The advocate. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1901-1913, 1911-02-23
UPPER MANHATTAN ADOPTS
STRINGENT SEGREGATION
PLAN OF IT'S OWN.
Two Negro Servants
Will be tho limit Of owners or rent
ers OF property and none OF the
race will be accepted as tenants,
according to agreement.

desirable residential sections in Up-
per Manhattan, property owners of
the metropolis have inaugurated
segregation campaign which has as
sumed big proportions, but which is
being conducted on lines entirely diff
1erent from those Of the segregation
light in Baltimore.
Heavy guns In the fight were fired
when 81 property-owners on One
Hundred and Thirty-sixth street,
representing IS per cent Of the prop
erty between Lenox and Eighth ave-
nues,. filed in the Registers office in
the Hall Of Records yoluminous and
many-paged covenant, in which they
Dlnd themselves not to sell or rent
their premises to Negroes for the
next Is years.
The property-owners bind them
selves mot to allow any part of
their premises to be occupied in
whole or in part by any Negro, null
AUTO, quadroon or octoroon Of either
sex either as tenant, guest, board
er or occupant in any other capacity,
way or manner ..,
Even Servants Limited.
Tenants Of each house or fiat
may not employ more than zone
and one female Negro or two Negres-
SEES, mulattoes, quadroons or oc-
toroons to perform the duties ordi-
narily performed by household SER
want. There may be, in short, only
one black man servant to each fam
ny. Some of the signers Of the docu-
ment are owners Of apartment hous-
es. The document doesn't forbid
their employing Negro elevator boys,
put no house may have more Negro
bellboys, janitors, cleaners or priv
ate servants in 1t, than it has fami-
lies of whites.
The covenant which we have filed
IN the: Registers Office simply means
that we are not going to allow out
side spectators to force down the
value of our property rs per cent
without fight" said one OF the 81
coVenanters yesterday "Our objec-
ton is in no sense a slur. at the COL
ored race. 1t is an agreement to de-
1enh ourselves against a clever
matchmaking scheme which is being
worked against self-respecting white
property owners in various parts Of
the town, A certain class of real es-
tate spectators, knowing the depre-
citation In real estate values which al
ways follows a colored invasion,
have been making a practice Of buy
ing several houses in a respectable
and fairly prosperous white neigh
borhood
How Game rs Worked
These houses the spectators i'm |
medlately advertise as being avaiIa- |
Die for colored tenants They stick
out signs 'Colored Boarders Wanted
Sometimes they even go so far as to |
actually encourage Negro tenants of !
disrepute. They force the respecta-
bic white property owners Of the
nelghborhood into accepting one Of |
two alternatives, either one of which |
E2s exceedingly profitable to the spec !
ulators-to buy at an increased fig /
ure the property which the specula-
tors are letting to Negroes, Or sell |
their own property to the specula-
tors at reduced price.
This is the history of real estate
in the various black belts of the
city. And it might have been the
history OF our real estate in West |
Ono Hundred and Thirty-SiXth ST
Two or three of the houses in the
street changed hands, and signs of
'Colorcd Boarders Wanted began to
be hung out on these houses. Then l.
a cafe in Lenox avenue, right around
the One Hundred and Thrty-sixth
stree corner, was let to a West Thir-
ty-tifth~ street colored saloonkeeper,
who turned it into Negro dance
nall. 1t was at this time that our
Harlem Real Estate Protective AS
ISOLATION was organized
LAS a result Of our reform work
several Of the Negro houses we're
closed by the police and the rest
gradually left the neighborhood. The
Negro saloonkeeper was discovered |
to have forged some Of the sigma
'tnres Of the respectable property |
owners to the consents required by |
the Excise Department, so his license |
was revoked and nc was dispossess- |
ed.
Between last June and December |
the covenant was circulated among
the property owners along the street
and 85 per cent. signed it at once.
Until the covenant was circulated
real estate on West One Hundred
and Twenty-sixth street had fallen
off in value from 10 to 20 per cent;
two sales have been made recently
Of houses on the street at increased
figures, the sales being subject to
the terms of the covenant"