The American Negro
B. SIR EVELYN WRENCH
IN the early years of this century some of the leaders of the American negroes, many of them with white blood in their veins, realised the validity, especially in the United States, of the old saying that " God helps those who help themselves." They decided that the time had arrived when they would no longer depend on the favour and bounty of their white fellow- citizens but rely on their own efforts; they thereby showed their Americanism and demanded that " Americanism " be extended to them. They evidently took to heart the object-lesson of the American Indian, a very small community, dependent on the Government for its existence. The new policy, whether entirely deliberate or not, has yielded large results. Who in the early years of the present century could have foreseen that by the middle of the century there would be an American negro Nobel Prize-winner, or, more surprising still, that one of that race would be one of the most popular captains of the Harvard foot- ball team? In each of the decades since 1900 I have watched the American negro gradually improve his position, a tendency which has certainly gathered momentum since the end of the Second World War. Even information gathered in the summer of 1950 is no longer valid. I think it was either in 1949 or 1950 that I first saw the, to me, unexpected, sight of American negroes taking their meals in the dining-cars of American trains, hither- to exclusively patronised by white people.
It is, of course, true that the American negro does not possess equal rights with his white fellow-citizens, and much still remains to be done; but if present tendencies continue, and the progress is as rapid in the second half of the century as it was in the first, some of those living may witness equality of status for all Americans, whatever the colour of their skins. Ugly episodes such as the riots at Cicero, in Illinois, last summer, or the shooting of a negro prisoner at Groveland in Florida in the autumn, or occasional lynchings, cannot be ignored, although there has been a steady decline in the number of such episodes. There are still States in the Deep South where the negro does not possess full educational opportunities, and I have seen negro slums in the South as bad as anything we have in Europe. On this side of the Atlantic there is still, how- ever, a tendency to look only at the dark side of the picture, to ignore the impressive amelioration in the position of the negro due both to the efforts of the negroes themselves and to the goodwill of the large majority of the whites. At an interesting meeting held recently at the London headquarters of the English-Speaking Union, Mrs. Edith Sampson, Virginia-born and a member of the National Council of Negro Women in America, told her audience of the vast changes which have taken place in recent years in the position of the negro in the United States. Mrs. Sampson, a lawyer by profession, makes an excellent representative of her race, and is an accomplished speaker and is proud of her Americanism. During recent years she has travelled widely on a crusade to enlighten audiences in Europe• and elsewhere as to the rapid changes achieved by American negroes in their own country. In Europe she noticed two facts—the deep interest taken in the position of the negro population in the United States, accompanied, alas, by a woeful ignorance as to its rapidly improving status. It is of the utmost importance that the free nations in Europe and elsewhere should obtain a clear and balanced picture of the conditions under which the American negro lives today. Despite the improvements of recent years, the coloured folk in foreign-born citizens in the Republic. At the time of emanci- pation, in 1865, more than 90 per cent. of the negroes in the U.S. were illiterate. Today 95 per cent. can read and write— all, therefore, except in a few rural areas. In New York City the negro percentage of literacy is higher than that of the foreign-born white population. In the opportunity afforded him of obtaining university training the American negro is better off than the average Briton. Of the fifteen million negroes in the U.S. 128,000 are enrolled in American colleges com- pared with 85,000 in universities in the United Kingdom with a population of fifty millions. In 1910 there were only 42 public high schools in the South; today there are 2,500. The value of negro schools in the South was about eighty million dollars in 1940; by 1948 it had become one hundred and twenty- nine million dollars. Sixty-eight negro colleges are staffed by negro professors. In addition negroes are regular members of the faculty in more than 70 Northern universities, where there is no colour-bar.
-Many white-sponsored foundations have devoted large sums of money for the advance of the coloured people. The Julius Rosenwald Fund has helped to create more than five thousand schools in the South, and has invested more than thirty million dollars in this project. Out of the total negro population of fifteen million, eight hundred thousand own their own homes. Today negroes possess more than 12 million acres of farm- land; and 190,000 negro farmers have farms averaging more than 78 acres.
In recent years negroes have entered American industry by the hundred thousand. Henry Ford was one of the first to realise their possibility as a source of reliable labour. In eleven States and in twenty-one cities the Fair Employment Practices Committees seek to assure equal employment oppor- tunities and equal rights to negroes. A million and a quarter negro workers belong to labour unions which ensure them equal pay for equal work in American industry. Many negroes are officers in their unions, in which a majority of votes from white members is cast for them. Since emancipation the American negroes have accumulated more than five billion dollars of savings. Two hundred negro insurance companies own assets exceeding one hundred million dollars. American negroes own a million and a half motor cars, which is, I believe, a higher ratio than that of the inhabitants of Great Britain.
From these figures we can realise the fact that probably no other under-privileged group in the world is forging ahead more rapidly than the American negro at the present time. This progress, which can be seen by the whole coloured corn,- munity, probably explains why it is that American negroes as a whole turn so resolutely deaf an ear to Moscow's blandish- ments. In 1946 President Truman appointed a Civil Rights Committee which made its report in the following year. That report directed attention to every form of racial discrimin- ation in the U.S., and called for the removal of the disabilities under which the negroes suffered. It called for action on the part both of the Federal and State Governments and of local communities. The rulings of the Supreme Court in 1950 have opened the doors of a number of Southern universities to negro students. For example, the University of Texas already has ninety-five negro students. The negro population in the United States possesses two hundred newspapers in which it can express its views and, in common with the white population, indulge in the pastime of attacking the Government and its officials. This is progress on a very notable scale. America are by no means satisfied with their lot; they are fully aware that they do not yet live in a perfect democracy, although many of their leaders believe and hope that justice will ulti- mately be done to them by the Federal and State Governments. The American negroes have, however, shown their good sense by refusing to pay heed to Soviet attempts to make political capital out of their disabilities, and realising that their best hope is to work on their present lines and to appeal to the spirit of fair play in their white fellow-citizens.
The fifteen millions of American negroes are an important element in the United States : they form roughly ten per cent.
of the total 1 i and their number exceeds that of 1 o t e tota pop u at on, an t e r num r exce s t at o a I
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