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Footnotes 1261
One or two of the more noteworthy campaigns may be mentioned. Certain Harlem
organizations, in the middle of the ’thirties, forced some stores to take on a few Negro
clerks. The merchants, however, secured an injunction against them for “restraint of
trade” and the new colored workers were dismissed. The great discontent caused by
this incident was the major force behind the Harlem race riot of 1935. The fight was
continued by an organization called Greater New York Coordinating Committee for
Employment which, in 1938, succeeded in getting a written agreement with the
Uptown Chamber of Commerce to the effect that all stores in Harlem under the
jurisdiction of the Chamber should increase the proportion of Negroes among their
white collar workers to at least one-third, as soon as white employees resigned or were
dismissed for cause. Negro workers should have the same chance of being promoted
as other workers. Another campaign in New York which, according to Reid, has turned
out to be “singularly effective,” concerns public utilities. In this case there are several
possible tactics: to force white telephone operators to make the connections instead of
using the mechanical dialing system, to demand out-of-turn inspection of electricity and
gas connections, to avoid using electricity, and so on. The St. Louis Urban League has
organized “block units,” some with 100 per cent membership. These and the Colored
Clerk’s Circle, as well as other organizations, have succeeded in getting jobs for several
hundreds of colored clerks. There are some campaigns, however, which have miscarried,
as for instance, one in Atlanta in the middle of the ’thirties. (Reid, of^ cit.y Vol. i,
pp. 149-161.)
20
Vol. 1, p. 163.
Edwards, op. cit., pp. 118-119.
Sir George Campbell, White and Black in the United States (1879), p. 286.
Du Bois comments as follows:
“Morally and practically, the Freedmen’s Bank was part of the Freedmen’s Bureau,
although it had no legal connection with it. With the prestige of the government back
of it, and a directing board of unusual respectability and national reputation, this
banking institution had made a remarkable start in the development of that thrift
among black folk which slavery had kept them from knowing. Then in one sad day
came the crash,—all the hard-earned dollars of the freedmen disappeared; but that
was the least of the loss,—all the faith in saving went too, and much of the faith in
men; and that was a loss that a Nation which to-day sneers at Negro shiftlessness has
never yet made good. Not even ten additional years of slavery could have done so
much to throttle the thrift of the freedmen as the mismanagement and bankruptcy of
the series of savings banks chartered by the Nation for their especial aid.” (W. E. B.
Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk [1903], pp, 36-37.)
Most data in this and the preceding paragraphs are based on Reid, of, cit,, Vol. i,
pp. 70-83. Some of the main sources used by Reid are: Abram L. Harris, The Negro
as Cafitalist (1936); Jesse B, Blayton, “The Negro in Banking,” The Bankers
Magazine (December, 1936), pp. 51 1-5 14; and J. B. Blayton, “Are Negro Banks
Safe?” Offortunity (May, 1937), pp. 139-141.
All data on Negro insurance, except when otherwise stated, have been drawn
from Reid, of, cit,, Vol. i, pp. 84-92. The main basic source used by Reid was Samuel
A. Rosenberg, Negro Managed, Building and Loan Associations in the United States
(1939). Concerning the general problem of Negro housing credit, see Chapter 15,
Section 6.
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