion G.: cited, 88} on interracial 
cooperation, 1012-1013} on natural 
rights of man, 10 

Johnson, Guion G., and Johnson, Guy B., 
cited, 870, 871, 938 

Johnson, Guy B.: cited, 532, 866, 1392} 
criticism of N.A.A.C.P. by, 1404, 1405 1 
on discipline by force, 1340} on need for 
unified Negro movement, 1410 } on Re- 
construction, 449-450 

Johnson, Guy B., and Kiser, Louise K.: 
cited, 968, 969, 970, 972} on crime statis- 
tics, 967; on unpremeditated crime, 974 

Johnson, Jack, 988 

Johnson, James Weldon, 726, 929, 9S7, 
989} cited, 201, 565, 576, 745, *2o, 
1128, 1256} on ambivalence of Negro 
leaders' attitudes, 775} on boycotting, 
803; on caste struggle, 676, 1397; and 
communism, 509} on disfranchisement 
policy of Senators George and Glass, 
1314} on Du Bois, 828n.) on early Negro 
entertainment, 989} on effect of dis- 
crimination, 30 } on Garvey, 749} on 
Harlem, 1125-1126} on importance of 
South in Negro problem, 1014; on in- 
feriority doctrine, 101-102) on inter- 
racial friendship, 856) on interracial sex 
relations, 1354) on Jim Crow in trans- 
portation, 1 35 1) on mental attitude of 
whites, 1 1 85) on minstrel shows, 1437) 
on N.A.A.C.P., 832) on Negro church, 
867; on Negro enjoyment of life, 1431) 
on Negro periodicals, 913) on Negro 
reactions after World War I, 1392) on 
Negro servant class, 593) on Negro 
solidarity and physical force, 68 1) on 
one-sidedness of interracial intercourse, 
1352} on organized labor, 794) on pre- 
serving human dignity, 758) program of 
Negro education by, 1420; on race pride 
and business, 803; on racial isolation, 
645-646, 808} on rural life, 1436) on 
San Francisco, 187) on self-segregation, 
799) on sex in white periodicals, gign.j 
on stereotypes, 1195) on "strolling," 
984) on Supreme Court attitude to 
Negro disfranchisement cases, J334-I33SJ 
on "uplifters," 596-597; on Washington 
and Du Bois groups, 743; on white 
prejudice, 43-44 

Johnson, Mordecai, 872-873 

Johnson, Rosamund, 989 

Johnston, Harry: cited, 562; on color ques- 
tion in America, 114; on making money, 
801; on rape statistics before 1870, 56m. 

Joint Committee on National Recovery, 817 

Jokes, an expression of stereotypes, tot 



H6o 



Index 



Jolson, Al, 987 

Jones, Eugene Kinckle, 8371 on Urban 

League, 84.0, 14.07-1408 
Journal of Negro History, 751, 751, 90911., 

»393 
Judges, personality of, 552 
Judicial order in America, 17-19 
Judicial system, Southern, illegality around, 

536 
Jury system: Negroes barred from, 499, 
5*4. 549> 828, 134.3-134.4.} Negroes per- 
mitted in, in North, 528; partiality in, 

55**553 

Just, Ernest £., 734, 11 84 

Justice (see also Courts, Southern) : and 
democracy, 523-526) discrimination in, 
523-524, 967, 968-969, 974, 999, 1335- 
1 337 i double standard of, 551; legal, see 
Legal justice and Legal injustice; rela- 
tive equality of, in North, 526-529; 
Southern heritage of, 529-534 

Juvenile delinquency, Negro, 345n., 376, 
968, 969, 977n.-978n. 

Kansas: lynching in, 561; Negro popula- 
tion of, 1 230 j prohibition in, 457; 
school segregation in, 633 

Kelly, Abby, 1075 

Kentucky: Negro high schools in, 95on.; 
primaries in, 487; transportation segre- 
gation in, 6351 voting in, 488n. 

Key, V. O., cited, 477 

"Kick-backs," 1098 

Kiplinger, W. M., cited, 133 1 

Kirk, Dudley, cited, 161, i6m.-i62n., 1221 

Kirkland, Chancellor, quoted, 64.411. 

Kiser, Clyde V., cited, 120, 165 

Klineberg, Otto, cited, 147, 14811., 150, 
1213 

Knights of Labor, 1296, 1297 

Knights of the Rising Sun, 449 

Knights of the White Camellia, 449 

Knowledge, distortion of, 40-42, 11 84- 
1185 

Ku Klux Klan, 410, 449, 455, 458, 466, 
478, 486, 499, 527, 560, 563, 568, 678, 
8i2n., 847 

Labor: abundance of, 558; displacement 
of, 260-261, 267, 270, 297; forced and 
convict, after Civil War, 228; scarcity 
of, 411, 424; strengthening of bargain- 
ing power of, 400} unskilled, 296-297, 
3*5> 410. 7**> -*57. 1303 

Labor agents, 194, 248-249, 1090; police 
as, 128-229 

Labor camps, 277, 1132 

Labor enticement laws, 558 



Labor force, Negro: outside agriculture, 
279-303; size of, 297-301 

Labor market: discrimination in, 385, 386, 
391; in the North, 388-390; outside the 
unions, 404; public control of, 385, 402; 
tendency toward government control of, 
426 

Labor movement (see also Unionization) : 
democracy in, 330, 718, 792, 1005; 
growing strength of, 403-408; history of. 
214, 713, 1296-1300; power of Negroes 
in, 726; resistance to, 389, 404, 1095^- 
io96n., 1 1 23; solidarity with Negroes 
a necessity in, 426, 792, 835, 855; in 
the South, 463; split in 855; tactics of, 
405 

Labor organizations (see also Trade unions), 
261-264 

Labor politics, 714 

Labor relations, planning of, 1010 

Labor solidarity, 598-599, 647, 750, 788- 
794, 804 

Labor spies, 404 

LaFollette-Bulwinkle Art, 1225 

LaGuardia, Fiorello H., 502, 1328 

Laissez-faire attitude (See also Do-nothing 
policy) 19-21, 457. 559. 58on., 831, 
1031, 103611., 1047, 1048, 1050, 1052, 
1053-1054, 1055, »<>56» 1398 

Lamar, L. Q. C, on Reconstruction 
Amendments, 1312-1313 

Land, distribution of, 224-225 

Land problem, 224-227 

Land reform, 230 

Landlord-tenant relations, 227-229 

Landownership, Negro, 227, 237-240, 690, 
702, 769, 898, 1 001, 1239; historical 
background of, 240-242 

Landownership, white, 253, 1 245-1 246 

Lange, Gunnar, 2?5n.: cited, 251-252; on 
A.A.A. program, 269, 1 247-1 248; on 
boll weevil, 1238; on cotton production, 
251, 1244; on Southern land resources, 
232; on tenancy reduction, 258 

Langsford, E. L., and Thibodeaux, B. H., 
cited, 247, 1249 

Langston, John M., 737, 738 

Laundry work, 311, 1087-1088 

Law: English, as a root of American Creed, 
12; growing respect for, in South, 229, 
514, 518, 533-534; lack of respect for, 
in America, 13-18, 20, 435, 440-441, 
445, 45>» 475. 55 8 > -°°9> 1182-1183; 
laxity in administration of, 20, 404, 432- 
433. 434-435. 55*S "natural," 15-17, 
1054, 1182-1183 

Law courts, discrimination in, 6i, 527, 
548, 550-553 



Index 



1461 



Law enforcement in the South, 529-5341 
historical background of, 530-533 

Lawlessness in the South, 525, 52$, 53*. 
533. 55$ 

Lawyers, Negro, 305, 325-326, 528, 550, 
638, 802, 1344 

Leaden, Negro: as champions of their race, 
28-29; dilemma of, 507-508; double 
xole of, 772-773, 7745 education of, 
694; isolation of, from whites, 726; 
Northern and national, 722-724, 733, 
777-779J preachers as, 861, 875, 876, 
940; Southern white and Negro interest 
in, 720-722$ and suffrage question, 513; 
underworld, 1267-1268 

Leadership: American, in post-war world,' 
1019, 1021-1024; in American thought, 
709-711, 715-719; and ca«c, 720; and 
class, 727-733; community, 711-712; 
control of public opinion by, 1033; and 
fascism and nazism, 709; personalities, 
734-735 i a "d social mobility, 714; train- 
ing for, 719^5 white, 724-726 

Leadership, Negro: "accommodating," 507- 
508, 683, 722-723, 726-729, 733, 739- 
740, 742-743, 861, 910; and anti- 
amalgamation doctrine, 62-65; and 
class, 703, 1390; compromise, 768-780; 
corrupt, 857; function of, 1133; high 
performance in field of, 987; moral 
aspect of, 774-775, 857; motives of, 
769-771; national, 779-780; in the 
North, 777-779; prestige of, 1390; pro- 
test, 640-641, 726, 736-738, 742-743. 
771-772, 841, 1005-1006; qualifications 
for, 775-776; research on, 1133-1135; 
rivalry in, 507, 775, 778, 13975 selec- 
tion of, 770-771, 1133-1134; in the 
South, 776-777; symbolic, of Joe Louis, 
1396; techniques of, 773-774, 79*. '3975 
vulnerability of, 769; withdrawal of 
upper class from, 1388 

League for Industrial Democracy, 81211. 

League for Protection of Colored Women, 

«37 
League of Women Voters, 469 

Lee, Canada, 988 

Leeuw, Hendrik de, on Negro prostitution, 

1268 
Legal aid agencies, need for, 556, 855 
Legal injustice, 628, 828, 1 344-1 345 
Legal justice for Negroes, 497, 498 
"Legal lynchings," 566, 1350 
Legal order: as part of caste system, 515; 

Southern, movement to normalize, 229, 

514, 5>8» 533-534 
Legalistic formalism in America, 18-19 
Legislation: anti-dweriroination, 408, 41 8n., 



1367; aoti-lynching, 50*, 517, 565, 
839, 1350; anti-trust, 19; to continue 
white control over freedmen, 558; fav- 
oring landlords, 275; favoring planters, 
227-228, 558; immigration, 92, 196, 
198; income tax, 1183; on intermar- 
riage, 125, 6o7n.; and Interracial Com- 
mission, 846; Jim Crow, 191, 242, 283, 
335. 578-582, 601, 628-629, 630, 635, 
728, 742, 1009, 1366-1367; a late prod- 
uct in Western democracy, 15; and 
mores, i054n.; protecting unions, 713; 
for protection of domestics, 1087; for 
protection of slaves, 531-532; on racial 
definition, 113; Reconstruction, 19; reme- 
dial, N.A.A.C.P. fight for, 826, 828, 
829; social, 18, 19, 207, »ii, 384, 397, 
43 6, 45 7 i tax, 334 

Leniency in cases of Negro crimes against 
Ncgioes, 5 si, 592. 7*4, 9 6 9i 97«. 978> 
•344 

Lester, Richard A., cited, 404, 1297 

Lester, Robert M., cited, 343 

Lewinson, Paul, 603; cited, 453, 475n., 
478, 485-486, 487, 4*9> 498, 1317 

Lewis, Edna, 1339 

Lewis, John Henry, 988 

Lewis, John L., 718, 855, 1401 

Lewis, Julian H.; cited, 14411.; on reactions 
to disease, 1214 

Leyburn, James C, cited, 1203 

Liberal party in America, 511 

Liberalism: American, 434, 517; economic, 
209-212, 672, 106911.; of the Enlighten- 
ment, 83-84; European, 434 

Liberalism, Southern, 440, 441, 454, 456, 
460-461, 466-473, 513, 5i9n., 596, 775, 
794, 999 ,1000, 1012-1013, 1037, 1320- 
1321, 1336-1337; achievements of 472; 
and harmony doctrine, 1047; influence of, 
5?<>> 565, 903; Interracial Commission 
the organization for, 844, 849; lack of 
mass support for, 473; and the New 
Deal, 467, 471, 472; not a radical move- 
ment, 469; opportunism of, 471; a polit- 
ical minority, 470; and principle of 
legality, 533 

Liberia, immigration to, 186, 805, 813 

Liberty: concept of, 573-574; and equality, 
conflict of, 9, 672; right for, backed by 
TStligion, 10; rights to, 8, 9 

Libraries: for Negroes, 1275-1276, 1368; 
restrictions on, 347; segregation and dis- 
crimination in, 628, 634 

Lien laws, 228, 246, 558, 1235, 1236 

Life insurance; see Insurance 

Lightfoot, R. M., Jr., on petty character 
of Negro crimes, 974 



I4& 



Imax 



Lily-white movement, 478-479, 494 
Lincoln, Abraham, 431, S051 cited, 87; on 

equal opportunity, 67 a) on Negroes in 

Civil War, 73811. 
Lindbergh, Charles, 735 
Litchfield, Edward H., cited, 493, 494, 

495> *3*7 

Literacy test, 446, 514 

Literature: interracial relations in field of, 
656} Negro, 93-97, 751, 989, 990, 991, 
991, 13151 "proletarian" branch of, 
9290. 1 of Southern -writers, 7on. 

Living conditions of Negroes, 169, 375- 
379) 1290-1292, 1308; and mental dis- 
ease rate, 980; in the North, 619, 375- 

,379 
Living standard: minimum 2141 Negro, 
2i6n., 217-218, 1066, 1 067 j post-Civil 
War, a*3 ; rising, 565, 718 
Lobbying by N.A-A.C.P., 826, 817-828 
Locke, Alain, 7501 cited, 987-988, 990, 
992) on Herskovitsj* propaganda, 1394} 
on Negro craftsmen, 993m 
Locke, John, 1182} cited, 83 
Lodges, Negro, 953, 955, 1430 
Logan, Rayford W., quoted, 13 13 
Long, Huey, 453, 499, 903^ 
Longshore works: discrimination and seg- 
regation in, 1098) Negroes in, 287, 294, 
1097-1099; "shape-up" system in, 1098; 
union tradition in, 1097, 1098-1099; 
wages in, 1099 
Louis, Joe, 734, 903n., 988, 11 84, 1396 
Louisiana: educational requirement for vot- 
ing in, 4841 mixed schools in, 5795 
Negro policemen in, 543n. j Negro 
schools in, 1271; poll tax certificate in, 
13244 poll tax repealed in, 482 s riots in, 
568n.; school term in, 948n.; terror 
organization in, 449; voting in, 483, 
48 Sn.; white primary in, 486 
Louisiana Educational Survey, 9030. 
Louisville, Negro political power in, 499 
Louisville segregation Case, 829 
Love, A. G., and Davenport, C. B., cited, 

H3 
Lower class, Negro, 593, 700-702, 1386- 
13871 increased control of Negro press 
by, 921; leaders of, 731-732; protest 
motive in, 762; resentment of, for upper 
class, 7*9-730, 731, 7«-767> 1388, 

«S95 

Lower class, white, 582, 597-598, 689, 
1 189, 1388 

Lower classes interracial, relationship of 
(tee also Labor solidarity), 67-73, ia 4- 
i»5» «93» '95. 221, 262, 281, 291-293, 
38*. 397> 597. 599i 653-654, 673, 894, 

■ 1098, 1204 



Loyalty, Negro, 1007; to America, 1016; 
political, 1330; of worker to his boss, 
1120 

Loyola University, 1264 

Lumber industry: Negroes in, 1090-1096} 
unionization of, 1095-1096; wages in, 
1091, 1092-1095 

Lunceford, Jimmie, 988 

Lynching, 191, 451, 517, 530, 532, 553, 
559, 560-562, 1040, 1379, 1404-1405; 
campaign against, 384; decline of, 565, 
755, 846, 847; as a disciplinary device, 
561; effects of, 564, 1348, 1349; in- 
creased opposition to, 1350; interracial 
commissions and, 1349; "legal," 566, 
1 350 1 post-World War I, 745; psycho- 
pathology of, 563-5645 publicity on, 656, 
918; studies of, 1346-1347; substitutes 
for, 566; a symbol for system of sup- 
pression measures, 35-36; white solidarity 
and, 677 

Lynd, Robert S., io45n. 

McCarroll, E. Mae, cited, 178 

McCuistion, Fred, cited, 951, 95 m. 

McDaniels, Hattie, 988 

McDougall, William, 1190 

McGuire, George A., 746n. 

Machine politics, 331, 439, 453, 476, 486, 
488n., 490, 499, 733, 810, 1322 

Maclver, Robert M., 103 m.) on Marxian 
concept of "class struggle," 676 

McKay, Claude, 989; cited, 330; on Har- 
lem, 622; on Negroes' enjoyment of 
life, 95911.; poem by, on "fighting back," 
681 

Magazines, Negro, 909 

Mahoney Amendment, 41 8n. 

Mall, Franklin P., 9 m. 

Malnutrition, Negro, 37s 

Malzberg, Benjamin, cited, 143, 980, 12 16 

Mangum, Charles S.: cited, 342, 430, 481, 
579) 633, 635, 636, 1262; on asylums 
for Negroes, 634; on authority of trans- 
portation operators, 1340; on Black 
Codes, 228; on court-appointed lawyers, 
548) on excluding Negroes from jury 
duty, 549; on inequality in education, 
1271-1272; on Jim Crow laws, 1366- 
1367; on Mississippi criminal statute, 
1360; on mob violence, 553; on tenant- 
stealing, 1243; on white attitude toward 
Negro education, 899-900 

Manifoldness of Negro problem, 73-7$ 

Manufacturing, Negroes in, 294, 31a 

"March-on- Washington Movement,*' 4'4> 
818, 851-852, 853, 1005 

"Marginal man," 688, 699-700, 1385 



Index 



H63 



Marginal workers, 397-399 

Marriage: common law, 7044 931, 934- 

9351 selection in, 697-698, txtzj upper 

class Negro attitudes toward, 14.15 
Martin, Sella, 1398 
Martineau, Harriet, cited, 1075 
Marx, Karl, 4690., 673, 676, 793, 105m. 
Marxism, 68, 1 06911. 5 "class struggle" 

bans of, 673, 676; liberalistic character 

of, 105 m. 
Maryland: lynching in, 561; Negro police 

fa* 54311.) transportation segregation in, 

«35 

Mats movements: absence of, in America, 
«"7»> 7"-7'6, 811, 821, 83S-83C, 853, 
886) growth of, 114, 51 ij Negro, 746- 
74.9, 85*) in the South, 455, 456, 465) 
weakness of, 406 

Master-servant relationship, 647, 68o, 652- 
°53» 65 8 > 701, 960, 1357) in slave days, 

53» 

Maternal mortality, 174, 1224. 

Maverick, Maury, 467 

Maynor, Dorothy, 988 

Mayor's Commission on Conditions in Har- 
lem: cited, 974) quoted, 9 7 in. 

Mays, B. £., on Negro church patterns, 
8 73 n. 

Mays, B. E., and Nicholson, J. W.: cited, 
866n.-867n., 873, 874, 874^, 878, 937, 
939n., 941, 1412-1413) on the "call" 
to the ministry, 936 

Mead, Margaret, cited, 1217 

Meat-packing industry) see Slaughtering and 
meat-packing industry. 

Meat production, 253 

Mechanization: cheap labor a hindrance to, 
3,97 j displacement of labor by, 206, 197, 
1 107, 1108, 1248-1250) effect of, on 
Negroes, 206, 282-283, 395» 99*) f*o 
tors tending to speed, 399) increasing, 
424) in lumber industry, 1091-1092) in 
mining industry, 1113; and social change, 
10525 in Southern agriculture, 259-261, 
1 248-1250 

Mecklin, John M.: on cases involving 14th 
Amendment, 1312) on double standard of 
conduct, 643, 1369-1370) on Negro 
press, 9im.-9izn. 

Medical care, expenses for, 370-371 

Medical facilities for Negroes, i7»-»74 

Medical schools, Negro, 324, 1264, 141 6 

Medicine: Negroes in, 172, 306, 322-325, 
636, 638, 79«, 802, 1224. organized, 
do-nothing policy of, 91) socialized, 
Negro doctors opposed to, 324, 704 

Meharry Medical College, 32*, 141* 

Men of Justice, 449 



Mencken, H. L., on lynching, 564. 

Mental disease among Negroes, 143, 979- 

982, 1435 
Merriam, Charles E., on democracy, 8 
Mexicans in the labor market, 393 
Miami: Ku Klux Klan influence in. 486, 
48 8n.; Negro defiance of Ku Klux Klan 
in, 490, 499; Negro voting in, 482, 
48811., 499 
Middle class: Negro, 645-647, 690, 693, 

704) white, 596-598 
Middle States Association, 95m. 
Migrant labor, camps for, 277, 1232 
Migration, Negro: a cause for rioting, 
568; causes for, 1231; to cities, 74, 188- 
190, 191-196, 279-280, 302) effect of, 
on artists, 329-330; effect of, on birth 
and death rates, 163-164) effect of, on 
educational level, 342) factors retarding, 
195-196) future, 197-201 ) general ob- 
servations on, 182-191 ) influence of, 6o>, 
6 5 2 i 999! intra-regional, 244, 386n.j 
literature on, 1230) and mental disease 
rate, 980; to the North, 46, 183, 189, 

191-197, *9S> 3*9-13". 5*7, 5«*> 599. 
602, 652, 999) policy of, 198-199, 386- 
388) a protest movement 914) single- 
cause thuury of, 1231 ) social effects of, 
463; statistics on, 1229-1230; to war 
production centers, 409, 412) westward, 
6, 86, 200 

Military record, Negro, 419-420, 421, 745, 
751, 1308) minimized, 419-420 

Milk production, 1244- 1245 

Millei, Kelly: cited, 661, 748m) on amalga- 
mation, 64) comparison of Booker T. 
Washington and Frederick Douglass by, 
740; on disfranchisement in the South, 
1333; °n effect of lynching, 1349) on 
equality, 23) on Frederick Douglass, 
1187; on historical distinction, 94-95) 
on "industrial" education, 897) on mis- 
cegenation, 1 197) on mulattoes, 12061 
on murder of Negroes, 553) on Negro 
solidarity, 1335) on race tolerance, 856) 
on slavery and the Constitution, 86) on 
Southerners, 593 

Miller, Robert K., on wages in lumber in- 
dustry, i093n, 

Mima, Edwin, on power of Negro press, 
924 

Mining industry: mechanization in, n 13) 
Negro workers in, 287, 294, 1112-11151 
unionization of, 11 13, 11 141 wages in, 
1112-1113 

Ministers, Negro: 306, 321-322, 770, 795, 
859, 939) accommodation of, 94.0 > and 
business, 940 ) education of, 8751 141 3- 



H*4 



Index 



14141 influence of, en Negro vote, 9401 
as leaden, 7JW32, «<*• 875. *?6, 940j 
in the North, 778, 861-863) in politics, 
458, 4981 rivalry of, 874} salaries of, 
1413} in slavery period, 860 
Ministers, white, and the Ku Klux Klan, 

563 
Minorities, 50-53; "Americanization" of, 
54 j Negro group differentiated from, 
28-29, 53, 67, 310, 620, 6671 similar- 
ities of, to Negro group, 1389) voting 
rights of, 438 
Minstrel show, 989-990, 1437 
Miscegenation (see also Amalgamation), 
105-106, 113, 586-587, 607, 696, 698, 
1 197, 1203-1212; of African stocks, 123- 
124} ante-bellum, 125-127) decreasing, 
133} early, 123-1251 with Indians and 
whites, 124} within Negro group, 135; 
Negro-Indian, 12031 recent, 127-1291 
social and biological selection in, 130-132 
Misinformation about Negroes, 40-42, 76, 
339n.j deliberate use of, 1 01-106} need 
for correcting, 109 
Mississippi: education requirements for 
voting in, 484} expenditures for educa- 
tion in, 1271J fines in, 54.93, law against 
advocating social equality in, 13601 
Negro associations in, 9521 Negro 
divorce rate in, 14255 Negro high 
schools in, 95on.j Negro policemen in, 
543n.j profit of, from penitentiaries, 548; 
prohibition in, 457, 457n.-4.58n.) school 
term in, 948n.; terror organizations in, 
449) voting in, 474, 488n.; voting re- 
quirements in, 484, 1324; white primary 
in, 486 
Missouri: expenditures on education in, 
1 27 1 } railway segregation in, 635) vot- 
ing in, 48 8n. 
Missouri Agricultural Workers Council, 263 
Mitchell, Broadus and George S., on avoid- 
ance of practical issues by churches, 14*13 
Mitchell, H. L., cited, 263 
Mob violence (see also Lynching and 

Riots), 553, 564 
Mobility (see also Migration, Negro) : oc- 
cupational, 2i3) social, 210-21 1, 674, 
714, 919 
Moffat, R. Burnham, on legal disfranchise- 
ment, 1 3 14 
Monopolies: economic, 193, 197, 305, 321, 
395> 397> 406, 630, 645, 65*, 685, 686, 
690, 693-694) 974-795. 9* 1 » 94°. ">77i 
i079n. 1 social, 765, 921 
Moore, W. £., and Williams, R. M., cited, 

6S9 
Moral dilemma (»# also Valuations, con- 



flict* of) : of South, on education, (88 j 
of Southern ministers, 868-869 

Moral issue, Negro problem, as, xlv-vlvii 

Moral standards, Negro, 931-933, 935, 
939) 94°) 976, 1425) false beliefs con- 
cerning, 108 ; upper class, 1388 

Moral statistics, lviii 

Moral taboos, 799, 800 

Morale, Negro, in wartime, 850 

Moralism, American, xlvi, lviii, 22, 8 to, 
1024 

Morals of whites, effect of illegal disfran- 
chisement of Negroes on, 1333 

Mores, 20, 33, 451, 462, 525, 58on., 831, 
1048, 1049) changing of, 1053) flexi- 
bility of io53n.-i054n.) sex, 1221 sex, 
after the Civil War, 127) theoretical 
critique of concept, 1031-1032 

Mormons, 712 

Morrow, E. Frederic, on work of N.A.A. 
C.P., 830, 1403 

Mortality; see Death rate 

Mortgage loans, 272, 1276 

Morticians, see Undertakers, Negro 

Morton, Ferdinand Q., 1328 

Moskowitz, Henry, 819 

Moton, Robert R., 726, 647, 677, 743) 
cited, 953) on amalgamation, 62; and 
appeal for equality, 641 ; on conversa- 
tional etiquette, 6i2n.j on eliminating 
Negroes from jobs, 327} on intermar- 
riage legislation, 63, 64; in "knowing 
the Negro," 1373-1374} on Negro atti- 
tude toward law, 1336; on Negro knowl- 
edge of white man, 594) on Negro 
psychology, 43 s on Negro seclusiveness, 
658} on Negro sensitivity, 1369; on 
Negroes in business, 801 ) on racial isola- 
tion, 1370; on religious isolation, 869; 
on segregation, 37} on white "race in- 
tegrity," 56 

Motorization: effect of, on Negroes in in- 
dustry, 288, 1080) and escape from Jim 
Crow, 1368 

Mott, Lucretia, 1075 

Mound Bayou, Miss., 4 8 on. 

Mountin, J. W., Pennell, £. H., and Flook, 
£., cited, 1273 

Movies: Negroes in 330, 988; treatment 
of Negroes in, 98 8n. 

Mowrer, Ernest R., cited, 1425-1426 

Mulattoes (see also Passing), 105-106, 125, 
688, 696-699, 1187, 1204-1206, 1209- 
1212, 1384-1386} beliefs concerning, 
107-108} favored sexually, 125, 13 1; in 
South Africa, 6960. 

Murphy, Edgar G. : on criticism of the 
South, 45) on interracial eating, 609} on 



Index 



H65 



lynching, 134(1 on Negro petty offenses, 
1 3441 on Negro solidarity, 1335} on 
Negro's right to work, us 7; parallel 
civilizations, theory of, 578-582, 595, 
74i. 754. 135*} on pattern of illegality, 
450; on possibilities within color caste, 
595 i °n problem of disfranchisement, 
13 1 8-1 31 9; on race prejudice in the 
North, 292} on white ignorance about 
Negroes, 1370-1371 

Murray, Florence, cited, 8640.-86511,, 908, 
909, 1107, 1299 

Musicians, Negro, 329, 330, 654, 734, 735, 
988-990, 99*-993 

Mutations, 122 

Myers, Gustavus, cited, 614 

Myers, Isaac, 1398 

Myrdal, Alva: cited, 178, 180-181, 366, 
1078; on old age pensions, 358 

Myrdal, Gunnar, quoted, on group inter- 
ests, 791 

Mysticism in inferiority doctrine, 1 00-101 

Nail, John A., 1328 

National Association for the Advancement 
of Colored People, xiv, 320, 342, 459, 
508, 55«. 565. 581, 629, 684n., 703, 
7*«» 744, 776-777, 790, 79J, 79S> 8 °3» 
817, 819-822, 843, 851, 854, 855, 903, 
914, 923, 999; achievements of, 832- 
833; branches of 822-826, 1402-1403; 
cited, 4i8n.s compromise policy of, 796- 
7975 critique of, 831-836, 1405-1406; 
membership of, 821, 836, 851, 1402, 
1406) National Office of, 820, 821, 822, 
826-830; not a mass movement, 821, 
835-836; objectives of, 820, 822-823, 
828-830, 1403 s strategy of, 830-831 ; 
weakness of, 1405-1406; and World War 
II, 836; Youth Councils of, 821, 1402 

N.A.A.C.P. Bulletin, 821 

National Association for the Preservation of 
the White Race, 81 an. 

