CHAPTER III

THE MIGRATION OF NEGROES FROM THE SOUTH

I. INTRODUCTION

During the period 1916-18 approximately a half-million Negroes suddenly moved from southern to northern states. This movement, however, was not without a precedent. A similar migration occurred in 1879, when Negroes moved from Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina to Kansas. The origin of this earlier movement, its causes, and manner resemble in many respects the one which has so recently attracted public attention.

The migration of 1916-18 cannot be separated completely from the steady, though inconspicuous, exodus from southern to northern states that has been in progress since 1860, or, in fact, since the operation of the "underground railway." In 1900 there were 911,025 Negroes living in the North, 10.3 per cent of the total Negro population, which was then 8,883,994. Census figures for the period 1900-1910 show a net loss for southern states east of the Mississippi of 595,703 Negroes. Of this number 366,880 are found in northern states. Reliable estimates for the last decade place the increase of northern Negro population around 500,000.

The 1910-20 increase of the Negro population of Chicago was from 44,103 to 109,594, or 148.5 per cent, with a corresponding increase in the white population of 21 per cent, including foreign immigration. According to the Census Bureau method of estimating natural increase of population, the Negro population of Chicago unaffected by the migration would be 58,056 in 1920, and the increase by migration alone would be 51,538.

The relative 1910-20 increases in white and Negro population in typical industrial cities of the Middle West, given in Table II, illustrate the effect of the migration of southern Negroes.

_The migration to Chicago._--Within a period of eighteen months in 1917-18 more than 50,000 Negroes came to Chicago according to an estimate based on averages taken from actual count of daily arrivals. All of those who came, however, did not stay. Chicago was a re-routing point, and many immigrants went on to nearby cities and towns. During the heaviest period, for example, a Detroit social agency reported that hundreds of Negroes applying there for work stated that they were from Chicago. The tendency appears to have been to reach those fields offering the highest present wages and permanent prospects.

TABLE II

=============================================================== | Negroes | Percentage | Percentage | | of Negro | of White +--------+---------+ Increase, | Increase, | 1910 | 1920 | 1910-20 | 1910-20 ------------------+--------+---------+------------+------------ Cincinnati, Ohio | 19,639 | 29,636 | 50.9 | 8.0 Dayton, Ohio | 4,842 | 9,029 | 86.5 | 28.0 Toledo, Ohio | 1,877 | 5,690 | 203.1 | 42.5 Fort Wayne, Ind. | 572 | 1,476 | 158.0 | 34.3 Canton, Ohio | 291 | 1,349 | 363.6 | 71.7 Gary, Ind. | 383 | 5,299 | 1,283.6 | 205.1 Detroit, Mich. | 5,741 | 41,532 | 623.4 | 106.9 Chicago, Ill. | 44,103 | 109,594 | 148.5 | 21.0 ------------------+--------+---------+------------+------------

II. CAUSES OF THE MIGRATION

A series of circumstances acting together in an unusual combination both provoked and made possible the migration of Negroes from the South on a large scale. The causes of the movement fall into definite divisions, even as stated by the migrants themselves. For example, one of the most frequent causes mentioned by southern Negroes for their change of home is the treatment accorded them in the South. Yet this treatment of which they complain has been practiced since their emancipation, and fifty years afterward more than nine-tenths of the Negro population of the United States still remained in the South. "Higher wages" was also commonly stated as a cause of the movement, yet thousands came to the North and to Chicago who in the South had been earning more in their professions and even in skilled occupations than they expected to receive in the North. These causes then divide into two main classes: (1) economic causes, (2) sentimental causes. Each has a bearing on both North and South. The following statements are based on reports prepared by trustworthy agencies during the migration, on letters and statements from migrants, Negroes and whites living in the South and the North, and on family history obtained by the Commission's investigators.

