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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Appendices - 7. Distribution of Negro Residences in Selected Cities
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1126 An American Dilemma
The situation now resolved itself into an actual contest. Negroes not only continued to
occupy available apartment houses, but began to purchase private dwellings between
Lenox and Seventh Avenues. Then the whole movement, in the eyes of the whites, took
on the aspect of an ‘‘invasion” j
they became panic-stricken and began fleeing as from a
plague. The presence of one colored family in a block, no matter how well bred and
orderly, was sufiicient to precipitate a flight. House after house and block after block
was actually deserted. It was a great demonstration of human beings running amuck.
None of them stopped to reason why they were doing it or what would happen if they
didn’t. The banks and lending companies holding mortgages on these deserted houses
were compelled to take them over. For some time they held these houses vacant, preferring
to do that and carry the charges than to rent or sell them to colored people. But values
dropped and continued to drop until at the outbreak of the war in Europe property in the
northern part of Harlem had reached the nadir.
In the meantime the Negro colony was becoming more stable; the churches were being
moved from the lower part of the city; social and civic centers were being formed; and
gradually a community was being evolved. Following the outbreak of the war in Europe
Negro Harlem received a new and tremendous impetus.*
The Great Migration from the South greatly expanded **
and stabilized the Harlem area.
To a limited extent, Negroes bought houses—often fine old mansions—as well as
rented them, and opened their own stores as well as traded with local white store-
keepers. With the continuing migration of Negroes into New York, Harlem is still
expanding, but not in proportion to the increase in its population. Outside pressures
and the growth of a well-to-do Negro class has forced and permitted the building of
large structures containing many small apartments.
It is difficult and hazardous to make predictions. If, as is generally assumed, New
York’s commerce and industry do not expand to any considerable extent in the future,
Negroes are not likely to be pushed out of Harlem. Harlem can grow spatially also.
Harlem has a glamour of its own which will continue to attract Negroes from all over
the country even if employment opportunities afe not too bright, and they might
become better off than they were during the ’thirties, particularly if the New York
Negroes can more effectively use their political power to break down economic discrim-
ination. The newcomers will, as usual, be forced to seek residence in established Negro
communities. The Brooklyn settlement is growing, but so is Harlem, and it is likely
that Harlem will remain the center of New York’s Negro population and, in a sense,
the cultural capital of all American Negroes. Aside from the couple of other large
Negro communities in the metropolis, and the half dozen small communities which
have developed in vacant land at the outskirts of the city,‘^ the few Negroes who live
in scattered sections of New York represent the older pattern which prevailed when
Negroes were few in number and engaged in serving wealthy whites.
Negroes have been living in Chicago^ since the city was incorporated in the l830’8.
•James Weldon Johnson, of, cit,, pp. 303-305.
**
The center of Harlem was 135th Street and 7th Avenue. The expansion was outward
from this center. See Frazier, of, cit,, pp. 74-75.
* There is, for example, the Jamaica area of Queens, and three or four small Negro
areas in the Bronx.
**
This description of the Negro community in Chicago is based on personal observation
by Arnold Rose and on a large number of historical sources, including a collection of
unpublished interviews with old residents (in possession of the Social Science Research
Committee of the University of Chicago).
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