NEGRO IN AMERICA

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 123, 27 May 1930, Page 9

NEGRO IN AMERICA

DECLINING PROPORTION

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YORK, Ist May.

That the Census now being taken will show the smallest .percentage of Negro population ever recorded in the United States is the opinion of -the Commission on Inter-racial Co-operation. In a statement just issued, the Commission refutes the . prevailing opinion that-Negroes arc increasing faster than Whites. ,'

The statement .adds that the percentage of Negroes in the total population at present is only halt' as. largo as it was in 1790, and is steadily growing smaller. The Commission's statement is as follows:—

"In 1790 the proportion of Negroes in the total population of'the United States was one in five; in 1920 the proportion was one in' ten. In the meantime, with biit two exceptions, every ten-year Census showed a lower per cent., of Negro population than the previous one. " -.. .

"It is especially surprising to'find that tho proportion of Negroes has decreased more rapidly in the South than in any other section of tlie country. In the earler days practically all the Negroes in America lived in the South, but in 1920, chiefly as the result of repeated migrations, there1 were 1,550,000 members of the race living in other sections of the country out of a total Negro population of 10,463,131. • , "For the last three Census periods, 1900, 1910, and 1920, the' proportion of Negroes in the total population of the. Southern States has been, respectively, 32 per cent., 29 per cent., and 27 per cent. This trend has'been true not only of the region as a whole, but also of every Southern State with the exception of Oklahoma.",