I. ECONOMIC CAUSES OF THE MIGRATION

A. THE SOUTH

_Low wages._--Wages of Negroes in the South varied from 75 cents a day on the farms to $1.75 a day in certain city jobs, in the period just preceding 1914. The rise in living costs which followed the outbreak of the war outstripped the rise in wages. In Alabama the price paid for day labor in the twenty-one "black belt" counties averaged 50 and 60 cents a day. It ranged from 40 cents, as a minimum, to 75 cents, and, in a few instances, $1.00 was a maximum for able-bodied male farm hands.[14]

A Negro minister, writing in the _Montgomery_ (Alabama) _Advertiser_, said:

The Negro farm hand gets for his compensation hardly more than the mule he plows; that is, his board and shelter. Some mules fare better than Negroes. This, too, in spite of the fact that the money received for farm products has advanced more than 100 per cent. The laborer has not shared correspondingly in this advance.

High rents and low wages have driven the Negro off the farms. They have no encouragement to work. Only here and there you will find a tenant who is getting a square deal and the proper encouragement.

A white man, writing in the same paper, said:

There is an article in today's _Advertiser_ headed "Exodus of the Negroes to Be Probed." Why hunt for a cause when it's plain as the noonday sun the Negro is leaving this country for higher wages? He doesn't want to leave here but he knows if he stays here he will starve. They have made no crops, they have nothing to eat, no clothes, no shoes, and they can't get any work to do, and they are leaving just as fast as they can get away.... If the Negro race could get work at 50 cents per day he would stay here. He don't want to go. He is easily satisfied and will live on half rations and will never complain.

The _Atlanta Independent_, white, said:

If our white neighbors will treat the Negro kindly, recognizing his rights as a man, advance his wages in proportion as the cost of living advances, he will need no ordinance nor legislation to keep the Negro here. The South is his natural home. He prefers to be here, he loves its traditions, its ideals and its people. But he cannot stay here and starve....

When meat was 15 cents a pound and flour $8 a barrel, the Negro received from $4 to $8 a week. Now meat is 30 cents a pound and flour $16 a barrel, and the Negro is receiving the same wages. He cannot live on this and the white man cannot expect him to live in the South and live on the starvation wages he is paying him, when the fields and the factories in the North are offering him living wages.

_The boll weevil._--In 1915 and 1916 the boll weevil cotton pest so ravaged sections of the South that thousands of farmers were almost ruined. Cotton crops were lost, and the farmers were forced to change from cotton to food products. The growing of cotton requires about thirty times as many "hands" as food products. As a result many Negroes were thrown out of employment. The damage wrought by the boll weevil was augmented by destructive storms and floods, which not only affected crops but made the living conditions of Negroes more miserable.

_Lack of capital._--The "credit system" is a very convenient and common practice in many parts of the South. Money is borrowed for upkeep until the selling season, when it is repaid in one lump sum. The succession of short crops and the destruction due to the boll weevil and storms occasioned heavy demands for capital to carry labor through the fall and early winter until a new crop could be started. There was a shortage of capital, and as a result there was little opportunity for work. During this period many white persons migrated from sections of the South most seriously affected.

_"Unsatisfactory" living conditions._--The plantation cabins and segregated sections in cities where municipal laxity made home surroundings undesirable have been stated as another contributing cause of the movement.

_Lack of school facilities._--The desire to place their children in good schools was a reason often given by migrants with families for leaving the South. School facilities are described as lamentably poor even by southern whites. Perhaps the most thorough statement of these conditions is given in a _Study of Negro Education_ by Thomas Jesse Jones, made under the direction of the federal Bureau of Education, and comparing provisions for white and Negro children in fifteen southern states and the District of Columbia. He states:

In the South they [Negroes] form 29.8 per cent of the total population, the proportion in Mississippi and South Carolina being over 55 per cent and ranging in the "black belt" counties from 50 to 90 per cent of the total population. Almost 3,000,000 are engaged in agricultural pursuits. They form 40.4 per cent of all persons engaged in these pursuits in the Southern States.

Though the United States census shows a decrease in illiteracy, there are still about 2,225,000 Negroes illiterate in the South, or over 33 per cent of the Negro population ten years of age and over.

