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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture - 1. Perspective on the Urbanization of the Negro People - 2. In the South
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28o An American Dilemma
cultural South can still accept the main responsibility for the Negroes is a
most important ingredient in the ^^pass-the-buck” mentality which we
touched upon in Chapter 2.
In this chapter we shall sketch in broadest outlines the history of the
Negro breadwinner outside agriculture and attempt to ascertain where, in
more recent times, he has entered industry or has remained unemployed.
The sketch is largely based on the facts presented in Appendix 6. The
reader who has a special interest in these things will find all the material
of this chapter set forth in greater detail in Appendix 6.® In Chapter 17
we shall discuss in more general terms the several adverse factors which a
Negro encounters when he tries to gain entrance into industry.
2. In the South
Slavery, and the concomitant suppression of free Negroes, gave to
Southern Negroes a degree of monopoly on labor for a few years after the
Civil War. This was the situation not only on the rural plantations but
—
excepting areas where Negroes constituted but a minority of the popula-
tion—^in most other types of unskilled work as well. Unskilled work was
tainted with inferiority. Negroes were the domestics and the laborers.
Negroes were also, to a large extent, the craftsmen and the mechanics.
They were carpenters, bricklayers, painters, blacksmiths, harness makers,
tailors and shoemakers. For even skilled labor was degraded, and whites
had often been denied the opportunity of acquiring training since so many
masters had preferred to work with slaves. The high price paid for skilled
slaves had encouraged their training in the crafts.^ Thomas Nelson Page
says:
In 1865, when the Negro was set free, he held without a rival the entire field
of industrial labor throughout the South. Ninety-five per cent of all the industrial
Appendix 6 is based mainly on a research memorandum, *‘Negro Labor and Its Problems,”
prepared for this study (1940) by Paul H. Norgren. Collaborating with Dr. Norgren were
Lloyd H. Bailer, James Healy, Herbert R. Northrup, Gladys L. Palmer, and Arnold M.
Rose.
No references will be given when statements in the text are based on Appendix 6.
The literature on the Negro wage earner, although it contains much material that we have
not used in this brief summary, is characterized by a certain lack of balance. While great
attention has been given to many small industries, particularly when, during recent decades,
they have given an increased share of the jobs to Negroes (c.g., the meat-packing and
slaughtering industry), other occupations where a much larger number of Negro workers
arc employed seem to have been largely overlooked. This is true, for instance, about truck,
transfer, and cab companies which had 41,000 Negro workers in 1930. It is true also of
the menial occupations in wholesale and retail establishments (laborers, porters, and helpers
in stores, janitors, chauffeurs, truck drivers, delivery men, elevator tenders, charwomen,
and so on) which, in 1930, included over 110,000 Negro workers. (U. vS. Bureau of the
Census, Negroes in t!ie United States: 1^20-1^32^ pp. 354-357.) Perhaps even more
significant would be an intensive study of Negro exclusion in those lines of work where
few, if any, Negroes arc employed.
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