 Chapter 8 of A Century of Negro Migration, by Carter Woodson, Chapter 8, The Migration of the Talented Tenth. In spite of these interstate movements, the Negro still continued as a perplexing problem, for the country was unprepared to grant the race political and civil rights. Nominal equality was forced on the south at the point of the sword, and the north reluctantly removed most of its barriers against the blacks. Still thinking, however, that the two races could not live together as equals, advocated ceding the blacks the region on the Gulf of Mexico. This was branded as chimerical on the grounds that deprived of the guidance of the whites. These dates would soon sink into African level, and at the end of the experiment would be a reconquest and a military regime fatal to the true development of American institutions. Another plan proposed was the revival of the old colonization idea of sending Negroes to Africa, but this exhibited still less wisdom than the first in that it was based on the hypothesis of deporting a nation, an expense which no government would be willing to incur. There were then no physical means of transporting six or seven millions of people, moreover as there would be a newborn for every one of the agents of colonization could deport. With the deportation scheme still kept before the people by the American Colonization Society, the idea of immigration to Africa did not easily die. Some Negroes continued to immigrate to Liberia from year to year. This policy was also favored by radicals like Senator Morgan of Alabama, who after movements like the Ku Klux Klan had done their work of intimidating Negroes into submission through the domination of the whites concluded that most of the race believed that there was no future for the blacks in the United States, and that they were willing to immigrate. These radicals advocated the deportation of the blacks to prevent the recurrence of Negro domination. This plan was acceptable to the whites in general also, for unlike the consensus of opinion of today, it was then thought that the South could get along without the Negro. Even newspapers like the Charleston News and Courier, which denounced the persecution of the Negroes, urged them to immigrate to Africa as they could not be permitted to rule over white people. The Minneapolis Times wished the scheme success and Godspeed, and believed that the sooner it was carried out the better it would be for the Negroes. Most of the influential newspapers of the country, however, urged the contrary, citing the progress of the Negroes since emancipation to show that the blacks were doing their full share toward developing the wealth of the South, the Indianapolis Journal characterized as barbarism the suggestion that the government should furnish them transportation to Africa. The ancestors of most of the Negroes now in this country, said the editor, have doubtless been there as long as those of Senator Morgan, and their descendants are as thoroughly acclimated and have as good a right here as the Senator himself. This was the opinion of all useful Negroes except Bishop H. M. Turner, who endorsed Morgan's plan by advocating the immigration of one fourth of the blacks to Africa. The editor of the Chicago Record Herald intrigued Turner to temper his enthusiasm with discretion before he involved an unspeakable disaster any more of his trustful compatriots. Speaking more plainly to the point, the editor of the Philadelphia North American said that the true interest of the South was to accommodate itself to changed conditions and that the duty of the freedmen lies in making themselves worth more in the development of the South than they were as chattels. Although recognizing the disabilities and hardships of the South both to the whites and the blacks, he could not believe that the elimination of the Negroes would, if practicable, give relief. The Boston Herald inquired whether it was worthwhile to send away a laboring population in the absence of whites to take its place and referred to the misfortunes of Spain which undertook to carry out such a scheme. Between the real truth, the Milwaukee Journal said that no one needed to expect any appreciable decrease in the black population through any possible immigration, no matter how successful it might be. The Negro, said the editor, is here to stay, and our institutions must be adapted to comprehend him and develop his possibilities. The colored American, then the leading Negro organ of thought in the United States, believed that the Negroes should be thankful to Senator Morgan for his attitude on immigration, because he might succeed in deporting to Africa those Negroes who effect to believe that this is not their home, and the more quickly we get rid of such foolhardy people, the better it will be for the stalwart of the race. A number of Negroes, however, under the inspiration of leaders, did not feel that the race had a fair chance in the United States. A few of them immigrated to Guapimo, Mexico, but becoming dissatisfied with the situation there, they returned to their homes in Georgia and Alabama in 1895. The coming of the Negroes into Mexico caused suspicion and excitement. A newspaper, El Tiempo, which had been denouncing lynching in the United States, changed front when these Negroes arrived in that country. Going in quest of new opportunities and desiring to reinforce the civilization of Liberia, other Negroes sailed from Savannah, Georgia to Liberia, March 19, 1895. Commending this step, the Macon Telegraph referred to their action as a rebellion against social laws which govern all people of this country. This organ further said that it was the outcome of a feeling which has grown stronger and stronger year by year among the Negroes of the southern states, and which will continue to grow with the increase of education and intelligence among them. The editor conceded that they had an opportunity to better their material condition and acquire wealth here, but contended that they had no chance to rise out of the peasant class. The Memphis Commercial Appeal urged the building of a large Negro nation in Africa as practical and desirable, for it was more and more apparent that the Negro in this country must remain an alien and a disturber, because there was not and can never be a future for him in this country. The Florida Times Union felt that this colonization scheme, like all others, was a fraud. It referred to the Negroes being carried to the land of plenty, only to find out that there, as everywhere else in the world, an existence must be earned by toil, and that his own, old, sunny southern home is vastly the better place. Only a few intelligent Negroes, however, had reached the possession of being contented in the South. The Negroes eliminated from politics could not easily bring themselves around to thinking that they should remain there in a state of recognized inferiority, especially when during the 80s and 90s there were many evidences that economic as well as political conditions would become worse. The exodus treated in the previous chapter was productive of better treatment for the Negroes and an increase in their wages in certain parts of the South, but the migration, contrary to the expectations of many, did not become general. Actual prosperity was impossible even if the whites had been willing to give the Negro peasants a fair chance. The South had passed through