National Bar Association, 816 

National Benefit Life Insurance Company, 
1263 

"National Compromise," see Compromise of 
the i&7o's 

National Council of Negro Women, 816 

National debt, after the Civil War, 226 

National Defense Advisory Commission, 
1305 

National Health Bill, 345 

National Health Survey, 355, 356, 365, 

377. 378, >*59 
National Housing Agency, 35on., 353, 1308 
National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, 

398n-, 399 



National Labor Relations Act of 1935, 399 

National Labor Union, 1296 

National League on Urban Conditions 
Among Negroes; see Urban League 

National Medical Association, 816 

National Movement for the Establishment 
of the Forty-Ninth State, 814 

National Negro Bankers Association, 315, 
816 

National Negro Business League, 307, 800, 
815 

National Negro Congress, 800, 817-818, 
855, 1401 

National Negro Insurance Association, 816 

National Resources Planning Board, 209- 
210, 62 7n. 

National Teachers' Association, 816 

National Union for People of African De- 
scent, 814 

National Youth Administration, 326, 343, 
347. 3 6 », 362, 465, 503, 99>> » 2 *3> 
1307 

Nationalism, American, 5-6, 13 

Nationalist movements Negro, 812-815 

Natural law, 15-17, 1054 

Natural resources, public control of, 21 1 

Navy: discrimination in, 1005; Negroes it. 
419-423 

Nazism, 6, 1004, 1311; and leadership 
concept, 709 

"Negro," American definition of, 1 13-11 7, 
586, 589-590, 668, 1198-1199 

Negro Co-operative Guild, 816 

Negro Family in the United States, 930- 
931, 1181 

Negro History movement, 751-752 

"Negro History Week," 752, 901, 1394 

Negro History Bulletin, 752 

Negro press, 194, 305, 647, 727, 744, 827, 
1005, 1423-1424; advertising in, 1424; 
characteristics of, 91^-920; circulation 
of, 909, 1423; controls of, 920-9231 
economy of, 922, 1424; and equalitarian- 
ism, 63; future of, 923-924; growth of, 
912-915; importance of, 923; an organ 
for protest, 332, 525, 537, 858, 908-912, 
917; political publicity in, 508; radical- 
ism in, 510; supported by politics, 498 

Negro problem: manifoldness of, 73-751 as 
moral issues, xlv-xlvii; Negro approach 
to, 27-30, 31-32, 38, 786; unity of, 
73-75 i a white man's problem, 669 

Negro vote; see Voting, Negro 

Negro World, 748 

Net reproduction rate, 160-.61, 1219-1220, 
1222, 1229 

Nertels, Curtis P., an early New England 
title of address, 1362-1363 



tm 



IwDtt 



New Deal, 9, 93, 556, 11831 decreased dis- 
crimination under, 335, 463-464, 494» 
504, 546, 600 } educational benefits of, 
343) 485-4*6 ( effect of, on administra- 
tive standards, 4371 and federal jobs for 
Negroes, 328) importance of, to Negroes, 
;'4, 479n., iooo-iooi; a liberal reform 
party, 51 ij and Negro social workers, 
326; Negro support of, 510, 511, 133a} 
as popular movement, 465} and social 
reform, 5451 and Southern liberals, 467, 
471, 472; and youth assistance, 361 
New England, Negro population in, 1309 
New Jersey: riots in, 56811.5 school segre- 
gation in, 633 
New Mexico, school segregation in, 633 
New Negro Alliance, 816 
New Negro movement, 599, 750, 753, 754, 

990 
New York Age, 9180. 
New York Amsterdam News, 9180. 
New York City: Negro Democratic vote 
in, 49m., 494, 495} Negro population 
of, 1125-1126 
New York State: anti-discrimination legis- 
• Iation in, 408, 4i8n., 1367} Negro popu- 
lation in, 1309 
New York State Employment Service, 41 8n. 
Newbold, N. C, 891 
News agencies, Negro, 923 
Newspapers; see Negro press and Press 
Niagara movement, 742-744, 9130, 
"No social equality" doctrine, 58, 395, 449, 
457, 537, 550, 573i 575i 586-5«9» 6ii, 
646, 669, 998, 1142; beliefs supporting, 
582-586) critical evaluation of, 589-5921 
gradual breakdown of, 660-663; in the 
North, 603 
Nobility, European, 1375 
Nonpartisan elections, 487-488, 500 
Nonpolitical Negro institutions} see Church, 
Negro, Schools, Negro, and Negro*. press 
Nonsegregation : in housing, 1276) of 

Negro criminals and insane, 968-969 
"Nordic race," 11411. 
Norfolk Journal and Guide, 917 
Norgren, Paul H. : cited, 1090-1091, 1093, 
1095-1096, 1096-1097, 11 00-11 01, 1 104, 
itn-1112, 1112-1113, 1119-1120, 1122, 
1 133, 1302 } on abolition of racial dis- 
crimination in promotion, 11 181 on 
A.F.L. and color line, 1298} on coal 
mining, 1112; on laws against discrim- 
iaation, 1300$ on Negro jobs, 1080- 
'• 1082; on Negro- white social intercourse, 
1114-11151 on turpentine production, 
1089) on union discrimination, 12995 on 



whites and Negroes in aoto industry 
1119 

Norgren, P. H., and Bailer, L. H., on 
Negro occupations in auto industry, 1120 

North: accommodating leadership in, 722- 
723, 73 3 i attitude in, toward amalga- 
mation, 57-5S, 6031 attitude in, toward 
Civil War, 45, 47) caste system in, 46, 
693; color line broken in, 678} compared 
with the South, 44-49; crime rate in, 
969, 971, 977 s definition of, 10711 de- 
pression in, 2951 discrimination in, 66- 
*7> 199, 599-604, 609, 610, 612-613, 
614, 617-618, 626, 722, 999, 1010-1011, 
1367; disfranchisement in, 438) eco- 
nomic opportunities in, 191, 196; educa- 
tional segregation in, 633, 901, 945-946) 
equal itarianism in, 383, 384, 526-529, 
1014.-1015} housing segregation in, 352, 
618-622, 623, 624, 626) housing short- 
age in, 196) ignorance about Negroes in, 
383-386, 606, 644, 658-659; interracial 
sex relations in, 126; literacy require- 
ments for voting in, 13 10; measures 
against discrimination in, 418, 1367; 
mental situation in, on race problem, 44- 
49; migration to, 46, 183, 189, 191-197, 
*95. 329-330, 5*7, 568, 599i *"°*i 652, 
999 j mixed churches in, 869-870; Negro 
behavior in, 491-492; 530; Negro 
church in, 860, 862-863, 872; Negro 
education in, 879, 1421-1422; Negro 
employment in, 291-296; Negro lead- 
ers in, 722-724, 733, 777-779» Negro 
ministers in, 862-863; Negro police in, 
543n.; Negro press in, 910; Negro pro- 
test in, 777-779; Negro suffrage in, 437*. 
440, 725, 733; Negro voting in, 200, 
49>-497> 754-755i '3*8. »3*95 Negroes 
in politics in, 491-497; "no social equal- 
ity" theory in, 603 ; participation in elec- 
tions in, 475; poll tax in, 1324; prisons 
>n, 555; racial isolation in, 649-650; 
race prejudice in, 1 142-1 143; relative 
judicial equality in, 526-529; segrega- 
tion in, 626, 722; social segregation and 
discrimination in, 577, 599-604, 636, 
999; and Southern suffrage problem, 
515-518; standards of social welfare in, 
355; white and Negro newspapers in, 
916 

North Central Association, 95 m. 

North Carolina: birth control program in, 
1226; death penalty in, 5J40.; education 
requirement for voting in, 484; libeial- 
ism in, 467-468; Negro jurors in, 550; 
Negro police in, 543n.; poll tax re- 
pealed in, 482; primaries in, 4861 teat- 



Index 



1467 



attoml facilities in, 12751 *»oti in, 
56811.) terror organization! in, 4491 vot- 
ing in, 4.83, 48811. 

North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance 
Company, 1263 

North Dakota, expenditures for education 
in, 1271 

North Star, 913 

Notthrup, Herbert R.: cited, 408, 1097, 
1099, hoi, 1 loz, 1 103-1 104, 1106, 
1108-mo, 1113, 1118, 11 1911. j on dis- 
crimination in unions, 1299- 1300 

Nourse, £. G., Davis, }. S., and Black, J. D., 
cited, 257 

Number of Negroes in America} see Quan- 
titative goal for Negro population policy 

Numbers game, 330-331, 940, 98s, 1267, 
1269 

Nurses, Negro, 172, 325, 638, 796, 1224 

Oberlin College, 107611., 1415 

Occupational mobility, 213 

Occupational status of Southern whites, 297 

O'Connor, W. B., cited, 393 

Odum, Howard W., 96, 8441 on criticism 
of Interracial Commission, 847; descrip- 
tion of South by, 1320-1321 

Office of Civilian Defense, discrimination in, 

1367 
Officeholders: Negro, 497, 501-504, 535, 

542-543. 7*3-724. 7551 P°w« of > 435. 

716, 7i7n.j publicity afforded, 718 
OfTord, Carl, cited, 1085 
Ogburn, William, 1389; on institutional 

changes, 10511 on materials of social 

planning, 1052 
Ohio: lynching in, 5615 school segregation 

in, 633 
Oklahoma: expenditures for education in, 

1271; prohibition in, 457; transportation 

segregation in, 635; voting in, 483, 488 
Old age benefit system, 357, 358, 359, 400, 

1280-1281; occupations not covered by, 

358, 1280-1281 
Old Age and Survivors' Benefit System, 

357«i. 
"Old Americans," 47: II4".. 13* 
Oliver, King, 988 

Olmsted, Frederick, on slave-breeding, 1202 
One-party system in the South, 452-455. 

474. 475. 5 '9. I3 2 2 
Oneida Community, 712 
Operative Plasterers' and Cement Finishers* 

International Association, 1102 
Opinion correlation, system of, 72-73 
Opinion research; see Public opinion polls 
Opinions, "personal" and "political," 1130- 

1141 



Opportunism, 208, 471, 600, 774, 79$, 830, 
834a., 840, 843, 848, 854, 893, 1010, 
1139, 1270, 1410 

Opportunistic beliefs] see Stereotypes about 
Negroes 

Opportunity, equality of, 573, 671-672, 884, 
893 

Offortunity, 837, 839, 909 

Optimism-pessimism, scale of, 1038-1039 

Order of Railway Conductors, 1105 

Ordnance industry, Negroes in, 413 

Organization {see also Trade Unions and 
Unionization) : of Negroes to resist attack, 
68in.j of plantation tenants, 250, 262, 
263, 1250 

Organizations: anti-Negro, 8nn.) duplica- 
tion of, 825, 854; left-wing, 81211.; Ne- 
gro, Si 2-852, 952-955 

Orgamiievs, labor: importance of, 713, 714V 
rcrrorization of, 130a 

Orientals; see Chinese and Japanese 

Out-patient services, 346 

Over-crowding in Negro homes, 376, 377, 

37 8 -379. 977. 97 8 > I «*7. >*9'. i3°«. 

1426 
Over-population in rural South, 205, 231- 

232, 253, 264, 265, 424 
Over-production of cotton, 251 
Overtime, payment for, 398 
Ovington, Mary White, 819 
Owen, Chandler, 749 
Owcnitcs, 712 
Owens, Jesse, 734 
Owens, John R., cited, 1099 

Packing House Workers' Industrial Union, 
1 123 

Page, Thomas Nelson, 731; characteriza- 
tion of Negro masses by, 1386-1387; on 
fight for race purity, 586, 1354-1355; on 
interracial friendship, 74m.; on inter- 
racial work, 843 ; on Negro education, 
888, 896, 14191 on Northern teachers for 
Southern Negroes, 1415-14.16; on retro- 
gression of Negro workmen, 283; on 
Southern industrial labor, 280-281 

Page, Walter Hines, 460 

Paige, "Hot Lips," 645n. 

Pale Faces, 449 

Palmer, Edward Nelson, cited, 87m., 955, 
1086 

Panunzio, Constantine, cited, 1360 

"Parallel civilizations," 578-582, 595, 741, 
754. >358 

Parent-Teacher Associations, 948-049, 954/1. 

Park, Robert E., 1049-1050; on accommo- 
dation, 1050; on advertisements in Ne- 
gro press, 922; 00 bi-racial organization, 



1468 



Index 



£90-6911 on freedmen and competitive 
society, 13)1-133*1 on the "marginal 
man," 6991 on Negroes as national mi- 
nority, 1374; on race prejudice, 662 
Park, R. E., and Burgess, £. W., cited, 576 
Parrington, Vernon L.: on American lead- 
ership, 7-8 j on humanitarianism, 6-7 
Participation: in associations, etc., 674; gen- 
era], in politics, 436, 513, 716-7171 low 
degree of, in politics, 18, 453, 455, 45 *> 
475. 476 7* 2 > 810, 886; of Negroes in 
politics, 435-436, 489-490. 503-504. 5*9> 
715-7265 national, in Negro problem, 
26-27 
Party allegiance, of Negroes, 508-512 
Party system, 507, 7i6n., 778, 81 ij changes 

in, 511 
Passing, 129-130, 13 3-* 34. 675, 683-688, 
699^, 808, 1207-12081 professional, 685 s 
by whites, 1380 
Passivity of masses, 406, 712-716, 719, 732, 

886 
Paternalism, 404 442, 443. 459. 577. 59*- 
595. 702, 729, 73on., 848, 960, 1077, 
1078, 13571 decreasing, 5251 of Negro 
leaders, 732; toward South, 7 on. 
Patronage, white, of Negro art, 750 
Patten, Simon, 1057 
Patterson, F. D., 503-504 
Peabody Fund, 890, 141 7 
Peace Movement of Ethiopia, 813-814 
Peace plans, 425, 4250.-42611., 806-807, 

1018-1021, 1023 
Peanut industry, 252; Negro women in, 

1295 
Pearl, Raymond, cited, 174, 1207 
Peirce, Paul S., cited, 224 
Pellagra, 174 

Penal Institutions; see Prisons 
Penn, Irvine Garland, cited, 913 
Pennell, Elliot H., cited, 1273 
Pennsylvania, school segregation in, 633 
Peonagei see Debt peonage 
Pepper, Claude, 467 
"Personal" opinions, 1139-1141 
Personality: of leader, 710, 719, 734-735) 
in leadership, reaction against, 1388-1389; 
of Negro editors, 913; Negro characteris- 
tics of, 956-965} in politics, 453, 454, 
474, 7i6n.j struggle for balance of, 759- 
760, 766 
Personality problems, 688, 699-700, 1384- 

1385 
Personalization, Negro, of national prob- 
lems, 784-785 
Peterkin, .Julia, 468 
Phelps-Stokes Fund, 891 
Philanthrophy, Northern, to Southern edu- 



cation, 869, 890-892, 893 ( demoralizing 
influence of, 905 
Phillips, Ulrich B., on "breaking in" slaves, 
1203 

Phillips, Wendell, 1075 

Phillips County, Ark., riot of 191 9 in, 567 

Photographs on job applications, 327, 328, 
416 

Phylon, The Atlanta University Review of 
Race and Culture, 909^ 

Physical force j see Violence 

Physical traits, Negro, 137-140) changes in, 
120-123, 1203 

Pickens, William, 74Sn. 

