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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 14. The Negro in Business, the Professions, Public Service and Other White Collar Occupations - 3. Negro Finance
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Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 317
quite substantial percentage pays insurance premiums.^® This type of low-
income insurance is, at best, mainly burial insurance. At worst, it gives little,
if any, protection, in that persons who are not likely to keep up their
payments for more than a few years are induced to take life insurance.^^
But even when payments are kept up and small life insurance policies
reach maturity, they usually fail to give real protection for anybody except
the mortician. The burial business in most countries tends to be more or
less of a racket, capitalizing on the reluctance of the relatives of a deceased
person to economize the last time they can make any sacrifices for him.
The American mortician business is no exception. The prices quoted in this
country often appear high, at least to an outsider.^® One cannot avoid the
impression that great ingenuity is used to induce even poor patrons to buy
unnecessary luxuries. This happens in the Negro communities as well.
We have found that the Negro undertakers numbered around 3,000 in
1930, and that they constituted not far from one-tenth of the total number
of such professionals in the country. In other words, one of the few groups
of entrepreneurs which has almost the same proportion of Negroes as has
the general population happens to be one of those most likely to exploit the
consumer. This, incidentally, does not reflect so much on the Negro as on
the general pattern of this business. The Negro has had a chance as an
undertaker because of the character of his work 5
corpses usually are segre-
gated even more meticulously than live people. Then, too, there is a close
relation between this business and the churches and lodges which are
almost completely segregated, both South and North. And Negro insur-
ance men often work hand in hand with the morticians.^®
Like other Negro financial institutions, the Negro insurance business was
originally based in a large measure on Negro church congregations and
lodges. This is not to be wondered at, for white-managed insurance has
developed similarly. The most direct origin of the insurance company, of
course, is the benevolent society, of which there are a great number among
the Negroes. New Orleans alone, in the middle of the ^thirties, had several
hundred Negro benevolent societies. One of these was founded in the
1780’s. It is obvious that most of these societies are extremely small and
that they cannot be organized on particularly rational principles or be
made to work efiiciently. It is not unusual that as much as one-third, or
even more, of the expenditures is for administrative purposes, particularly
officers’ salaries, which means that the sick and burial benefits have to be
reduced in proportion.®®
In 1939 there were 67 Negro insurance companies with 1,677,<xx>
policies and a total income of $I3,CX)0,0CX). They gave employment to
about 8,000 workers. Those were the Negro companies which h^ weath-
ered the depression during the ’thirties. Some of them, nevertheless, have
serious shortcomings.®^
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