a disastrous war, the effects of which so blighted the hopes of its citizen in the economic world that their land seemed to pass, so to speak, through a dark age. There was then little to give the man far down when the one to whom he of necessity looked for employment was in his turn bled by the merchant or the banker of the larger cities to whom he had to go for extensive credits. The American planters as a class, however, had not much sympathy for the blacks who had once been their property, and the tendency to cheat them continued despite the fact that many farmers in the course of time extricated themselves from the clutches of the loan sharks. There were a few Negroes who, thanks to the honesty of certain Southern gentlemen, succeeded in acquiring considerable property in spite of their handicaps. They yielded to the white men's control in politics when it seemed that it meant either to abandon that field or die, and devoted themselves to the accumulation of wealth and the acquisition of education. This concession, however, did not satisfy the radical whites as they thought that the Negro might someday return to power. Unfortunately, therefore, after the restoration of the control of the state governments to the master class, there swept over these commonwealths a wave of hostile legislation demanded by the poor white uplanders determined to debase the blacks to the status of the free Negroes prior to the Civil War. The Negroes have, therefore, been disenfranchised in most reconstructed states, deprived of the privilege of serving in a state militia, segregated in public conveyances, and excluded from public places of entertainment. They have, moreover, been branded by public opinion as pariahs of society to be used for exploitation, but not to be encouraged to expect that their status can ever be changed so as to destroy the barriers between the races in the social and political relations. This period has been marked also by an effort to establish in the South a system of peonage not unlike that of Mexico, a sort of involuntary servitude in that one is considered legally bound to serve his master until a debt contracted is paid. Such laws have been enacted in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. No such distinction in law has been able to stand the constitutional test of the United States courts as was evidenced by the decision of the Supreme Court in 1911 declaring the Alabama law unconstitutional. But the planters of the South, still a law unto themselves, have maintained actual slavery in sequestered districts where public opinion against peonage is too weak to support federal authorities in exterminating it. The Negroes themselves dare not protest under penalty of persecution and the peon concerned usually accepts his lot like that of a slave. Some years ago it was commonly reported that in trying to escape the persons undertaking it often fail and suffer death at the hands of the planter or of murderous mobs, giving as their excuse, if any be required, that the Negro is a desperado or some other sort of criminal. Unfortunately, this reaction extended also to education. Appropriations to public schools for Negroes diminished from year to year and when there appeared practical leaders with their sane plan for industrial education, the South ignorantly accepted this scheme as a desirable subterfuge for seeming to support Negro education and at the same time directing the development of the blacks in such a way that they would never become the competitors of white people. This was not these educators idea, but the South so understood it and in effecting the readjustment practically left the Negroes out of the pale of the public school systems. Consequently, there has been added to the Negroes misfortunes in the South that have been unable to obtain liberal education at public expense, although they themselves as the largest consumers in some parts pay most of the taxes appropriated to the support of schools for the youth of the other race. The South moreover has adopted the policy of a more general intimidation of the Negroes to keep them down. The lynching of the blacks, at first for assaults on white women and later for almost any offense, has rapidly developed as an institution. Within the past fifty years, there have been lynched in the South about four thousand Negroes, many of whom have been publicly burned in the daytime to attract crowds that usually enjoy such feats as the tourney of the Middle Ages. Negroes who have had the courage to protest against this barbarism have too often been subjected to indignities and in some cases forced to leave their communities or suffer the fate of those in behalf of whom they speak. These crimes of white men were at first kept secret, but during the last two generations the culprits have been known as heroes, so popular has it been to murder Negroes. It has often been discovered also that the officers of these communities take part in these crimes, and the worst of all is that politicians like Tillman, Bleeze, Verdamin, Glory in recounting the noble deeds of those who deserve so well of their countrymen for making the soil red with the Negro's blood rather than permit the much feared Africanization of southern institutions. In this harassing situation the Negro has hoped that the North would interfere in his behalf, but with the reactionary Supreme Court of the United States interpreting this hostile legislation as constitutional in conformity with the demands of prejudice public opinion and with the leaders of the North inclined to take the view that after all the factions in the South must be left alone to fight it out. There has been nothing to be expected from without. Matters too have been rendered much worse because the leaders of the very party recently abandoning the freedmen to their fate aggravated the critical situation by first setting the Negroes against their former masters whom they were taught to regard as their worst enemies whether they were or not. The last humiliation the Negroes have been forced to submit to is that of segregation. Here the effort has been to establish a ghetto in cities and to assign certain parts of the country to Negroes engaged in farming. It always happens of course that the best portion goes to the whites and the least desirable to the blacks although the promoters of segregation maintain that both races are treated equally. The ultimate aim is to prevent the Negroes of means from figuring conspicuously in aristocratic districts where they may be brought into rather close contact with the whites. Negroes see in segregation a settled policy to keep them down no matter what they do to elevate themselves. The Southern white man eternally dreading the miscegenation of the races makes the life, liberty and happiness of individuals second to measures considered necessary to prevent this so-called evil that this enviable civilization distinctly American may not be destroyed. The United States Supreme Court in the decision of the Louisville segregation case recently declared these segregation measures unconstitutional. These restrictions have made the progress of the Negroes more of a problem in that directed towards social distinction the Negroes have been denied helpful contact of the sympathetic whites. The increasing race prejudice forces the whites to restrict their open dealing with the blacks to matters of service and business maintaining even then the bearing of one in a sphere which the Negroes must not penetrate. The whites therefore never seen the blacks as they are and the blacks never being able to learn what the whites know are thrown back on their own initiative which their life as slaves could not have permitted to develop. It makes a little difference that the Negroes have been free a few decades. Such freedom has in some parts been tantamount to slavery and so far as contact with the superior class is concerned no better than that condition for under the old regime certain slaves did learn much by close association with their masters. For these reasons there has been since the exodus to the west a steady migration of Negroes from the south to points in the north but this migration mainly due to political changes has never assumed such large proportions as in the case of the more significant movements due to economic causes for as the accompanying map shows most Negroes are still in the south. When we consider the various classes migrating however it will be apparent that to understand the exodus of the Negroes to the north this longer drawn out and smaller movement must be carefully studied in all its ramifications. It should be noted that unlike some of the other migrations it has not been directed to any particular state. It has been from almost all southern states to various parts of the north and especially to the largest cities. What classes then have migrated? In the first place the Negro politicians who after the restoration of bourbon rule in the south found themselves thrown out of office and often humiliated and impoverished had to find some way out of the difficulty. Some few have been relieved by sympathetic leaders of the republican party who secured for them federal appointments in Washington. These appointments when sometimes paying lucrative salaries have been given as a reward to those Negroes who although dethroned in the south remain in touch with the remnant of the republican party there and control the delegates to the national conventions nominating candidates for president. Many Negroes of this class have settled in Washington. In some cases the observer witnesses the pitiful scene of a man once a prominent public functionary in the south now serving in Washington as a messenger or a clerk. The well-established blacks however have not been so easily induced to go. The Negroes in business in the south have been usually been loath to leave their people among whom they can acquire property for as if they go to the north they have merely political freedom with no assurance of an opportunity in the economic world but not a few of these have given themselves up to unrelenting toil with a view of accumulating sufficient wealth to move north and live thereafter on the income from their investments. Many of this class now spend some of their time in the north to educate their children but they do not like to have these children who have been under refining influences return to the south to suffer the humiliation which during the last generation has been growing more and more aggravating. Endeavoring to carry out their policy of keeping the Negro down Southerners too often carefully plan to humiliate the progressive and intelligent blacks and in some cases form mobs to drive them out as they are bad examples for that class of Negroes whom they desire to keep as menials. There are also the migrating educated Negroes they have studied history law and economics and will understand that what it is to get the rights guaranteed them by the constitutions the more they know the more discontented they become they cannot speak out for what they want no one is likely to second such a protest not even the Negroes themselves so generally have they been intimidated the more outspoken they become moreover the more necessary it is for them to leave for they thereby destroy their chances to earn a livelihood white men in control of the public schools of the south see to it that the subserviency of the Negro teachers employed to be certified beforehand they dare not complain too much about equipment and salaries even if the per capita appropriation for the education of the Negroes be one fourth of that for the whites in the higher institutions of learning especially the state schools it is exceptional to find a principal who has the confidence of the Negroes the Negroes will openly assert that he is in the pay of the reactionary whites whose purpose it is to keep the Negro down and the incumbent himself will tell his board of regents how much he is opposed by the Negroes because he labors for the interests of the white race out of such syncophancy it is easily explained why our state schools have been so ineffective as to necessitate the sending of the Negro youth to private institutions maintained by northern philanthropy yet if an outspoken Negro happens to be an instructor in a private school conducted by educators from the north he has to be careful about contending for a square deal for if the head of his institution does not suggest to him to proceed conservatively the mob will dispose of the complainant physicians lawyers and preachers who are not so economically independent as teachers can exercise no more freedom of speech in the midst of this triumphant rule of the lawless a large number of Negroes therefore have on account of these conditions been compelled to leave the south finding in the north however practically nothing in their line to do because of the proscription by race prejudice and trades unions many of them lead the life of menials serving as waiters porters butlers and chauffeurs while in chicago not long ago the writer was in the office of a graduate of a colored southern college who was showing his former teacher the picture of his class in accounting for his classmates in the various walks of life he reported that more than one third of them were settled to the occupation of polman porters the largest number of Negroes who have gone north during this period however belong to the intelligent laboring class some of them have become discontented for the very same reasons that the higher classes have tired of oppression in the south but the larger number of them have gone north to improve their economic condition most of these have migrated to the large cities in the east and northwest such as philadelphia new york indianapolis pissburg cleveland columbus detroit and chicago to understand this problem in its urban aspects to the accompany diagram showing the increase in the negro population of northern cities during this first decade of this century will be helpful some of these negroes have migrated after careful consideration others just happen to go north as wanderers and a still larger number on the many excursions to the cities conducted by railroads during the summer months sometimes one excursion brings to chicago to our three thousand negroes two-thirds of whom never go back they do not often follow the higher pursuits of labor in the north but they earn more money than they have been accustomed to earn in the south they are attracted also by the liberal attitude of some whites which although not that of social equality gives the negroes a liberty in northern centers which leads them to think that they are citizens of the country this shifting in the population has had an unusually significant effect on the