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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 9. Economic Inequality - 1. Negro Poverty
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2o6 An American Dilemma
demand for American cotton. In addition, few Negro farmers own tfie land
they work on, and the little land they do own is much poorer and less
well-equipped than average Southern farms. Most Negro farmers are
concentrated in the lowest occupations in agriculture as sharecroppers or
wage laborers. In the North, there are practically no Negroes in agriculture.
Nonagricultural Negro workers are, for the most part, either in low-paid
service occupations or have menial tasks in industry. Few are skilled
workers. Most of the handicrafts and industries in the South where they
have a traditional foothold are declining. The majority of manufacturing
industries do not give jobs to Negroes. Neither in the South nor in the
North are Negroes in professional, business, or clerical positions except in
rare instances and except when serving exclusively the Negro public—^and
even in this they are far from having a monopoly.
The unemployment risk of Negroes is extraordinarily high. During the
depression, government relief became one of the major Negro ^^occupa-
tions.” Indeed, the institution of large-scale public relief by the New Deal
is almost the only bright spot in the recent economic history of the Negro
people.
Such a survey, however, even when carried out in greater detail, does
not, by itself, explain why Negroes are so poor. The question is only carried
one step backward and at the same time broken into parts: Why are
Negroes in the poorest sections of the country, the regressive industries,
the lowest paid jobs? Why are they not skilled workers? Why do they not
hold a fair proportion of well-paid middle class positions? Why is their
employment situation so precarious?
We can follow another approach and look to the several factors of
economic change. In most cases changes in the economic process seem to
involve a tendency which works against the Negroes. When modern tech-
niques transform old handicrafts into machine production, Negroes lose
jobs in the former but usually do not get into the new factories, at least
not at the machines. Mechanization seems generally to displace Negro
labor. When mechanized commercial laundries replace home laundries,
Negro workers lose jobs. The same process occurs in tobacco manufacture,
in the lumber industry and in the turpentine industry. When tractors and
motor trucks are introduced, new ‘‘white men’s jobs” are created out of
old “Negro jobs” on the farm and in transportation. Progress itself seems
to work against the Negroes. When work becomes less heavy, less dirty, or
less risky, Negroes are displaced. Old-fashioned, low-paying, inefficient
enterprises, continlially being driven out of competition, are often the only
ones that employ much Negro labor.
Although there are no good data on employment trends by race, It
seems that the business cycles show something of the same tendency to
work against Negroes as do technical changes. It is true that Negroes, more
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