Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/516

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508
THE AFRO-AMERICAN PRESS.

are not trained for pastoral labors. In other words, they have severely shut down on ignorance in the pulpit. We have never seen an estimate of the value of our church property, but it is safe to say it would run up iuto the millions. In Lynchburg alone, Afro-Americans own church property valued at $75,000 or $100,000.

In almost every city of the South there are Afro-American physicians, from one to three or four in number. There are also many of them practicing in the North and West. These physicians are getting much of the practice of the race and also much of the white practice, where they show superior fitness. Many are growing wealthy, possessing property estimated at ranging from $20,000 to $95,000.

The Baltimore American states that there are two hundred and fifty lawyers in the United States, some of whom have a practice worth from $1000 to $3500 per annum.

The Afro-American's personal property in the United States is placed, at a close calculation, at $263,000,000: Texas. $20,000,000; Louisiana, $18,100,528; New York, $17,400,750; Pennsylvania, $15,300,648; Mississippi, $13,400,213; South Carolina, $12,500,000; North Carolina, $11,010,652; Georgia, $10,415,330; Tennessee, $10,400,211; Alabama, $9,200,125. The other states range among the millions. The New South, alluding to these figures, states very confidently: "These speak volumes in themselves and show very plainly that this race problem is not such a difficult one after all. It needs only a little patience and forbearance on the part of those who come in contact with the question, coupled with fidelity to duty, and it will soon settle itself. Indeed, there would be no problem to settle. What constitutes the problem is the lack of these very things in so many of those who have to deal with the question, in one way or another."

The race has also furnished from two hundred and fifty