TABLE III

====================================================================== | White | Colored ---------------------------------------------+------------+----------- Total population | 23,682,352 | 8,906,879 Population six to fourteen years of age | 4,889,762 | 2,023,108 Population six to fourteen[15] | 3,552,431 | 1,852,181 Teachers' salaries in public schools |$36,649,827 |$5,860,876 Teachers' salaries per child six to fourteen | $10.32 | $2.89 Per cent of illiteracy | 7.7 | 33.3 Per cent rural | 76.9 | 78.8 ---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------

In the fifteen states and the District of Columbia for which salaries by race could be obtained, the public school teachers received $42,510,431 in salaries. Of this sum $36,649,827 was for the teachers of 3,552,431 white children and $5,860,876 for teachers of 1,852,181 colored children. On a per capita basis, this is $10.32 for each white child and $2.89 for each colored child.

TABLE IV

====================================================================== | | | Per | Per | White | Negro | Capita | Capita County Groups, Percentage of | School | School | for | for Negroes in the Population | Population|Population| White | Negro ------------------------------+-----------+----------+--------+------- Counties under 10 per cent | 974,289 | 45,039 | $ 7.96 | $7.23 Counties 10 to 25 per cent | 1,008,372 | 215,744 | 9.55 | 5.55 Counties 25 to 50 per cent | 1,132,999 | 709,259 | 11.11 | 3.19 Counties 50 to 75 per cent | 364,990 | 661,329 | 12.53 | .77 Counties 75 per cent and over | 40,003 | 207,900 | 22.22 | 1.78 ------------------------------+-----------+----------+--------+-------

The supervisor of white elementary rural schools in one of the states recently wrote concerning the Negro schools:

"I never visit one of these [Negro] schools without feeling that we are wasting a large part of this money and are neglecting a great opportunity. The Negro schoolhouses are miserable beyond all description. They are usually without comfort, equipment, proper lighting, or sanitation. Nearly all of the Negroes of school age in the district are crowded into these miserable structures during the short term which the school runs. Most of the teachers are absolutely untrained and have been given certificates by the county board, not because they have passed the examination, but because it is necessary to have some kind of a Negro teacher. Among the Negro rural schools which I have visited, I have found only one in which the highest class knew the multiplication table."

A state superintendent writes:

"There has never been any serious attempt in this state to offer adequate educational facilities for the colored race. The average length of the term for the state is only four months; practically all of the schools are taught in dilapidated churches, which, of course, are not equipped with suitable desks, blackboards, and the other essentials of a school; practically all of the teachers are incompetent, possessing little or no education and having had no professional training whatever, except a few weeks obtained in the summer schools; the schools are generally overcrowded, some of them having as many as 100 students to the teacher; no attempt is made to do more than teach the children to read, write, and figure, and these subjects are learned very imperfectly. There are six or eight industrial supervisors financed in whole or in part by the Jeanes Fund; most of these teachers are stimulating the Negro schools to do very good work upon the practical things of life. A few wide-awake Negro teachers not connected with the Jeanes Fund are doing the same thing. It can probably be truthfully said that the Negro schools are gradually improving, but they are still just about as poor and inadequate as they can be."

Commenting on the cause of the migration, the _Atlanta Constitution_, a prominent southern white paper, says:

While mob violence and the falsehood which has been built upon that foundation constitutes, perhaps, a strong factor in the migration of the Negroes, there is scarcely a doubt that the educational feature enters into it. Negroes induced to go to the North undoubtedly believe they can secure better educational facilities there for their children, whether they really succeed in getting them or not.

Georgia, as well as other southern states, is undoubtedly behind in the matter of Negro education, unfair in the matter of facilities, in the quality of teachers and instructors, and in the pay of those expected to impart proper instruction to Negro children.

We have proceeded upon the theory that education would, in his own mind, at least, carry the Negro beyond his sphere; that it would give him higher ideas of himself and make of him a poorer and less satisfactory workman. That is nonsense....

B. THE NORTH

_The cessation of immigration._--Prior to the war the yearly immigration to the United States equaled approximately the total Negro population of the North. Foreign labor filled the unskilled labor field, and Negroes were held closely in domestic and personal-service work. The cessation of immigration and the return of thousands of aliens to their mother-country, together with the opening of new industries and the extension of old ones, created a much greater demand for American labor. Employers looked to the South for Negroes and advertised for them.

