1908: Washington Segregated

In researching a coming blog post, Quondam Washington came upon the following article, written in 1908, commenting on the near-complete segregation of blacks and whites in the Capital City (citation below).

The author, incidentally, was an African American. 

A COLOR PHASE IN WASHINGTON

By Osceola Madden

 

In Washington, the great capital city of the greatest country on earth, the separation of the races is more nearly complete than in any other city of the union. This does not even except the South, for here, where there is the largest colored population of any of our cities, the largest point of contact, that of personal service, is growing smaller each year and white help in private homes, boarding houses and hotels is taking the place of colored, while "white barber's" shops, until recently unknown in the South, arc getting very common. 

Shoe-shining parlors in the downtown districts, well appointed, with upholstered seats, electric lights and fans, periodicals and newspapers, have monopolized the trade of the once familiar black bootblack with box and chair.

In Washington the colored infant is introduced to his existence by a colored physician, often in a colored hospital with colored staff and nurses (the Freedmen's is the largest in the District). When old enough he goes to a colored school to study and play with colored children only. He sees white children and grown-ups in the complete than in any other city of the union. This does not even except the South, for here, where there is the largest colored population of any of our cities, the largest point of contact, that of personal service, is growing smaller each year and white help in private homes, boarding houses and hotels is taking the place of colored, while "white barber's" shops, until recently unknown in the South, arc getting very common. Shoe-shining parlors in the downtown districts, well appointed, with upholstered seats, electric lights and fans, periodicals and newspapers, have monopolized the trade of the once familiar black bootblack with box and chair.

In Washington the colored infant is introduced to his existence by a colored physician, often in a colored hospital with colored staff and nurses (the Freedmen's is the largest in the District). When old enough he goes to a colored school to study and play with colored children only. He sees white children and grown-ups in the streets, but nowhere else, and there is never contact unless a children's "race row" should happen. A colored dentist helps him get rid of his "milk teeth," and next day in a happy frame of mind he goes to a colored Sunday-school and a colored church.

After a course in the colored graded schools, should a profession be desired he can make a limited selection and get an excellent training at the one colored university, Howard. With the exception of the Catholic University all the others are closed tight — for him.

Should he not have desired or have been unable to obtain, a professional education, when ready to look for a life vocation or compelled by circumstances to hustle for a living, he is certainly up against a hard proposition if he is intelligent and ambitious. The number of trades offering him opportunity to become a skilled mechanic is small, and industries in which he can secure profitable employment, regardless of his preparation and ability, are few.  Without capital and experience, it is practically impossible for him to make a successful business beginning. What he shall do is not easy to decide.

Later, should he require legal assistance of any sort, excellent lawyers of color are ready to aid him, or if unfortunate enough to run afoul of the law he may be arrested by a policeman of his own race and have his case, if minor, tried before a colored magistrate. When he has lived a long and useful life, and all hope of local suffrage to help lessen the discrimination against him has departed, he gives up the ghost, and after a colored minister of the gospel has eulogized him in a colored church, a colored undertaker buries him in a colored cemetery. From beginning to end he has not crossed the color line.

As a matter of fact, in Washington, as in many other southern cities, the better classes of white and colored people know absolutely nothing of each other. They pass on the streets, sometimes, but that is as near as they ever get. In the schools, in the churches, in the various pursuits of gaining a livelihood, and —speak it gently — socially, the two races are entirely separate and apart.

According to the police census of last year the district has a population of 329,591, of which number 96,188 are colored people. Of approximately 450 clerks in the District (municipal) Building nine are colored men, a majority of the messengers and laborers being of the same race. The police force of 731 has thirty-eight colored officers on its roll, while nine of the 398 members of the fire-fighting force are colored. . The chief of the fire department says that he contemplates establishing a fire company composed entirely of colored men some time in the future.

