THE NEGROES OF NEBRASKA

     (15) The Negroes of Nebraska present an interesting background with regard to birthplace and nativity. Of those now living in the State only about one-fourth are natives of Nebraska. Approximately another fourth were born in northern states other than Nebraska, while less than half can claim the South as their birthplace. Negroes have come to Nebraska from almost every other state in the Union. A number have even been born abroad. One Nebraska Negro Is from the Philippine Islands, and at least one was born in Africa.

     Those States which have contributed the largest numbers of their native Negroes to Nebraska are Missouri, Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Alabama made its greatest contribution during the World War. It has been estimated, by one who was an early member of the movement, that approximately 1,000 Negroes from Brewton, Alabama, entered and settled in this State, particularly at Omaha, during the years 1917-1920.

     As a rule Negro immigrants to Nebraska have not come here directly from their native state. Whether they are northern-born or southern-born the majority of them have made one or more moves, involving various periods of years, before finally settling in Nebraska. This is true of approximately two-thirds of the immigrants.

     A small percentage of the Negroes of Nebraska, somewhat leas than ten per cent, are of pure African descent. This percentage grows smaller from year to year as intermarriage between the pure Africans and those with mixed descent continues. In the ancestry of those not wholly of African descent there is a greater or less mixture of white blood. The majority can also be included in the group possessing Indian and Mexican elements in their racial heritage.

     With each successive generation the process of amalgamation increases. The children of pure Africans and those of mixed blood are themselves of a mixed heritage group. In spite of statutory marriage restrictions between whites and Negroes some intermingling of the two races occurs, legitimately or otherwise, and more and more Negroes of mixed heritage arise to replace the pure Africans.

     There has always been a preponderance of males over females among the Negroes of Nebraska. At times, especially during the Second Great Exodus, this discrepancy between the sexes has been quite marked. At the present time men still outnumber the women, though by a much smaller margin than in former years.

     About two-thirds of Nebraska's Negro population are in the age group below forty years. One-sixth of the population is under ten years of age. In comparison with other racial groups the proportion of children among Negroes is below normal.

     Since, during the First Great Exodus, the Negroes who came to Nebraska were, as a rule, both unlettered and unskilled, their occupational status was a foregone conclusion. The only jobs open to them were as waiters, porters, janitors, and like pursuits. Even jobs such as these were new to the rural-bred immigrants. A few, it is true, found work in the industries and packing plants, but this number was limited by the fact that competition from other immigrant groups, together with the indifference of employers toward Negro labor, proved to be an obstacle difficult to overcome.

     (16) Those who entered Nebraska during the Second Great Exodus came at a time when Negroes were in demand as laborers to replace men who had gone to war. Furthermore they were of a generation which had entered many pursuits other than agriculture. Employers learned that Negro workmen, given the same opportunities, learned their tasks and performed them as creditably as did laborers from other racial groups.

     The Negroes of Nebraska, as a group, have avidly seized upon and improved every opportunity presented to them for economic improvement, so that today representatives of the race are found in almost every occupation in the State.

     The financial resources of the immigrants as a rule have paralleled their occupational status, since wages offered to Negroes are usually low in accordance with the unskilled occupations open to them. It has been difficult for them, therefore, to lighten the economic burden under which they labor. The ex-slaves who came to Nebraska, and those who followed them in later years, were from a class of people who left their old homes with the hope that they could better their economic status. Since the immigrant with even a small capital reserve was the exception rather than the rule, it has not been until later years that individual enterprise in business might expect some success and permanence, though members of the race have established concerns of their own from earliest times up to the present.

     The Negro immigrants to Nebraska have been quick to adapt themselves to the ways of living and customs of the people among whom they settled. This trait has been of considerable value to them in fitting themselves into a new scheme and in finding a place in the economic life of the community. This same adaptability has facilitated the transition from rural to urban life, from plantation to city dwelling, from cotton field to work bench. On the other hand, it has resulted in an almost complete effacement of the characteristic racial custom survivals, in contrast to their stubborn retention in other immigrant groups. In both their home life and their life and activities as members of the commonwealth the Negroes of Nebraska, disregarding racial differences, have blended into the pattern of life in Nebraska, in the space of a few years, such as no other group of newcomers has done.

     During the early years of Negro immigration to Nebraska there was a high incidence of illiteracy among the pioneers. The majority of them came from the South, where the educational advantages accorded to Negroes were extremely limited. Since their arrival in Nebraska, with its free schools open to all races, literacy has consistently increased among them until today the illiterate Negro is a rarity. In 1890 there were 1,367 illiterate Negroes in this State, 19.1 per cent of the total colored population. This figure dropped to 633, or 11.9 per cent, in 1900. The 482 illiterates in 1910 comprised 7.2 per cent of the Negroes of the State. These figures illustrate one phase of the efforts of the Negro immigrants to better their economic status.

      The religious background of the early Negro settlers was one of plantation prayer meetings, augmented and supplemented by the Negro Church founded in the South by the race itself during slavery days. Their services followed somewhat the style and usage of those in white churches, though in their religious life, more so than in other activities, the Negroes have developed and established some usages peculiarly their own. Here, virtually free from contact with another race, they have interpreted the Scriptures and worshipped at their churches according to the dictates of their conscience.

     (17) Many of the immigrants, the Brewton, Alabama, group, for one example, not finding exactly what they desired in the way of religious advantages among the Negroes already established in the State, have brought their old pastors to Nebraska, reorganized their congregations, and founded their churches anew. In this one respect alone, the Negro settlers have varied in their customary adaptability to life and customs as found in their new surroundings.

     Permanent settlement, after establishing residence in Nebraska, has not been characteristic of the Negro immigrants. A certain proportion, for one or another reason, have found it expedient after a time to leave Nebraska and go to some other State. Among those that remain in Nebraska one or more moves within the State, or even within the city, is common, so that the average length of Nebraska residence for the Negro immigrant in any particular place or locality is about seven years.

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