Twentieth Century Negro Literature / Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro

by Unknown

The resistance of the white people to the progress of the colored people is least along the line of business. The colored people themselves have only to develop a larger spirit of race help in business and a magnificent future is just ahead for them.

In addition to little capital and much inexperience the colored merchant has to contend against a hostile public opinion, which seems to resent his efforts to improve his own condition and that of his own race, when he assumes to tear himself away from the mass of his fellow laborers and attempts to keep store like a white man.

Strange enough this hostile feeling is shared in, more by the colored than by the white people, especially along certain lines of business not of a semi-social nature. It is a matter of common complaint by colored business men in those classes of business in which they must compete with white merchants that they do not get their share of the trade of their own race and that their patronage comes very largely from the white race. At present the pathway of the colored man to success in business is very much handicapped by this unfriendly public opinion. His problem is to win the confidence of the public in his ability and purpose to serve them as well as or better than his competitors.

Individuals, here and there, have won this public confidence to a surprising degree and are demonstrating day by day the ability of men and women to do business according to approved business methods. The hostility of the whites is but another manifestation of the general feeling of race prejudice; but the hostility of the masses of their own race can only be attributed to envy and ignorance. For every colored man, woman and child should rejoice in the success or upward step of any colored person, because it is an inspiration and a hope to thousands of others to follow his example. Only the strongest and most progressive few of any race can be successful pioneers. The masses of all races are LED to attempt only what they see persons of their own kind doing. Every community of colored people needs, as a powerful uplifting force, a few captains of industry who will lead his people along the pathway of home-getting and the undertaking of business enterprises. For business will develop their sense of independence and personal responsibility and give strength and symmetry to character. No better service can be performed for the race at this time than to turn the light upon those successful business men and women of the colored race in every community, so that our youth may see them, know them, and take inspiration and courage from their example.

The real leaders of the race are those who lead in doing. It has been said that ninety per cent of all business enterprises among the highly favored white race finally fail in the lifetime of their promoters. The conditions of success in business for the white race are so exacting, uncertain, changeable and inscrutable that only ten per cent retire from the contest victorious. When we recall the fact that the colored people have come so recently from savagery, through the barbarism and debasing effects of American slavery, into the light of the present-day civilization, we should expect them to be slow in getting a footing in the shifting and ever-changing sands of the business world, while in slavery they were deprived of every opportunity to learn anything about the art of business or even to drink in its spirit. It was one of the essential conditions of the slave system that they should be taught to distrust each other; and they learned this lesson well. We must expect that it will take some time to unlearn it. Along with this blighting feeling of distrust the seeds of envy and jealousy were carefully sown. These seeds must have fallen in good soil, for they sprang up and increased wonderfully, and now constitute the thorns and weeds in the pathway of the colored man's success in business.

In view of their economic, educational and political history, we should naturally expect the colored race to make in the first generation of their freedom more progress in education and general culture, more progress in the building of churches and in the acquisition of homes and lands than in the exacting arena of business. At any rate such has been the fact. The entire race is passing through a hard and severe economic struggle. The whole nation is in the throes of a great social distress, on account of the presence of this colored race with physical aspects so different from the main body of the people. The colored people are being put to a severe test. They are being tried as it were by fire. They are face to face and in competition with the most efficient, the most exacting people the world has ever seen. The dross is being driven off. The race is being purified and strengthened for the contests which are to follow. The colored man or woman who would succeed in business must meet not only the competition of his white neighbor with his superior capital and training, but also the blight of distrust and the jealousy and envy of many of his own race. His course is by no means plain sailing. He has foes within his race as well as foes without; enemies in front and enemies in the rear. And yet, in spite of all these adverse conditions a very creditable beginning has already been made in the business world—a beginning that promises well for the future. The business movement among the colored people has not as yet attained great volume, but its foundations have been laid broad and deep. The number of persons engaged in business is quite large, and the classes already invaded by individuals of the colored race cover almost every class of business in which persons of the white race are engaged.

THE CAPITAL OWNED BY NEGROES.

The colored people are rapidly acquiring property. This is a matter of common, every-day observation. The value of property owned by them is no less than five hundred millions of dollars. In Georgia alone, where separate records are kept, their assessed valuation exceeds fifteen millions, one million of which was added in the past year. The assessed valuation is only about forty per cent of the actual value. From all over the country equally encouraging reports are sent out of the steady progress of this people in the acquisition of landed property. Although tens of thousands are shiftless, thousands are saving money. It is being stored up slowly but surely for future use. Much of it is already invested in business. A larger part of this property and money will be turned into business channels as fast as the race, by its patronage and support, evidences its desire to advance this business movement.

THE EXTENT OF THE BUSINESS MOVEMENT AMONG THE NEGROES.

In order to obtain reliable data for a study of the progress of the colored people in the skilled trades, in business, in getting homes and in building churches and other institutions, the United States Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900 sent out the writer in February of that year as an expert agent to visit the chief industrial centers of the South and secure the data for the purpose of making the facts collected, a feature of the Negro exhibit. In every city or town visited the colored people took great pride in showing their successful business establishments; and they all had some to show. In every place a beginning had been made. The writer personally visited, inspected and collected data from one hundred and forty-three business establishments of considerable importance owned and conducted by colored men and women. They range from a grocery store, with stock and fixtures of the value of five hundred dollars, to a bank, which, on the day of my visit, had a cash balance in its vault of $82,000. Only the best business places were visited. There were hundreds of small shops in the cities and towns visited, all of which evidenced the breadth of the business movement of the people.