Life in the City

While many African Americans who moved to Hartford during this time found conditions preferable to those in the South, they also faced challenges in their new city. For instance, many manufacturing companies preferred to hire white immigrants to African Americans. Therefore, African Americans in the Hartford area found it difficult to find work in other professions besides agriculture, construction, and the service industries. Even amongst African Americans themselves there was class-based discrimination. Partially due to Euro-Americans’ fears about the rapidly increasing number of “Southern Negroes,” African Americans who had lived in Hartford longer sometimes refused to associate with them. 

Additionally, like other immigrants to the city, the majority of newly arriving African Americans found themselves in the older and poorer areas of Hartford. Unlike white immigrants, however, because of the de facto discrimination in employment, in general, African Americans found it difficult to move out of such areas. The challenges posed to African Americans in Hartford led Reverend C. L. Fisher of Union Baptist Church to remind his parishioners: “It is our duty to exercise the rights that are granted us and to contend for those that are denied us.”

Untenable Tenements

Since many of the African Americans who arrived in Hartford at this time found themselves in older and poorer areas of the city, it follows that the housing conditions they experienced was often sub-par. Although some African Americans were able to own homes, most of them lived in tenement apartments. Conditions were often crowded and sanitation was poor. At the same time, it was difficult to leave the poorer wards of the city, for several reasons.

As previously mentioned, discrimination in employment meant that more profitable occupations were frequently off limits to African Americans. To make matters worse, many had little in the way of savings when they arrived in Connecticut. Housing discrimination was also an issue throughout the region. Even if one were successful in leaving these areas, it could mean potentially isolating themselves from friends, family members, and a sense of community. As a result, many in Hartford, including African Americans themselves, began to push for housing reforms.