ad the
opportunity to do so, they have organized and stood for their rights like
men. The trouble is that the trades unions are generally antagonistic to
Negroes although they are now accepting the blacks in self-defense. The
policy of excluding Negroes from these bodies is made effective by an
evasive procedure, despite the fact that the constitutions of many of them
specifically provide that there shall be no discrimination on account of
race or color.

Because of this tendency some of the representatives of trades unions have
asked why Negroes do not organize unions of their own. This the Negroes
have generally failed to do, thinking that they would not be recognized by
the American Federation of Labor, and knowing too that what their union
would have to contend with in the economic world would be diametrically
opposed to the wishes of the men from whom they would have to seek
recognition. Organized labor, moreover, is opposed to the powerful
capitalists, the only real friends the Negroes have in the North to
furnish them food and shelter while their lives are often being sought by
union members. Steps toward organizing Negro labor have been made in
various Northern cities during 1917 and 1918.[18] The objective of this
movement for the present, however, is largely that of employment.

Eventually the Negro migrants will, no doubt, without much difficulty
establish themselves among law-abiding and industrious people of the North
where they will receive assistance. Many persons now see in this shifting
of the Negro population the dawn of a new day, not in making the Negro
numerically dominant anywhere to obtain political power, but to secure for
him freedom of movement from section to section as a competitor in the
industrial world. They also observe that while there may be an increase of
race prejudice in the North the same will in that proportion decrease in
the South, thus balancing the equation while giving the Negro his best
chance in the economic world out of which he must emerge a real man with
power to secure his rights as an American citizen.

[Footnote 1: _New York Times_, Sept. 5, 9, 28, 1916.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., Oct. 18, 28; Nov. 5, 7, 12, 15; Dec. 4, 9,
1916.]

[Footnote 3: _The Crisis_, July, 1917.]

[Footnote 4: _American Journal of Political Economy_, XXX, p. 1040.]

[Footnote 5: _The World's Work_, XX, p. 271.]

[Footnote 6: _The World's Work_, XX, p. 272.]

[Footnote 7: _New York Times