The Englishman, Maurice Evans, referring to Harlem, says: “I visited possibly over a hundred negro homes in New York, some of them independent houses or villas; others flats, two-roomed or oneroomed apartments. As regards the houses of the well-to-do negroes or mulattoes, everything was in good taste. The houses were clean. The furniture was solid, well-designed, and tasteful. The appointments of the dining table were such as the most fastidious English man or woman could not object to. There were well furnished libraries, and all the new appliances of civilization at their highest perfection-such as telephones, bathrooms, dinner-lifts, electric fans, heating apparatus— in regard to which New York is so much in advance of London. The poorest part that I visited, in what was declared by the police to be the worst existing tenements in the negro quarter, was clean, wholesome, and attractive as compared to the dwellings of many respectable, hardworking Londoners.

"The staircases, for example, were always clean and well lit; there was none of that horrible odour of the indiscretions du chat (as the French delicately phrase it) which is so characteristic of the frowsy, early-nineteenth-century houses of respectable lower-middle-class London; there were no disagreeable smells of bad cooking; the sanitary arrangements appeared to be quite up-to-date and devoid of offence. The people I visited of the poorer class were cooks (of both sexes), longshoremen, railway porters and car attendants; train-conductors, seamstresses, washerwomen, and so forth. Their rooms seemed to be comfortably furnished, and were superior in every way to the worst slums of London." 10

Harlem has a rich social life which expresses itself through its numerous church societies, its lodges, and its women's clubs, and, on the lower levels, through its dance halls, cabarets, pool-rooms, and gambling dens. "In Harlem," says Winthrop D. Lane, "there are cabarets to which both white and colored people are admitted. There are cabarets where white and colored sit at the same table, dance together, talk together, drink together, leave together. Many flashy young people of both colors come to these and get riotously or near riotously merry; some less flashy people come; and some sober and sedate folk sit at the tables. All told there are about fifteen cabarets in Harlem. A few cater only to the well-behaved, others to the less well-behaved, and some to roughnecks." 11

20 Evans, Black and White in the Southern States, p. 474. ""Ambushed in the City," Survey Graphic, Mar., 1925.

It is a far cry from the katydids and crickets of the rural South to the nocturnal jazz of Harlem.

A wag once remarked that, "The Jews own New York, the Irish run it, and the Negroes enjoy it."

As in the outside world, so in Harlem there is social stratification and a color line. Among the élite, who are quite distinctly a mulatto element, the dances, dinners, marriages, and other social functions are carried on with all the decorum and formality characteristic of the rich whites.

"Unfortunately," says Walter F. White, "color prejudice creates certain attitudes of mind on the part of some colored people which form color lines within the color line. Living in an atmosphere where swarthiness of skin brings, almost automatically, denial of opportunity, it is as inevitable as it is regrettable that there should grow up among Negroes themselves distinctions based on skin color and hair texture. There are many places where this pernicious custom is more powerful than in New York-for example, there are cities where only mulattoes attend certain churches while those whose skins are dark brown or black attend others. Marriages between colored men and women whose skins differ markedly in color, and indeed, less intimate relations are frowned upon. Since those of lighter color could more often secure the better jobs, an even wider chasm has come between them, as those with economic and cultural opportunity have progressed more rapidly than those whose skin denied them opportunity.

"Thus, even among intelligent Negroes there has come into being the fallacious belief that black Negroes are less able to achieve success. Naturally such a condition has led to jealousy and suspicion on the part of darker Negroes, chafing at their bonds and resentful of the patronizing attitude of those of lighter color." 12

If in Harlem Negro humanity is found in its lowest depths, it is also found in its highest intellectual and spiritual flights. Here one finds Negro scholars, novelists, poets, painters, sculptors, and musicians, who sense the longings of the mass, and catch glimpses of a new horizon. "White, "Color Lines," Survey Graphic, Mar., 1925.

CHAPTER 4

DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE IN CHICAGO

The Black Belt of Chicago-Character of the Houses-Opposition to Selling or Renting Houses to Negroes in White Districts-Methods Employed to Keep the Negroes Out-Claim That Negro Invasions Depreciate Property-Negro Quarters in Philadelphia and Other Cities

IN

N Chicago the chief Negro quarter embraces the area from Twelfth Street to Thirty-first Street, and from Wentworth Avenue on the west to Wabash Avenue on the east, and is known as the "Old South Side" or "Black Belt." About ninety percent of the Negroes live in this quarter, although there are half a dozen other Negro quarters scattered over the city. The houses in the Black Belt are generally abandoned residences of the whites, or tenements of an old type, in varying stages of dilapidation. "The ordinary conveniences, considered necessities by the average white citizen, are often lacking. Bathrooms are often missing. Gas lighting is common, and electric lighting is a rarity. Heating is done by wood or coal stoves, and furnaces are rather exceptional; when furnaces are present, they are sometimes out of repair.”1

The prevailing type of dwelling in the Black Belt is described as "frail, flimsy, tottering, unkempt, and some of them literally falling apart. Little repairing is done from year to year. . . . The surroundings in these localities were in a condition of extreme neglect, with little apparent effort to observe the laws of sanitation. Streets, alleys, and vacant lots contained garbage, rubbish, and litter of all kinds. . . . From thirty-five to forty percent of the Negro houses of the West side, and many in the North Side, are of the type above described." 2

...

