Printing establishments, tailors' shops,[1] express and van companies, and many other small enterprises help to make up the Negro business world. One colored printer brings out an important white magazine. There are seven weekly colored newspapers, of which the New York _Age_ is the most important, and two musical publishing companies. All these enterprises are useful, not only to the proprietor and his patrons, but especially to the clerks and assistants who thus are able to secure some training in mercantile work. In the white man's office, white and colored boys start out together, but as their trousers lengthen and their ambitions quicken, the former secures promotion while the latter is still given the letters to put into the mail box. If the Negro lad, discouraged at lack of advancement, leaves the white man and ventures with a tiny capital into some business of his own, his ignorance is almost certain to lead to his disaster. He is indeed fortunate if he can first work in the office of a successful colored man.[2]
We have one more census division to consider, Professional Service. The table runs as follows:
Key to column headers-- A: Total number of males in each occupation. B: Number of Negroes in each occupation. C: Number of Negroes to each 1000 workers in occupation.
======================================================== | A | B | C ------------------------------------+--------+-----+---- Actors, professional showmen, etc. | 4,733 | 254 | 54 Architects, designers, draftsmen | 3,966 | 2 | 0 Artists, teachers of art | 2,924 | 13 | 4 Clergymen | 2,833 | 90 | 32 Dentists | 1,509 | 25 | 16 Physicians and surgeons | 6,577 | 32 | 5 Veterinary surgeons | 320 | 2 | 6 Electricians | 8,131 | 18 | 2 Engineers (civil) and surveyors | 3,321 | 7 | 2 Journalists | 2,833 | 7 | 2 Lawyers | 7,811 | 26 | 3 Literary and scientific | 1,709 | 10 | 5 Musicians | 6,429 | 195 | 30 Officials (government) | 3,934 | 9 | 2 Teachers and professors in colleges | 3,409 | 32 | 9 | | | Total including some occupations | | | not specified | 60,853 | 729 | 12 ========================================================
Examining these figures we find few colored architects[3] or engineers, and a very small proportion of electricians, though among the latter there is a highly skilled workman. The New York Negro has no position in the mechanical arts. It may be that, as we so often hear, the African does not possess mechanical ability.[4] You do not see Negro boys pottering over machinery or making toy inventions of their own. But another and powerful reason for the colored youth's failing to take up engineering or kindred studies is the slight chance he would later have in securing work. No group of men in America have opposed his progress more persistently than skilled mechanics, and, should he graduate from some school of technology, he would be refused in office or workshop. So he turns to those professions in which he sees a likelihood of advancement.