to which fact the Negroes of the South are more united than the
Negroes of the North. In the North a few individuals may rise to
intellectual, professional, business and mechanical distinctions, but
from general employment in the skilled industries, business
enterprises and political preferment he is debarred, and, being
cheaply and conveniently accommodated in almost every respect by the
whites, he is not under the same necessity as the Southern Negro to
establish and operate business enterprises. It is rather inconvenient
to establish and maintain Negro business enterprises and schools in
the North, for the reason that there are no thickly settled
communities. A Negro lawyer, doctor, dressmaker, music teacher, hair
dresser and mechanic do well in some instances, because they receive
patronage from the whites. It is not so much the prejudice of the
whites nor the indifference of the Negro as it is the peculiar
conditions of the North that prevent the Negro from enjoying the
business enterprises and founding race institutions. The few new
institutions and even churches in the North are largely sustained by
donations from the whites. Renting houses and purchasing property and
living in the North are commensurate with the large scale and
competition along all lines of industry, and social life is so active
that the most rigid economy and business tact are essential to success
in any kind of business in the North.

The Negro who embarks in business in the North has not only to compete
with his own people, but with the shrewd Yankee, who seeks to
monopolize all interests that have money in them. The Negro of the
North for the most part appears to be content with his superior civil
and social privileges. He breathes the air with more perfect liberty,
enjoys life free from violence, is vindicated and redressed at law and
recognized in his citizen rights, and, like the Pharisee, thanks God
that he is not like the ex-slave of the South, and this is the height
of his ambition. Three-fourths of the freeholding and tax-paying
Negroes in the North are from the South, and Southern Negro labor is
preferred in the North as in the South. Waiters, domestic servants,
janitors, teamsters, laundry men and coachmen from the South can find
employment in the North. Any industrious Southern Negro can find
common labor to do in the North.

Before the formation of labor unions and federations in the North, the
Negro skilled laborer found empl