Demographic change and entrepreneurial occupation: African Americans in Northern Cities

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The,  April, 1996  by Robert L. Boyd

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III

African Americans in an Occupation Serving African Americans

Lieberson's model implies that members of the bottom-most group in the ethnic queue will find their greatest opportunities for self-employment in occupations that serve members of their own group. This is especially true when the ethnic group is growing. Lieberson (1980, 297-98) in fact states, "if the black population base is large enough, there will be support for black doctors, black clergy, and so on, even if they remain totally unacceptable to others." This is the idea behind a group economy, i.e., "a cooperative arrangement of industries and services within the Negro group such that the group tends to be a closed economic circle largely independent of the surrounding white world" (Du Bois 1907, 179, quoted in Waldinger and Aldrich, 1990, 59).

Entrepreneurial opportunities will also arise from within the ethnic group itself, and will expand with the size of the group, because, for various reasons, higher-ranked groups will not, or cannot, perform certain services or supply certain products demanded by the bottom-most group. This provides entrepreneurs from the latter with a consumer market sheltered from outside competition. Such protected markets are based on an "insider's knowledge" of the special consumer demands of co-ethnics (Kinzer and Sagarin, 1950, 144-45; Light, 1972, 10-18) or on prevailing cultural norms regarding the social distance appropriate for dealing with the pariah group (Aldrich, Cater, et al., 1985). Lieberson's model thus implies that the growth of the African American population in northern cities during 1900-1930 might increase the concentration of African Americans in entrepreneurial occupations based on protected markets.

This proposition will be tested by an analysis of undertaking. Undertaking was perhaps the most exclusive protected market available to African American entrepreneurs in the early twentieth century. One foundation of this protected market was the refusal of white undertakers to touch the corpses of African Americans. In only very rare instances would white undertakers in the North handle an African American funeral, and in no case would an African American undertaker handle a white funeral (Myrdal, 1944, 309-10; Drake and Cayton [1945] 1962, 456-57). Another factor was the central role of the funeral in traditional African American culture. Because the deceased had to be "put away right," undertakers in African American communities were more than entrepreneurs; they were social benefactors who worked closely with churches and lodges (Drake and Gayton, [1945], 1962, 456-57). The cultural imperative to properly bury the dead was reflected in the willingness of African Americans to spend a large share of their incomes on funerals (Myrdal, 1944, 310). Social distance and cultural tradition thus combined to give African American undertakers a monopoly over this consumer market in the African American community.

As in the foregoing analysis of barbering, data on undertakers for the ten cities will be examined at the time points of 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930. Again, only men are studied, since the data for women are incomplete.