black belt frederick douglas advised the negroes in 1879 to remain in the south where they would be in sufficiently large numbers to have political power but they have gradually scattered from the black belt so as to diminish greatly that their chances ever to become the political force they formerly were in this country the negroes once had this possibility in south carolina georgia alabama mississippi and louisiana and had the process of africanization prior to the civil war had a few decades longer to do its work there would not have been any doubt as to the ultimate preponderance of the negroes in those commonwealths the tendencies of the black population according to the census of the united states and especially that of 1910 however shows that the chances for the control of the state governments by negroes no longer exist except in south carolina and mississippi it has been predicted therefore that if the same tendencies continue for the next 50 years there will be even few counties in which the negroes will still be in a majority all of the southern states except arkansas showed a proportionate increase of the white population over that of the black between 1900 and 1910 while west virginia and oklahoma with relatively small numbers of blacks showed for reasons stated elsewhere an increase in the negro population thus we see coming to pass something like the proposed plan of jefferson and other statesmen who a hundred years ago advocated the expansion of slavery to lessen the evil of the institution by distributing its burdens the migration of intelligent blacks however has been attended with several handicaps to the race the largest part of the black population is in the south and there it will stay for decades to come the southern negroes therefore have been robbed of their due part of the talented 10th the educated blacks have had no constituency in the north and consequently have been unable to realize their sweetest dreams of the land of the free in their new home the enlightened negro must live with his light under a bushel those left behind in the south soon despair of seeing a brighter day and yield to the yoke in the places of the leaders who were want to speak for their people the whites have raised up negroes who accept favors offered them on the condition that their lips be sealed up forever on the rights of the negro this immigration too has left the negro subject to other evils there are many first class negro businessmen in the south but although there were once progressive men of color who endeavored to protect the blacks from being plundered by white sharks and harpies there have arisen numerous unscrupulous negroes who have for a part of the proceeds from such jobbery associated themselves with ill-designing white men to dupe illiterate negroes this trickery is brought into play in marketing their crops selling them supplies or purchasing their property to carry out this iniquitous plan the person's concern have the protection of the law for while negroes in general are imposed upon those engaged in robbing them have no cause to fear end of chapter eight chapter nine of a century of negro migration this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org a century of negro migration by Carter Woodson chapter number nine the exodus during the world war within the last two years there has been a steady stream of negroes into the north and such large numbers as to overshadow and its results all other movements of a kind in the united states these negroes have come largely from Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Mississippi the given causes of this migration are numerous and complicated some of the truths centering around this exodus have not been unlike those of other migrations again we hear that the negroes are being brought north to fight organized labor and to carry doubtful states for the Republicans these numerous explanations themselves however give rise to doubt as to the fundamental cause why then should the negroes leave the south it has often been spoken of as the best place for them there it is said they have made unusual strides forward the progress of the negroes in the south however has in no sense been general although the land owned by negroes in the country and the property of 30 persons of their race in urban communities may be extensive in most parts of the south the negroes are still unable to become landowners or successful businessmen conditions and customs have reserved these spheres for the whites generally speaking the negroes are still dependent on the white people for food and shelter although not exactly slaves they are yet attached to the white people as tenants servants for dependents accepting this as their lot they have been content to wear their lord's cast off clothing and live in his ramshackled barn or cellar in this unhappy state so many have settled down losing all ambition to attain a higher station the world has gone on but in their sequestered sphere progress has passed them by what then is the cause there have been bulldozing terrorism maltreatment and whatnot of persecution but the negroes have not in large numbers wandered away from the land of their birth what the migrants themselves think about it goes to the very heart of the trouble some say that they left the south on account of injustice in the courts unrest lack of privileges denial of the right to vote bad treatment oppression segregation or lynching others say that they left to find employment to secure better wages better school facilities and better opportunities to toil upward southern white newspapers unaccustomed to give the negroes any mention but that of criminals have said that the negroes are going north because they have not had a fair chance in the south and that if they are to be retained there the attitude of the whites toward them must be changed professor william o scroggs of louisiana state university considers as causes of this exodus the relatively low wages paid farm labor an unsatisfactory tenant or crop sharing system the bull weevil the crop failure of 1916 lynching disfranchisement segregation poor schools and the monotony isolation and drudgery of farm life professors groggs however is wrong in thinking that the persecution of the blacks as little to do with the migration for the reason that during these years when the treatment of the negroes is decidedly better they are leaving the south this does not mean that they would not have left before if they had had economic opportunities in the north it is highly probable that the negroes would not be leaving the south today if they were treated as men although there might be numerous opportunities for economic improvement in the north the immediate cause of this movement was the suffering due to the floods aggravated by the depredations of the bull weevil although generally mindful of our welfare the united states government has not been as ready to build levies against a natural enemy to property as it has been to provide fortifications for warfare it has been necessary for local communities and state governments to tax themselves to maintain them the national government however has appropriate to the purpose of facilitating inland navigation certain sums which have been used in doing this work especially in the mississippi valley there are now 1538 miles of levies on both sides of the mississippi from cape gerardot to