The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1919-08-02
STATISTICS ABOUT
AMERICAN NEGRO
Mrs. j. 3. Westcott Gave Interesting
Talk at Recent Meeting of Woman's
Home Missionary Society.
SAID THEY MADE GOOD SOLDIERS

Mrs. ]. B. Westcott gave a very in
teresting and instructive talk on our
relation to the negro at the recent
meeting of the Woman's Home Mis-
sionary Society. of Wesley M. E.
Church, held at he home of Mrs. Mary
B. Campbell. They have proven
themselves such splendid soldiers in
the World War. She gave some very
interesting facts in regard to the race
and her observation of them in the
southland, where she has spent so
much of her life. She gave the follow
ing statistics, which greatly emphasiz-
ed her remarks:
There are approximately II, DOC. 600
Negroes in the United States. There
were 100000 Negroes in the army.
Since 1866 the Methodist Episcopal
Church, through its Freedman's Aid
Society, has expended more than s1O,-
600, 900 for Christian education among
the Negroes.
There are ZIP Negro preachers in
the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Property in churches and p%arsonages
for Negroes of the Methodist Episco-
pal Church amounts to nearly 100000
900.
1QC " llt ullDI 6ItuellEu NEGRO I'LL
grafton since 1916, for which northern
cities were naturally unprepared, it is
reported that in Detroit, for instance,
$4,000 Negroes are living in a district
that was formerly considered made
quate for 5000. Rents have gone up
all the way from so per cent. to $50
per cent. The Negro is peculiarly the
victim of the landlord in that he is a
prisoner within the color line. Subur-
ban districts with neat, cheap cottages,
are in many cases closed to him. He
can live only in that restricted and Of
ten undesirable area where colored
tenants are welcomed.
In Newark, New Jersey, housing
conditions were such that the death
rate rose to eighteen per thousand,
an extremely high rate for an Ameri-
can city. The Board of Health, while
conducting a survey, found as many as
fourteen people living in a two-room
tenement. Scores of these so-called
homes were without bathing facilities.
One Negro family was forced TO pay
S35 a month for tumbled down quar-
tiers which had formerly been rented
to Lithuanians for S13.
In one crowded city quarter it was
found that there was an average of
4 2-7 persons to a room.
Chicago has $4,000 Negroes.
Every fifteenth person in Philadel-
phia is colored.
The total coIored population in New
York City, not including Brooklyn, is
about $4,000.
Industrially, the Negro in the North
has done well. While he has found
his place for the most part somewhere
on the bottom rungs of the industrial
ladder, the war has placed the COM
~pensation of the laborer at a very high
rate. The Negro has come in for his
share of the high wages paid the IN
skilled laborer.
The late Booker T. Washington once
said: "If you see a Negro who is not
a Methodist or a Baptist, you'll know
that some white man has been tam
pering with his religion
1t is said that more than ninety per
cent. of the adult Negroes of the South
are members of some church.
East Calvary Church in Philadelphia
with a seating capacity of one thous-
and. has a membership of four thOus-
and and is still growing.
But we are coming to recognize that
a man who is worthy to bear arms for
the defense of democracy deserves to
have a share in all the institutions of
democracy. After the war we are not
going to forget the loyalty and heroism
of the unprivileged colored races in
the United States.