Negroes have to live next door to a low class "dive," where "disorderly white women meet colored men"; where "an automatic piano thumps through the night until closing hours. On the mirrors are pasted chromos of 'September Morn' and other poses of nude women." The loud profanity is blended with "the midnight honking of automobiles." a

One of the reasons for the dilapidated character of the Negro 'Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 152.

'Ibid., p. 192.

*Ibid., p. 202.

houses is that the landlord, knowing the difficulty of the Negro's finding a house elsewhere, does not feel compelled to keep up repairs. Another reason is that, when a Negro purchases a house on the instalment plan, the periodic payments often leave nothing for maintenance. In order to help meet the payments he takes in lodgers who hasten the deterioration of the property. Only about three to five percent of the Negroes of Chicago own their homes, as compared to fifteen percent of the whites. A handicap to the Negro's buying a home "is the low security rating given by real estate loan concerns to property tenanted by Negroes. Because of this, Negroes are charged more than white people for loans, find it more difficult to secure them, and thus are greatly handicapped in efforts to buy or improve property." If

a Negro has the means, and attempts to buy a home outside of the Black Belt, he has two difficulties to overcome. One is the opposition of property owners or real estate agents to selling property to a Negro. The other is the hostile attitude of his white neighbors, which sometimes manifests itself merely in scornful looks or taunts and sometimes in acts of violence.

If the Negroes attempt to form a new settlement of their own in an outlying district, "there is the biggest hubbub raised. People exclaim: 'You will ruin this whole neighborhood. You will ruin the street car line!' Everything out in that neighborhood will be ruined all along the street, because if you build up a colored neighborhood in any one particular location nobody else will want to go out that way." •

A real estate dealer of Chicago says that "when a Negro moves into a block, the value of the properties on both sides of the street is depreciated all the way from $100,000 to $500,000, depending upon the value of the property in the block. . . . It is a condition that is inherent in the human race . . . a man will not buy a piece of property or put his money in or invest in it where he knows that he is liable to be confronted the next day or the next year or even five years hence with the problem of having colored people living alongside of his investment. This depreciation runs all the way from 30 to 60 percent. Some time ago a survey was made as a result of which it was estimated that the influx of Negroes into white neighborhoods during the last two years had depreciated property on the South Side about $100,000,000." "

Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 201.

"Ibid., p. 215.

• Statement of a real estate dealer. Ibid., p. 225.

'Report, Chicago Commission on Race Relations, p. 205.

"When a Negro family moves into a block in which all other families are white, the neighbors object. This objection may express itself in studied aloofness, in taunts, warnings, slurs, threats, or even the bombing of their homes. White neighbors who can do so are likely to move away at the first opportunity. Assessors and appraisers in determining the value of the property take account of this general dislike of the presence or proximity of Negroes. It matters little what type of citizens the Negro family may represent, what their wealth or standing in the community is, or that their motive in moving into a predominant white neighborhood is to secure better living conditions-their appearance is a signal of depreciation." 8

Some white women of Chicago seem to have a greater fear of the \ Negro than the white women of any section of the South. For instance, a white woman, testifying before the Chicago Commission on Race Relations, said, in reference to her Negro neighbors: "I tell you the white people on this street have to be afraid of their lives." " Another white woman, living next door to a Negro family, said: "You'll be surprised when I tell you that I haven't been able to open my bedroom window on that side to air that room for three years. I couldn't think of unlocking the windows because their window is so near somebody could easily step across into this house. It's awful to have to live in such fear of your life. .. Why, I couldn't sit on my porch on the hottest day because I'd be afraid they would come out any minute. And what white person will sit on a porch next door to a porch with black ones on it? Not me, anyhow, nor you either I hope." 10

During the World War, when the rapidly increasing Negro population of Chicago forced the Negroes to find housing accommodations outside of the Black Belt, there was an intensified opposition to the invasion of Negroes into white districts. The most pronounced opposition to Negro invasion was developed in the Kenwood and Hyde Park district, which lies between State Street and Lake Michigan, and between Thirty-ninth and Fifty-ninth Streets. In 1916 the Negroes of the Black Belt began to overflow into this white residential district. Property values in certain streets of this district had been already depreciated by the erection of apartment houses and the incoming of a rooming and boarding population of whites. The difficulty of finding

'Ibid., p. 195.

'Ibid., p. 440. 10 Ibid., p. 453.