63 per cent of the Negro business
firms have to depend upon the small purchasing power of their own
people for the trade with which to build up their enterprises. This is
partly due to the feeling of the Negroes in business that they are to
cater mainly to Negroes and partly to their inexperienced way of
handling customers. But the main reasons are the difficulties they
have in renting places in desirable localities and in the refusal of
white people to patronize Negroes in many lines of trade.[76] Of the
remaining firms 42, or 15 per cent, reported between 10 and 49 per
cent white customers. The numbers above were small and only one firm,
in the class of dressmaking and millinery, and three in the
miscellaneous class, reported an exclusive white trade.

What a battle the Negro business man has to fight can be surmised when
to the fact of a narrow patronage from his own people, who have the
small purchasing power of their low-paid occupations, is added the
severe competition of white firms with larger capital, with more
extended credit and larger business experience, that vie with him for
even this limited field. Table XXVIII (p. 125), which follows, was
compiled on the basis of proprietors' statements of the probable
number of white and colored customers over a given number of months.
It is about as accurate as such an estimate can be and is far more
reliable and definite than general impressions. The percentages of
white customers are given, it being understood that the remainder were
Negroes. This small amount of information is very significant in
showing how the attitude of the white public affects the economic
advancement of the Negroes.

In the foregoing chapter we have reviewed some very definite facts
concerning the Negro business man's dealing with the community. We
have seen that his enterprises are permanently established although
against great odds, but that permanence of address is not so well
secured. Nearly all, 260 out of 309, were known to have some of the
usual methods of keeping accounts, and of the 205 from whom
information on the matter was obtained about three-fourths gave credit
either occasionally or habitually; while of the 94 who answered as to
their receiving credit, about half did and the other half did not
receive credit.

TABLE XXVIII. ESTIMATED PROPORTIONS OF WHITE CUSTOMERS OF 279 NEGRO
BUSINESS ENTERPRISES, MANHATTAN, 1909.

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