Picketing of white stores, 803 

Pinchback, P. B., 738 

Pinchbeck, Raymond B., cited, 1108 

Pittsburgh Courier, 1423, 1424 

Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 
179, 180, 1224 

Planning: city, 351-352, 626-627) of em- 
ployment, 386-388) of labor relations, 
1010) migration, 386-388} national, 
ioi5j post-war, 425, 4z5n.-426n., 806- 
807, 1018-1021, 1023; of race relations, 
649) of social change, 1044, 1052, 1059 

Plantation system, 224, 225, 230-250, 444, 
1239-1241 

PM, 1423-1424 

Pneumonia-influenza rate for Negroes, 142- 

143. »74 
Poindexter, H. A., cited, 177 
Points of view of this book, 1057-1064 
Police protection to Negroes, 497-499, 501 j 

denial of, 530, 559. 7«4 
Police system: changes in, 544-545; federal 
and state, 544, 565; and interracial rela- 
tions, 544 
Policemen, Negro, 542-543) authority of, 

543n.j need for, 544n., 545 
Policemen, Southern white, 535-537, 538- 
540, i339" I 343i brutality of, 527, 541- 
542} education of, 538-539) in Negro 
neighborhood, 535, 540-543 i Negroes 
killed by, 527, 542, 543n., S66, 1342} 
plantation owners as, 536; prejudices of, 
541 ) training of, 544-545. »34*» tiaiit> 
portation operators as, 13405 as uphold- 
ers of caste system, 532, 535-53*'. 53*. 
542, 577. to* 
Policy game) see Numbers game 
Political benefits to Negroes, 497-504. 1328 
Political discrimination (see also Disfran- 
chisement, Negro), 61, 6$, 107, 274, 

429. 459. 588 
"Political"' opinions, 11 39-1 141 
Political system : in America, 810-81 1) and 

small parties, 505 ) in the South, 474-479. 

514-520, 999-1000, 1 322-1 323 



Index 



1469 



Politics: clergy in, 458; growth of bu- 
reaucracy in, 441-447) honest, 511-512; 
labor and farmer, 7145 leadership in, 
716-719; machine, 351, 439, 4J3, 47 6, 
486, 488n., 490, 499, 733, 8 io, 13*25 
Negro bargaining power in, 498-500, 
505-508, 835, 8555 Negro church in, 
940-941 j Negro power in, 777, 77 8 j and 
Negro problem, 475-47$; Negroes in, 
4*9-43*1 475-47*. 478, 49 '-497. 7*5- 
7*6. 733. 85*1 9*7. 1000, 1318, 13305 
police systems subject to, 539 

Poll tax, 446, 450, 476, 481-4831 489. 5Hi 
abolition of, 463, 481, 1000; arguments 
for, 482; compulsory 1324; fight to abol- 
ish, 471, 515, 516-517, 791, 833, 1318, 
1324; in the North, 1324 

Pollock, H. M., cited, 143 

Poor whites, 597-598, 689, 1189, 1388; 
effect of Negro discrimination and segre- 
gation on, £44; legal rights of, 525; so- 
cial inferiority of, 582 

Popular beliefs; see Stereotypes about Ne- 
groes 

Popular movements; see Mass movements 

Popular theories, Negro, 781-809, 1030- 
1031; on colonization schemes, 805-807; 
derived from white aristocrats, 786-788; 
instability of, 781-783; on labor solidar- 
ity, 788-794; on Negro business, 800- 
805; on the Negro problem, 27-30, 31- 
32, 38, 786; provincialism in, 783-785; on 
segregation, 797-800 ; upper class, 794- 

797 

Population, Negro: age structure of, 162- 
163; in Chicago, 1126-1127; growth of, 
157-161, 165-166; in New York City, 
1125-1126; policy of, 167-171; registra- 
tion of, 1218-1219; rural, decline of, 
279; in Southern cities, 11 27-1 128; 
trends in, 12 19 

Population, white, decreased expansion rate 
of, 1017 

Populist movement, 452, 455 

Porter, K. W., cited, 1203 

Postal service: Negro trust in, 1343; Ne- 
groes employed in, 327, 545 

Post-war plans, 425, 415^-42611., 806-807, 
1018-1011, 1023 

Post-war world, 408; housing in, 627; Ne- 
groes in, 423-426; unemployment in, 
401, 408, 409, 424, 425, 1010-1011 

Pound, Roscoe: on law-making, 20; on nat- 
ural law, 1 1 82-1 1 83 

Poverty, Negro, 205-207, 3045 of con- 
sumer, 804; and crime, 976, 977; and 
drinking, 980-981; and education, 946, 



948} and health, 3443 and housing con- 
ditions, 375-379, 619; and judicial dis- 
crimination, 534, 548, 550; and non- 
voting, correlation between, 493 

Poverty, white, a background factor in 
lynching, 563 

Powdermaker, Hortense: cited, 607, 689, 
700, 1207; on age differentials within 
class, 1 1 3 1 ; on disparity of information 
between races, 1372; on emotionalism in 
Negro church, 1426; on Negro attitude to 
law, 1336; on Negro middle class, ya^n.) 
on Negro upper class and poor whites, 
13S8; on social equality and amalgama- 
tion, 1355; on Southern custom of carry- 
ing arms, 1346) on superstition, 965; on 
upper class Negro marriage, 1425 

Powell, A, Clayton, 863n., 987 

Power: of American President, 717m ; of 
officeholder, 716; overlapping, 718 

Power relations, li, lii, 724-726, 858, 859 

Pragmatism, 882 

Preachers, Negro; see Ministers, Negro 

Prejudice: of Negroes against Negroes, 
xlviii; race, see Race prejudice 

Premises; see Value premises 

President's Interdepartmental Committee to 
Coordinate Health and Welfare Activities, 

345 

Press, Negro; see Negro press 

Press, white: anti-lynching position of, 565) 
and disfranchisement policy, 486; grow- 
ing anxiety of, around Negro problem, 
517; influence of, toward reform, 556; 
liberal, in the South, 472, 646, 661, 726, 
915; "minority," 911, 912; Southern, 
support of one-party system by, 454-455; 
treatment of Negro news by, 37, 48, 104, 
422, 600, 656, 661, 916, 924, 957, 1184, 
1372-1373 

Pressure groups, 811, 851-852 

Primary elections, Southern (see also White 
primary), 454, 474. 475 

Princeton University, Negro students not 
enrolled in, 633, 1367 

Prisons, 554-555; profit from, 548; reform 
of, 555-5575 segregation in, 555, 634; 
self-segregation in, 648; in the South, 

554-555. 977 n - 
Production credit associations, 273 
Production techniques, changes in (see also 

Mechanization), 424 
Professional monopolies, 685, 686, 690, 

693 

Professional organizations, Negro ; see Busi- 
ness and professional organizations, Ne- 
gro 

Professionals, Negro, 172, 305, 306, 31!- 



H70 



Index 



3*«, 329-330* «3*» *4S> «47» <54i 7*7. 
734-735. 75°> 753» 7«9i 795. 802, 878, 
959-960, 987-993 j as leaden, 73i-73*J 
and Negro protest, 804-805 
Profits from penitentiaries, 548-^4.9 
Programs, building of, 1061 
Prohibition, 17, 19, 455, 457 
Promotioh, racial discrimination in, 1118, 

1122 
Propaganda, 781; Japanese, 814, 8140.- 

8150.; and treatment of Negroes, 1016 
Property interests in the South, 454 
Property requirement for voting, 446, 483- 

484, 514 
Property rights, 671 
Property values, and Negroes, 623 
Proportional representation,' 1327 
Prosser, Gabriel, 736 
Prostitution: Negro, 329, 655, 838-839, 

974i 97«> 977. i*°8, 1361; white, 607 
Protection-, see Police protection to Negroes 
Protectionism: economic, 386, 3951 social, 

279 
"Protective community," 525, 680-683, 688 > 

703, 7«3» 9«4» 97* 
"Protective" leagues, 449 
Protest, Negro {set also Compromise be- 
tween accommodation and protest), 720, 
723 s Abolitionist and Reconstruction 
leaders of, 737-7391 accommodation 
under, 7605 under cover, 757, 763-764, 
768, 771, 772-773 j during depression and 
in World War II, 754-7565 against dis- 
crimination, 640-641, 851 ; and educa- 
tion, 879, 881, 900 j expressed in arts and 
literature, 993} Garvey movement, 746- 
749) and intellectuals, 749*750) leaders 

of. 7*6, 73°> 736-738, 74*-743> 74«-749, 
771-772, 1005-1006; in Negro history 
and culture, 750-754; and Negro per- 
sonality, 757-767; Negro press an organ 
for, 908-912) Niagara movement, 742- 
744; nonpolitical agencies for, 858-859; 
in the North, 777-779) organizations of, 
77«-777» 812-815, 817-842, 851-852, 
854, 877 ; position of upper class in, 794- 

■ 797} *t present, 744-745) and religion, 
757, rising, 663, 759, 783, 876, 877* 
880, 1003-1004) slave revolts, 736-737; 
as spiritual basis for self-segregation, 797; 
and segregation policy, 795-796) Tuske- 
gee compromise, 739-742; in World War 
I, 745) in World War II, 755, 818 

Protestantism, 864-865 

Provincialism: Negro, 783-785) of South- 
ern liberals, 471-473 

Psychic traits: Negro, 144-149) research 
into, 150 



Public contacts, Negro and white, 535-538, 

S45-54«i 1001 
Public facilities, discrimination and segre- 
gation in use of, 61, 65, 628, 634, 795 
Public health programs, 112, 323, 324, 344- 

346) segregation in, 325 
Public institutions, democracy in, 58a 
Public opinion: and attitude against inter- 
marriage, 617; changes in, 1032-1033} 
control of courts by, 523, 524, 547, 5625 
control of, by leaders, 712, 1033; depend- 
ence of judges and police on, 524, 526} 
influence of, 556, 678, 718, 810; instabil- 
ity of, 782; and lynching, 566) on mean 
and dishonest whites, 559) and Negro pro- 
test, 726; and race etiquette, 618 
Public opinion polls, 62 6n., 8150., 8930.- 
894n., 1137-1139, 1186, 1294, 1328, 
1332, 1376-1377, 1400, 1421, 1430 
Public service, 333; careers in, 437; dis- 
crimination in, 169, 170, 334-337, 588, 
1000-1001 ; distribution of, 334) Negroes 
in, 327-329, 542-543 
Public Works Administration, 343, 345, 

347) 35°> 4oo, 1 104, 1273 
Public works program, 6zyn., 904 
Publicity: to discrimination in war plants, 
414, 415; focused on officeholders, 718; 
N.A.A.C.P., 8275 to Negro affairs, by 
■white press, 646) to Negro crime news, 
655-656, 918) in Negro press, 5255 to 
Negro problem, need for, 48, 109, 339"-, 
383-384, 4i8n., 600; personal, 918-920 
Puckett, Newbell N., cited, 965 
"Pullman class"; see Upper class, white 
Punishment, leniency in, for Negro crimes 
against Negroes, 551, 592, 764, 969, 976, 

978, 13+4 

Purchasing power, Negro, 654, 804, 805 

Puritanism, 591, 931, 939, 940; and Amer- 
ican arts, 993) and natural law, 15-17; 
Negro, 1388, 1425) "sex-appeal" a back- 
wash of, 9i8n. 

Purity, racial, ii4n., 115 

Purvis, Robert, 737 

Qualitative goal for Negro population pol- 
icy, 169 

Quantitative goal for Negro population 
policy, 167-169 

Quillin, Frank U., cited, 438, 599 

Race: definition of, 11 3-1 17, 586, J 89-590, 
668, 1 1 98-1 199) occasional impossibility 
of determining, 683n.-684n. 

