Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in New York

by Mary White Ovington

A fourth obstacle, and a very important one, is the lack of opportunity for the colored boy. The only trade that he can easily learn is that of stationary engineer, an occupation at which the Negroes do very well. Colored boys in small numbers are attending evening trade schools, but their chance of securing positions on graduation will be small. The Negro youth who is not talented enough to enter a profession, and who cannot get into the city or government service, has slight opportunity. Nothing is so discouraging in the outlook in New York as the crowding out of colored boys from congenial remunerative work.

The last obstacle in the way of the Negro's advancement into higher occupations is his inefficiency. Race prejudice denies him the opportunity to prove his ability in many occupations, and the same spirit forces him to work in a race group; but the colored men themselves are often unfitted for any labor other than that they undertake.

The picture that is sometimes drawn of many thousands of highly skilled Southern colored men forced in New York to give up their trades and to turn to menial labor is not a correct one. Richard R. Wright, Jr., who has made a careful study of the Negro in Philadelphia,[9] finds that the majority of colored men who come to that city are from the class of unskilled city laborers and country hands; the minority are the more skilful artisans and farmers and domestic servants, with a number also of the vagrant and criminal classes.

In New York the untrained Negroes not only form a very large class, but coming in contact, as they do, with foreigners who for generations have been forced to severe, unremitting toil, they suffer by comparison. The South in the days of slavery demanded chiefly routine work in the fields from its Negroes.[10] The work was under the direction either of the master, the overseer, or a foreman; and there has been no general advance in training for the colored men of the South since that time. Contrast the intensive cultivation of Italy or Switzerland with the farms of Georgia or Alabama, or the hotels of France with those of Virginia, and you will see the disadvantages from which the Negro suffers. America is young and crude, but opportunity has brought to her great cities workmen from all over the world. In New York these men are driven at a pace that at the outset distracts the colored man who prefers his leisurely way. Moreover, the foreign workmen have learned persistence; they are punctual and appear regularly each morning at their tasks. "The Italians are better laborers than any other people we have, are they not?" I asked a man familiar with many races and nationalities. "No," was his answer, "they do not work better than others, but when the whistle blows, they are always there." Mr. Stone, whose book I have already quoted a number of times, shows the irresponsible, fanciful wanderings of his Mississippi tenants, whom he endeavored, unsuccessfully, to establish in a permanent tenantry. The colored men in New York are far in advance of these farm hands, who are described as moving about simply because they desire a change, but they are also far from the steady, unswerving attitude of their foreign competitors. Inadequately educated, too often they come to New York with little equipment for tasks they must undertake successfully or starve—unless, puerile, they live by the labor of some industrious woman.

I have tried to depict the New York colored wage earners as they labor in the city today. They are not a remarkable group, and were they white men, distinguished by some mark of nationality, they would pass without comment. But the Negro is on trial, and witnesses are continually called to tell of his failures and successes. We have seen that both in the attitude of the world about him, and in his own untutored self, there are many obstacles to prevent his advance; and his natural sensitiveness adds to these difficulties. He minds the coarse but often good-natured joke of his fellow laborer, and he remembers with a lasting pain the mortification of an employer's curt refusal of work. Had he the obtuseness of some Americans he would prosper better. As we have seen, many positions are completely closed to him, leading him to idleness and consequent crime. Just as not every able-bodied white man, who is out of work and impoverished, will go to the charities wood-yard and saw wood, so not every colored man will accept the menial labor which may be the only work open to him. Instead, he may gamble or drift into a vagabond life. A well-known Philadelphia judge has said that "The moral and intellectual advance of a race is governed by the degree of its industrial freedom. When that freedom is restricted there is unbounded tendency to drive the race discriminated against into the ranks of the criminal." Discrimination in New York has led many Negroes into these ranks. But as we look back at the occupations of our colored men we see a large number who secure regular hours, and if a poor, yet a fairly steady pay. For the mass of the Negroes coming into the city these positions are an advance over their former work. Employment in a great mercantile establishment, though it be in the basement, carries dignity with it, and educating demands of punctuality, sobriety, and swiftness. Richard R. Wright, Jr., whose right to speak with authority we have already noted, believes that the "North has taught the Negro the value of money; of economy; it has taught more sustained effort in work, punctuality, and regularity." It has also, I believe, in its more regular hours of work, aided in the upbuilding of the home.

I remember once waiting in the harbor of Genoa while our ship was taking on a cargo. The captain walked the deck impatiently, and, as the Italians went in leisurely fashion about their task, declared, "If I had those men in New York I could get twice the amount of work out of them." That is what New York does; it works men hard and fast; sometimes it mars them; but it pays a better wage than Genoa, and there is an excitement and dash about it that attracts laborers from all parts of the earth. The black men come, insignificant in numbers, ready to do their part. They work and play and marry and bring up children, and as we watch them moving to and from their tasks the North seems to have brought to the majority of them something of liberty and happiness.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Alfred Holt Stone, "Studies in the American Race Problem," p. 164.

[2] New York Age, August 24, 1905.