We have one more census division to consider, Professional Service. The table runs as follows:
| Total number of males in each occupation. | Number of negroes in each occupation. | Negroes to each 1000 workers in occupation. | |
| Actors, professional showmen, etc. | 4,733 | 254 | 54 |
| Architects, designers, draftsmen | 3,966 | 2 | 0 |
| Artists, teachers of art | 2,924 | 13 | 4 |
| Clergymen | 2,833 | 90 | 32 |
| Dentists | 1,509 | 25 | 16 |
| Physicians and surgeons | 6,577 | 32 | 5 |
| Veterinary surgeons | 320 | 2 | 6 |
| Electricians | 8,131 | 18 | 2 |
| Engineers (civil) and surveyors | 3,321 | 7 | 2 |
| Journalists | 2,833 | 7 | 2 |
| Lawyers | 7,811 | 26 | 3 |
| Literary and scientific | 1,709 | 10 | 5 |
| Musicians | 6,429 | 195 | 30 |
| Officials (government) | 3,934 | 9 | 2 |
| Teachers and professors in colleges | 3,409 | 32 | 9 |
| Total including some occupations not specified | 60,853 | 729 | 12 |
Examining these figures we find few colored architects[3] or engineers, and a very small proportion of electricians, though among the latter there is a highly skilled workman. The New York Negro has no position in the mechanical arts. It may be that, as we so often hear, the African does not possess mechanical ability.[4] You do not see Negro boys pottering over machinery or making toy inventions of their own. But another and powerful reason for the colored youth's failing to take up engineering or kindred studies is the slight chance he would later have in securing work. No group of men in America have opposed his progress more persistently than skilled mechanics, and, should he graduate from some school of technology, he would be refused in office or workshop. So he turns to those professions in which he sees a likelihood of advancement.
Colored physicians and dentists are increasing in number in New York and throughout the country. The Negro is sympathetic, quick to understand another's feelings, and when added to this he has received a thorough medical training he makes an excellent physician. New York State examinations prevent the practice of ignorant doctors from other states, and the city can count many able colored practitioners. These doctors practise among white people as well as among colored. As surgeons they are handicapped in New York by lack of hospital facilities, having no suitable place in which they may perform an operation. The colored student who graduates from a New York medical college must go for hospital training to Philadelphia or Chicago or Washington.[5]
Colored lawyers are obtaining a firm foothold in New York. From twenty-six in the 1900 census they now, in 1911, number over fifty, though not all of these by any means rely entirely upon their profession for support. Some of our lawyers are descendants of old New York families, others have come here recently from the South.
Turning to our census figures again we see that the three professions in which the colored man is conspicuous are those of actor, musician, and minister. Instead of the average eighteen, he here shows fifty-four in every thousand actors, thirty in every thousand musicians, and thirty-two in every thousand clergymen. And since the pulpit and the stage are two places in which the black man has found conspicuous success it may be well in this connection to consider, not only the economic significance of these institutions, but their place in the life of the colored world.
The Negro minister was born with the Negro Christian, and the colored church, in which he might tell of salvation, is over a century old in New York. Today the Boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn have twenty-eight colored churches besides a number of missions. Some of the societies own valuable property, usually, however, encumbered with heavy mortgages, and yearly budgets mount up to ten, twelve, and sixteen thousand dollars. The Methodist churches lead in number, next come the Baptist, and next the Episcopalian. There are Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal, and African Methodist Episcopal Zion. Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, as we have seen, is one of the oldest and is still one of the largest and most useful Negro churches in New York. Mount Olivet, a Baptist church on West Fifty-third Street, has a seating capacity of 1600, taxed to its full on Sunday evenings. St. Philip's gives the Episcopal service with dignity and devoutness, and its choir has many sweet colored boy singers. At St. Benedict, the Moor, the black faces of the boy acolytes contrast with the benignant white-haired Irish priest, and without need of words preach good-will to men. Only in this Catholic church does one find white and black in almost equal numbers worshipping side by side.
The great majority of the colored churches are supported by their congregations, and the minister or elder, or both, twice a Sunday, must call for the pennies and nickels, dimes and quarters, that are dropped into the plate at the pulpit's base. Contributors file past the table on which they place their offering, emulation becoming a spur to generosity. These collections are supplemented by sums raised at entertainments and fairs, and it is in this way, by the constant securing of small gifts, that the thousands are raised.
The church is a busy place and retains its members, not only by its preaching, but by midweek meetings. There are the class meetings of the Methodists, the young people's societies, the prayer meetings, and the sermons preached to the secret benefit organizations. Visiting sisters and brothers attend to relief work, and standing at a side table, sometimes picturesque with lighted lantern, ask for dole for the poor.