The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1913-07-11
CONDITION OF NEGRO
IN SOUTH AND NORTH
Many of Best Garages in New York
City Will Not Now Allow Negro
Chauffers Within Their Petrol
Favored Precincts.

Negro chauffeurs no longer are
permitted within the petrol-favored
precincts of many Of the best gar
ages of New York and each lay sees
accession to the list of these auto
storage places where the brother in
black is not wanted. Not merely on
the "blue gum" has the ban been
laid. The chauffeur may be only a
quadroon, an octoroon even, but
standing firmly by the adage "a mig
ger is niger even if you white
wash him." the garage proprietors
refuse sanctuary to the machine he
drives.
Where the white chauffeurs are
banded together in league against
the black is not clear, but certain it
is that garage proprietors are daily
inviting auto owners with negro
ehauffeurs to store their machine
elsewhere off keep your machine"
one auto owner was informed, 81
shall lose six or eight now stored
here. It's business matter with
me-"
Next we shall hear of the forma-
tion throughout the South of associa-
tions for the advancement of the in
terests of the negro of the North, and
the Southern white man will en-
bark on a campaign of education.
a.. Each year sees fewer avenues of
industry which the negro may enter
in the North, for the North has not
yet learned that the negro may be
kept in his place without divorcing
him from his job. And why shut the
kitchen door in his face merely be-
cause the parlor door is slightly
ajar? Back in 1865 the negro was
started in his journey to social equal
ity, industrial freedom, 40 acres and
a mule. The mistake was made by
the colored brother, apparently, for
he assumed that these things were
to come to pass all over the country
instead of merely in the subjected
district south of the Potomas and the
Ohio. In arrogance born of the ig-
norance in which heartless slave
drivers of the South held him, he
rashly has assumed that in the incu-
bator of emancipation he could look
for social equality outside the lee
ture platform, and industrial free
dom other than the freedom to look
for another job in some other neigh
borhood and in some other line of
endeavor.
Really things are coming to pret-
ty pass here in the North. New York
city's negro population is growing
steadily, and as fast as he is driven
from one occupation the black is en-
tering those fields which, either be-
cause they are new or because hith-
erto they have been occupied entire
ly by whites, have not yet been closed
to him From the housebuilding
trades and the mechanical fields he
is largely excluded. The chauffeur
is development of the past ten
years and it is only lately that he has
become a factor. Office work thus
far is limited to Office boy and mes
senger service, but if this thing keeps
up he will develop into bookkeep-
er, Office manager or corporation di-
rector, while his sister will be seek
ing employment as a hello girl or
stenographer. But the sense of JUS
tice so strongly characteristic of the
white brother in this neck of the
woods will soon see to it that the
negro wins the privilege of holding
down any position which the white
man is entitled to every available
job in every line of work.
The South handles its problems in
its own way and there the downtrod-
den black seems really contented
with the fact that no protest ever is
made that he is invading the white
mans fields. He keeps to his own,
but the Southern white has arranged
matters so that there is work for
every negro who will work. The
housebuilding trades, the mechanical
fields, and occupations of many kinds
are open to him, while the fact that
socially and otherwise he is kept
apart has developed large and
growing field of financial and COM
merciai endaaver in which the better
minds and hands find profitable en-
ployment. The negro banker, real
estate operator, retailer, lawyer, ply
sician, dentist and publisher are
found in every Southern town, and
negro board of trade can usually
be found doing its part in the pro-
motion of community interests.