| Chapter 1: | Health Conditions in Harlem in the Early Years of Black Urbanization |
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After 1924, however, immigration restrictions permitted West Indians entry into the United States only under quotas set aside for their colonial ruling powers.6 Despite these restrictions, over forty thousand West Indians immigrated to Harlem between 1900 and 1930.7 By 1925, the convergence of these three migratory streams had created in Harlem the most densely populated black urban community in the United States, with more than two hundred thousand residents.
In that same year, New York City's standardized black mortality rate was 18.2 per 1,000 blacks—identical to the nationwide black mortality rate.8 Harlem's general mortality rate of 16.2 per 1,000 was slightly lower than the black nationwide death rate. However, this lower death rate exceeded Manhattan's mortality rate of 14.3 and New York City's general mortality rate of 11.4, suggesting that Harlem's residents were healthier than black folk throughout the country, yet considerably less healthy than other residents of New York City.9 The general mortality rate only reveals part of the physical health problems of the 1920s Harlem community. For many migrants and immigrants, Harlem was a foreign health ecology: a new, unfamiliar social, physical, and geopolitical space where illness and access to medical care were determined by unfamiliar environmental, structural, political, and behavioral factors. From this perspective, wellness and well-being emerge as important conceptual tools as they allow one to examine quality of life issues; relate those issues to the physical, social, and political climates of New York; and move beyond a singular, oversimplified view of health as a purely physical state. In this health ecology, many individuals unexpectedly experienced compromised health in which their physical and emotional well-being was arrested.
In addition to the social hindrances and novelties to be coped with, there was a considerable emotional toll. Some migrants were consumed with anxiety and uncertainty. Farah Jasmine Griffin used African American autobiographical, musical,