_High wages._--Wages for unskilled work in the North in 1916 and 1917 ranged from $3.00 to $8.00 a day. There were shorter hours of work and opportunity for overtime and bonuses.

_Living conditions._--Houses available for Negroes in the North, though by northern standards classed as unsanitary and unfit for habitation, afforded greater comforts than the rude cabins of the plantation. For those who had owned homes in the South there was the opportunity of selling them and applying the money to payment for a good home in the North.

_Identical school privileges._--Co-education of whites and Negroes in northern schools made possible a higher grade of instruction for the children of migrants.[16]

II. SENTIMENTAL CAUSES OF THE MIGRATION

The causes classed as sentimental include those which have reference to the feelings of Negroes concerning their surroundings in the South and their reactions to the social systems and practices of certain sections of the South. Frequently these causes were given as the source of an old discontent among Negroes concerning the South. Frequently they took prominence over economic causes, and they were held for the most part by a fairly high class of Negroes. These causes are in part as follows:

_Lack of protection from mob violence._--Between 1885 and 1918, 2,881 Negroes were lynched in the United States, more than 85 per cent of these lynchings occurring in the South. In 1917, 2,500 Negroes were driven by force out of Dawson and Forsythe counties, Georgia.[17]

The Chicago Urban League reported that numbers of migrants from towns where lynchings had occurred registered for jobs in Chicago very shortly after lynchings. Concerning mob violence and general insecurity both whites and Negroes living in the South have had much to say. Their statements at the time of the migration are here quoted.

From the _Atlanta Constitution_ (white), November 24, 1916:

Current dispatches from Albany, Georgia, in the center of the section apparently most affected, and where efforts are being made to stop the exodus by spreading correct information among the Negroes, say:

The heaviest migration of Negroes has been from those counties in which there have been the worst outbreaks against Negroes. It is developed by investigation that where there have been lynchings, the Negroes have been most eager to believe what the emigration agents have told them of plots for the removal or extermination of the race. Comparatively few Negroes have left Dougherty County, which is considered significant in view of the fact that this is one of the counties in southwest Georgia in which a lynching has never occurred.

These statements are most significant. Mob law as we have known in Georgia has furnished emigration agents with all the leverage they want; it is a foundation upon which it is easy to build with a well concocted lie or two, and they have not been slow to take advantage of it.

This loss of her best labor is another penalty Georgia is paying for her indifference and inactivity in suppressing mob law.

From the _Southwestern Christian Advocate_ (Negro), April 26, 1917:

But why do they [the Negroes] go? We give a concrete answer: some months ago Anthony Crawford, a highly respectable, honest and industrious Negro, with a good farm and holdings estimated to be worth $300,000, was lynched in Abbeville, South Carolina. He was guilty of no crime. He would not be cheated out of his cotton. That was insolence. He must be taught a lesson. When the mob went for him he defended himself. They overpowered him and brutally lynched him. This murder was without excuse and was condemned in no uncertain words by the Governor, other high officials and the press in general of South Carolina. Officials pledged that the lynchers would be punished. The case went to the grand jury. Mr. Crawford was lynched in the daytime and dragged through the streets by unmasked men. The names of the leaders were supposed to have been known, and yet the grand jury, under oath, says that it could not find sufficient evidence to warrant an indictment....

Is any one surprised that Negroes are leaving South Carolina by the thousands? The wonder is that any of them remain. They will suffer in the North. Some of them will die. But Anthony Crawford did not get a chance to die in Abbeville, South Carolina. He was shamefully murdered. Any place would be paradise compared with some sections of the South where the Negroes receive such maltreatment.

From the _Savannah_ (Georgia) _Morning News_ (white), January 3, 1917:

Another cause is the feeling of insecurity. The lack of legal protection in the country is a constant nightmare to the colored people who are trying to accumulate a comfortable little home and farm. There is scarcely a Negro mother in the country who does not live in dread and fear that her husband or son may come in unfriendly contact with some white person as to bring the lynchers or the arresting officers to her door which may result in the wiping out of her entire family. It must be acknowledged that this is a sad condition....

The Southern white man ought to be willing to give the Negro a man's chance without regard to his race or color, give him at least the same protection of law given to anyone else. If he will not do this, the Negro must seek those North or West, who will give him better wages and better treatment. I hope, however, that this will not be necessary.

_Injustice in the courts._--An excerpt from one of the newspapers of that period illustrates the basis of this cause:

While our very solvency is being sucked out from underneath we go out about affairs as usual--our police officers raid poolrooms for "loafing Negroes," bring in twelve, keep them in the barracks all night, and next morning find that many of them have steady, regular jobs, valuable assets to their white employers, suddenly left and gone to Cleveland, "where they don't arrest fifty niggers for what three of 'em done" [_Montgomery_ (Alabama) _Advertiser_ (white), September 21, 1916].

_Inferior transportation facilities._--This refers to "Jim Crow cars," a partitioned section of one railway car, usually the baggage car, and partitioned sections of railway waiting-rooms, poorly kept, bearing signs, "For colored only." This dissatisfaction is expressed in part in the following comment of a Negro presiding elder, writing in the _Macon_ (Georgia) _Ledger_, a white paper:

The petty offenses, which you mention, are far more numerous than you are aware of, besides other unjust treatments enacted daily on the streets, street cars and trains. Our women are inhumanly treated by some conductors, both on the street cars and trains. White men are often found in compartments for Negroes smoking, and if anything is said against it they who speak are insulted, or the car is purposely filled with big puffs of smoke and the conductor's reply is, "He'll quit to-rectly." Recently a white man entered a trailer for Negroes with two little dogs. One of the dogs went between the seats and crouched by a woman; she pushed him from her and the white man took both dogs and set them aside her and she was forced to ride with them. This is one of the many, many acts of injustice which often result in a row for which the Negro has to pay the penalty. These things are driving the Negro from the South.

Other causes stated are (_a_) the deprivation of the right to vote, (_b_) the "rough-handed" and unfair competition of "poor whites," (_c_) persecution by petty officers of the law, and (_d_) the "persecution of the Press."

III. BEGINNING AND SPREAD OF MIGRATION

The enormous proportions to which the exodus grew obscure its beginning. Several experiments had been tried with southern labor in the Northeast, particularly in the Connecticut tobacco fields and in Pennsylvania. In Connecticut, Negro students from the southern schools had been employed during summers with great success. Early in 1916, industries in Pennsylvania imported many Negroes from Georgia and Florida. During July one railroad company stated that it had brought to Pennsylvania more than 13,000 Negroes. They wrote back for their friends and families, and from the points to which they had been brought they spread out into new and "labor slack" territories. Once begun, this means of recruiting labor was used by hard-pressed industries in other sections of the North. The reports of high wages, of the unexpected welcome of the North, and of unusually good treatment accorded Negroes spread throughout the South from Georgia and Florida to Texas.

The stimuli of suggestion and hysteria gave the migration an almost religious significance, and it became a mass movement. Letters, rumors, Negro newspapers, gossip, and other forms of social control operated to add volume and enthusiasm to the exodus. Songs and poems of the period characterized the migration as the "Flight Out of Egypt," "Bound for the Promised Land," "Going into Canaan," "The Escape from Slavery," etc.

The first movement was from Southeast to Northeast, following main lines of transportation. Soon, however, it became known that the Middle West was similarly in need of men. Many industries advertised for southern Negroes in Negro papers. The federal Department of Labor for a period was instrumental in transporting Negroes from the South to relieve the labor shortage in other sections of the country, but discontinued such efforts when southern congressmen pointed out that the South's labor supply was being depleted. It was brought out in the East St. Louis riot inquiry that plants there had advertised in Texas newspapers for Negro laborers.