the passes these levies of course are still inadequate to the security of the planters against these inundations carrying 406 million tons of muddy year the river becomes a dangerous stream subject to change abandoning its old bed to cut for itself a new channel transferring property from one state to another isolating cities and leaving once useful levies marooned in the landscape like old indian mounds or overgrown entrenchments this valley has therefore been frequently visited with disasters which have often set the population in motion the first disastrous floods came in 1858 and 1859 breaking many of the levies the destruction which was practically completed by the floods of 1865 and 1869 there is an annual rise in the stream but since 1874 this river system has 14 times devastated large areas of the section with destructive floods the property in this district depreciated in value to the extent of about 400 millions in 10 years farmers from this section therefore have at times moved west with foreigners to take up public lands the other disturbing factor in this situation was the bull weevil in interloper for mexico in 1892 the bull weevil is an insect about one fourth of an inch in length varying from one eighth to one third of an inch with a breadth of about one third of the length when it first emerges it is yellowish then becomes grayish brown and finally assumes a black shade it breeds on no other plant than cotton and feeds on the bold this little animal at first attacked the cotton crop in texas it was not thought that it would extend its work into the heart of the south so as to become of national consequence but it has at the rate of 40 to 160 miles annually invaded all the cotton district except that of the carolinas and virginia the damage it does varies according to the rainfall and the harshness of the winter increasing with the former and decreasing with the latter at times the damage has been to the extent of a loss of 50 percent of the crop estimated at 400,000 bales of cotton annually about 4,500,000 bales since the invasion or 250 million dollars worth of cotton the output of the south being thus cut off the planter has less income to provide supplies for his black tenants and the prospects for future production being dark merchants accustomed to give them credit have to refuse this of course means financial depression for the south is a borrowing section and any limitation to credit there blocks the wheels of industry it was fortunate for the negro laborers in this district that there was then a demand for labor in the north when this condition began to obtain the demand was made possible by the cutting off of european immigration by the world war which thereby rendered this hitherto uncongenial section and inviting field for the negro the negroes have made some progress in the north during the last 50 years but despite their achievements they have been so handicapped by race prejudice and prescribed by trades unions that the uplift of the race by economic methods has been impossible the european immigrants have hitherto excluded the negroes even from the menial positions in a mist of the drudgery left for them the blacks have often here to fore been debased to the status of dependents and paupers scattered through the north too in such small numbers they have been unable to unite for social betterment and mutual improvement and naturally too weak to force the community to respect their wishes as could be done by a large group with some political or economic power at present however negro laborers who once went from city to city seeking such employment as trades unions left to them can work even as skilled laborers throughout the north women of color formerly excluded from domestic service by foreign maids are now in demand many mills and factories which negroes were prohibited from entering a few years ago are now bidding for their labor railroads cannot find help to keep their property in repair contractors fall short of their plans for failure to hold mechanics drawn into the industrial boom and the united states government has had to advertise for men to hasten the preparation for war men from afar went south to tell the negroes of a way to escape to a more congenial place blacks long since unaccustomed to venture a few miles from home it once had visions of a promised land just a few hundred miles away some were told of the chance to amass fabulous riches some of the opportunities for education and some of the hospitality of the places of amusement and recreation in the north the migrants then were soon on their way railway stations became conspicuous with the presence of negro tourists the trains were crowded to full capacity and the streets of northern cities were soon congested with black laborers seeking to realize their dreams in the land of unusual opportunity employment agencies recently multiplied to meet the demand for labor find themselves unable to cope with the situation an agent sent into the south to induce the blacks by offers of free transportation and high wages to go north have found it impossible to supply the demand in centers where once toiled the polls the Italians and the Greeks formally preferred to the negroes in other words the present migration differs from others in that the negro has opportunity awaiting him in the north whereas formerly it was necessary for him to make a place for himself upon arrival among enemies the proportion of those returning to the south therefore will be inconsiderable becoming alarmed at the immensity of this movement the south has undertaken to check it to fright negroes from the north southern newspapers are carefully circulating reports that many of them are returning to their native land because of unexpected hardships but having failed in this southerners have compelled employment agents to cease operations there arrested suspected employers and to prevent the departure of the negroes imprisoned on false charges those who appear at stations to leave for the north this procedure could not long be effective for by the more legal and clandestine methods of railway passenger agents the work has gone forward some southern communities have therefore advocated drastic legislation against labor agents as was suggested in Louisiana 1914 when by operation of the underword tariff law the negro is thrown out of employment in the sugar district migrated to the cotton plantations one should not however get the impression that the majority of the negroes are leaving the south eager as these negroes seem to go there is no unanimity of opinion as to whether migration is the best policy the sycophant toady glass of negroes naturally advised blacks to remain in the south to serve their white neighbors the radical protagonist of the equal rights for all element urged them to come north by all means then there are the thinking negroes who are still further divided both divisions of this element have the interests of the race at heart but they are unable to agree as to exactly what the blacks would now do thinking that the present war will soon be over and that consequently the immigration of foreigners into this country will again set in and force out of employment thousands of negroes who have migrated to the north some of the most representative negroes are advising their fellows to remain where they are the most serious objection to this transplantation is that