In the city post office there are 556 white and seventy-nine colored clerks, including substitutes, and 325 white and fifty-five colored mail carriers on the list. Of the six city magistrates one is a colored man drawing a salary of $2,500. The colored Recorder of Deeds gets $4,000 as his annual compensation, and the president recently appointed a young colored lawyer as Assistant United States Attorney at a salary of $2,000.

The local school system is a dual one, the superintendent being white with a white assistant superintendent in charge of the white schools and a colored assistant in charge of the colored schools. For the 111 white and sixty-five colored school buildings there was an enrollment at the close of the last school year of 1,058 white teachers with 35,356 white pupils, and 517 colored teachers who gave instruction to 17,382 colored pupils.

For a great many years the government departments have drawn numbers of capable colored men with their families from all parts of the country, and there are now thousands of cultured, well-educated and refined colored people in the capital, many of them living in handsome and even elegant homes of their own. In this connection it may be worth while to state that of the total value of taxed property in the District of Columbia, $382,987,251 (this does not include government property to the value of hundreds of millions); nearly $23,000,000 worth is owned by colored people. This estimate is based upon the latest report of the Assessor of the District.

In the nine executive departments of the National Government there are approximately 1,450 colored employees, about three hundred of that number being clerks, drawing salaries ranging from $240 for the humble charwoman to $4,000 for the Register of the Treasury. The total amount paid these 1,450 employees is about $817,240 each year. One colored woman clerk enjoys a salary of $1,800. In addition to the Register of the Treasury, the Assistant Register, the Auditor for the Navy Department and, I believe, one or two chiefs of divisions are also colored. 

The corps of instructors in the local schools includes graduates of Harvard, Yale, Amherst, and others of the leading colleges, as well as a few from Oxford and from the leading universities of France and Germany, and some who have studied in Italy and Spain. Howard University, the foremost colored institution of learning in the country, and to which, by the way, Andrew Carnegie has recently donated $50,000 for a library, offers many advantages to the student in the higher branches, and is making an effort to include technical courses for those inclined to take more than the ordinary course in manual training. This institution is supported by Congressional appropriations and by private contributions.

Washington has no large industries or business houses managed by colored men, and there is no colored bank. There are many small stores and enterprises operated successfully, and in a limited number of trades many colored men make a comfortable living.

Of the benevolent and kindred organizations the "True Reformers" are very prominent. The local manager states that the order has a membership of ninety thousand, spread over thirty-seven states, including five thousand in Washington. They have erected in the city at a cost of $100,000 a handsome structure which contains the armory for the colored militia, a commodious entertainment hall, a drug store, and a number of office and lodge rooms. The building has proved a paying investment.

Among the professional men of color are many lawyers, some of whom do well, a goodly number of dentists with all they can do, and physicians with large and in some instances lucrative practices. Of the 1,459 registered physicians in the city seventy-six are colored, about fifty being regular practitioners; a number of the others are government clerks, "Sun Downers," practicing after office hours. Some of these physicians do exceedingly well, one in particular having a sanatorium and dwelling in the residential portion of Pennsylvania Avenue, about six blocks from the White House, and valuable properties located in other parts of the city.

There are a number of colored architects, at least two being very successful with excellent work to their credit, an automobile establishment, ten drug stores, two of which contain sub-post office stations, and two first-class photographic studios. A colored woman conducts an establishment of considerable size with schools of instruction in dressmaking, millinery and cooking, and in addition an employment bureau. There is also a flourishing Conservatory of Music and School of Expression in its fifth year, with an enrollment of 178 pupils and eight instructors.

A Young Men's Christian Association and a like organization for young women are struggling to get well established, and in the southwest portion of the city a colored woman is conducting a social settlement, which is doing most excellent work among the poorer classes of colored people in that section.

There are 114 colored churches in Washington, of all denominations, a majority Baptist with a goodly number of Methodists; also Episcopal, Presbyterian, Seventh Day, Holiness, Catholic and Lutheran, which would seem to assure a happy future for the colored people now here, however the present may seem.

The World To-Day, Vol. XIV, No. 1, January 1908, pp 549-552.

Photos, courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA