in in the South.
The solution of this problem was rendered a little more difficult
for the reason that here, as in many other centers in the North, the
newcomers were not welcomed by their own race. Philadelphia had for
years been pointed to as having a respectable, thrifty and prosperous
colored population, enjoying the good will and the cooperation of the
best white people in the community. These northern negroes felt then
that the coming of their brethren in the rough did them a decided
injury in giving rise to a race problem in a northern community where
it had not before figured. This unusual influx of other members of the
race greatly stimulated that tendency to segregate negro children in
the schools, to the deep regret of the older citizens of Philadelphia.
Other social privileges as in theaters, churches and the like,
formerly allowed the negro citizens of that city, tended gradually to
be withdrawn.
The negro migrants were not altogether innocent. Many of them used
their liberty in their northern home as a stumbling block. Receiving
there such high wages which they could not judiciously spend, the
unwise of their group used this unusually large income to their own
detriment and to that of the community. It was indeed difficult to
restrain a poor man who never had had a few dollars, when just arrived
from a section of the country where he had not only been poor but
restricted even in expending what income he received. Many of them
received $6, $7 and in a few cases $8 to $10 a day. They frequented
saloons and dens of vice, thereby increasing the number of police
court cases and greatly staining the record of the negroes in that
city. A number of fracases, therefore, broke out from time to time,
growing in intensity in keeping with the condition to which the
community, unaccustomed to negro neighbors, saw fit to manifest
its displeasure. This finally culminated in the recent riots in
Philadelphia in which a number of blacks and whites were killed.
Feeling that they did not have the support of the officers of the law,
the negroes of the city organized a Colored Protective Association and
raised a fund for the prosecution of policemen and others who might
aid mobs. The method of strengthening itself is to organize the
churches of the city with a view to securing the cooperation of every
negro there. To advance this work, a large sum has been raised. Other
efforts of this sort in behalf of the negroes in Phil
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