The Negro's church,.

Financing Negro Churches

193

also a few instances where white Baptist churches made a substantial donation to Negro Baptist churches. Of the 609
churches, 538, or 88.3 per cent., claim to have received no
appreciable help from outside sources during the last four
years. It is not too much to assert that, for the most part,
Negro churches are supported out of the meager earnings of
Negro people-the dollars, half-dollars, quarters, dimes and
nickels of the toiling multitude of Negro workers.
Economic Status of the Race in Relation to Church Finance
Little hope comes from the assumption that because Negro
congregations are large they can easily afford to expand indefinitely their programs. It was pointed out in the chapter on
membership that it was the consensus of opinion of pastors
and church officials of the study that 94.4 per cent. of the
congregations are composed of either domestic servants, laborers, or a combination of both, and that only 2.4 per cent. of
the congregations have a majority of their members skilled
tradesmen, business and professional people.
These opinions, for the race as a whole, are supported statistically by Government reports. The most reliable information available on the occupational distribution of Negroes in
the United States shows that four and a half million Negroes
are "gainfully employed," and that two millions of these are
making their living on farms. Of this number 232,000 Negroes are said to own farms, 500,000 are operating farms as
tenants or managers, and one million and a quarter are just
laborers or croppers. One million are industrial laborers, approximately a quarter of a million of them skilled or semiskilled; and one million are in domestic service. There are
100,000 listed in the professions, of which over three-fourths
are teachers and preachers. There are only 4,000 practicing
physicians, 5,000 nurses, 1,500 dentists and 1,000 lawyers.
Seventy thousand are reputed to be engaged in business, which