Race attitudes: existing studies of, J136- 
1137; quantitative studies of, 1136-1143 

Race dogma; see Inferiority concept 



Index 



147 i 



Race etiquette, 47'. 5J7. J73. 587* 606- 
618, 761, 964, 1351, 1361-1364; break- 
down of, 615*616, 651, 1363-13641 ef- 
fect of casual contact on, 651 j and isola- 
tion, 653) and institutional segregation, 
628 
Race prejudice (tee also Discrimination and 
Segregation), 5m., 140, 3*1, 746, 760, 
018, 1018, 1050, 1067, 1068, 1086, 
1188; and assimilation, 53; decreasing, 
78-80 j development of, 603 $ "function" 
of, 5900.) increase in, 662; and job dis- 
crimination, 3811 Negro, 1143; in the 
North, 88 j a perversion of equalit&rian- 
ism, 89) practical study of, 1 141-1143) 
in the South, 88, 1142-1143; types of, 
1141-1142; of white worker, 293 
Race pride, 56-57, 62-64, 134, 169, 525, 
606, 647, 686, 687, 723, 758, 771, 783, 
797, 802, 901, 916, 928, 999, 1018, 
1396, 1420; dependence of Negro busi- 
ness on, 802, 803, 804 
"Race purity," 58, 114^, 115 
Race relations: planning of, 649; "real- 
istic" theory of, 736, 739-741, 760, 787- 
788 
Race riots ) see Riots 

Racial beliefs (see also Beliefs, Popular The- 
ories, Negro, and Valuations), studies of, 
in, 1197 
Racial characteristics, concepts of: in 18th 

century, 90; revolution in, 91, 91 
Racial traits: Negro, 1213-1214; white and 

Negro, compared, 137-153 
Racial inequality, 76, 94-95, 592 
Racketeers, Negro, 330-331, 501, 940, 972, 

1267-1268) Negro respect for, 771-772 
Radicalism : growth of, 5105 interracial con- 
tacts in field of, 6;6i not found in South- 
ern liberal thinking, 469-470; in the 
press, 913-914; as root of labor solidar- 
ity theory, 7935 of Negro intellectuals, 
749-750, 1398; of Negro press, 922; 
Negro, following World War I, 749-750, 
1392 
Radicalism-conservatism, scale of, 1038 
Railroad brotherhoods, 287, 1105-1106, 

1107, 1297, 1299 
Railroad services, reduction of Negro work- 
ers in, 287 
Railroads: Negro workers on, 1100, 1105- 
M07; unions in, 1105-1 106, 1107; wage 
scale in, 1106, 1107 
Ramspeck, Robert, 467 
Randolph, A. Philip, 414, 504, 749, 817, 
818, 987, 1005, 1 107; on Communists, 
and National Negro Congress, 1401; on 
need for all-Negro movement, 851-852) 



on segregation, 6490.; on struggle for 
freedom and justice, 857 

Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, 1311 

Randolph, Virginia, (90 

Rape: accusations of, 561-562; distorted sta- 
tistics on, 972-973; of Negro women, 
1187 

Rape complex, Southern, 1356 

Raper, Arthur, 534n.j cited, 246, 247, 486, 
498. 499> 547-548, 552, 554, 555, 560, 
561, 563, 771, 849, 1*36, 1243, 1345; 
on civil service, 1 340-1 341; on cotton 
restriction program, 267) on death pen- 
alty, 55411.) description of Southern gen- 
eral store by, 647-648; on equality in 
motoring, 1368; on farm tenant unions, 
262; on fining system, 548) on illegal 
treatment of Negroes by public officials, 
537) on incomes from fines, 549n.) on 
injustice in courts, 552) on labor agents, 
1090; on legal separation of races, 1353) 
on lynchings, 561, 56m., 562; on Negro 
homicide, 1341; on Negro jurors, 549- 
550; 011 Negro landownership, 241-242, 
1239-12405 on Negro lawyers, 1343- 
1344) on Negro policemen, 543, S4in., 
54.411. -, on Negro-police killings, 54m.; 
on police department and politics, 539, 
1 341 ; on police education, ;i8n.| on po- 
lice persecution, 1339-1340; on police- 
man's role in interracial relations, 542) 
on postal service, 1343; on relief admin- 
istration, 546, 1343; on Southern elec- 
tions, 1335) on Southern policemen, 535, 
539 n -i 540-54ii 542> 1341-1342} on ten- 
ant organization, 1250) on training of 
police, 539n., 544, «34*s on vagrancy 
laws, 1344-1345) on violence in South, 
J346) 1351; on vocational training for 
Negroes and whites, 1419 

Rappites, 712 

Rationalism: American, xlvi, 22, 1024) in 
Western culture, 1046 

Rationalization (see also Defense reactions) : 
biological, 84, 87-88, 89, 97-101, 102- 
106, 578) of caste system, 88, 102-106, 
145, 208, 784, 928, 1077; of deviation 
from caste interest, 895-896) of discrim- 
ination, 215-219, 392, 660, 897; mech- 
anism of, 1027-1031; of Negro problem 
in general, 30-32; of prejudice, 11881 of 
position of women, 1077; of racial in- 
feriority, 583, 603; of Reconstruction, 
447, 73*-739i »3*4-«3>5t °f saW dif- 
ferentials, 3*0; by scientists, 1035) of 
segregation, 283-284, 605-606, 66oj of 
slavery, 88, 443. 11 88) of social discrim- 
ination and segregation, 591 ) of Southern 



1472 



Index 



franchise policy, 4895 specific needs for, 
106-108 

Ray, Charles Bennet, 737 

Reaction, post-Revolution, 86-87, 97 

Reactionism of the South, 441, 444, 4S5-458 

Real Property Inventories, 378 

"Realistic" theory) see Race relations, real- 
istic theory of 

Reconstruction period, 88, 224-226, 439, 
5 $8, 579; and absence of political educa- 
tion, 1316) effect of failure of, 19; his- 
torians of, 448, 131 5- 1316) memories of, 
446-448; Negro labor movement in, 
1398) Negro politicians in, 738-739; 
preacher-leaders in, 861; rationalization 

of, 447> 738-739. >3»*-JJ»5t "volt 

against, 449; school system in, 888; after 

World War II, 425 
Reconstruction Amendments, 430, 438, 445- 

446, 480, Si 5, 533. J8c~j8i, 599, 601, 

629, 828, 1075-1076, U69, 1334 
Recreation, Negro, 982-986, 1435-1437 
Recreation facilities for Negroes, 1 274-1 275; 

segregation and discrimination in, 34.6- 

348 
Reddick, Lawrence, on Negro history, 75 m., 

75f 
Redding, J. Saunders, cited, 330 
Redisricting, neglect of, 43on., 43711., 492- 

493 
Referendum; see Initiative and referendum 
Reform; city, 498; civil service, 436; credit, 
260, 272-273, 348; government, 511-512; 
housing, 626; judicial, 555-557; of labor 
movement, 408; land, 224-227; police, 
544-545* K>«al, 456-457. 4«4i third par- 
ties and, 1400 
Regional terms, meaning of, 1071-1072 
Regionalism of Southern liberals, 471-473 
Rehabilitation program, 276-277 
Reid, Ira DeA. ; cited, 307-308, 313, 321, 
322, 325-326, 330, 343; on discrimina- 
tion against Negro physicians, 323-324; 
on store locations, 308 
Relief, public, 206, 211, 362-363; discrim- 
ination in, 356, 588; for Negroes, 197, 

i99i 301, 335. 337"-> 353-35$. 755» 
1256, 1277-1280, 1282; in the North, 
295; under the New Deal, 399-401; 
politics in administration of, 1278-1279; 
of rural population, 267-268; in the 
South, 326; work, 360-361 
Religion (see also Church, Negro) : Ameri- 
can pattern of, and Negro church, 863- 
868; anti-white sects, 862n.; and democ- 
racy, 9; emotionalism in, 563, 565, 861; 
force of, in race relations, 862; as front 
for Negro pi o test. 757; historical notes 



on, 859-863; importance of, to Negroes, 
509, 93 1, 935-942; influence of, in South, 
458, 460; inhibiting character of, (67; 
Negro denominations, 865, 866, 868, 936, 
939; potency of, in America, io-ii, 86a; 
statistics on affiliation, 864n.-86sn.; used 
to support inferiority doctrine, 584 

Remond, Charles Lenox, 737 

Rents paid by Negroes, 379, 1287 

Repatriation bill, 806, 813 

Representation: disproportionate, of South 
in Congress, 476-477; proportional, 1327 

Reproduction differences; see Differentia] 
reproductivity 

Reproduction rate: gross, 161-162, 1221; 
net, 160-161, 1219-1220, 1222 

Republican party: Negro papers as organs 
for, 913; and Negroes, after Civil War, 
431; Negro support of, in North, 491- 
492, 493-494; in the North after the 
Civil War, 447-448; in post-Civil War 
South, 439; Southern, 45 3n., 477-479 

Republican National Committee, and prin- 
ciple of nondiscrimination, 1005 

Research: on beliefs, 111, 1197-1198; on 
caste and class in Negro community, 1 129- 
1132; "ecological," 627; historical, on 
Negroes, 751-752; on Negro leadership, 
1133-1135; on Negro problem, biases in, 
137-138, 149, 1035-1041, 1043; on Ne- 
gro problem, by Interracial Commission, 

846, 847; opinion, see Public opinion 
polls; on opinions of Negro labor, 1293- 
1294; in physical anthropology, 149-153; 
social science, theoretical and practical, 
1059 

Resettlement Administration, 276 

Resorts, Negro, 985-986 

Respectability of interracial work, 646, 661, 

847, 849 

Restaurants: Chinese and Japanese, 310; 
discrimination in, 528, 628, 662, 795; 
Negro, 310-311; segregated, 588, 635 

Restoration period, 449, 579, 580, 738, 861 1 
deterioration of Negro education in, 888 

Restrictive covenants, 527, 623, 624, 832, 
1366 

Retail trade, Negro, 307-308 

Retirement age, Negro, 299 

Retirement fund for policemen, 539 

Reuter, Edward B., 1206; cited, 106, 699, 
1 3 90 1 on adaptation, 1051; on history 
taught Negro children, 752; on miscegena- 
tion, 127, 1204; on physical and cultural 
identification, 98; on talent among mulat- 
toes, 131 

Revival meetings, 937-938 

Revolution, American, 8, 432-433; equal- 



Index 



itarian doctrine of, 85, 86; and natural 
law, 155 reaction following, 86-87, 97 

Revolutions, foreign, America's approval 
of, 5 

Rice, John Andrew, on Southerner's 
changed attitude, 100 in. 

Rice production, 25 a, 1238 

Richards, Henry I., cited, 257 

Richmond, Va., Negro business in, 1 260 

Riots, 566-569, 680, 8i 9i ante-bellum, 291, 
5675 in Army camps, 421-422, 568; 
causation for, s is S^9i « Detroit, $27, 
568, 678, 1337} between Negro soldiers 
and whites, 10055 Reconstruction a long 
example of, 449-450; during and after 
World War 1, 745, 1309,. 1409 

Rivers, W. H. R., cited, 1217 

Robeson, Paul, 734, 715> 9**, 11845 on 
Negro individualism, 994 

Robertson, William J., cited, 563 

Robinson, Bill "Bojangles," 734, 988 

Robinson, Corienne K., cited, 350, 418-419 

Robinson Family, 449 

Rochester (Eddie Anderson), 988 

Rockefeller, John D., 891 

Rogers, J. A., 11 84 

Rogers, Will, quoted, 45 8n. 

Roman, C. V., 1191; on strength of race 
prejudice, 616 

Roman Catholic Church, 8705 Negroes in, 
1411, 1412; opposition of, to birth con- 
trol movement, 178; in the South, 8700.- 
87m., 872H. 

Romanticism, American, 710, 1375-1376 

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 414, 851 

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 464, 662, 8;i; on 
discrimination in federal employment, 
1306; and Negro appointees, 5035 Negro 
vofe for, 494--49S, 49&i support of, by 
Negroes, 754-755, 133* 

Roosevelt, Theodore, 18-19, 662 

Roosevelt administration (see also New 
Deal), 718 

Rose, Florence, cited, 179, 180 

Rosenstein, Joseph, cited, 1322 

Rosenwald, Julius, 891 

Rosenwald Fund, 340, 891, 1224, 1276, 
1418 

Rotation in office, 433 

Rousseve, Charles B., on Negro exclusion 
from jobs, 282 

Royce, Josiah: on American idealism, 23 s 
on social inequality, 1355 

Ruggles, David, 737 

Rural Electrification program, 271 

Russia: industrialization of, 1017; peace 
role of, 807 j racial tolerance in, 1018 

Russwurm, John B., 912 



H73 



St. Louis, prejudice against Negroes in, 
528 

Salaries (see also Income and Wages) : ol 
Negro actors, 330; of Negro ministers, 
321, 874; of Negro teachers, 215, 319- 
320, 632, 880, 885, 1232-1233, 1271 j 
of policemen, 539; of trade union offi- 
cials, 71411. 

Samples, research, bias in, 137-138, 149, 
1200, izoi, 1211-1212, 1217, 1283, 
1284, 1289 

Savage, Augusta, 989, 11 8+ 

Savannah, Ga., Negro business in, 1260 

"Scalawags," 447 

Schanck, R. L., 113911. 

Schmidt, Carl T.: cited, 255-256, 260, 
267-268, 269-270, 274, 276, 278) on 
mechanization in cotton culture, 1248) on 
tenancy reduction, 1247 

School lunch program, 211, 265, 363 

Schools: discrimination in, see Discrimina- 
tion, in education; mixed, during Recon- 
struction, S79> Negro teachers in, 318- 
3 20} segregated, see Segregation, in edu- 
cation 

Schools, Negro, 879-907; 942-952; ac- 
commodating pattern of, 880; ante- 
bellum, >4Mi attendance, 942-943, 
94811.; conditions in, 90211.-90311.1 946- 
947; consolidation of, 947; equipment 
for, 1418; high schools, 950-951; needs 
of, 904; over-crowding of, 945, 947; 
shifting control of, 892-893; value of, 
94711. 

Schrieke, Bertram: on "classical" educa- 
tion, 1422; on General Education Board 
supervisors, 141 7-1 41 8; on lynch law, 
532; on Negro education, 902; on 
Negroes and democracy, 4j on new 
American peasantry, 1251; on rational- 
izing Reconstruction, 1314-1315 

Schurz, Carl, 1235 

Schuyler, George S.: cited, 1198, 14*}} on 
birth control, 1206-1207, 1223-1224! on 
Negro art, 994; on treatment of Negroes 
in white press, 1 1 84 
Schwartzwald Amendment, 4i8n. 
Science: do-nothing policy of, 91-91; inter- 
racial relations in field of, 656; and 
Negro problem, 89-93; social, see Social 
science 
Scientific research on Negro, 1 09-1 10 
Scope and direction of this study, lv-lviii 
Scott, Emmet J„ 746n.; cited, 420, 422n., 

745; on discrimination in Army, 1309 
Scott, E. J., and Stowe, L. B., cited, 640- 

641, 662 
Scottsboro decision, 549 



*474 



Ikdbc 



Negro, toll 
Seating, segregation in, 611-613 
Second World War; set World War II 
Secret ballot not vied in parts of South, 476, 

13*3. 

Secretariat, 837 

Secrctiveness, Negro, 143a 

Sects, Negro, 93 8 

Security, economic, 464. 

