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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - X. The Negro Community - 44. Non-Institutional Aspects of the Negro Community - 5. Negro Achievements
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Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 991
serious arts of poetry, the drama, painting and sculpture which were most
affected by the depression. During the 1920^8 they had been supported
by the intellectuals and the pseudo-intellectuals j
during the 1930^8 these
people either had little money left or no longer cared for the Negro arts.
The fad of adulating things Negro was definitely over, and Negro per-
formers and artists had to compete with others without any special advan-
tage. The best held on and strengthened their popularity; the mediocre
dropped out and were soon forgotten. The Negro artists themselves
developed higher standards and sought to base their art on something more
secure than the white man’s demand for the exotic and the bizarre. General
anti-Negro prejudice makes it somewhat harder for a Negro artist or per-
former to get a position than for a white person of equal talent, but on the
whole there is less prejudice in this field than in practically any other field.®
Some whites are inclined to have a double standard in judging Negro
achievements 5
they applaud mediocrity and thereby foster it.
The federal government provided special opportunity between 1935 and
1939, when the Federal Theater aided unemployed Negroes by putting on
all-Negro shows: there was a chance not only for Negro actors, but also
for Negro writers, musicians and producers. The shows were successful
and they strengthened both white and Negro recognition of Negro talent.
The Negro painter was also given his chance when the W.P.A. and the
N.Y.A. required the designing and decoration of such public works as
schools, libraries, hospitals and parks. These federal agencies also offered
art classes of various sorts, mostly in practical arts, and many Negroes par-
ticipated.®® The Federal Writers’ Project provided further opportunities
for Negro writers.
Today Negroes have a high record of performance and popularity in both
serious and comic entertainment. Negro dancers, singers, orchestras, come-
dians, strip-teasers, and acrobats are used in theater stage shows and night
club floor shows in all the large Northern cities. There are all-Negro shows
and shows with both white and Negro performers (in the last 6 or 7 years
Negroes have even been permitted to play in predominantly white
orchestras).®^ Negro sections of cities often contain a few entertainment
places which are popular with white audiences. In the South Negro per-
formers are much more restricted, but are sometimes used if strictly segre-
• Negroes cannot get on the opera stage, and they are occasionally restricted on the con-
cert stage (witness the famous incident in 1939 when the Daughters of the American Revolu-
tion prevented Marian Anderson from singing in Constitution Hall in Washington, D. C.).
More serious restrictions against the Negro occur in the field of sports. Negroes cannot get
into big league baseball and rarely have they been allowed into competitive tennis or golf
games. They are generally kept out of competitive sports which require teams. Even in
boxing, the sport in which they have achieved such notable success, they have been seriously
restricted (for example. Jack Dempsey, when champion, consistently refused to let Harry
Wills battle for his crown).
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