Viewing page 11 of 19

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

increases were more rapid among Negroes than among whites. Clergymen - who had noted relative declines in the rate of growth of their professions, since 1890-1900 when the number increased by 27 per cent, to drop to 15 per cent in 1900-1910 to 8 per cent in 1910-1920 - were gratified to see the greatest increase - 28 per cent - occur in the last Census decade. Clergymen remained proportionately more numerous among the Negro population than among any other racial group. The 25,000 persons so engaged in 1930 formed 17 per cent of all the country's clergymen.

The increasing importance of women in Negro professional life is noted in the increase of librarians, school teachers and social workers. They form four-fifths of all school teachers, four-fifths of all librarians, four-fifths of all social and welfare workers, and one-half of all actors, and artists, while virtually monopolizing the field for trained nurses. In general, women form approximately 45 per cent of the Negro professional class.

The ratio of various professional workers per thousand white and Negro populations in 1920 and 1930 shows that in only one field - the ministry - have Negroes fewer persons per professional than the white population. Furthermore, between 1920 and 1930 there was a decrease in the ratio of physicians among Negroes. In comparing these ratios for the six leading professions among Negroes with ratios for the white population, we find that among Negroes there are twice as many persons per teacher, four times as many per physician, six times as many per nurse, four and one-half times as many per dentist, fifteen times as many per lawyer, and half as many per clergyman.

TABLE VII.

POPULATION PER EACH PROFESSIONAL WORKER
BY COLOR
THE UNITED STATES
1920 and 1930

[[5 column table]]
| Persons Per Each | 1930 White | 1930 Negro | 1920 White | 1920 Negro |
| Teacher | 111 | 218 | 145 | 291 |
| Physician | 728 | 3,127 | 748 | 2,993 |
| Nurse | 377 | 2,076 | 725 | 3,131 |
| Dentist | 1,516 | 6,707 | 1,924 | 9,434 |
| Lawyer | 693 | 9,374 | 870 | 11,013 |
| Clergyman | 878 | 475 | 983 | 534 |

Eighteen

Here is a real maladjustment in our occupational life. Overcrowded professions? No! Badly distributed professional workers? Yes! The challenge is for professional classes to be so distributed that their services may become available to that one-third of the population now without their services.

Women Workers

There are 1,841,000 Negro women workers fifteen years of age and over in the United States - half of the total Negro female population of that age group. Negro married women form one-fourth of all the married women working away from home. The ratio of Negro married women employed is three times greater than that for all women, three and one-half times greater than the ratio of native-white women, and four times greater than that of foreign-born white women.

The following table gives the percentage distribution of working women in each racial and national group.

TABLE VIII.

PROPORTION OF WOMEN FIFTEEN YEARS OLD AND OVER
GAINFULLY OCCUPIED
BY COLOR AND NATIVITY
For the United States
1930, 1920 and 1910

[[4 column table]]
| Class of Population | 1930 | 1920 | 1910 |
| TOTAL | 22.0 | 21.1 | 23.4 |
| Foreign-born White | 18.8 | 18.4 | 21.7 |
| Native White | 20.5 | 19.3 | 19.2 |
| Negro | 38.9 | 38.9 | 54.7 |

Child Labor 

Of the 667,000 children between the ages of ten and fifteen gainfully employed, 240,000 or 36 per cent are Negro children. The rate of child labor among Negroes is five times higher than that among native-white children, and eight times higher than that of foreign-born whites. In South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, the actual number of Negro children so employed is greater than the number of white children.

Nineteen