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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 983
and uninhibited, it is not a constructive form of amusement 5
it is monoto-
nous and offers no chance to develop skills, physical or mental. Whenever
commercial amusements invade the rural areas, no matter how cheap and
sordid, the young people flock to them, thankful for any brightly lighted,
stimulating place to meet people and to dance.
One of the chief amusements in rural areas is ^^going to town” which may
be to the nearest town, to the general store, to the ^^ice-cream parlor” (for
the young people), or to the railroad station, either in the evenings or on
Saturdays.^^ The time is spent in shopping, meeting acquaintances, sitting
around the stove in the general store, or standing on the street corners
laughing and joking.*^ The men and young people participate in these
activities, but the older women rarely do.
For the older women, church activity is usually the only form of recrea-
tion.^^ They go to church to meet friends, display their new clothes when
they have them, and enjoy the rivalries and strivings for prestige and posi-
tion in the church. If the church is at all primitive in its service and music,
it offers the additional experience of emotional catharsis. For the most part,
rural women lead an even more monotonous and isolated life than do men.
One would expect that in the absence of other recreational facilities there
would be many radios, but this does not seem to be so.**^ More use is made
of the phonograph.^® Even the limited use of radios and phonographs,
however, is healthy in that it helps to break down the isolation of these com-
munities 5
and, since many of the successful, popular musicians are Negroes,
it stimulates the ambition of Negro youth. Rural Negroes see few movies.
Where there are movie houses in rural areas, they do not provide accom^
modations for Negroes. Although movies offer a limited type of experience
(and not always a wholesome one) to urban youth, they do give them some
idea of other ways of living, other sections of the country and other histori-
cal periods. Even this minor broadening experience is absent from rural
experience.
The informal gatherings to talk and joke and meet one’s friends are
carried over from the rural areas to the city. There the barbershop, the
street corner, and most frequently, the poolroom become the gathering
places for the lower class men and boys. In the cities, the men and boys who
have the time for such activity are usually unemployed, and the atmosphere
is much less wholesome and innocent than that which surrounds the same
sort of loafing and talking in the country. The proprietor of the poolroom
is often a petty criminal engaged in gambling and commercial vice, and the
“Again we may point out that the gaiety of these informal groups may be deceiving,
since much of the conversation is bitter and angry about incidents that have happened in
town or on the plantations. The whites never hear this, as it ceases when they approach.
The boistciousness and unrestrainedness of conversation is customary in uneducated people}
and the laughter may be at the expense of the whites and bitter rather than humorous.
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