Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in New York — John Shaqi
Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in New YorkOvington, Mary White
History
Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in New York
Ovington, Mary White
African Americans -- New York (State) -- New York
The New York Negro constitutes today but two per cent of the population
of Manhattan, one and eight-tenths per cent of that of Greater New York;
and, as many workers in Manhattan live in Brooklyn, the larger area is
the better one to consider. In 1900, the census volume on occupations
gives the number of males over ten years of age engaged in gainful
occupations in Greater New York at 1,102,471, and of that number 20,395
or 1.8 per cent, eighteen in every thousand, are Negroes. In Atlanta, to
take a southern commercial centre, 351 out of every thousand male
workers are Negroes. This enormous difference in the proportion of
colored workers to white must never be forgotten in considering the
labor situation North and South. We cannot expect in the North to see
the Negro monopolizing an industry which demands a larger share of
workers than he can produce, nor need we admit that he has lost an
occupation when he does not control it.
We often come upon such a statement as that of Samuel R. Scottron, a
colored business man, who, writing in 1905, said, "The Italian,
Sicilian, Greek, occupy quite every industry that was confessedly the
Negro's forty years ago. They have the bootblack stands, the news
stands, barbers' shops, waiters' situations, restaurants, janitorships,
catering business, stevedoring, steamboat work, and other situations
occupied by Negroes."[2] Did the colored men have all this forty years
ago when they were only one and a half per cent of the population? If
so, there were giants in those days, or New York was much simpler in its
habits than now. At present the control by the colored people of any
such an array of industries would be quite impossible. To take four out
of the nine occupations enumerated: the census of 1900 gives the number
of waiters at 31,211; barbers, 12,022; janitors, 6184; bootblacks, 2648;
a total of 52,065. But in 1900 there were only 20,395 Negro males
engaged in gainful occupations in New York. Without a vigorous astral
body the 20,000-odd colored men could not occupy half these jobs. If
they dominated in the field of waiters they must abandon handling the
razor, and not all the colored boys could muster 2684 strong to black
the boots of Greater New York. We must at the outset recognize that as a
labor factor the Negro in New York is insignificant.
The volume of the federal census for 1900 on occupations shows us how
the Negroes are employed in New York City. There are five occupational
divisions, and the Negroes and whites are divided among them as follows:
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