B ETWEEN the exhortations of various federal agencies on the one hand and the execrations of certain Negro newspapers on the other, it is not easy to get very much precise information about the roles actually being played by colored workers in American business and industry. Particularly is this true in the South, where current manpower needs and government rulings come into conflict with many time-worn attitudes and practices. Our purpose is to summarize an investigation of selected aspects of this situation in the spring of 1943. New Orleans, the locale of the study, has a population of more than half-a-million, 30.1 per cent of its total being reported as colored in I940. A special census tabulation reveals that 32.59 per cent of the 177,312 persons employed in the city in March 1940 were Negroes. The employment of large numbers of Negroes affords, therefore, a wide range of situations for inquiry. The data presented have been obtained from I75 firms, employing a total of 44,740 persons, 8,306 of whom are Negroes. Since 68.o per cent of all Negro women employees in the city are in domestic service, and a great many Negro men are also employed as gardeners, etc. (not to mention those who are self-employed), our figures are by no means representative of all Negro workers. The firms sampled, however, are a reasonably adequate cross-section, both as to size and type of enterprise, of the more important kinds of business and industry in New Orleans.' To each of the firms a questionnaire was