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The Settlement House Movement
A settlement house was basically a community center run by volunteers that was located in a run-down, poor area of the city. The purpose of the settlement house was to help poor immigrants that were new to the country learn how to succeed in an industrial society. Activities in the settlement were mainly run by middle- to upper-class White women and included a mix of social services, education, cultural program, vocational training, recreation, and entertainment. The house itself often served as a daycare, bathhouse, school, soup kitchen, employment office, and salon.
While many settlement founders spoke of equality, mutual respect, and social change, it turns out that these concepts were not to apply to Blacks.
Exclusion
So how is it that movement dedicated to justice and equality denied these rights to Blacks? Some researchers say it was due to racism on the part of the settlement house founders while others say the settlement founders were just trying to maintain social control over the classes (in an attempt to ensure their security of their place in the middle class). Either way, there was a definitive lack of support for poor Blacks by White reformers.
As Blacks migrated North in search of a better life, they often found themselves moving the run-down areas of town, right in the middle of the settlements. As Blacks moved in, Whites moved out, not wanting to live in the same neighborhood as the Blacks. Attendance at settlement house activities began to dwindle as Whites refused to come to area now inhabited by Blacks. Instead of welcoming the Black communities, the settlement founders refused to allow Blacks to use their facilities; allowed Blacks, but kept them separate from the Whites; or closed up shop and moved the settlement elsewhere.
Surprisingly, this exclusion from the settlement movement came about because of the way the settlement founders viewed Blacks. Even the most liberal and inclusive of settlement workers did not believe that the settlements were the right place for Blacks. Some of the views held by these settlement workers included: Black families were weak; Blacks lacked motivation; Blacks do not resent segregation; Blacks lacked morals and Whites were their moral superiors; the ways of the South promoted criminality in Blacks; Blacks were ignorant to the ways of domestic life; Blacks were incapable of staying clean and healthy without the intervention of the wiser Whites; Blacks were without character; Blacks did not want to be equal to Whites, they just wanted to be better Blacks; Blacks were made too comfortable during slavery and now wanted to avoid work; Blacks could not assimilate to the White culture because they needed so much self-improvement; and that Blacks should help other Blacks without the help of Whites.
An Exception to the Rule
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| Mary White Ovington |
Mary White Ovington, a worker at a settlement house in New York City, had been brought up to be sensitive to the issue of race by her abolitionist parents. However it was not until she attended a lecture by Booker T. Washington that she realized her belief that Reconstruction had left Blacks in better circumstances was completely off the mark. Just six years later, she helped organize a conference to address the fact that Blacks were not being subjected to unacceptable conditions because they were uncultured and uncivilized, but because they were being treated as "half a man". The platform developed during this conference later became the basis of the organization now known as the NAACP.
Not long after attending his speech, Ovington became good friends with Washington and they remained friends for the next thirty years. Mary explained to Washington that she wanted to use her experience as a settlement worker to bring social work to the Black community. She wrote to him of her plans to found an interracial settlement, but knew that she faced an uphill battle. She believed that both races should work together as equals to run the settlement, saying that the racial isolation caused by segregation could be the reason race relations were so bad in the South.
Her plan was to have two White and two Black workers at the settlement, while populating the settlement itself with only Blacks. However, in the end, she was the only White person willing to live among the Blacks in the settlement and the staff was never integrated.
Ovington felt that it was her sex that kept her from succeeding in the way she had hoped. She found that it was hard to be taken seriously and that at times her presence at events could do more harm than good. There were times that newspapers would write horrible and untrue things about her simply because she was seen being friendly to a Black man.
Sadly, despite the interest of Ovington and those like her, settlement houses were never truly racially integrated.
What If?
What if African Americans had been included in the settlement house movement? What if the White reformers had willingly taken up the cause of the Blacks and worked to secure their equal rights with the same passion they had for European immigrants? What if the fight against racism had started 50-60 years earlier than it did? What if there had been two more generations of Blacks empowered to succeed with the help of social services? What if Blacks had not needed to fight poverty and inequality without interracial cooperation? What if these pioneering White reformers had not seen Blacks as inferior beings unworthy of their advocacy?
What would the life of the Black community look like today?
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What do you think readers? Are you surprised to learn that a movement advocating justice and equality for all excluded an entire race of people? What do you think about how these White reformers handle the issue of race in the settlements? What lasting effects do you think this had on the future of the African American community?
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