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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 14. The Negro in Business, the Professions, Public Service and Other White Collar Occupations - 2. The Negro in Business
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Chapter 14. The Negro in Business 309
training to Negro youths who want to prepare themselves for a business
career.
Whether or not such factors as those mentioned above are sufficient to
excuse the Negro’s poor showing in business is, of course, a question of
judgment. Particularly striking is the fact that only seldom, and then
mainly because segregation has provided a monopoly, have Negro business-
men succeeded in getting all or most of the Negro trade. In addition to the
10,500 Negro restaurant owners in 1930, there were some 14,000 owners
of Negro hotels, boarding and lodging houses (Table 2), constituting 7
per cent of all such entrepreneurs in the country. They probably owned
TABLE 2
Number of Negro Entrepreneurs and White Collar Workers in
Selected Trade and Service Industries: 1910*
Industry and Occupation 1910 1930
Banking and brokerage: officials, clerks, accountants, etc.
Insurance: officials, managers, agents, clerks, etc.
634 994
2,450 9.325
Real Estate: officials, agents, clerks, etc. 950 aMs
Wholesale and retail trade:
Retail dealers (except automobiles) 20,644 27,743’
Undertakers 953 2,946
Clerks, salesmen, saleswomen, and other white collar
workers 10,989 21,017
Hotels, restaurants, boarding houses, etc.
Hotel, boarding and lodging housekeepers and managers 11.574
6,369
14,173
Restaurant, cafe, and lunchroom keepers 10,543
Clerks, bookkeepers, and other white collar workers 838 1,248
Cleaning, dyeing, and pressing shops:
Owners and managers c L734
Clerical workers c 156
Sour e: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Nfgrors in the U.S.: 1020-1032, pp. 355-358. Thirteenth Census of
the U.S.: iQio, Population, Vol. 4. pp. 418-433, It should be noted that these figures differ somewhat from the
classification used by Edwards, op, pit., in that, for instance, Edwards includes messengers among white collar
workers, which has not been done in this table. It is evident that every classification of this type has to be
arbitrary.
• Only such trade and service groups as have any appreciable number of Ne^ro entrepreneurs and white
collar workers have been included. Regarding barbers and hairdressers, see text in this section.
Figures do not quite agree with those in Table i because they are based on different classifications.
• Data not available.
most lodging and boarding houses located in Negro sections 5
few white
entrepreneurs would consider competing for this trade. Most of these
Negro entrepreneurs were women, usually widowed.® The majority of
their places probably differed little, if at all, from ordinary private homes
with lodgers.
A real “business group,” on the other hand, were the 3,000 Negro
undertakers, constituting nearly one-tenth of all undertakers in America.
In the South they have an almost complete monopoly on Negro funerals,
a$ whiter would not want to touch tbo corpses, In the North their competi-
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