Perhaps I can convey a clearer idea of the great variety of employment of Negroes in Northern cities by outlining the condition in a single city, Philadelphia—information for which I am indebted to R. R. Wright, Jr. The census of 1900 shows that out of 28,940 Negro males (boys and men), 21,128 were at work, and out of 33,673 girls and women, 14,095 were wage-earners. Here are some of the more numerous occupations of Negro men:
| Common labourers | 7,690 | |
| Servants and waiters | 4,378 | |
| Teamsters and hackmen | 1,957 | |
| Porters and helpers in stores | 921 | |
| Barbers and hairdressers | 444 | |
| Messengers and errand boys | 346 | |
| Brick and stone masons | 308 |
Most of these are, of course, low-class occupations—the hard wage-work of the city in which the men often sink below the poverty line. On the other hand the census gives these figures:
| Negro professional men (415) and women (170) including doctors, clergymen, dentists, teachers, electricians, architects, artists, musicians, lawyers, journalists, civil engineers, actors, literary and scientific persons, etc. | 585 | |
| Retail merchants, men (297), women (22). | 319 | |
| Hotel keepers | 13 |
One Negro runs a men’s furnishing store; another, a drug store; others, groceries, meats, etc. The beneficial society has grown to a regular insurance company, the renting agent has become a real estate dealer. Within the past twelve months Negroes have incorporated two realty companies, one land investment company, four building and loan associations, one manufacturing company, one insurance company, besides a number of other smaller concerns.
The civil service has proved of advantage to the Negro of Philadelphia, as of every other large Northern city. In the post-office there are about 150 clerks, carriers and other employees, on the police force about 70 patrolmen, and 40 school-teachers and about 200 persons in other municipal offices.
Wherein Lies Success for Negroes
I have thus endeavoured to present the conditions of the Negro in the North and show his relationship with white people. I have tried to exhibit every factor, good or bad, which plays a part in racial conditions. Many sinister influences exist: the large increase of ignorant and unskilled Negroes from the South; the growing prejudice in the North, both social and industrial, against the Negro; the high death-rate and low birth-rate among the Negro population, which is due to poverty, ignorance, crime, and an unfriendly climate. On the other hand, many encouraging and hopeful tendencies are perceptible. Individual Negroes are forcing recognition in nearly all branches of human activity, entering business life and the professions. A new racial consciousness is growing up leading to organisations for self-help; and while white prejudice is increasing, so is white helpfulness as manifested in social settlements, industrial schools, and other useful philanthropies.
All these forces and counter forces—economic, social, religious, political—are at work. We can all see them plainly, but we cannot judge of their respective strength. It is a tremendous struggle that is going on—the struggle of a backward race for survival within the swift-moving civilisation of an advanced race. No one can look upon it without the most profound fascination for its interests as a human spectacle, nor without the deepest sympathy for the efforts of 10,000,000 human beings to surmount the obstacles which beset them on every hand.
And what a struggle it is! As I look out upon it and see this dark horde of men and women coming up, coming up, a few white men here and there cheering them on, a few bitterly holding them back, I feel that Port Arthur and the battles of Manchuria, bloody as they were, are not to be compared with such a conflict as this, for this is the silent, dogged, sanguinary, modern struggle in which the combatants never rest upon their arms. But the object is much the same: the effort of a backward race for a foothold upon this earth, for civilised respect and an opportunity to expand. And the Negro is not fighting Russians, but Americans, Germans, Irish, English, Italians, Jews, Slavs—all those mingling white races (each, indeed, engaged in the same sort of a struggle) which make up the nation we call America.