Page:The Philadelphia Negro A Social Study.djvu/101

Sect 13.] Of all the large cities in the United States, only three have a larger absolute Negro population than Philadelphia: Washington, New Orleans and Baltimore. We seldom realize that none of the great Southern cities, except the three mentioned, have a colored population approaching that of Philadelphia:

Cities. Colored Inhabitants. Cities. Colored Inhabitants.

Washington, D. C. 75,697

New Orleans, La. 64,663

Philadelphia, Pa. 40,374*

Richmond Va. 32,354.

Charleston, S. C. 31,036

Nashville, Tenn. 29,395

Memphis, Tenn. 28,729

Louisville, Ky. 28,672

Atlanta, Ga. 28,117

Savannah, Ga. 22,978


 * Includes Chinese, Japanese and civilized Indians, an insignificant number in these cases.

Taken by itself, the Negro population of Philadelphia is no insignificant group of men, as the foregoing diagrams show. (See page 52.)

In other words, we are studying a group of people the size of the capital of Pennsylvania in 1890, and as large as Philadelphia itself in 1800.

Scanning this population more carefully, the first thing that strikes one is the unusual excess of females. This fact, which is true of all Negro urban populations, has not often been noticed, and has not been given its true weight as a social phenomenon. If we take the ten cities having the greatest Negro populations, we have this table: