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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - X. The Negro Community - 44. Non-Institutional Aspects of the Negro Community - 4. Recreation
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Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 985
to be a chief source of Negro recreational life. Clubs support each other by
buying tickets to the other’s dances, style shows, plays, and so onj conse-
quently, a full (sometimes too full) social and recreational life is provided
the club members.’^ Since the same small group of people with the same
interests constantly intermingles socially j
since these people participate
little in other activities j
and since clubs frequently meet in private homes,
a highly personalized and socialized recreational life is the result. This
feeling of intimacy and ^^at homeness” pervades all the sociable and recrea-
tional life that is peculiarly Negro and is what the whites see and remark
about when they say that Negroes have a good time. Negroes among them-
selves act as if they were in a small family group, often even in commercial
places. They know everybody and have a personal interest in everybody;
they feel that they are part of a small community. This looks cozy and
cheerful and intimate to whites accustomed to impersonal, formalized, over-
organized social relations.
A few other characteristics of Negro recreation may be noted. One of the
main forms of recreation among lower class Negroes is gambling. Besides
playing the numbers,*’ Negroes are traditionally expert poker players and
crap-shooters.® The excitement of gambling coupled with the chance of
gain is easily understandable in the light of the monotony of rural life and
of the unemployment in cities. These games, also, can be played anywhere
with little equipment and with anybody who happens to be around. It
should be noted, further, that crap-shooting is the invariable accompaniment
of traditional “Negro jobs,” those of waiter, bell-boy, porter, jobs where
the over-all hours are long and where the men must be on call at all times,
but where there is much unoccupied time.
Among the urban youth and lately among rural youth, dancing is a
favorite pastime. Dancing is one of the favorite forms of recreation among
the upper class and in the clubs and equally so in the commercialized dance
halls frequented by lower class young people. Negroes have developed most
of the modern jazz dances which are now popular in the white world.
Most Negroes do not follow the usual American pattern of taking a vaca-
tion. The great majority of them are too poor.^® The upper classes who can
afford to are usually barred from those vacation resorts which meet their
standards.
Before the World War Negroes were developing summer resorts for their exclu-
sive use on a relatively large scale. There is an excellent Negro summer resort in
* See Chapter 4.3, Section 5*, also see J. G. St. Clair Drake, “The Negro Church and
Associations in Chicago,’’ unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), pp.
473-475.
**
See Chapter 14, Section 10.
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