Progress and Achievements of the Colored People / Containing the Story of the Wonderful Advancement of the Colored Americans—the Most Marvelous in the History of Nations—Their Past Accomplishments, Together With Their Present-day Opportunities and a Glimpse Into the Future for Further Developments—the Dawn of a Triumphant Era. A Handbook for Self-improvement Which Leads to Greater Success

by Kelly Miller; Joseph R. Gay

To show how fast this field is being exploited by Colored Americans would require a large volume of statistics, but the essentials may be given so that it may be inferred that the field is in a fair way of being occupied.

Our most valuable account, strangely enough, comes from an English source:

In 1911 a commission was sent by the English Board of Trade to the United States to investigate the cost of living in American towns, but the report included important information concerning the occupations of Colored Americans in cities of the United States.

It appears from the report that the Colored Americans in New York City, in spite of the industrial barriers that exist there, contain within themselves most of the elements, professional, trading, and industrial, that go to make up the life of other and more normally situated communities.

BRICKLAYERS AND CARPENTERS

In Atlanta, Georgia, about three-fourths of the bricklayers are Colored Americans, but the majority of the carpenters are white. Nominally, the rate of wages is the same for both races. One large employer held, that Colored American’s as bricklayers had a value exceeded by no one, and that in his own case the highest paid workmen were Colored Americans.

In Baltimore, it was found that Colored Americans occupy a very important position in the working class element of the population. An overwhelming majority in the building trades are Colored Americans.

In Birmingham, Alabama, there is a larger number of Colored American workmen than in any other district in the United States. The building and mining industries are the two in which the two races come into the most direct competition with one another, yet in neither of these industries does a situation exist which occasions any serious friction.

In Cleveland, Colored Americans were found in the steel and wire works, as plasterers, hod carriers, teamsters and janitors.

In Memphis, in the transport trades and also in certain industries, such as the making of bricks and cottonseed oil, the labor is almost entirely Colored American. They are making their way into the skilled trades, and in some wood working establishments both whites and blacks work side by side at skilled occupations.