The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1906-08-09
The Negro in the North.
Charlotte Observer.

1
1t begins to look as if our Northern
friends are soon to have on their
hands a double-headed race problem,
SO to spcak-the one in the South in
connection with which they have been
50 willing to give advice and one in
their own community. "Forty years
ago." says the Philadelphia Public
Ledger, there We're $50, 900 negroes
| in the Northern States; today there
are million. Then 7.S per cent. of
the total number of negroes in the
country lived in the North; now more
tlsan 1913 per cent. live there The
Public Ledger continues:
socially, the presence among us OF a
greatly increased negro population is
black man is not as well regared by us
as he was a while ago. Northern opin-
ion of him has passed from good will to
suspicion and dislike The spectre of
the race question has shown its head.
The figure of the negro highwayman.
ruffian and degenerate has become fa-
miliar, and the disposition is generally
to conclude that the black man in the
mass isirreclaimable and dangerous.
The admission must be made that the
chance for the negro, as for any other
man. is greatest in the land where living
is cheapest, competition least severe. the
population less dense, resources least de-
veloped and the demand for labor great
est. Healthy and hopeful emigration
always flows from the crowded to the
undeveloped country. In reversing the
rule OF nature, in leaving the Southland,
whose fields and mines lie unprOductive
for need OF him. for the cities of the North,
where too often he lives and dies a loafer,
parasite or criminal, the negro is I'M
pairing, not contributing to, his own in
terests and those of the country.
This is an unusually accurate un-
derstanding of the situation-ag great
deal more SO, in fact, than one eX-
poets to see in a Northern journal,
and shows that our friends across the
Mason and Dixon line are slowly but
surely getting their eyes opened and
when they become more accustomed
to the light there will be but little, if
any, difference in the view of the good
men North and those in the South on
the so-called race problem The Pub
lie Ledger says Philadelphia has al
ways been the chief negro center in
the North. The census of 1900 gave
the colored population as 62,612. In
point of fact, it is today said to be
nearer rs, 1000. No Northern city ex
cept New York, with probably TO-
900, approaches these figures, while
OF all our cities only Washington,
Baltimore and New Orleans exceed it.
And while of the Southern cities
named in New Orleans alone is the
increase of it's black population
greater than that of it's total popu-
lation, in all Northern cities the per-
centage OF colored increase is far be-
yond that of the white The total
population of New York increased
1868 per cent in the last decade re-
ported by the census, but it's negro
population increased 1878 per cent.
And in Philadelphia the percentage
of total increase was 1886, while
that of the colored increase was SO.
If our Northern friends are alarmed
at this increase of their colored pop
ulation they can have the satisfaction
of knowing that they are themselves
the only ones to blame. They have
tolled him away from the South
whether they meant to do so or not,
and now they have him to reckon
with.