The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot. Chicago Commission on Race Relations
of Negro Education by Thomas Jesse Jones, made under the direction of the federal Bureau of Education, and comparing provisions for white and Negro children in fifteen southern states and the District of Columbia. He states:
In the South they [Negroes] form 29.8 per cent of the total population, the proportion in Mississippi and South Carolina being over 55 per cent and ranging in the "black belt" counties from 50 to 90 per cent of the total population. Almost 3,000,000 are engaged in agricultural pursuits. They form 40.4 per cent of all persons engaged in these pursuits in the Southern States.
Though the United States census shows a decrease in illiteracy, there are still about 2,225,000 Negroes illiterate in the South, or over 33 per cent of the Negro population ten years of age and over.
TABLE III
| White | Colored | |
|---|---|---|
| Total population | 23,682,352 | 8,906,879 |
| Population six to fourteen years of age | 4,889,762 | 2,023,108 |
| Population six to fourteen[15] | 3,552,431 | 1,852,181 |
| Teachers' salaries in public schools | $36,649,827 | $5,860,876 |
| Teachers' salaries per child six to fourteen | $10.32 | $2.89 |
| Per cent of illiteracy | 7.7 | 33.3 |
| Per cent rural | 76.9 | 78.8 |
In the fifteen states and the District of Columbia for which salaries by race could be obtained, the public school teachers received $42,510,431 in salaries. Of this sum $36,649,827 was for the teachers of 3,552,431 white children and $5,860,876 for teachers of 1,852,181 colored children. On a per capita basis, this is $10.32 for each white child and $2.89 for each colored child.
TABLE IV
| County Groups, Percentage of Negroes in the Population | White School Population | Negro School Population | Per Capita for White | Per Capita for Negro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Counties under 10 per cent | 974,289 | 45,039 | $ 7.96 | $7.23 |
| Counties 10 to 25 per cent | 1,008,372 | 215,744 | 9.55 | 5.55 |
| Counties 25 to 50 per cent | 1,132,999 | 709,259 | 11.11 | 3.19 |
| Counties 50 to 75 per cent | 364,990 | 661,329 | 12.53 | .77 |
| Counties 75 per cent and over | 40,003 | 207,900 | 22.22 | 1.78 |
The supervisor of white elementary rural schools in one of the states recently wrote concerning the Negro schools:
"I never visit one of these [Negro] schools without feeling that we are wasting a large part of this money and are neglecting a great opportunity. The Negro schoolhouses are miserable beyond all description. They are usually without comfort, equipment, proper lighting, or sanitation. Nearly all of the Negroes of school age in the district are crowded into these miserable structures during the short term which the school runs. Most of the teachers are absolutely untrained and have been given certificates by the county board, not because they have passed the examination, but because it is necessary to have some kind of a Negro teacher. Among the Negro rural schools which I have visited, I have found only one in which the highest class knew the multiplication table."
A state superintendent writes:
"There has never been any serious attempt in this state to offer adequate educational facilities for the colored race. The average length of the term for the state is only four months; practically all of the schools are taught in dilapidated churches, which, of course, are not equipped with suitable desks, blackboards, and the other essentials of a school; practically all of the teachers are incompetent, possessing little or no education and having had no professional training whatever, except a few weeks obtained in the summer schools; the schools are generally overcrowded, some of them having as many as 100 students to the teacher; no attempt is made to do more than teach the children to read, write, and figure, and these subjects are learned very imperfectly. There are six or eight industrial supervisors financed in whole or in part by the Jeanes Fund; most of these teachers are stimulating the Negro schools to do very good work upon the practical things of life. A few wide-awake Negro teachers not connected with the Jeanes Fund are doing the same thing. It can probably be truthfully said that the Negro schools are gradually improving, but they are still just about as poor and inadequate as they can be."
Commenting on the cause of the migration, the Atlanta Constitution, a prominent southern white paper, says:
While mob violence and the falsehood which has been built upon that foundation constitutes, perhaps, a strong factor in the migration of the Negroes, there is scarcely a doubt that the educational feature enters into it. Negroes induced to go to the North undoubtedly believe they can secure better educational facilities there for their children, whether they really succeed in getting them or not.
Georgia, as well as other southern states, is undoubtedly behind in the matter of Negro education, unfair in the matter of facilities, in the quality of teachers and instructors, and in the pay of those expected to impart proper instruction to Negro children.
We have proceeded upon the theory that education would, in his own mind, at least, carry the Negro beyond his sphere; that it would give him higher ideas of himself and make of him a poorer and less satisfactory workman. That is nonsense. …
B. THE NORTH
The cessation of immigration.—Prior to the war the yearly immigration to the United States equaled approximately the total Negro population of the North. Foreign labor filled the unskilled labor field, and Negroes were held closely in domestic and personal-service work. The cessation of immigration and the return of thousands of aliens to their mother-country, together with the opening of new industries and the extension of old ones, created a much greater demand for American labor. Employers looked to the South for Negroes and advertised for them.
High wages.—Wages for unskilled work in the North in 1916 and 1917 ranged from $3.00 to $8.00 a day. There were shorter hours of work and opportunity for overtime and bonuses.
Living conditions.—Houses available for Negroes in the North, though by northern standards classed as unsanitary and unfit for habitation, afforded greater comforts than the rude cabins of the plantation. For those who had owned homes in the South there was the opportunity of selling them and applying the money to payment for a good home in the North.
Identical school privileges.—Co-education