Diagram II: The General Death Rate of American Cities 1871-1904 (after Hoffman)
Other data[21] for two of the cities investigated by Mr. Hoffman, and for three other cities (Atlanta, Ga., Charleston, S.C., and Richmond, Va.) from 1882 to 1905 furnish results similar to his and indicate likewise that while the general death-rate for the Negro population is uniformly in excess of that of the white, there is a tendency downward. For example, in Atlanta, Ga., the death-rates from 1882 to 1885 were for the white population, 18.22 per 1,000, Negro, 37.96; from 1886 to 1890, white, 19.25, Negro, 33.41; from 1891 to 1905, white, 18.03 per 1,000, Negro, 32.76. Baltimore, Md., Charleston, S.C., Memphis, Tenn., and Richmond, Va., show a similar decrease, except that the white and Negro populations of Baltimore show an increase in the third period, 1891 to 1905, and the rate of the Negro population of Charleston increased in the second period, 1886 to 1890.
We see, then, that while the death-rate of Negroes in Southern cities has been considerably in excess of that of the whites, there has been at the same time a similar tendency toward improvement.
And where there is unprejudiced effort the death-rate among Negroes is affected favorably by improved living conditions. The chief health-officer of Richmond, Va., Dr. E.C. Levy, has sounded a note which is not mere prophecy.[22] He said, in 1906, "There is no doubt whatsoever but that the introduction of better sanitation among the colored people would have great influence on their high death-rate, but whether, after all, it can be brought down as low as the white rate, is a matter which can not be foretold." Again, in 1907, he says,
We must clearly face the issue that the first fruits of improved sanitation in Richmond will most probably be seen in a lowering of the death-rate among the colored people, as conditions among them are so much worse at present, but this in turn will gradually react on the white race.
And, in 1908, this significant paragraph occurs in his report:
The white death-rate in Richmond during 1908 was 17.48 per 1000; the colored rate was 29.21 per 1000. Although the colored rate was thus 67 per cent higher than the white rate, the decrease in the colored rate from 1907 was greater than the decrease in the white rate, the 1907 rates being 18.11 for whites and 32.99 for Negroes.
Out of a total decrease of 166 in the number of deaths in 1908 compared with 1907, the white decrease was 27, while the colored decrease was 139. From the time that I entered office I have predicted that improved sanitation would benefit the Colored race more quickly than the white, and the figures above given justify this conclusion.