# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1919_S36 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 36 The Lutheran Pioneer. We hope that the Stockbridge Indian Mission, so signally blessed in the past, may not be checked in its progress because of the lack of the necessary funds to erect another building so necessary to carry on the good work. Bevel la + Oe A Challenge. 10, In our last number we spoke of the colored in- yasion of the North, and called attention to the great Negro population of some Northern cities. The New York Evening Post’ of February 22 brought an interesting story of the large Negro settlement occupying fifty-two blocks in the heart of New York City and having a population of no less than 100,000 persons. Here, in a district vir- tually comprising a city within a city, there live in voluntary segregation enough Negroes to populate two cities the size of Montgomery, Ala., or three cities like Fort Smith, Ark. Less than twenty years ago the first Negro family moved into this district, and only a few years ago the colored population was quite small. To-day every line of business is conducted in this district by Negroes, and six weekly newspapers and three magazines are owned and pub- lished by them. The community has twenty Negro “physicians, twenty-five colored lawyers, about fifty trained nurses, eight dentists, four registered phar- macists, and two architects. It is the intention to organize a Board of Trade among the Negro busi- ness men of the district, and at present plans are under way to purchase land along the Harlem River where Negro factories may be established. From other larger cities of the North comes information which clearly indicates that these recent colored immigrants have no intention of returning to the South, even though strenuous efforts are made by Southern States to induce. them to go back to the land of their birth. The social and business advantages found in the North are more than enough to stifle every sigh that. might arise in their hearts for the sugar fields of Louisiana and the rice lands of Texas. ‘The industrial advantages found in the factories of the North and the educa- tional advantages offered the children in Northern schools will keep them in the shadow of Northern smokestacks, and help them to overcome their long- ings for the pure air of their former rural homes. True, Southern communities are trying to repair damage that has been done. Atlanta, Ga., where Negro children have no public school facilities be- yond the seventh grade, has promised its colored population a high school, and it is eyen possible that it will establish a library for the Negro resi- dents of the city, who haye for years helped to keep up the free libraries of the city, but never were permitted to make use of them! Representatives of the colored people haye met with the Chambers of Commerce in many parts of Georgia in recent years to talk over the situation and to find-means of lessening the friction between the two races, But all this has come too late to bring back those who have left for Northern industrial centers, and have there enjoyed the high wages that are being paid unskilled and semiskilled labor. On the other hand, it will probably be a means of holding those that have not yet left their native heaths and fields. But while the South has lost thousands upon thousands of Negroes because it did not provide them with what they had a right to expect, is the North now doing the proper thing by the immi- grant? Is there not something besides work, good wages, and educational facilities that the North is in duty bound to give the Negro who has come to live among us? Is the North doing its duty by the immigrant Negro after his working-hours? He has come to us because he can get work and big wages here; but shall we be satisfied when these things have been provided for him? It is after working- hours, and especially on Sunday, that the newcomer needs friendly advice and assistance. The immi- grant has moral and religious wants; what are the Northern Christians doing to supply them? Let us begin to realize before it is too late that the Negro, . 4 a newly arrived from the South, cut loose from all home-ties, and a stranger among strangers, is pass- ing through a great crisis. He needs Christian friends and champions as he never did before. His colored brethren and sisters should give him the glad hand of welcome, and kind hearts should be ready to warn him against the morel pitfalls that beset his path. What is our Church doing in this respect? «Are we doing all we can for the Negro in our large industrial centers? Many a Negro has come from one or the other of our Southern con- gregations to make for himself a new home in some large Northern city; have we in every case taken care of him as we should, and guarded his interests ? Bi. Lt = >esm = We cannot serve God and Mammon, but we can serve God with Mammon.