Segregation (see alto Legislation, Jim Crow 
and Discrimination), 29, 39, 58, 65, 100, 
191, 142, 283, 335, 928} acceptance of, 
. by NAA.C.P., 830-831$ in AAA., 
1247-11481 in armed forces, 419, 744} 
basis of, in North, 617-618) becoming 
fortified in America, 797; beginning of, 
in slavery, 577-5781 in cafeterias, 328; 
in churches, 587, 859-860, 868-87x1 con- 
doning of, 797-800 { in education, 319, 
335. 34>-34»» 5»i» 5«7! 628, 632-633, 
Hi, 79S> 880-882, 894, 901-90%, 904» 
945-946, 14201 effects of, on whites, 643- 
644, 6451 an excuse for discrimination, 
581 j facts and beliefs regarding, 605- 
606 1 in federal jobs, 327$ housing, 196, 
14a, 308, 349-350, 377» 379» 39>» 5^7. 
601, 618-622, 625-626, 1 3661 increas- 
ing, 134, 525; institutional, 618, 627- 
639 j in interpersonal relations, 606-618; 
lack of, in Northern schools, 3061 in 
longshore work, 1098; of middle and 
upper class Negroes, 1045 in "mill vil- 
lages," 1095; Negro vested interest in, 
629-630, 795, 797, 798n., 870, 921, 
940; in North, 46, 577, 599-604, 618- 
6*2, 6a6, 636, 722, 901, 94J-946, 9995 
one-sidedness of, 575-577* i35i-'35 2 i > n 
places of work, 390, 391-3921 protest 
against, 640-641 ; in public health serv- 
ices, 3»5j in public places, 588, 610 j in 
public thought, 37; in recreational fa- 
cilities, 346-348; research on, 135J- 
1360; sanctions for, 622-627, 628; in 
seating, 612-613$ self, see Voluntary 
withdrawal; in semi-public organizations, 
63»» 13675 sensitiveness of Negroes to, 
761; sexual, 606-607; social, 573, 599- 
604; in the South, 41, 901, 998; in 
transportation, 576, 581, 795, 1351, 
>353» i3 fi 9i m unions, 1103, mo; 
upper class Negro attitude toward, 629- 
630, 794-795: utilisation of, 798; voca- 
tional, 106-107, 3>*->3l3 
Seibels, Robert E., on objection to birth 

control, iz«7 
Selection: o£ Negro leaders, 770-771, 
1133-1134} marriage, 697-698, tai2; 
sexual, 696; in slave trade, jai-122, 



1201-1202; social and biological, 130- 
132; of teachers, 948 

Self-criticism, Southern, 460 

"Self-made man," 674, 886n. 

Self -segregation ; see Voluntary withdrawal 

Self-sufficiency farming, 265 

Seligman, Edwin R. A., 837 

Sellin, Thorsten, on distortion of Negro 
crime statistics, 1432-1433 

Semi-public associations, discrimination in, 
631, 1367 

Seniority in Congress, effect of, 477 

Seniority rights, 1305 

Sensationalism in Negro papers, 917-918 

Sensitivity, Negro, 958, 1369, 13955 *o 
color, 1383; % to discrimination, 761-763 

Sentences, prison, 553-555 

Service occupations (see also Domestic serv- 
ice), Negroes in, 291, 293, 309, 310, 
652-653, 695, 1087-1089, 1256, 1386} 
in auto industry 1120; railroad, 1107 

Seventy-Six Association, 449 

Sex: a factor in lynching, 562} main de- 
fense for segregation, 587, 591, 592; 
not played up in Negro press, oiBn.; re- 
lation of race etiquette to, 608, 610 ; 
South's preoccupation with, 591 

Sex offenses, Negro, low rate of, 972-973 

Sex relations, interracial, 55-56, 59-60, 
125, 1*04, 586, 589, 590, 1194. 13545 
exploitative; 56-57, 59, 62, 63, 125-126, 
578, 607; sanctioning of, 55-56; and 
Southern womanhood, 1355-1356 

Shakers, 71a 

Shaking hands, etiquette of, 613, 1351 

"Shape-up" system of hiring, 1098 

Share tenant agreement, 24jn. 

Sharecropping, 224, 237, 245-250, 253- 
*SS, *57-«5S 

Shaw, Anna Howard, on equality of women, 
io76n. 

Shaw Artie, 65+n. 

Shaw, C. R., and McKay, H. D., cited, 977 

Shaw, George Bernard, quoted, 10 in. 

Shay, Frank, cited, 531 

Sherman, Mandel and Irene C, cited, 981 

Shipbuilding: Negroes employed in, 412- 
413, 424 ,1304; post-war decline in, 1309 

Shufeldt, Robert W., 90 

Siegfried, Andr£, cited, 1348 

Silhouette, 909^ 

Simkins, Butler, on Ben Tillman, 1312 

Simms, W. Gilmore, on women's rights, 
1074 

Simpson, George E., cited, 1373 

Single crop system, 1348 

Slater Fund, 890, 891 

Slaughtering and meat-packing industry, 



Index 



H75 



1122-1124; unionisation of, 11231 'wages 
in, u»4 
Slave biographies, 751 
Slave-breeding-, 121-121, 1202, 1234. 
Slave thorn, 989 

Slavery, 84-88, 1201-12021 abolition of, 
533; brutalizing effect of, on whites, 
133*1 and caste, 221-224; effects of, on 
lower class Negro behavior, 7015 enter- 
tainment during, 989; in Europe, 123} 
history of, in America, 441-4431 issue 
of, in Civil War, 431, 443; and the law, 
530-5325 as model for economic discrim- 
ination, 219; moral burden of, 220; 
Negro education during, 887; Negro fam- 
ilies under, 931 ; Negro humor a survival 
of, 960-9611 in the North, 53on.; number 
of slaves imported, 118-119; origin of 
violence, pattern in, 558; paternalism 
and, 592-593) and present Southern 
ideology, 441-445; religion during, 859- 
860; revolts during, 736-737; root of 
discrimination and segregation in, 577- 
578; selectivity in, 121; and women's 
rights, 1074-1075 

Slum clearance program, 351, 37811. 

Smith, Adam, 1055 

Smith, Alfred E., 477, 85a 

Smith, Hoke, 680 

Smith, Samuel Denny, cited, 44.711. 

Smith, James McCune, 737 

Social causation, in common man's think- 
ing, 98, 1191-1192 

Social changes, planning of, 1059 

Social continuum, class system as, 675-676, 
700 

Social Darwinism, io48n. 

Social definition of "Negro," 113-117 

Social discrimination, 60, 6$, 67, 573, 574, 
S87» 5*8i 599-6°4) 999 S eff ect of, 641- 
642; incidence of 640-644; in the North, 
577; 599- 6 °4, 636, 662, 999; protest 
against, 640-641 

Social distance, 713 

Social engineering, 77, 1044, 1059; in- 
creased demand for, 1022-1023 

Social equality: denial of, in South, see "No 
social equality" doctrine; importance of, 
in South, 662; as intention of Civil 
Rights Bill of 1875, 579; offered Negroes 
by Communist party, 508 

Social improvement, desire for, 194-195, 
200 

Social inequality, incidence of, 640-644 

Social history of America, factors in, 406- 
407 

Social insurance systems; set Social security 
program 



Social legislation; stt Legislation, social 

Social life: Negro, 952-954, 959, 9841 
rural, 1435 

Social mobility, 210-211, 714, 919; and 
education, 674 

"Social neutrality," 269 

Social order, American, 51-52 

Social organizations, 952-955 

Social purpose behind racial beliefs, 101- 
106 

Social reform, 456-457; blocking of, by 
Southern politicians, 464; increased in- 
terest in, 93 

Social science in America, 1023; American 
leaders in, 1048-1052; avoided in South- 
ern Negro schools, 949; biases in, 1035- 
1041; development of, 91, 92-93; hidden 
valuations in, 1045-1057; mitigating 
biases in, 1041-1045; Negroes in, 1037; 
"regional approach" in, 700.; in the 
South, 473; specialization in, 1042; 
theoretical and practical research in, 1059 

Social Science Research Council, quoted, 152 
Social Security program, 165, an, 353- 

356. 357-35*, 399-401, 4361 i*77> "8°- 

1281 
Social segregation, 573, 599-604; vested 

interests of some Negroes in, 690, 69] 
Social stratification, Negro (see also Class 

stratification, Negro), 71-72; leadership 

pattern in, 716-719, 727-733> >390 
Social trends, 112, 998-1002 
Social welfare policy; see Welfare policy 
Social workers: hampered by politicians, 

1279; Negro, 326 
Socialism, 442, 788, 8ian.; scientific, 105m. 
Socialized medicine, opposition of Negro 

doctors to, 324, 704 
Society news, Negro, 918-920 
Society of the White Rose, 449 
Soil erosion, 232, 1237 
Sojourner Truth housing project, 568, 678, 

1337 
"Solid South," 45*"455i 473, 475, '3 '7 
Solidarity: labor, 402, 407, 59 8 "599i *47, 

673, 676, 750, 787, 788-794, 804, M9*i 

of lower classes, low degree of, 68-69, 

7«3 
Solidarity, Negro, 506, 680-683, 688, 730, 

747, 763. 77», 7 8 6i 921, 940, I335-133 8 , 
1379 j behind church, 8771 factors mak- 
ing for, 71-72; fostered by church, 862; 
"function" of, 766-767; importance of, 
to Negro businessmen, 305; lack of, in 
Negro group, 7 1 ; against law and police, 
525; spread by Negro press, 911; upper 
class, 650, 70jn. 
Solidarity, white, 242, 248, 443, 444, 4*3- 



1476 



Index 



454, 475-47*. 537. 55°. 59»» «77» «379 

Sow of Washington 449 

South: American Creed in, 87, 461-462, 
690, 888, 893, 895, 896) Americaniza- 
tion of, ion; attitude of, toward NA. 
A.C.P., 824, 825; birth control move- 
ment in, 1791 Catholic Church in, 8700.- 
87m., 87m.) changes in, 461-466; com- 
pared with North, 44-491 Congressmen 
from, 464, 476-477, 516s conservatism 
°f> 73» 440, 455-458. 464. 466, 474, 
5'7» 5/9 J convict camps in, 554-5555 
decreasing discrimination and segrega- 
tion in, 998-1000 j definition of, 1071- 
1071$ democracy in, 440-441, 460-461; 
Democratic party in, 452-455, 463, 464, 
465. 474i 475> 477i 480, 487, 5nn.| 
depression in, 197, 289, 463; economic 
life of, 221-229; education inferior in 
45; elections in, 475-476, 1 321-1323, 
1325; emphasis of, on sex, 562, 591; 
fascism unlikely in, 458-462; feeling of, 
about Civil War, 45; frontier type of 
civilization in, 451, 458, 459, 532; 
ideology of (see also Liberalism, South- 
ern), 441-445, 670; individualism in, 
458-459; industrialization of, 44, 199, 
263, 398, 463, 515; inequality of justice 
in, 529-534, 968-969; influence of re- 
ligion in, 458, 460; interest of, in Negro 
leadership, 720-722; isolation of, 444; 
issue of Negro Suffrage in, 440-446, 
512-514; jobs outside agriculture in, 
280-284; labor movement in, 463; legal 
order in, 229, 514, 518, 533-534; moral 
dilemma of, 868-869, 888; necessity for 
accommodation in, 768; Negro education 
in, 880-882, 887-893, 946-952; Negro 
entertainers in, 991-992; Negro leader- 
ship in, 776-7771 Negro and white cul- 
ture in, 7011.; Northern business in, 453; 
one-party system in, 45*-455» 474>.475» 
519, 1322; participation in elections in, 
4751 political divergences of, from rest 
of nation, 474-475, 476; politics decen- 
tralized in, 474; prisons in, 5 54-5 5 5i 
977n.; probable changes in, 514-515; a 
p/oblein in itself, 45, 70, 723, 1015; race 
prejudice in, 88, 1142-1143; Republican 

PMty »>. 439i 453">-> 477-479 J ™™S 
racial tension in, 568, 662-663, 677-678, 
1011-1015; rural structure of, 451; seg- 
regation in, 41, 901, 998; trends in, dur- 
ing the '30'*, 288-291 ; urbanization of, 
284, 289, 463; whites' attitudes toward 
Negro education in, 893-896 

South America, Negroes in, 186 

South Carolina: birth control program in, 



1226; death penalty in, 554$ education 
requirement for voting in, 484; mixed 
schools in, 579; Negro police in, S43n.; 
poll tax in, 1324; school term in, 9480.1 
terror organization in, 449; violence in 
elections, 486; voting in, 474, 475, 488n.; 
white primary in, 486 

South Dakota, expenditures for education 
in, 1271 

Southern Association of Colleges and Sec- 
ondary Schools, 95 m. 

Southern Committee for Peoples' Rights, 
8izn. 

Southern Conference on Human Welfare, 
469, 8l2U. 

Southern Education Foundation, 890-891 

Southern Negro Youth Congress, 818-819 

Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, 262, 263, 
1250 

Soybean production, 252-253 

Spaulding, C. C, 1184, 1263 

Specialization: need for, in Negro organiza- 
tions, 855-856; in social science, 1042 

Speech, Negro characteristics of, 960, 963, 
965-966 

Spencer, Herbert, io48n. 

Spero, S., and Harris, A. L.: cited, 1097- 
1098, 1104, 1114, 1117, 1296; on labor 
solidarity, 1398 

Spingarn, Arthur B. and Joel E., 820 

Spirituals, 753, 754, 929, 992 

Spoils, political, for Negroes, 498 

Spoils system, 433 

Sports: Negroes in, 655, 734, 753, 771, 
988; mixed, taboo against, 610; restric- 
tions on Negroes in, 99 m. 

Sports columns, 920 

Springfield, 111., riot of 1908 in, 567, 819 

Standard Life Insurance Company, 1263 

Standard of living; see Living standard 

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 1075 

States' rights, 343, 517, 565n., 809 

Stateways, io53n.-io54n. 

Stecker, Margaret Loomis; cited, 366; on 
clothing expenditures, 1288 

Steel mills, Negro workers in (see also Iron 
and steel industry), 287 

Steel Workers Organizing Committee, 1117, 
1118 

Stephens, Oren, cited, 261, 1250 

Stephenson, Gilbert T.: cited, 429-430; 439, 
532, 579, 1 3 10; on "defamation," 640; 
on equal accommodations for Negroes 
and whites, 579; on voting in Tennessee 
and Wisconsin, 1 309-1 310 

Stereotypes about Negroes: xlix, 30-31, 38- 
39. 55> 7°n., 101, 107-108, 131, 139- 
140, 165, 195, 208, 215-219, 292,, 30T, 



Index 



1477 



33911, 386, 39s, 493, 575. 583. 603, 
648-649, 653, 654, 655, 657i 753. 754. 
7*3. 956i 959j 967j 11*0, 1294, 13*6, 
1382) in American literature, 1195-11971 
deliberate use of, 101-106; disproved, 115, 
ti6j function of, mj in the South, 41, 
4*1 study of, 110-112 

Sterility, 174-175 

Sterilization, 176 

Sterilization laws, 1215 

Sterner, Richard, and Associates: cited, 196, 
*3*» *43» *57» *74-*75> *77. *99» 344, 
349. 355-356. 359-363» 364-365. 366, 
368-370, 371, 373, 376, 377, 378, 379, 
124.1, 1245-1246, 1250, 1264, 1265, 
1273, 1276, 1277-1278, 1279-1280, 
1282-1283, 1285, 1286, 1287, 1288, 
1290-1292; on decline of tenancy, 254; 
on Negro workers, 1257; on white and 
Negro food consumption, 373 

Stevens, Thaddeus, 224, 448 

Still, William Grant, 737, 989 

Stillbirth rate, 175 

Stoddard, Lothrop, on Negro primitivism, 

99 

Stokes, Anson Phelps, 807 

Stone, Alfred H.: cited, 662, 1361; on 
effect of lynching, 1349. °" Negro 
adaptability, 1396 

Stonequist, Everett V.: cited, 699 s on mulat- 
toes, 1384-1385 • 

Storey, Moorfield, 820; cited, 564 

Stouffer, S. A., and Florant, L. C, cited, 
186, 188-190, 806, 1231 

Stouffer, S. A., and Wyant, R., cited, 188- 
189 

Strategy, Negro, 852-857 

Stribling, Thomas S., 468 

Strikes, "wild-cat," 413 

"Strolling," 984 

Strong, Edward K., cited, 98 

Stroud, George M., cited, 53'-53* 

Student aid program, 343 

Sub-Committee on Crime and Delinquency 
of the City-Wide Citizens' Committee on 
Harlem, quoted, 978n. 

