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I26o An American Dilemma
type than in the small northern community. Here the tradition of liberalism in race
relations has given Negro youth an expectation of freedom in community life. In their
childhood experiences they are accepted in the churches, in the schools, and on the
playgrounds. Some are favored by white teachers who, recognizing their traditional
handicap, give them special encouragement. Service clubs allocate part of their educa-
tional funds to Negro youth. Honors in athletics, in class offices, and in scholastic attain-
ment also come their way. Responding to these incentives, the boy or girl feels no
isolation and expects his good fortune to continue. He has already experienced some
of the blessings of the American dream.
“Sad, therefore, is the awakening which comes to many of these youth when, upon
graduation from high school, they find that the communities did not mean to be really
liberal; that, although a service club would help a Negro boy to complete his high
school course, its membeis would not give him a job after his schooling was over.
Even before graduation day the lines of participation had been drawn and his social
contacts were limited largely to other Negroes in the community, and in many small
towns there are too few of them to provide any satisfactory kind of society. Unless he
could manage to continue his education in college and settle in a larger community,
his prospect of success was exceedingly slight.” (Robert L. Sutherland, Colory
Class,
and Personality [1942], pp. 31-32.)
^Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Preliminary Release, “Retail Trade.
Retail Negro Proprietorship—^The United States—1939*’ (August 29, 1941). The
description in this section is based both on the Census of Business and on occupational
information from the Census of Population. They are not comparable in that the
population census is much more complete in regard to very small establishments, but
the discrepancy does not affect the main conclusions.
^ Idem,
® Ira DeA. Reid, “The Negro in the American Economic System,” unpublished manu-
script prepared for this study (1940), Vol. i, pp. 1 02- 103.
® Charleston, South Carolina, where Negroes live widely scattered, has little Negro
business; Savannah, Georgia, where Negroes are concentrated in one area, has much
more Negro business.
This is true, for instance, in Richmond, Virginia, where the principal Negro
neighborhood borders Broad Street.
® Reid, of, cit,y Vol. i, p. 105.
® U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1920-19^2, pp. 332-333.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1920-19^2, p. 358;
and U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, J9s8y p. 66.
Edwards, of, cit,, p. 10.
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States: 1920^1932, p. 497.
For a statement of how few of the “Negro entertainment” places in Harlem are
owned by Negroes, see Claude McKay, Harlem: Negro Metrofolis (1940), pp.
1 17-120.
See James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan (1930), pp. 43-44.
W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, The Philadelfhia Negro (1899), pp. 1 19-121,
Ibid,, p. 120.
Veto N«gro Alliances, Sanitary Grocery Co,, 303 U.S. 552 (1938).
Of, cif,, p, 145.
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