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
But despite her efforts and occasional successes, the colored girl in
New York meets with severer race prejudice than the colored man, and is
more persistently kept from attractive work. _She gets the job that the
white girl does not want._ It may be that the white girls want the wrong
thing, and that the jute mill and tobacco shop and flower factory are
more dangerous to health and right living than the mistress's kitchen,
but she knows her mind, and follows the business that brings her liberty
of action when the six o'clock whistle blows. What she desires for
herself, however, she refuses to her colored neighbor. Occasionally an
employer objects to colored girls, but the Manhattan Trade School
repeatedly, in trying to place its graduates, has found that opposition
to the Negro has come largely from the working girls. Race prejudice
has even gone so far as to prevent a colored woman from receiving home
work when it entailed her waiting in the same sitting-room with white
women. Of course, this is not the universal attitude. In friendly talks
with hundreds of New York's white women workers, I have found the
majority ready to accept the colored worker. Jewish girls are especially
tolerant. They believe that good character and decent manners should
count, not color; but an aggressive, combative minority is quite sure
that no matter how well educated or virtuous she may be, no black woman
is as good as a white one. So the few but belligerent aristocrats
triumph over the many half-ashamed, timid democrats.
The shirtwaist makers' strike of 1910 was so profoundly important in its
breaking down of feeling between nationalities, its union of all working
women in a common cause, that the colored girl, while very slightly
concerned in the strike itself, may profit by the more generous feeling
it engendered. Certainly an entrance into store and workshop would be to
her immense advantage. She needs the discipline of regular hours, of
steady training, of order and system. She needs also to become part of a
strong labor group, to share its working class ideal, to feel the weight
of its moral opinion; instead of looking into the mirror of her wealthy
mistress, she needs to reflect the aspirations of the strong, earnest
women who toil.
Before bringing the story of the life of the New York colored working
woman to a close, it may not be amiss to look closely at the
discrimination practised against her, not only in her work, but in her
daily life. The Negro comes North and finds himself half a man. Does the
woman, too, come to be but half a woman? What is her status in the city
to which she turns for opportunity and larger freedom?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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