Subsidies, housing, 3 52n. 

"Subversive propaganda," 459 

Success: tradition of, 75411.5 worship of, 
710-711 

Suffrage, Negro, i333-i33Ss extra-legal 
methods of exclusion from, 484-486; his- 
tory of, 429-431 s as an issue in the 
South, 512-514. in North, 437-440, 5*9. 
Reconstruction Amendments, 445-4+8; re- 
quirements for, 446, 480-484; 489, 514, 
1324, 1325} in the South, 440-446-, in 
the South, actual voting, 486-490; in the 



South, principles governing, 479-480 

Suffrage, woman, 1077; and Abolitionism, 
1075, 1076s. 

Sugar cane production, 252, 1238 

Suicide, Negro, 982 

Sumner, Charles, 224 

Sumner, William Graham, t%n., 91, 1031, 
103211., 1377; on legislation and mores, 
io54n., 1352; on maintaining status 
quo, 1048-1049; on race relations in 
South, 1054 

Superiority doctrine {see also White suprem- 
acy, theory of), 454. 460, 586; of South- 
ern over Northern whites, 1188-1 1891 
voting a symbol of, 449 

Superstition, Negro, 964-965 

Supreme Court, attitude of, on denial of 
vote to Negroes, 1334-1335 

Supreme Court decisions: on Civil Rights 
Bill of 1875, 601, 628, 630; on grand- 
father clauses, 480; on legal violations 
by courts, 555; on National Labor Rela- 
tions Act, 1 1 1 o ; on Negroes' entrance 
into state universities, 633; on prohibit- 
ing migration of indigents, 1231-1232; 
and Reconstruction Amendments, 515- 
516; on right to boycott, 313; on right 
to organize, 399; on salary differentials, 
320; in Scottsboro case, 549; on white 
primary, 481, 516; on zoning ordinances, 
624 

Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company, 
1263 

Surplus commodities plan, 211, 362-363 
Surplus population; see Over-population 
Suspicion: bred by isolation, 723; of lead- 
ers, 774; of N.A.A.C.P., 824, 825; of 
Negro businessmen, 801-802 
Sutherland, Edwin H., cited, 968 
Sutherland, Robert L., on frustration, 1260 
Sweatshop workers, 391 
Swimming, Negro-white, taboo against, 

608, 610 
Syphilis, 143, 174, 9 8o > »«5. "73 
Syphilis campaign, 346m 

Taeubcr, Conrad and* Irene B., on Negro 
fertility, 1222 

Taft, William Howard, 478 

Talladega College, 89a, 1416, 1417 

Talmadge, Eugene, 468, 1368 

Tammany Hall, 495 5 and Negro vote, 1328 

Tannenbaum, Frank: cited, 30, 554. 562, 
563; on cotton economy, 233; on fear 
of Negro, 563; on lack of rural soci*l 
life, 1435; on Negro migration, 123a; 
on Southern village life, 1348 

Tanner, Henry O., 989 



147* 



Index 



Tarkington, Booth, quoted, 1196-1197 
Taxation: becoming "progressive," 3341 
direct, 333, 3811 income, (183; indirect, 
333. 334, 336. 5»4» 1269-1270, poll 
tax, see Poll tax; on real property, 1*761 
regressive, 334, 336% 12691 for social 
policy, 213 
Teachers, Negro, 215, 306, 318-320, 497, 
63*> 7*9» 77°> 795> 8 °2, 880-881, 8851 
education of, 891, 1428) need for higher 
standards for, 904-905} in the North, 
7781 relative independence of, 880, 881, 
893 j salaries of, 215, 319-320, 632, 880, 
885, 1232-1233, 12711 selection of, 948- 
949> 95°, training of, 904-905 
Teachers, Northern, for Southern Negroes, 

887, 1415-1416 
Technology: see Mechanization 
Tenancy, 227-229, 232-234, 236-237, 242- 
244> 245-250, 253-255, 257-258, 1240- 
1242, 124.2-1143 
Tenant selection, 352-353 
Tennessee: Negro high schools in, 95on.j 
Negro police in, 54311.} poll tax in, 
1324) poll tax abolished in, 48211. j 
primaries in, 486) terror organization 
in, 499} voting in, 48811.; voting quali- 
fications in, 1309 
Tennessee Valley Authority, 171 
Terror organizations, 449 
Texas: library facilities in, 1368; Negro 
high schools in, 95011.; Negro police in, 
54311. j Negro vote in, 47511.5 poll tax 
in, 1324} primaries in, 486} race prej- 
udice in, 61 5n.} riots in, 567} terror or- 
ganizations in, 449 ; voting in, 48811. 
Textile industry: exclusion of Negroes 
from, 285-286, 3821 Negroes in, 289, 
1110-1112; unionization in, 11 11 
Textile Workers' Union, 1 1 1 1 
Theater, Negroes in, 329, 9S8, 991 
Theories concerning the Negro ; see Stereo- 
types about Negroes 
Thinking, Negro; see Popular theories, 

Negro 
Third degree, 541 
Third-party movements, 61 and reform, 

1400 
Thomas, Norman, 4071 on democracy in 

unions, 408 
Thomas, William H., 1 190 
Thomas, W. I., 91, 10490., »05on.j cited, 

xlix 
Thomas, W. I., and Znaniecki, F., ii38n. 
Thompson, Charles H., cited, 14S, 342 
Thompson, Lorin A,, nogn., 1296 
Thompson, William H., 494, 498n., 1328 
Thoreau, on law, 1183 



Thornwell, }• R*, on participants in Civil 
War, 443 

Thuntone, L. L,, n 36 

Tingsten, Herbert, cited, 493 

Titles of address in early New England, 
1362-1363 

Tobacco industry: mechanization in, 1107, 
M08; Negroes in, 1107-moj partial 
exclusion of Negroes from, 286) union- 
ization of, 1109-moi wages in, 1109 

Tobacco production, 251-252 

Tobacco Workers' International Union, 
> 109-1 1 10 

Tobias, C. H., 844 

Tocqueville, de, 11, 712} cited, 87 

Todd, T. W., cited, 1214 

Todd, T. W., and Lindala, Anna, i*i2j 
quoted, 1217 

Toilet facilities, 376, 377, 12911 segrega- 
tion in, 636, 642 

Tolnai, B. B., on abortion, 1215-1126 

Tong wars, 527 

Townsend, Willard, 1184 

Trade unions: in America, 7131 anti- 
strike policy of, 425) attitudes toward, 
24, 3 9-40 } attitude of Urban League to- 
ward, 840-841 ; in automobile industry, 
1121J "auxiliaries," 1106; Booker T. 
Washington's opposition to, 787$ in 
building industry, 1102-1104; govern- 
ment support of,s)399, 407; history of, 
214, 403-408, 511, 1296-13001 hostility 
to, 389, I095n.-i096n., 1113; increas- 
ing control of, over employment, 793; 
interracial membership in, 262, 263, 
286-287, 653, 1103-1 104, 11 14; iron 
and steel workers', 1117-1119) labor 
solidarity in, 598-599, 647) leaders in, 
718; in meat industries, 1123; member- 
ship in, 7i3n.; miners' 1113, '"4> need 
of Negroes in, 792, 836} and the Negro, 
401-403; Negro leaders in, 733, 777; 
Negro equality in, mi, 1118, 1121; 
Negro press stand on, 922; Negroes in, 
389, 401, 402, 407, 413, 787, 788, 
1001-1002, 1256-1257, 1296, 1297, 
1298, 1299, 1300, 1398; opposition of, 
to Negroes, 195, 207, 183, 286, xly, 
29* 294, 402, 410, 4'3> «39i « IO S- 
1106, 1198-1299, 1303; in post-war 
period, 426; principle of nondiscrimina- 
tion in, 330, 792, 1005; public control 
of, 407; race issue in fight against, 
io95n.-io96n., 1123; in railroad indus- 
try, 1105-1106, 1107; in South, 262- 
263 \ in textile industry, tin; in tobacco 
industry, 1 109-1 1105 transition from 
craft to industrial, 406 



Training: for leadership, 71911.1 cf police- 
men, 134a; of teacher*, 904-9051 voca- 
tional, see Vocational training 

Training connet in war work, Negroes in, 
1307 

Transportation : discrimination in, 634-635, 
1 340 1 of Negro school children, 947, 
94S} police authority of operators and 
conductors, 5371 segregation in, 537, 
57<i 58»» 5«*» 6*8, 634-635, 742, 795, 
»35>> i353» «369 

Trots, J. S. Nathaniel, on Negro tension, 
1013 

Trotter, Monroe, 742 

Trowel trades, Negroes in, 286, 412, 1101, 
1 102 

True Inspirationists, 712 

Truth, Sojourner, 737 

Tuberculosis, incidence of, 142 

Tubman, Harriet, 737 

Turner, Frederick Jackson, 43 3n.; on de- 
mocracy, 5 

Turner, Nat, 567, 736, 859 

Turpentine farms: Negro workers on, 1089- 
1090; wages on, 1089-1090 

Tuskegee compromise, 739-742, 913"., 
1391-1392 

Tuskegee Institute, 889, S90, 892, 898, 899, 
1308 

"Underground railroad," 578, 860 
"Understanding" requirement for voting, 

446, 484. 4«9> 5 J 4> '3*5 
Undertakers, Negro, 309-310, 317, 638; 

and insurance, 1262-1263 
Underworld, Negro, 330-332, 655, 733, 

1266-1268$ class structure of, 704-705; 

leaders in, 1391s protection for, 498, 

499. Soi 

Unemployment, 2:1, 301-303, 394, 1256, 
1282) of agricultural labor, 252, 264, 
266 s caused by mechanization, 399; and 
crime, 12931 post-World War II, 401, 
408, 409, 424, 425, ioio-ioii) power 
over, 788 

Unemployment, Negro, 206, 207, 299, 301- 
3»3» 5*5. 754, 799, 806, 1001, 1282} 
in the North, 2951 as a result of discrim- 
ination, 998; during war boom, 410 

Unemployment Check Census of 1937, 1259 

Unemployment compensation, 357, 1281 

Unemployment risks, 367m 

Union shop, 405, 407 

Union Theological Seminary, Negro mem- 
ber of Board of, 1368 

Unionization (see also Trade unions) : 
effect of, for Negroes, 401-403, 643; and 
equal opportunity, 384 s independent 



1479 

Negro, ti 07 1 law protecting, 399, 7131 
of longshoremen, 1097, 1098-1099; in 
lumber industry, 1095-1096} in the 
South, 463, 515 

Unions: see Trade unions 

United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricul- 
tural Implement Workers' Union, 413 

United Automobile Workers' Union, 1 1 2 1 

United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Join- 
ers, 1103 

United Cam.jry, Agricultural, Packing and 
Allied Workers of America, 262, 263, 
1250 

United Mine Workers' Union, 402, 1 1 1 3, 
1114, 1297 

United Service Organizations, discrimination 
policy of, 1367 

United States Employment Service, 400-401, 
412, 416-418, 1087, 1303, 1304, 13071 
policy of, 1307-1308 

United States Housing Authority, 350-351, 
352-353. 378n., 400, 503, 678, 755, 
1104-1105; and segregation, 625-626, 
627 

United States Steel Corporation, 1118 

United Steel Workers of America, 402, 1117 

United Transport Workers of America, 
1107 

Unity: cultural, xlviii, 1029; of ideals, 
3-5; of interest, between capital and 
labor, 222; of mankind, 115-116; of 
Negro problem, 73-75. 77 

Universal Negro Improvement Association, 
747. 748, 812-813 

Universities, control of, 718-719 

Unskilled labor, 296-297, 395, 410, 788, 

1257. >303 

Upper class Negro, 645-647, 690, 693, 702- 
704, 1387-1388; broader basis for, 697; 
clothing of, 963; criteria for attain- 
ing, 694; dilemma of, 794-797, 921; 
family background and, 695, 697, 702; 
and family stability, 931-933; growth of, 
651} and leadership, 727-728, 73°-73 l > 
732, 733, 767, 804-805; and lower 
classes, friction of, 703, 729-730, 731, 
1395; moral standards of, 931-933, 939, 
1425; political confusion in, 703-704; 
reactions of, to discrimination and segre- 
gation, 764-766; "shady," 1391; with- 
drawal of, from leadership, 1388 

Upper class, white, 591-597; as allies of 
Negroes, 786-788; "America's 60 fam- 
ilies," 67 6n.; and leadership, 71s; South- 
ern, dilemma of, 1318 

Urban League, xiv, 793, 803, 835, J37- 
842, 843. 854, 1406-1408; effect of 
World War II on, 1408; functions of. 



