152 Negro Migration 



Studies of the sex ratio of our immigrant population 

 indicate that there is almost as much disturbance, in their 

 birth rate, but that males predominate among the European 

 immigrants while females predominate among the Negro 

 migrants. Similar small proportions of children to the total 

 foreign born population, and married males to the foreign 

 born population may be noted. 



The migration since 1916 was at first so largely made up 

 of male laborers that the inequality of sexes in the Eastern 

 cities has tended to be reduced. In some of the industrial 

 cities which had no appreciable Negro population before 

 1916, there is now a great excess of males. 



Excess of Deaths Over Births and Vitality. — It is fairly 

 well known that the Negro populations in Northern cities 

 are not self-sustaining by excess of births over deaths. 

 This is to be expected from the foregoing statement that 

 there were in 1910 only 282 colored children to each 1,000 

 colored women 15 to 44 years of age in the North and only 

 396 for each 1,000 married women of that group. In a study 

 of the Negroes of Boston, Massachusetts, John Daniels 

 noted 3 that between 1900 and 1910 in Greater Boston, the 

 birth rate and death rate among the Negroes were exactly 

 equal, being 25.4 per 1,000 in each case. Among the whites 

 the birth rate was 26.9 and the death rate 18.7. The birth 

 rate has not even equalled the death rate except recently. 

 Daniels points out that from 1870 to 1875 the Negro 

 death rate was as high as 41.3 per thousand while the birth 

 rate was only 30.9. "The excessive mortality and paucity 

 of births have thus worked for the extinction of Boston's 

 native Negro population." 



An examination of the annual reports of the Commis- 

 sioner of Public Health of New York City, 4 indicates that 



s "In Freedom's Birthplace," John Daniels, pp. 471, 134, and 

 136. 



4 "Annual Reports," Commissioner Public Health, New York 

 City, 1906, 1916. Tables showing Total Births and Deaths for 

 Colored in New York City. 



