A Working Plan for Colored Antituberculosis Leagues

by Charles Poindexter Wertenbaker

The minister and the officers of the leagues should consult frequently with the health officer of their community. Working together they can accomplish much more than by working alone.

The minister and officers of the league can teach their people to be careful and not produce unsanitary conditions, and the health officer can remedy conditions that the people can not correct. The leagues should urge the members to beautify their homes, no matter how humble they may be. If the home is made more attractive, interest in it will grow, and an improvement in the sanitary conditions will naturally follow. Teach the members to have grass and flowers in their yards. See that there is no dirt, trash, or litter scattered about; that the loose paling of the fence is nailed on, and the sagging gate has a new hinge. Pull the dirty rags from the broken window pane and burn them. Let them put their bed-clothing out in the sun occasionally, and sweep the dust from under the bed and furniture. Open the window and door and let air and sunlight into the rooms. All of these things tend to improve the sanitary conditions, which means health and happiness.

Members should be taught that remedies advertised as cures for consumption are not to be relied upon, and that the only known way to get well is to live in the open air as much as possible, both day and night, and to eat nourishing food at regular intervals. The consumptive when possible should go to a physician or a dispensary and follow exactly the instructions given.

Aside from the help that can be given the individual consumptive, which will be discussed later on, there is much that the leagues can do by concerted action to improve the conditions under which the negro lives. Probably one of the most important factors in the spread of tuberculosis, aside from his habits, is the manner in which the negro is housed. The negro as a rule is a renter. The houses that he can rent are usually located in the poorest and most unhealthy part of the city. They are often poorly constructed, badly lighted and ventilated, and frequently in bad repair. The rooms are usually small and dark, having but one window, and the top sash is seldom arranged to be lowered. Many houses are built on poorly drained ground, and water stands under them after each rain, making the rooms damp and cold. These houses are seldom provided with bathing arrangements or water-closets, thus necessitating the use of privies, or the back alleys, with all the dangers attendant upon such conditions. For such houses, or more frequently for one or two rooms in such a house, the negro pays proportionately more rent than the white race does for better houses in the same community, either because better accommodations are not available, or because he can not, or will not, pay for better. The family, usually consisting of father, mother, and several children, and often friends or relatives, all live, eat, and sleep in these two or three rooms, frequently with the windows and doors tightly closed, and in winter a stove going at full blast.

In the negro section of the city the streets are usually either badly paved or not paved at all. The sidewalks are either in bad repair or missing. The streets are badly lighted at night, garbage cans are not emptied regularly, and the scavenger service is poor.

“There is a reason for these things,” say the landlords, the municipal authorities, and others who have dealings with the negro. The landlord says: “Negroes are destructive; they pull down, but they never improve property. A house rented to negroes will depreciate from 25 to 50 per cent in a year. If you put in plumbing they break it, they deface the walls, they tear off the shutters and the doors, they break and burn the fences. It is useless to give them good houses as they neither appreciate them nor take care of them.”

The municipal authorities say that negroes make no effort to keep their surroundings clean and sanitary. They throw things into the street, choke the plumbing, drains, and sewers with old rags, trash, and dirt, and make no effort to help the authorities keep things in order; therefore it is useless to try to help them until they learn to help themselves. They say that there are exceptions to these statements, but that they are true so far as the great mass of the negroes is concerned. Reference is made to the subject here to draw attention to the fact that the leagues can do much to change these conditions, thereby bettering the condition of the race.

If the things that are said about the negro by the landlords, the municipal authorities, and others are true, then it is necessary for the negro to change these conditions before there can be hope for much betterment. If they are not true, steps should be taken to convince the landlords, municipal authorities, and others that they are false.

It is in this way that the leagues, though aimed at tuberculosis, may be the means of bettering the conditions along many lines. If the negro can demonstrate that he is not destructive, and that he can and does take care of the house in which he lives; if he will keep his surroundings neat and clean; if he shows that he is clean and sanitary in his practices, and that he feels his responsibility as a citizen by trying to keep up the sanitary conditions and the appearances of his home and his city, he will find that many of his troubles will disappear. If a landlord finds that his property is being cared for by his negro tenant, the yard, fences, etc., being kept in order, the rent promptly paid, and tenant is desirable, he will be only too glad to keep him, and to make such alterations in his house as he may desire. If it is demonstrated to the municipal authorities that the negro is as careful of his section of the city as the whites, his wants will receive consideration. The educated negroes succeed in getting surroundings that are far better than those of the average because they have learned to appreciate the above facts, and have put them into practice.

When the leagues have taught their members that it is not healthy to live in dark, damp rooms, with bad sanitary surroundings, and have educated them to the point where they will refuse to live under such conditions, then the landlords will build proper houses for them. The leagues working in conjunction with the health officer can get the city authorities to so frame the building ordinances that only sanitary dwellings will be erected in the city.