it means for the negroes a loss of land the rapid acquisition of which has long been pointed to as the best evidence of the ability of the blacks to rise in the economic world so many negroes who have by dint of energy purchase small farms yielding an increasing income from year to year are now disposing of them at nominal prices to come north to work for wages looking beyond the war however and thinking too that the depopulation of europe during this upheaval will render immigration from that quarter for some years in impossibility other thinkers urged the negroes to continue their migration to the north where the race may be found in sufficiently large numbers to wield economic and political power great as is the dearth of labor in the south more over the negro exodus has not as yet caused such a depression as to unite the whites in inducing the blacks to remain in that section in the first place the south has not yet felt the worst effects of this economic upheaval as that part of the country has been unusually aided by the millions which the united states government is daily spending there moreover the poor whites are anxious to see the exodus of their competitors in the field of labor this leaves the capitalist at their mercy and in keeping with their dominiary attitude they will be able to handle the labor situation as they desire as in evidence of this fact we need but note the continuation of mob rule and lynching in the south despite the preachings against it of the organs of thought which heretofore winked at it this terrorism has gone to an unexpected extent negro farmers have been threatened with bodily injury unless they leave certain parts the summoner of aristocratic bearing will say that only the shiftless poor whites terrorized the negroes this may be so but the truth offers little consolation when we observe that most white people in the south are of this class and the tendency of this element to put their children to work before they secure much education does not indicate that the south will soon experience the general enlightenment necessary to exterminate these survivals of barbarism unless the upper classes of the whites can bring the mob around to their way of thinking that the persecution of the negro is prejudicial to the interests of all is not likely that mob rule will soon cease in the migration to this extent will be promoted rather than retarded it is unfortunate for the south that the growing consciousness of the negroes has culminated at the very time they are most needed finally heeding the advice of agricultural experts to reconstruct its agricultural system the south has learned in the school of bitter experience to depart from the plan of producing the single cotton crop is now raising foodstuffs to make that section self-supporting without reducing the usual output of cotton with the increasing production in the south therefore more labor is needed just at the very time it is being drawn to the centers in the north the north being an industrial and commercial sector has usually attracted the immigrants who will never fit into the economic system in the south because they will not accept the treatment given negroes the south therefore is now losing the only labor which it can ever use under present conditions where these negroes are going is still more interesting the exodus to the west was mainly directed to Kansas and neighboring states the migration to the southwest centered in Oklahoma and Texas pioneering negro workers drifted into the industrial district of the Appalachian Highland during the eighties and nineties and the infiltration of the discontented talented tent affected largely the cities of the north but now we're told that at the very time the mining districts of the north and west are being filled with blacks the western planters are supplying their farms with them and that into some cities have gone sufficient skilled and unskilled negroes to increase the black population more than 100 percent places in the north where the black population has not only not increased but even decreased in recent years are now receiving a steady influx of negroes in fact this is a nationwide migration affecting all parts in all conditions students of social problems are now wondering whether the negro can be adjusted in the north many perplexing problems must arise this movement will produce results not unlike those already mentioned in the discussion of other migrations some of which we have evidence of today there will be an increase in race prejudice leading in some communities to actual outbreaks as in chester and youngstown and probably to massacres like that of east st louis in which participated not only well-known citizens but the local officers and the state militia the negroes in the north are in competition with white men who consider them not only strike breakers but a sort of inferior individuals unworthy of the consideration which white men deserve in this condition obtains even where negroes have been admitted to the trade unions negroes in seeking new homes in the north moreover and invade residential districts hitherto exclusively white there they encounter prejudice and persecution until most whites thus disturb move out determine to do whatever they can to prevent their race from suffering from further depreciation of property and the disturbance of their community life lawlessness is followed showing that violence may under certain conditions develop among some classes anywhere rather than reserve itself for vigilance committees of primitive communities it is brought out to another aspect of lawlessness in that it breaks out in the north where the numbers of negroes are still too small to serve as an excuse for the terrorism and lynching considered necessary in the south to keep the negroes down the maltreatment of the negroes will be nationalized by this exodus the poor whites of both sections will strike at this race long stigmatized by servitude but now demanding economic equality race prejudice the fatal weakness of the americans will not so soon abate although there will be advocates of fraternity equality and liberty required to reconstruct our government and rebuild our civilization in conformity with the demands of modern efficiency by placing every man with godless of his color wherever he may do the greatest good the greatest number the negroes however are doubtless going to the north insufficiently large numbers to make themselves felt if this migration falls short of establishing in that section negro colonies large enough to wield economic and political power their state in the end will not be any better than that of the negroes already there it is to these large numbers alone that we must look for an agent to counteract the development of race feeling into riots in large numbers the blacks will be able to strike for better wages or concessions do a rising labor in class and they will have enough votes to defeat for reelection those officers who wink at mob violence or treat negroes as persons beyond the pale of the law the negro in the north however will get little out of the harvest if like the blacks of reconstruction days they unwisely concentrate their efforts on solving all of their problems by electing men of their race as local officers or by sending a few members even to congress as is likely in new york philadelphia and chicago within the next generation