POWER OF NEGROES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 14, 22 May 1939, Page 7

POWER OF NEGROES

0 IN united states growing in importance The growing importance of the n?gro population of the United States of America as the result of their realisation of their power ol numbers was the subject of an address to the New Plymouth Rotary Club by Dr A. G. Butchers, head of the New Zealand correspondence school, who recently toured in America and' Canada, There wer c 13,000,000 negroe s in the United he said, out pf a total population o£ 137,000,000 and ■13,000,000 was a Very large number. South of the Mason and Dixon line, the old division between, the slave and non-slave States, the negroes were in a state of subjection. They were not even allowed to ride in the same trains as white people. Although they had been given a vote they were prevented from using this vote by various effective devices. There was a means test and an education test in which the poorest and most ignorant white was asked the simplest questions and given a pass, while a highly educated negro would be given a test in a foreign language in which he was known not to be expert and would bn failed and refused the right to vote. Across the line the negroes wero on a basis of comparative equality with .the whites. President Roosevelt had taken on the mantle of protector of negroes and the poor generally and had cxtended the dole to negroes. As a result southerm negroes! working in cotton mills for seven dollar's a week had left their jobs, patked their few belongings in an old flivver and headed north to draw nine dollars a week dole. BOYCOTT OF STORES. In Chicago there were 500,000' negroes in a compact community. They began to boycott white-owned chain stores in an eliort to get white.collar jobs in the stores for the negroes instead of them having to labour at the rougher tasks all the time. A negro lawyer had the boycott ruled legal by the Supreme Court and as a, result the boycott was so effective that the chain stores had to agree to ?mploy negroes as one-third of their staffs. For two hours one day Dr Butchers talked to a porter on a New York train who turned out.'to* be president of the Pulman Porters' Union and a university graduate. He was told how a baseball player in a. team owned by one of the large breweries had been indiscreet enough to talk about "niggers" in a broadcast. The Pulman porters had immediately written to the proprietor of the brewa millionaire, and demanded that this 25,000 dollar a year player be dismissed. If not they would see that passengers on the trains drank a different brand of beer. Tie asked the 'varsity man why the negroes did not seek a, vast area of the land in the south and establish n black republic. "No,'' was the ie_ ply. The negroes were free citizen? of the United States. Their background was not that of the African jungle but of Shakespeare and Milton. They wero ilot going to be shut into a corner. They knew their own strength and power and were moving in to take possession of their heritage.