It was in fact a brighter day for the colored people. In 1840 an
observer said that they had improved faster than any other people in the
city. The _Cincinnati Gazette_ after characterizing certain Negroes as
being imprudent and vicious, said of others: "Many of these are
peaceable and industrious, raising respectable families and acquiring
property."[36] Mr. James H. Perkins, a respectable citizen of the city,
asserted that the day school which the colored children attended had
shown by examination that it was as good as any other in the city. He
said further: "There is no question, I presume, that the colored
population of Cincinnati, oppressed as it has been by our state laws as
well as by prejudice, has risen more rapidly than almost any other
people in any part of the world."[37] Within three or four years their
property had more than doubled; their schools had become firmly
established, and their churches and Sunday Schools had grown as rapidly
as any other religious institutions in the city. Trusting to good
conduct and character, they had risen to a prosperous position in the
eyes of those whose prejudices would "allow them to look through the
skin to the soul."[38]

The colored people had had too many enemies in Cincinnati, however, to
expect that they had overcome all opposition. The prejudice of certain
labor groups against the Negroes increased in proportion to the
prosperity of the latter. That they had been able to do as well as they
had was due to the lack of strength on the part of the labor
organizations then forming to counteract the sentiment of fair play for
the Negroes. Their labor competed directly with that of the whites and
began again to excite "jealousy and heart burning."[39] The Germans, who
were generally toiling up from poverty, seemed to exhibit less
prejudice; but the unfortunate Irish bore it grievously that even a few
Negroes should outstrip some of their race in the economic struggle.