BLACK MAN PROBLEMS

Hokitika Guardian, 7 February 1920, Page 4

BLACK MAN PROBLEMS

NEWLY RICH NEGROES

(By F. A. McKenzie.) ,NEW YORK CITY

It was a gathering of the Dandies of Darkeydom, an Afro-American concert at Carnegie Hall—the Queen’s Hall of New York City. There was a large AfroAmerican (do not hurt their feelings by saying “nigger”) crowd, the men in evening dress and the women in white. Scores of ladies m the audience were wearing the most elegant and costly garments the Rue de la Paix could supply. The splendidness of the dress of the men, the glory of their silk shirts, the cut of their clothes, and the gloss of their silk handkerchiefs made me .eel shabby. These were the new coloured rich of America. There was something patheticin the gathering. The white dresses served only to accentuate the signs of the disastrous effects Northern city life has on Negro women. A note of melancholy pervaded much of the music. “We may he rich, but we are still exiles,” it seemed to say. The rich blacks in New York are so numerous that they form a community of their own. They hold no social intercourse with the whites. Every club is closed.to them, and they are denied admission to the big hotels. I do not know a single black man in Wall-street or in the big business offices “down town,” save as porter or janitor. One of the new rich has made money out of real estate; another is reputed to have cleared a fortune out of a bleaching compound for complexions.

Sadly enough, their own people look down on them. The black girl will not go as a. servant to a coloured family, however rich. * 'Mo work io’ deni colah’d trash! No, sail!” says the smart Negro maid disdainfully, nose in air. And so one finds the rich black man with European servants—a Scandinavian butler, a Cockney coachman, and Hungarian housemaids. Europeans have no colour prejudice, and are attracted by the high wages offered. THE SOCIAL DANGER. The Negro problem is the most serious danger ahead of America. It is becoming more serious because of the effects of the war, the great increase in Negro population, and tne growing immigration of black labourers into Northern cities, where they are competing seriously with the white man. This summer there have been serious race riots at Washington, Chicago, and elsewhere. “We want full liberty and equality of rights as the fruit of the world war,” say the black leaders. They are getting bullet holes and broken heads instead. ’ The Southerners despise the black as much as ever, and cannot imagine him as a real menace. “Niggers!” cried a South Carolinan friend of mine contemptuously. “Governor TiMman summed up our Negro policy. ‘lf you damned Northerners will only keep your long noses out of our business we’ll settle our own nigger question.’ When niggers get saucy we have a neck-tie party and teach them manners.” A “neck-tie party” is a polite term for a lynching. , The average Southerner living in country districts' still regards the blacks ac cattle, as his fathers regarded them. “They say. the whites are going to make more trouble here,” said the Negro newsagent in Washington who supplied mo with my morning papers. He spoke bitterly. “They are looking for some excuse to beat us up and shoot us again. Well, we are getting ready for them. Let them try it, and we will shoot back. Better die fighting anywaj than live in that fashion. “Some white men seem to think we want to mix with them, to eat at their 1 tables and to bo their friends. We no i more want to mix with them than they want to mix with us. Leave us alone is all we ask. But the white man is jealous, sail. Our coloured soldiers did so fine in the war that he is afraid of

us. ! WHAT THE WAR HAS DONE, j The Negroes honestly believe this. They believe further that the coloured ’ troops did not get a fair show in the 1 war; that Negroes were unfairly seleet- | ed in the ballots; that coloured soldiers ' wore discriminated against in France, menial tasks shouldered on them, and persistent attempts made to induce tho Wench to treat them as inferiors. The Negroes, from New Orleans to Maine, have been fired by tales of tbc victories ol' their own men over whites. I have talked with many American officers who took part in the fighting in France. They arc all practically agreed on one thing. The American Negro, they say, was not a good fighting man, snvo in exceptional cases. With white officers ho sometimes did very well, lmt lie was subject to sudden panics, and no one knew when ho would holt, particularly during night operations. Tho

coloured regiments with coloured officers were utterly unreliable. On this I found no difference of opinion. The migration of the coloured, folk to the North has, during the last few years, reached a degree unknown before. They are largely replacing European immigration in the Chicago stockyards. They are becoming a big factor in the steel industry and in mining and dock labour. There are so many in New York that a second great Negro colony “up town” has arisen during the last few years, with its coloured police, black theatres, and black officials, a city in a city.

Down South the “nigger” dare not vote. In the Northern cities political bosses are using his massed vote to entrench themselves in power. The Federation of Labour this year has had to admit the Negroes to equal membership. Negro Labour is one of the big powers used by capital in fighting Trades Unionism. Hence race riots.

There are to-day probably fully 11,000,000 coloured folk in the United States. They are increasing at the rate of considerably over 100,000 a year. There are 120,000 in New York City and 100,000 in Washington. There are over 1,000,000 in the State or~Mississippi, where they outnumber the whites by four to three. They are all dreaming of a new emancipation which will give them the real equality they hoped for when Lincoln made his famous proclamation.