Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Footnotes - Chapter 5
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
An American Dilemma
1206
(d) There are a number of observations in the literature to the same effect. Kelly
Miller writes in Out of the House of Bondage: ‘‘As an illustration of the infrequency
of the direct mulatto progeny, the student body of Howard University, about fifteen
hundred in number, is composed largely of the mixed clement. There are probably not
a half dozen children of white parents in this entire number. On the other hand, the
first pupils in this institution, a generation ago, were very largely the offspring of such
parentage ” ([i 9l 4 ]i P- 5 S-)
Reuter, who has specialized upon the problem of race mixture, wrote two books
on the subject: The Mulatto in the United States in 1918 and Race Mixture in 1931
and discussed present and future trends without even mentioning contraception and
birth control. In his last book. The American Race Problem (1927), although Reuter
discusses birth control among Negroes in regard to several other problems, he fails to
consider the effect of contraception on the number of mixed offspring. More remark-
able is, perhaps, that Herskovits in his path-breaking book. The American Negro
y
also
is able to discuss the present and future trend of miscegenation and amount of mixed
offspring without touching the question of contraception.
John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town (1937), p. 141.
^^In June, 1932, The Birth Control Review devoted its entire issue to a discussion
of birth control among Negroes. In this issue, in an article entitled “The Negro Birth
Rate,’* S. J. Holmes states: “There is every reason to believe that the same causes whirh
have led to a decreased birth rate among the whites have occasioned the declining birth
rate among the Negroes. As most students of this subject agree, birth control is one of
the most potent of these causes” (p. 172).
A social worker gives further evidence: . . they [the clients] ask often where
they may obtain bona fide and scientific information concerning this [contraception]. . .
.
The Negro client is feeling less and less guilty about asking for and receiving informa-
tion on birth control and is expressing himself freely as having wanted such guidance
for a long time, . , . There are still a great many who have not lost their sense of sinning
in seeking such help. ... Yet there are increasing numbers who seek birth control.”
(Constance Fisher, “The Negro Social Worker Evaluates Birth Control,” The Birth
Control Reviewy of, cit,y pp. 1 74-1 75.)
Confirming evidence is given by Carolyn Bryant: “As far as teachability goes we find
that the Negro women seem to learn and accept the method of contraception used in this
clinic as easily or more so than the white patients. We have no definite figures to prove
this statement.” (“The Cincinnati Clinic,” The Birth Control RevieWy of, cit,y p. 177.)
Norman Himes reports that “. . . at Cleveland, Cincinnati and Detroit the Negro
rate of clinic attendance is affroximately three times the rate in which Negroes exist
in the respective city populations.” (“Clinical Service for the Negro,** The Birth
Control Reviewy of, cit,y p. 176.)
George S. Schuyler, a Negro journalist, makes the following comments: “There is
no great opposition to birth control among the twelve million brown Americans. Cer-
tainly none has been expressed in writing. On the contrary one encounters everywhere a
profound interest in and desire for information on contraceptive methods among them,
. . . Negroes are perhaps more receptive to this information than white folk. Despite
their vaunted superiority, the white brethren have a full quota of illusions and, one
might say, hypocrisies, especially about anything dealing with sex. Brown Americans
are somewhat different because they have been forced to face more frankly the hard
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