the negroes have had representatives in congress before but they were put out because their constituency was unaconomic and politically impossible there was nothing but the mere letter of the law behind the reconstruction negro office holder and the thus forced political recognition against public opinion could not last any longer than natural forces for some time thrown out of gear by unnatural causes could resume the usual line of procedure it would be of no advantage to the negro race today to send to congress 40 negro representatives on the pro-rata basis of numbers especially if they happen not to be exceptionally well qualified they would remain in congress only so long as the american white people could devise some plan for eliminating them as they did during the reconstruction period near as the world has approached real democracy history gives no record of a permanent government conducted on this basis interests have always been stronger than numbers the negroes in the north therefore should not on the eve of the economic revolution follow the advice of their misguided and misleading race leaders who are diverting their attention from their actual welfare to a specialization in politics to concentrate their efforts on electing a few negroes to office wherever the blacks are found in the majority would exhibit the narrowness of their oppressors it would be as unwise as the policy of the republican party of setting aside a few insignificant positions like that of a quarter of deeds register the treasury and auditor of the navy as segregated jobs for negroes such positions have furnished a nucleus for the large worthless office seeking class of negroes in washington who have established the going of the people of the city toward pretense and sham the negroes should support representative men of any color or party if they stand for a square deal and equal rights for all the new negroes in the north therefore will as so many of their race in new york philadelphia and chicago are now doing ally themselves with those men who are fair-minded and consider the man far down and seek to embrace their many opportunities for economic progress a foundation for political recognition upon which the race must learn to build every race in the universe must aspire to becoming a factor in politics but history shows that there is no short route to such success like other despised races beset with the prejudice and militant opposition of self-styled superiors the negroes must increase their industrial efficiency improve their opportunities to make a living develop the home church and school and contribute to art literature science and philosophy to clear the way to that political freedom of which they cannot be deprived the entire country will be benefited by this upheaval will be helpful even to the south the decrease in the black population in those communities where the negroes outnumber the whites will remove the fear of negro domination one of the causes of the backwardness of the south and its peculiar civilization many of the expensive precautions which the southern people have taken to keep the negroes down much of the terrorism inside it to restrain the blacks from self-assertion will no longer be considered necessary for having the excess in numbers on their side the whites will finally rest assured that the negroes may be encouraged without any apprehension that they may develop enough power to subjugate or embarrass their former masters the negroes too are very much in demand in the south and that intelligent whites will gladly give them larger opportunities to attach them to that section knowing that the blacks once conscious of their power to move freely throughout the country wherever they may improve their condition will never endure hardships like those formerly inflicted upon the race the south is already learning that negro is the most desirable laborer for that section that the persecution of negroes not only drives them out but makes the employment of labor such a problem that the south will not be an attractive section for capital it will therefore be considered the duty of businessmen to secure protection to the negroes lest their ill treatment force them to migrate to the extent of bringing about a stagnation of their business the exodus has driven home the truth that the prosperity of the south is at the mercy of the negro dependent on cheap labor which the bulldozing whites will not readily furnish the wealthy subvenors must finally reach the position of regarding themselves in the negroes as having a community of interest which each must promote nature itself in those states douglas said came to the rescue of the negro he had labor the south wanted it and must have it or perish since he was free he could then give it or withhold it use it where he was or take it elsewhere as he pleased his labor made him a slave and his labor could if he would make him free comfortable and independent it is more to him than either fire sword ballot boxes or bayonets it touches the heart of the south through its pocket knowing that the negro has this silent weapon to be used against his employer or the community the south is already giving the race better educational facilities better railway accommodations and will eventually if the advocacy of certain southern newspapers be heeded grant them political privileges wages in the south therefore have risen even in the extreme southwestern states where there is an opportunity to import mexican labor reduced to this extremity the southern aristocrats have begun to lose some of their race prejudice which has not hitherto yielded to reason or philanthropy southern men are telling the neighbors that their section must abandon the policy of treating the negroes as a problem and construct program for recognition rather than for repression meetings are therefore being held to find out what the negro wants and what may be done to keep them contented they are told that the negro must be elevated not exploited that to make the south what it must needs be the cooperation of all is needed to train and equip the men of all races for efficiency the aim of all then must be to reform or get rid of the unfair proprietors who do not give their tenants a fair division of the returns from their labor to this end the best whites and blacks are urged to come together to find a working basis for a systematic effort in the interest of all to say that either the north or the south can easily become adjusted to this change is entirely too sanguine the north will have a problem the negroes in the northern cities will have much more to contend with than when settled in the rural districts or small urban centers forced by restrictions of real estate men into congested districts there has appeared the tendency toward further segregation there denied social contact are sagaciously separated from the whites in public places of amusement and are contestantly segregated in public schools in spite of the law to the contrary as a consequence the negro migrant often finds a self with less friends than he formally had the northern man who wants to denounce the south on account of its maltreatment of the blacks gradually grows silent when the negro is brought next door there comes with a movement therefore the difficult problem of housing where then must the migrants go they're not wanted by the whites and are treated with contempt