Jackson advocate. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1939-current, 1956-07-07
Say Business
DoorsIn North
Opens Slowly
To Negro

NEW YORK, N. Y, July g.
Business doors In the North
opens slowly to Negroes accord
ing to an article by Staff Cor
respondent Mary Hornaday OF
the Christian Science Monitor.
The article says:
One morning in May, 1949, two
technicians from General Electric
headquarters in Schenectady, N.
Y, strolled onto the campus Of
Howard University's engineering
college in Washington, D. c. Be-
fore the day was over they explod-
ed q new kind Of chain-recation
"bomb" by hiring five Negroes.
This was the first official visit
Of a major United States industry
to a Negro college to recruit per-
sonnet. The visit was arranged
by the Urban League, whose OBJ
jective is to establish patterns Of
equal opportunity to non-whites,
particularly in employment, train
ing, and housing.
This year the whole Contender
graduating class Of Towards
School of Engineering was signed
up by major companies before COM
mencement.
This is just one phase of the
economic progress taking place
for the American Negro, especi-
ally in the North.
Yet here as in the South, there
are still practices which severely
limit the Negroes choice of occu-
pations. Even here in New York,
the traditional employment for
Negro woman is in household SER
vice, though the New York Urban
League now estimates that there
now are at least as many Negro
women working as clerks as there
are domestics.
Income Relatively Less
Negro men are still found chief
ly serving in foundries, coke ovens,
and other physically unattractive
jobs, though handful have reached
the top here as Borough of Man
haitian president, member Of the
City Council, judge Of the New
York State Supreme Court, and
head of the history department of
Brooklyn College.
Though the income differential
between Negroes and whites here
is relatively less than in the South,
Negro families must still get along
on about so per cent Of what white
families have.
A number Of labor unions here
still bar Negroes from membership
and apprenticeship, but hard
won victory came in the New York
City area a year ago in April
when a Transfers local, through
consent decree approved by the
State Commission Against Dis
elimination, agreed to increase en-
ployment opportunities for Ne
groes in the brewing industry and
to make periodic reports.
New York's pioneer law against
discrimination now is 10 years old,
and though it still does not have
some of the enforcement features
adopted by the dozen other states
that have passed FEPC laws since,
it has accomplished much in OPEN
ing employment opportunities for
many thousands formerly barred
from jobs and from places Of pub
lie accommodation on account of
racial and religious prejudice.
Because its request for authority
to initiate action in discrimination
cases was turned down by the
last session of the Legislature, the
New York Commission Against
Discrimination may still act only
on complaints. In the decade since
enactment of the law, more than
5000 complaints of violation have
been investigated.
Clerical Breakthrough
The normal procedure has been
for violators to comply with the
law once they are warned. On less
than one-haf Of one per cent Of
the cases has there even had to be