1480 

8391 labor policy of, 1407-140(1 Work- 
ers* Council* in, 140 S 

Urbanization: Negro, 164, 179-180, 189, 
5>5> 645 1 of the South, 184, 289, 463 

Utah, expenditures for education in, 1171 

Vagrancy, Negro, after Civil War, 213-224, 

Vagrancy laws, 228, 551, 558, 1 344-' 345 

Valuations, 78m., 1027-1031, 1043, 1058, 
1063-10641 American Creed as, 1063 ; 
common, xlviii, 1028-1029; conflicts of, 
xlvii-li, 39-40, 52-53, 84-88, iio-iii, 
in, 167, 168, 170, 209, 215-219, 893, 
1027, 1029-1030, 1032, 1034, 1062, 
1063-1064, 1138-1139; dynamics of, 
1032-1034; empirical study of, 1137- 
1139; hidden, in social science, 1045- 
1057; "irrational," xlix; political, 47 

Value premises: method of working with, 
1044-104;; in research, 1059-1061; se- 
lection of, 1 061-1062 j of this book, 23- 
25, 109, 167, 169, 209-215, 334, 429, 
518, 526, 573-574, «7°i °>*> 812, 852- 
853, 9*7, 9*91 use of, lvi 

Vance, Rupert B.: cited, 242, 1238} on 
credit system, 1242; on exploitation of 
South, 221; on interracial relations, 
1 1 88; on mechanization, 1149; on 
Negro fertility, 1224; on rural structure 
of South, 451; on share tenancy, 1235 

Veblen, Thorstein, 1377 

Venereal disease, 143, 174, 177, 346, 980, 
1083, 1225, 1273 

Vesey, Denmark, 567, 736-737 

Vice; see Underworld, Negro 

Vicious circle, theory of, 75-78, 101, 109, 
172, 207-209, 791, 794, 1011, 1065- 
1070, 1185; and caste system, 669; and 
discrimination, 381, 382, 391, 392, 583; 
and Negro business, 308-309; in Negro 
reasoning on leadership, 774; in politics, 
435. 453> 483, 7i6n.; in residential Kg-* 
legation, 623; and salary differentials, 
320; in social discrimination, 643 

Vigilantism, 450, 527-528, 564, 1243, 

1350-1351 

Villa rd, Oswald Garrison, 819 

Violence {see also Intimidation), 558-569, 
618, 628, 1346, 1347-13511 an d dis- 
franchisement, 485, 486} against labor, 
1297, 1300; hy labor unions, 405; mob 
(see also Lynching and Riots), 553; Ne- 
gro, 763) pattern of, 558-560; post-Civil 
War, J3j, 736-737; in settling labor dis- 
putes, -713 

Virgiwai death penalty in, 5541 education 
requirement for voting in, 484; Negro 



jurors in, 550; Negro workers in indos- 
try in, 1295-1296) no Negro police in, 
543m; poll tax in, 1324) primaries in, 
486; recreational facilities in, 1275; 
and repatriation bill, 8141 safety laws 
in, 1281; voting in, 483 

Vital statistics, 159, 1218, 1220 

"Vocational" education, 1416; cost of, 890, 
898-899; Negro attitudes toward, 900- 
901; as rationalization for discrimination, 
897; versus "classical" education, 888- 
890, 896-900, 906; white and Negro, 
1419 

Vocational rehabilitation, 401 

Vocational training, 266, 313, 388, 390- 
391, 632, 739, 839, 949-950, 1087, 
1307; for police, 539, 544-545 i for war 
workers, 410, 416 

Voluntary associations, 317, 638-639, g$t, 

955. 9 g 4-9*5i »43» 

Voluntary withdrawal, 631, 647-649, 657, 
658, 669m, 762, 763, 797, 999, 1371- 
1372; of upper class Negroes from leader- 
ship, 776 

Voting, Negro (see also Disfranchisement 
and Suffrage, Negro), 474, 475, 482, 

483, 48«n., 492, 493, 494-495, 499t 
754i 75J. i3°9-i3i°» *3 2 7> 13*8-1329, 
I 333-'335> increases in, 488; as an issue 
in the South, 512-514; noninterrst in, 
1326; in the North, 200, 491-497; rela- 
tion of, \t public services, 435-436 

Voting, qualifications for, 446, 480, 483- 

484, 489. 514, »3*4i 13*5 

WACS, 421 

Wage discrimination, 319-320, 1094.-1095, 

1096, 1099, 1112-1113, 1116-1117, 
1124 

Wage laborers, 242-244, 254, 1245 
Wages, 1295-1296; in auto industry, 1121; 
of domestic servants, 1085-1086; in fer- 
tilizer industry, 1096; in iron and steel 
industry, 1116-1117; in longshore work, 
1099; in lumber industry, 1091, 1092- 
1095; minimum, 398-399; in mining, 
1 112-11 13; in railroad industry, 1106, 
1107; in slaughtering industry, 1124; in 
tobacco industry, 11 09; or turpentine 
workers, 1089-1090 
Wages and Hours Law, 297, 397-399, 456, 
1001, 1091, 1092, 1093, 1095, 1096- 

1097, 1106; effect of, on South, 398; 
workers excluded from, 398 

Wallace, Henry A., on democracy and 

Christianity, 11 
Waller, Fats, 989 
Walling, William English, 819 



Xmdbx 



14*1 



Walterahausen, A. S. von, on resolving 
racial antipathy, 1098 

War Manpower Commission, 416 

War production : exclusion of Negroes from, 
7S5> 850, 1005, 1301 1 few Negroes em- 
ployed in, 4.10, 4.11-4.14.) government 
policy on Negroes in, 414-419; oppor- 
tunities for Negroes in, 654; in the South, 
410-41 1 

Ward, Lester F., 1057 

Ware, Caroline F., cited, 880 

Warner, Robert A.: cited, 1373} on legal 
justice in the North, 1337; on Negro 
opinions of white morals, 97811. 

Warner, W. Lloyd, 670, 674$ caste-line 
diagram of, 691; on class concept, 1378 

Warner, W. L., Junker, B., and Adams, 
W. A.: on color, 13841 on Negro lower 
class, 1386} on Negro vice as business, 
1269 

Wartime, Negro protest in, 745, 755, 818, 
850 

Washburn Amendment, 41811. 

Washbume, Carleton, 90311. 

Washington, Booker T., 284, 491, 504, 
640-641, 644, 662, 69511., 798, 815, 843, 
889, 898, 90 3n., 955, 987; on broader 
range of Negro education 88911. j on 
commercial progress of Negro, 291, 787; 
as conciliatory leader, 640-641, 726-727, 
739-741, 742-743, 796 ( on drive for 
education, 883; on equal natural endow- 
ments, 11915 and equality doctrine, 63; 
on exception from Jim Crow of dark- 
skinned non-Negroes, 1352; on incident 
in Douglass's life, 1394} on inequality 
of opportunity, 758; on moral effect of 
disfranchisement, 1333} on Negro Judg- 
ment on whites, 1323; on obstacles to 
success for Negroes, 1370$ philosophy of, 
739-740, 800 } on religion, 8744 on seg- 
regation, 641 j on separation of races, 65; 
on separation of schools in North, 1421- 
1422} on theft in slave days, 1434) on 
white prejudice, 435 on white protec- 
tionism, 13575 on "Yankee teachers," 
141 6 

Washington, D. C: disfranchisement in, 
474A.5 institutional segregation in, 631- 
6321 Negro population in, 1127; police 
killings in, 543n.; prejudice against 
Negroes in, 528 

Washington, Forrester B., cited, 326, 1436 
Washington, George, 1181; on slavery, 85 

Washington Park Court Improvement As- 
sociation, 624 

Waters, Ethel, 988 

Watson, Tom, 453 



WAVES, 420 

Wealth, and Negro upper class, 694 

Weatherford, W. D.: on contributions 
from Negro church members, 1412; on 
education for rural children, 1421; on 
loss of status, 133s i on Negro papers as 
race papers, 9081 on raising status of 
Negroes, 59$ 

Weatherford, W. D., and Johnson, C. S.: 
cited, 563, 564, 1215, 1230; on Negro 
good humor, 960; on Negroes in build- 
ing trades, 282-283; on political history 
and the Negro, 13 10 

Weaver, Robert C, cited, 411-412, 414, 
1104-1 105, 1303 

Weber, Max, 952 

Wector, Dixon, cited, it 81 

Weintraub, D., and Magdoff, H., cited, 
1083 

Welfare policy, 211-212, 355, 11865 de- 
velopment of, 165, 1661 specialized, 

356-357 
Wells, Dorothy P., cited, 1086 
Wells-Brown, William, 737 
Wertenbakcr, Thomas J., on Negro crafts- 
men, 1 254-1 255 
West: discrimination in, 200; disfranchise- 
ment of Negroes in, 438} Negro migra- 
tion to, 200 -, Negro police in, 543m 5 
Negro population of, 200, 1232} no Jim 
Crow laws in, 1 19S; participation in 
election in, 475; school segregation in, 
633; vigilantism in, 527 
West Virginia: library facilities in, 13685 
lynching in, 561; Negro high schools in, 
95on. 
Westward movement, 865 little Negro par- 
ticipation in, 186-188 
White, Walter, 68411., 726, 8i9n., 821, 
826, 987, 13905 cited, 561, 562, 563, 
13615 on fight for equality in wartime, 
8505 on lynching, 5635 on N.A.A.C.P., 
836n., 1404 
White American Society, 81 in. 
White Brotherhood, 449 
White collar workers, Negro, 305, 306, 
309, 313, 504 i in public service, 327- 
329 
White infiltration: into Negro jobs, 193, 
197, 281-283, 3955 into plantation 
tenancy, 244 
"White man's burden," 1187-1188 
White man's problem, Negro problem as, 

li-lii, 6695 opinions on, 42-44 
White primary, 455, 480-481, 486-487, 

4«9» 5i5i 5»8» 5»9> 833 
White solidarity, 242, 2489 443, 444, 453- 
454. 47J-47»". 537. 55°, 59*. «77. >379 



1484 



Iudkx 



White supremacy, theory of, 51-57, 579, 
5 So, 44»-443» 444, 454, 460, 643, 9*1, 
13144 1318} bound up with Negro igno- 
rance, 894-895 5 policeman's role in, 535 
Whitman, Wait, on liberty, 13 
Wilcox, O. W., quoted, 264 
Wilkerson, Doxey A.: cited, 319-320, 339- 
340, 343, 633, 88211., 9 4 7 n, 951, 1415$ 
on Negro high schools, 1419) poll on 
mixed education by, 1411 j on Rosenwald 
schools, 1418} on scholastic achievement, 
1418 
Wilkins, Roy, 8190., 9871 on N.A.A.C.P., 
8360., 1402} on Negro organizations, 
83411.; on power of voters, 82811. 
Willcox, Walter, 967 
Willkie, Wendell, 414, 1323) on American 

paradoxes, 1009 
Williams, Bert, 989 
Williams, William H., cited, 22611. 
Wills, Harry, 99 m. 
Wilson, Isabella C, cited, 1118 
Wilson, L. R., and Wight, E. A., cited, 

1276 
Wilson, M. L., 1253 

Wirth, Louis, 10575 on ante-bellum mis- 
cegenation, 126) on Negro judgment of 
whites, 6875 on valuations, 1063-1064 
Wirth, Louis, and Goldhamer, Herbert: 
cited, 606, 685, 687, 695-696, 1207, 
1360, 1361 j on "marginal man," 700 j 
on miscegenation, 1209 
Wisconsin, voting in, 1309-1310 
Witnesses (see also Character witnesses), 

differential treatment of, 526-527 
Witty, Paul A., and Jenkins, Martin A., 

cited, 1216-1217 
Wood, L. Hollingsworth, 837 
Woodson, Carter G., 751, 9305 cited, 191- 
192, 201, 321-322, 324, 325, 329, 1264, 
1413-14141 on Negro church as com- 
munity center, 1426-1427} on the min- 
istry, 87411.5 on Negro patients of white, 
doctors, 323 
Woofter, T. J., Jr.: cited, 235, 337, 244, 
246, 247-248, 258, 273, 563, 1241, 1246, 
1252, 1254, 1283* quoted, 227, ajij 
on A. A. A., 270} classification of cities 
on basis of residential segregation by, 
1365-1366) on democracy and the legal 
system, 1337s on democracy in public ex- 
penditure, 1269-12705 on housing pat- 
ten}, 6225 on interracial contacts, 588- 
5*9, 1355} on legal cases and Negro 
lodges, 14305 on missionary teachers, 
14165 on noninterference in the South, 
' * 33.5 J on paternalism, 13575 on political 
, system in South, 518,. 5190.5 on separa- 



tion, 5881 on slavery, 11885 on social 
tenant legislation, 12361 on Southern 
agriculture, 2325 on Southern politics 
and the Negro problem, 13101 00 teach- 
ing of Negro history, 1420 
Woman suffrage, 1077 
Women: education for, io?6n., 10775 em- 
ployment rates for, 1258) fight for eman- 
cipation of, 1075; in industry, 283, 3961 
limiting work of, 3985 and Negroes, par- 
allel between status of, 67n., 103, 779, 
1073-1078 
Women, Negro: in Army and Navy, 420, 
4215 in defense industries, 13045 dis- 
crimination against, in relief, 12825 em- 
ployment of, 302, 1082, 1258-1259} as 
leaders, 7355 in professions, 318 
Women of the Ku Klux Klan, 8i2n. 
Work, Monroe N., cited, 344, 419 
Work relief, 360-361, 1282-1283 
Workers Alliance of America, 81 an. 
Workers Defense League, 528 
Working conditions, 1086, 1090, 1093 
Workmen's compensation, 357, 358 
Works Progress Administration, 343, 347, 
360-361, 366, 42611., 465, 991, 1087, 
13075 discrimination in, 361, 1282-1283 
World War I: democracy and, 7455 effect 
of, on Negroes, 193, 7455 employment 
gains for Negroes during, 295, 393, 424, 
997, 13025 Negro grievances in, 850; 
Negroes in, 745, 1308, 1309) rise of 
lynchings and riots in, 563, 755, 1409 
World War II: boom stimulated by, 252- 
»53> 409-414} color issue in, 915, 1006, 
1016} decreasing social discrimination in 
North during, 6625 democracy and, 
1007, 10125 effect of, on Negro psychol- 
ogy, 744! ideology of, 755-756, 79on., 
806, 1004, 10075 influence of, on Negro 
attitudes, 755; and N.A.A.C.P. 821, 822, 
8235 Negro employment in, 408, 409, 
654, 1 301-1302 5 Negro organizations 
during, 850-8525 and the Negro prob- 
lem, 997-998} Negroes in, 1004-1008; 
probable effects of, 199, 466, 514} racial 
angle to, 5175 recurrence of riots in, 
567-5685 role of Negro press in, 914- 
915} secondary booms in, 4115 unemploy- 
ment after, 401, 408, 409, 424, 425, 
1010-10115 and Urban League, 1408} 
and whites, 1008-1010 
Wright, Richard, 656, 734, 735, 9>9> 99*5 

on Negro church, 936 
Wright, R. R., Sr., 1184 
Wyant, Rowena, cited, 188-189 
Wyoming, school segregation in, 633 



Index 



1483 



Young, Donald R.: cited, sin., 438, 14.361 
on American Indians, 53s an decrease in 
lynching, 1349 s on democracy, 672; on 
inferiority doctrine, ioo{ on minority 
problems, 11 86) on Negro organizations 
for improvement of race relations, 1404- 
1405) on Negro resorts, 985-986; on 
preference for "darkey" type of servant, 
1382; restatement of Negro problem by, 
1185 j on special Negro legislation, 47; 
on white passing, 1380 



Young, Earle F., cited, 561 
Young, P. B.: on business and Negro press, 
1424; on Negro press as race organ, 908 
Young Women's Christian Association, 1087 
Youth, assistance to, 361-362 

Zionist Movement, 851 
Zoarites,- 712 

Zoning ordinances, 623-624, 829 
Zoot suit, 962-963