The Urban Negro in the South

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARIES The Urban Negro in The South BY WILMOTH A. CARTER VANTAGE PRESS New York Washington Hollywood FIRST EDITION All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form Copyright, 1961, by Wilmoth A. Carter Published by Vantage Press, Inc. 120 West 31st Street, New York 1, N. Y. Manufactured in the United States of America FOREWORD The volume which you are about to read represents the results of research undertaken to satisfy requirements at the graduate school level at the University of Chicago. Subsumed originally under the title "Negro Main Street of a Contemporary Urban Community," the specifics of the study remain unaltered but are here presented in line with the broad scope of currently empha- sized social phenomena within the southern part of the United States. The ideas here assembled have grown out of a keen interest in, questful understanding of, and much sought after explana- tions for the diverse and differentiated m-ban behavior patterns. Where these have revolved around racial or ethnic groups observation, both structured and unstructured, has usually given evidence of variant forms of behavior within the city, and hence suggested lines of inquiry for community study. Although addi- tional lines of inquiry have been suggested by the student sit-in movement and its counterpart, the freedom rides, the time sequence involved in their development places them outside the confines of the present study. However, because their apparent impact upon the forces here analyzed is of immediate concern, brief consideration is given of them in Appendix One. Acknowledgments must here be made to those persons in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago under whose guidance the study was pursued; to those authors whose ideas the writer may have unconsciously incorporated into her own; to those publishers now inoperative from whom source materials may have been selected, as well as those who have permitted use of certain quoted materials; and to the many persons interviewed in order to ascertain verifiable data for the original study. Gratitude must be expressed to Shaw University, the Department of Schools and Colleges of the American Baptist Convention, my father, sisters and brother without whose in- valuable assistance publication of the findings contained herein would have been impossible. WiLMOUTH A. Carter Shaw University Raleigh, North Carolina October, 1961 CHAPTER PAGE Part I Introductory 1. Theoretical Orientation and Methodological Considerations Part li Growth of Negro Business Under the Impact of Urbanization %2^ Community Characteristics Within a Region-State r Pattern 27 ^"^ 3. Negro Main Street As A Portrait of the Natural History of Negro Business 41 Part III Influences of Discrimination on Consumers' Use of Space 4. The Negro Main Street As a Symbol of Discrimination 85 5. Negro Main Street As an Index of Customer Behavior 123 6. Negro Main Street and Usage in Relation to Spatial Arrangements 142 Part IV Styles of Life and Their Reflections in Group Formation, Action and Thought 7. Persons, Places and Interests As Symbols of Main Street Group Behavior 167 8. Solidarity and Race-Consciousness Witliin the Main Street Complex 186 9. Racial Ideologies Evidenced Through the Negro Main Street 213 Part V Facets in Social Change 10. Main Street Changes As Reflections of Social Change 229 11. Summary and Conclusions 244 Appendix One—Together They Sit 252 Appendix Two 256 Bibliography 269 PART I INTRODUCTORY Chapter 1 Theoretical Orientation And Methodological Considerations UE*ERHAPs one of the most illuminating statements ever made about me status of the Southern city is given by E. W. Parks. Says he, "Every possible forecast impHes that the continued growth of the city, with a concomitant advance of industrialism, will tend to standardize our cities and make them more completely like all other American cities. But at present they remain a group apart."^ More than two decades have passed since this statement was made, during which time the Southern city has undergone numerous changes, but stiU maintains a high degree of individuality which merits investigation. Among the factors that keep the Southern city in "a group apart" is its low percentage of varying ethnic groups and its high percentage of two predominantly racial groups. Because a city is both a physical mechanism and a population aggregate, possessing reciprocal relationships between the physical and human elements,^ the human and spatial patterns of Uving within such an unwalled community are of signifi- cance in studying American culture. '' Numerous studies have called attention to significant features of ethnic and racial groups within the United States, but there is a dearth of scientific knowledge regarding such groups inside the Southern city. As a unit of investigation the Southern city has been one of the neglected aspects of inquiries concerned with urban society. The present study proposes to help fill this gap through an investigative approach that provides basis for a de- scriptive analysis of the behavior of a racial group in a commu- , nity that forms part of the urban South. Accepting the view that facial and nationality bonds tend to subgroup a city's population into various economic areas and to further subgroup into social divisions within the economic areas,^ the Negro Main Street of a contemporary community offers a valuable framework for the lEdd Winfield Parks, "Southern Towns and Cities," W. T. Couch (ed.) Culture in the South, (Chapel Hill: University of N. C. Press, 1934), p. 518. 