In spite of the labor unions, however, the Negro has gone North. The
war, suddenly putting an end to the great immigrant stream from
Europe, brought a sudden demand for unskilled labor undreamed of five
years ago. Nobody knows how many Negroes have gone from the South to
the North within the last three years. Perhaps 500,000; perhaps even
200,000 more. We do know, however, that they have gone in amazing
numbers; and the thing of really vital importance is that these people
shall be adequately adjusted to their new environment. Some
opportunity should be afforded them to rise from the ranks of
unskilled into those of skilled laborers. It is moreover of the
highest importance that these newcomers to our large cities shall be
adequately housed. Thirty persons are known to have lived recently in
a seven-room house in Philadelphia; and in Pittsburgh 57 out of 390
rooms investigated have shown over six persons using the same room. In
many cases the paper is torn off the walls, plaster sags from the
laths, windows are broken, and the ceiling is low and damp. The whole
question is of course closely connected with disease and mortality. In
many places, and even in some of our training camps, there is too
little opportunity for wholesome refreshment for the Negro. When will
our cities learn that tuberculosis and typhoid fever are no respecter
of persons? It is not enough to isolate bad cases after they are found
out. The conditions of home sanitation, or lack of sanitation, that
lead to these should be made impossible. I recall a section of
pleasant homes in the West End of Atlanta. Suddenly, in the midst of
clean, comfortable little cottages for white people there yawned
before me an alley in which Negroes lived, with its dilapidated
two-room dwellings, general lack of cleanliness, and its unwholesome
air. From these places came the cooks and the washerwomen for the
white families in the neighborhood; and this condition in one section
of Atlanta can be duplicated in any city in the South, and in many in
the North.
In 1910 the death-rate in 57 representative cities was 27.8 per 1,000
for Negroes and 15.9 for white people. The rates for both white people
and Negroes were higher in the South than in the North, but not a
great deal more so. Among the Negroes the diseases that
overwhelmingly outnumbered the others in their victims were
tuberculosis and pneumonia. Can any one doubt that this is due to the
unsanitary conditions under which these people are in many instances
forced to live?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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