rtaining to health, we have no such
privileges; they have the gymnasiums where they can go and develop
themselves physically, we have not; they have all the parks where they
and their children can go in the hot summer days and breathe the pure,
cool air, but for fear we might catch a breath of that air and live,
they put up large signs, which read thus, 'For white people only'; they
live in the best homes, while we live in humble ones; they live in the
cleanest and healthiest parts of the city, while we live in the
sickliest and filthiest parts of the city; the streets on which they
live are cleaned once and twice a day, the streets on which we live are
not cleaned once a month, and some not at all; besides, they have plenty
of money with which they can get any physician they wish, any medicine
they need, and travel for their health when necessary; all of these
blessings we are deprived of. Now, my friends, in the face of all these
disadvantages, do you not think we are doing well to stay here as long
as we do?"

Another colored writer, less eloquent, but not less accurate, in
summarizing the statistics collected under the guidance of Atlanta
University concludes:[32]--

"Overcrowding in tenements and houses occupied by colored people does
not exist to any great extent, and is less than was supposed.

"In comparison with white women, an excess of colored women support
their families, or contribute to the family support, by occupation which
takes them much of their time from home, to the neglect of their
children.

"Environment and the sanitary condition of houses are not chiefly
responsible for the excessive mortality among colored people.

"Ignorance and disregard of the laws of health are responsible for a
large proportion of this excessive mortality."

It is pointed out by these colored students and by many others that the
excessive mortality of colored people is owing to pulmonary consumption,
scrofula, and syphilis, all of which are constitutional; and to infant
mortality due also to constitutional and congenital disease. The census
of 1900 reports for a portion of the Northern states that for every 1000
white children under five years of age there were 49.7 deaths in one
year, and for every 1000 colored children under five years there were
118.5 deaths, an excess of negro infant mortality of 137 per cent.[33]
The census also reports that negro deaths in cities owing to consumption
are proportionately 2.8 ti