Sociology and Modern Social Problems

by Charles A. Ellwood

The Urban Negro Population.—Seventeen per cent of the total negro population in 1900 lived in cities of over 8000 population while the remainder lived in small towns and country districts. The following great cities had a high percentage of negroes:

Per cent.

Memphis …………………………. 48.8
Washington ………………………. 31.1
New Orleans ……………………… 27.1
Louisville ………………………. 19.1
St. Louis ……………………….. 6.2
Philadelphia …………………….. 4.8
Baltimore ……………………….. 15.6

Some smaller Southern cities have, of course, a much higher percentage of negroes in their population, such as Jacksonville, Florida, 57.1 per cent; Charleston, South Carolina, 56.5 per cent; Savannah, Georgia, 51.8 per cent. On the whole, however, it will be seen that the mass of the negroes in the United States still live in rural districts, although directly after the Civil War and again within recent years there has been a considerable movement of the negroes to the cities. This is extremely significant for the social conditions of the race, because the negro, while not adapted in general to the environment of civilization, is still less adapted to the environment which the modern city affords him.

The Social Condition of the Negroes in the United States.—(1) Intermixture of Races. Ever since the negro came to this country he has been having his racial characteristics modified by the infusion of white blood. The census of 1890 attempted to make an estimate of the number of negroes of mixed blood in the United States. The number returned as being of mixed blood was 1,132,000, but all authorities agree that this number understates the actual number. The census officials themselves repudiated these figures as being entirely misleading. Experts in ethnology have estimated that from one third to one half of the negroes in the United States show traces of white intermixture. The lower estimate, that one third of the negroes of the United States have more or less white blood, is quite generally accepted by those who have carefully investigated the matter. Of course the proportion of negroes of mixed blood varies greatly in different localities. In communities in the border states frequently more than one half of the negroes show marked traces of white intermixture. But in the isolated rural regions of the South, where the negroes predominate, the full-blood negro is by far the more common type.

This infusion of white blood into a portion of the negro population is significant sociologically. It is the negroes of mixed blood who are ambitious socially and who present some of the most acute phases of the negro problem. It is from the mixed bloods that the leaders of the race in this country have come. The pure negro without intermixture has hitherto seemed incapable of leadership. Such men as Booker T. Washington, Professor Du Bois, and most other negro leaders have a considerable mixture of white blood. A list of 2200 negro authors was once compiled by the Librarian of Congress, and investigation showed that with very few exceptions these negro authors came from the mixed stock. Indeed, practically all of the negroes who have been eminent in literature, science, art, or statesmanship have come from this class of mixed bloods.

But the infusion of white blood has also in some ways been a detriment to the negro. The illegitimate offspring resulting from the unions of white fathers and negro mothers are frequently the product of conditions of vice. The consequence is that the child of mixed origin frequently has a degenerate heredity and, coming into the world as a bastard, is more or less in disfavor with both races; hence the social environment of the mulatto as well as his heredity is oftentimes peculiarly unfavorable. It is not surprising, therefore, to find among the mulattoes a great amount of constitutional diseases and a great tendency to crime and immorality. Again mulatto women are more frequently debauched by white men than the pure blood negro women, and for this reason negro women of mixed blood are more apt to be immoral. So we see that while the mixed bloods have furnished the leaders of their race, they have also furnished an undue proportion of its vice and crime. This is exactly what we should expect when we understand the social conditions existing between the races and the origin and social environment of the mulatto.

The crime and vice and constitutional diseases of the mulatto do not prove that degeneracy results from the intermixture of the two races, as was once supposed. On the contrary, as we have already seen, all of these things result from the fact that the crossing of the races takes place under socially abnormal conditions, that is, under conditions of vice. This is not, however, true in all cases and particularly it was not true of all intermixture that took place under the regime of slavery. Rather intermixture under such circumstances approached not vice, as we understand the word, but polygyny. Consequently some of the best blood of the South runs in the veins of some of the mulattoes. Again, we have examples from other countries of the crossing of the two races, negro and white, without physical degeneracy. In the West Indies and in Brazil this crossing is frequently taking place, and many of the best families of those countries have a slight amount of negro blood in their veins. From instances like this, gathered from all over the world, it has generally been concluded by anthropologists that no evil physiological results necessarily follow the intermixture of races, even the most diverse, but that all supposed physiological evils coming from the intermixture of races really come from social rather than from physiological causes.

From the point of view of the white race and from the point of view of the negro race such racial intermixture, outside of the bounds of law, may be for many reasons undesirable. But we are here concerned with noting only the social effect of the intermixture that has gone on in the past; and we see that on the one hand it has resulted in creating a class of so-called negroes in whom white blood and the ambitions and energy of the white race predominate, and on the other hand it has also resulted in creating a degenerate mixed stock who furnish the majority of criminals and vicious persons belonging to the so-called negro race.

(2) Criminality of the Negro. One of the most important features of the negro problem in the United States is the strong tendency among the negroes toward crime; and this, as we have just seen, is especially manifest in those of mixed origin. Professor Willcox has shown that in 1890 there were in the South six white prisoners to every ten thousand whites, but twenty-nine negro prisoners to every ten thousand negroes, while in the North there were twelve white prisoners to every ten thousand whites, but sixty-nine negro prisoners to every ten thousand negroes. These statistics show that the negro is everywhere more criminal than the white, and that his tendency toward crime increases as we go North, doubtless largely because in the North he is in a strange and more complex environment and finds greater difficulty in making social adjustments. Moreover, negro crime is increasing. From 1880 to 1890 the negro prisoners of the United States increased 29 per cent, while the white prisoners only increased 8 per cent. Later statistics show the same result. As yet there has been no check to the steady increase of negro crime in this country since the Civil War. In some Northern cities, like Chicago, in some years the number of arrests of negroes has equaled one third of the total negro population of those cities. The criminality of the negro is doubtless in part a matter of social environment, because we see that negro crime increases in cities and in the more complex Northern communities; but it is also to some extent a matter of the negro's heredity.