2 R. D. McKenzie, The Metropolitan Community, (New York: McGraw Hill Book Co., 1933), p. 213. 10 THE XJRBAN NEGRO IN THE SOUTH analysis of a segment of urban behavior. The major hypothesis posited by this study is as follows: Main Streets assume their character under the impact of urbanizing forces linked with social systems in which certain culturally-dominant values help mold the behavior of persons identified therewith. Where the identifying persons are racial groups and the culturally-dominant values racially oriented, the nature of relationships between racial groups finds overt expression in the construction of specific media through which to channel the group behavior. Special institutions and services become part of the media constructed to serve this end, and their functions form the integrative elements in the structuring of such media. Thus, the Negro Main Street becomes a constructed medium that symbohzes specific values, maintains specific institutions and services, and aids the identifi- \ cation of patterns of behavior arising out of a racially-oriented <»mmunity. Vrhe central problem of this investigation is to determine the nature of functions of the Negro Main Street in.relation to dominant social values that form a nucleus for specific types of social behavior in the contemporary urban community. It is proposed to delineate the characteristic functions of the Negro Main Street by tracing the history of Negro business in the community of Raleigh, North Carolina; by studying the nature of Negro business and services under the impact of discrimination; by exam- ining the formal and informal group characterizations that ema- nate from Negro Main Street participation; and by analyzing change in the Negro business world within the context of gen- eral social change. Guided thus by the previously-designated hypothesis relative to the origin and nature of the Negro Main Street, and the problem of determining what the functions of the street are, the study is organized into the following parts: 1)\ Growth of Negro business under the impact of lurbanization; 2) The influence of discrimination upon consumers' use of space; 3) Styles of life and their reflections in group formation, action and thought; 4 ) Facets in social change. \ Organization of the data of this study into the preceding cate- gories tends to help structure specific findings and generalizations resting upon the following premise: accompanying the urbanization processes have been changes in the nature of racial accom- 3 R. D. McKenzie, The Neighborhood: A Study of Local Life in the City of Columbus, Ohio (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923). THE URBAN NEGRO IN THE SOUTH 11 modation and, since the economy of a people is a basic com- ponent of its culture, alterations in the nature of racial adjust- ment are nowhere more evident than in the economic sphere where patterns of consumption have been conditioned by meas- ures of discrimination. It follows therefore that, if racial adjust- ment involves usage of discriminatory policies and practices, then any racial group of consumers will find means of expressing this in areas most pertinent to its way of life. A series of questions is posited by the approach to the problem around which this study centers. Those of primary signi^- cance are: 1) What has been the impact of urbanization upon the\ development of the Negro Main Street? 2) What factors have influenced the evolution of the street? 3) How has discrimination affected the formation and functioning of the street? 4 ) What patterns of consumption are manifest in the institutions and services located on the street? 5) How has spatiality influenced the character and use of the street? 6) By what means are special types of groups caught up in the web of Negro Main Street ac- tivities? 7 ) What effect has the Negro Main Street produced upon intra-group attitudes and cohesiveness? 8 ) What racial ideologies have developed in relation to the Negro Main Street and how have these been modified through time? 9) Wliat social signifi- cance attaches to changes taking place in the street? Vrhis study aims to provide a framework within which to seek answers to the preceding questions. The specific assumptions on which the questions are based can be stated respectively thus: 1) Urban phenomena assume their characterizations from specific combinations of interacting forces within the urban environ- ment.

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