The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-07-29
A SHREWD SCHEME.

There is in New York an association
pany. and we make this extract from
it's prospectus:
The lines along which the Afro
American Realty company can operate
are many. The idea that negroes
must be confined to certain localities
can de done away with. The idea that
it is not practicable to put colored and
white tenants together in the same
house can be done away with. The
reason for the present condition of the
colored tenancy in New York city to-
day is because of the race prejudice of
the white owner and his white agent:
When the owner becomes colored and
his agent colored, then there Is COM
PEELED to come an improvement in the
condition.
Race prejudice is a luxury. and like
all other Injuries can be made very
expensive in New York city. With n
cash capital of $4,000 the Afro Amer
lean Reality company can turn race
prejudice into dollars and cents. The
very prejudice which has heretofore
worked against us can be turned and
used to our profit. A respectable, law
abiding negro will find conditions SO
changed that he will be able to rent
wherever his means will permit him to
| live.
This does not fully explain the
shrewed scheme of these negroes, bu'
| we get some of the inside particulars
| from another source. Some time last
year an attempt was made to remove
| some negro residents who owned and
occupied houses in Harlem. The rea-
son given was that the presence of
colored people was ristasteful to the
white residents of the neighborhood,
and that the value of property was
| materially depreciated-a very natural
conclusion, by the way, as most of us
know.
| Just as might have been expected
| the effort to dispossess the negroes
aroused all their race prejudice, and as
a retaliatory measure some of the
wealthy among them bought two
| large flats in the same locality
and promptly rented them to negroes.
There is considerable wealth among
the colored people of New York, and
they We're not slow to see how this
| friction between the races could be
turned to account and made to pay.
| That was the incentive for organizing
the new company
| There are plenty of places and To-
| calities in New York where negroes can
rent houses and live in peace, but this
does not suit the promoters of this
| scheme. They want to turn race preju-
dice to profit and have gone about it in
the right way Their plan is to pur-
chase property in various localities
| IL fc
gro residents are not wanted, and then
| compel the white property owners to
buy them out at the company's own
| prices, as will undoubtedly be done In
| many cases. The white people of the
better classes in New York are no more
| enamored of disorderly colored neigh
bors than white people are in other
places, and it will be part of the plan
of this company to let their houses tc
the least desirable tenants so thai
they can sell out at better prices.
1t is a shrewd scheme, and there
must have been some Yankee brains
at it's head wealthy and refined
| white family, finding its neXt-doo
neighbors are to be disreputable col
ored people. will pay literally to b,
| rid of the nuisance. and by this scheme
of practical black maitland black fe
maIe-the organizers of the compan,
| will add very materially to their banI
accounts. Whether the white peopl,
can find a peaceful and legal way GU
of the trouble remains to be seen, bu
we predict that they will rid them
selves of the nuisance in some way.