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Footnotbs 1275
facilities in North Carolina, where conditions, however, are superior to those in the Deep
South. In 1 940, Raleigh had three playgrounds, one park with a swimming pool, and one
community center for Negroes. Greensboro had one park with a community building,
a swimming pool, a golf course, and a playground; it also had three independent super-
vised playgrounds, one handicraft center and a skating rink. There were similar provi-
sions in Durham and Charlotte. On the other hand, Winston-Salem, which has the
largest Negro population in the state (36,000 in 1940), did not have any special recrea-
tional facilities for Negroes, except a swimming pool; for the rest, school houses were
used as recreational centers, with special recreational leaders.®
In respect to the situation in Virginia’s urban areas—^likewise above the average for
the entire South—we may quote the following statement:
. . Negro children of smaller cities have for their only playgrounds their school
yard, vacant lots of outlying regions, or the alleys. The Community Center of Rich-
mond, sponsored by the Colored Recreation Association, a Richmond Community Fund
agency, offers courses in vocational arts and crafts and in home-making, music and folk-
dancing. The gymnasium and playground affords such recreations as boxing, ten pins,
volley ball, basketball, ping pong, baseball, and tennis for young and old. In July, 1938,
the Richmond city council approved the purchase of a large plot of ground in North
Richmond, upon which is to be erected a playground and recreation center with space
and equipment for games, a swimming pool, and modern gymnasium and field house.
By means of a P.W.A. grant the outdoor swimming pool was completed for use during
the summer of 1939.
“Likewise Lynchburg, Norfolk and Newport News have inadequate recreational
facilities for Negroes. Happyland, a private park of Lynchburg, has a lake for swimming
and boating, picnic grounds, recreational fields, and what has been described as the
‘most beautiful dance floor in Virginia,’ The Recreation Center of Newport News
was completed in January, 1938, out of funds contributed principally by the Newport
News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company.” ^
Birmingham, Alabama, a city in the lower South, has no Negro parks. In Houston,
Texas, there is a ten-acre park for Negroes donated to the city by ex-slaves; the white
parks comprise 2,600 acres.®
The four states were Virginia, Kentucky, Texas and North Carolina. The remain-
ing nine states were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Okla-
homa, South Carolina and Tennessee. It was estimated that only 21 per cent of the
Negroes in these 13 states had access to public library services.**
In some large cities with public branch libraries, like Atlanta and Birmingham,
Negroes can use only books stored in the special Negro branches. In Richmond and
Houston, on the other hand, books can be secured through the Negro branches from the
main library.®
The Virginia State Library in Richmond can be used by Negroes, although they have
to sit at segregated tables in the main reading room. On the whole, there may be some-
• See op. cit.f p. 39.
*’The Federal Writers* Project, TAe Negro in Virginia (1940), p. 344.
® See Frazier, op. cit.y pp. 45-46.
“Survey made by Eliza Atkins Gleason, The Southern Negro and the Public Library
(1941), p. 90.
* See Frazier, op, cit.^ pp. 49-50.
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