by the native blacks of the northern cities who consider their brethren from the south too criminal and too vicious to be tolerated in the average progressive city there has hitherto four been a certain increase in the number of houses through natural growth but owing to the high cost of materials high wages increasing taxation and the inclination to invest money in enterprises growing out of the war fewer houses are now being built although negroes are pouring into these centers as a steady stream the usual negro quarters in northern centers of this sort have been filled up and the overflow of the black population scattered throughout the city among white people old warehouses storerooms churches railroad cars and tents have been used to meet these demands a large percent of these negroes are located in roomy houses or tenements for several families the majority of them cannot find individual rooms many are crowded into the same room therefore and too many into the same bed sometimes as many as four and five sleep in one bed and that may be placed in the basement dining room or kitchen where there is neither adequate light nor air in some cases men who work during the night sleep by day in beds used by others during the night some of their homes have no water inside and have toilets on the outside without sewerage connections the cooking is often done by coal or wood stoves or kerosene lamps yet the rent runs high although the houses are generally out of repair and in some cases have been condemned by the municipality the unsanitary conditions in which many of the blacks are compelled to live are in violation of municipal ordinances furthermore because of the indiscriminate employment by labor agents in the dearth of labor requiring the acceptance of almost all sorts of men some disorderly and worthless negroes have been brought into the north on the whole how are these migrants are not lazy shiftless and desperate as some predicted that they would be they generally attend church save their money and send apart of their savings regularly to their families they do not belong to the class going north in quest of whiskey mr. abraham epstein who has written a valuable pamphlet setting forth his researches in pittsburgh states that the migrants of that city do not generally imbibe and most of those who do take beer only out of 470 persons to whom he propounded this question 210 or 44 percent of them were total abstainers 70 of those having families do not drink at all with this congestion however have come serious difficulties credit conditions give rise to vice crime and disease the prevalence of vice has not been the rule but tendencies which better conditions in the south restrained from developing have under these undesirable conditions be given an opportunity to grow there is therefore a tendency toward the crowd of dives assembling on the corners of streets and the commission of petty offenses which crowd them into the police courts one finds also sometimes a congestion in houses of dissipation and the carrying of concealed weapons law abiding on the whole however they have not experienced a wave of crime the chief offenses are those resulting from the saloons and denizens of vice which are furnished by the community itself disease has been one of their worst enemies but reports on their health have been exaggerated on account of the sudden change of the negroes from one climate to another and the hardships of more unrelenting toil many of them have been unable to resist pneumonia bronchitis and tuberculosis churches rescue missions and the national league on urban conditions among negroes have offered relief in some of these cases the last name organization is serving large cities as a sort of clearinghouse for such activities and as means of interpreting one race to the other it has now 18 branches and cities to which this migration has been directed through a local worker these migrants are approached properly placed in supervising until they can adjust themselves to the community without apparent embarrassment either race the league has been able to handle the migrants arriving by extending the work so as to know their movements beforehand the occupations in which these people engage will throw further light on their situation about 90 of them do unskilled labor only 10 of them do semi-skilled or skilled labor they serve as common laborers puddlers mold setters painters carpenters bricklayers cement workers and machinists what the negroes need then is that sort of freedom which carries with it industrial opportunity and social justice this they cannot attain until they be permitted to enter the higher pursuits of labor two reasons are given for failure to enter these first that negro labor is unstable and inefficient and second that white men will protest organized labor however has done nothing to help the blacks yet it is a fact that accustomed to the easygoing toil of the plantation the blacks have not shown the same efficiency as that of the whites some employers report however that they're glad to have them because they are more individualistic and do not like to group but it is not true that colored labor cannot be organized the blacks have merely been neglected by organized labor wherever they have had the opportunity to do so they have organized and stood for their rights like men the trouble is that the trade unions are generally antagonistic to negroes although they are now accepting the blacks in self-defense the policy of excluding negroes from these bodies is made effective by an evasive procedure despite the fact that the constitutions of many of them specifically provide that there shall be no discrimination on account of race or color because of this tendency some of the representatives of trade unions have asked why negroes do not organize unions of their own this the negroes have generally failed to do thinking that they would not be recognized by the american federation of labor and knowing too that what their union would have to contend with in the economic world would be diametrically opposed to the wishes of the men from whom they would have to seek recognition organized labor moreover is opposed to the powerful capitalist the only real friends the negroes have in the north to furnish them food and shelter while their lives are often being sought by union members steps toward organizing negro labor have been made in various northern cities during 1917 and 1918 the objective of this movement for the present however is largely that of employment eventually the negro migrants will no doubt without much difficulty establish themselves among law-abiding and industrious people of the north where they will receive assistance many persons now see in the shifting of the negro population the dawn of a new day not in making the negro numerically dominant anywhere to obtain political power but to secure for him freedom of movement from section to section as a competitor in the industrial world they also observe that while there may be an increase of race prejudice in the north the same will in that proportion decrease in the south thus balancing the equation while giving the negro his best chance in the economic world out of which he must emerge a real man with power to secure his rights as an american citizen end of chapter nine the exodus during the world war end of a century of negro migration by carter woodson