Chicago was the logical destination of Negroes from Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, because of the more direct railway lines, the way in which the city had become known in these sections through its two great mail-order houses, the Stock Yards, and the packing-plants with their numerous storage houses scattered in various towns and cities of the South. It was rumored in these sections that the Stock Yards needed 50,000 men; it was said that temporary housing was being provided by these hard-pressed industries. Many Negroes came to the city on free transportation, but by far the greater numbers paid their own fare. Club rates offered by the railroads brought the fare within reach of many who ordinarily could not have brought their families or even come themselves. The organization into clubs composed of from ten to fifty persons from the same community had the effect, on the one hand, of adding the stimulus of intimate persuasion to the movement, and, on the other hand, of concentrating solid groups in congested spots in Chicago.

A study of certain Negro periodicals shows a powerful influence on southern Negroes already in a state of unsettlement over news of the "opening up of the North."

The _Chicago Defender_ became a "herald of glad tidings" to southern Negroes. Several cities attempted to prevent its circulation among their Negro population and confiscated the street- and store-sales supplies as fast as they came. Negroes then relied upon subscription copies delivered through the mails. There are reports of the clandestine circulation of copies of the paper in bundles of merchandise. A correspondent of the _Defender_ wrote: "White people are paying more attention to the race in order to keep them in the South, but the _Chicago Defender_ has emblazoned upon their minds 'Bound for the Promised Land.'"

In Gulfport, Mississippi, it was stated, a man was regarded "intelligent" if he read the _Defender_, and in Laurel, Mississippi, it was said that old men who had never known how to read, bought the paper simply because it was regarded as precious.[18]

Articles and headlines carrying this special appeal which appeared in the _Defender_ are quoted:

WHY SHOULD THE NEGRO STAY IN THE SOUTH?

WEST INDIANS LIVE NORTH

It is true the South is nice and warm, and may I add, so is China, and we find Chinamen living in the North, East, and West. So is Japan, but the Japanese are living everywhere.

SCHOOL BOARDS BAD

While in Arkansas a member of the school board in one of the cities of that state (and it is said it is the rule throughout the South that a Race woman teacher to hold her school must be on friendly terms with some one of them) lived openly with a Race woman, and the entire Race, men and women, were afraid to protest or stop their children from going to school, because this school board member would get up a mob and run them out of the state. They must stomach this treatment.

FROZEN DEATH BETTER

To die from the bite of frost is far more glorious than that of the mob. I beg of you, my brothers, to leave that benighted land. You are free men. Show the world that you will not let false leaders lead you. Your neck has been in the yoke. Will you continue to keep it there because some "white folks Nigger" wants you to? Leave to all quarters of the globe. Get out of the South. Your being there in the numbers you are gives the southern politician too strong a hold on your progress.

TURN DEAF EAR Turn a deaf ear to everybody. You see they are not lifting their laws to help you, are they? Have they stopped their Jim Crow cars? Can you buy a Pullman sleeper where you wish? Will they give you a square deal in court yet? When a girl is sent to prison, she becomes the mistress of the guards and others in authority, and women prisoners are put on the streets to work, something they don't do to a white woman. And your leaders will tell you the South is the best place for you. Turn a deaf ear to the scoundrel, and let him stay. Above all, see to it that that jumping-jack preacher is left at the South, for he means you no good here at the North.

GOOD-BYE, DIXIE LAND

_One of our dear southern friends_ informs an anxious public that "the Negroes of the North seem to fit very well into their occupations and locations, but the southern Negro will never make a success in the North. He doesn't understand the methods there, the people and the work are wholly unsuited to him. Give him a home in the South where climatic conditions blend into his peculiar physical makeup, where he is understood and can understand, and let him have a master and you have given him the ideal home." There is the solution of the problem in a nutshell. This dear friend thinks that under a master back of the sugar cane and cotton fields, we might really be worth something to the world. How thoughtful to point out the way for our stumbling feet.

Those who live in the North presumably always lived there, and, like Topsy, they "just growed" in that section, so naturally fit well into their occupations. There is such a difference between the white man and the black man of the South; the former can travel to the North Pole if he chooses without being affected, the latter, "they say" will die of a million dread diseases if he dares to leave Dixie land, and yet the thousands who have migrated North in the past year look as well and hearty as they ever did. Something is wrong in our friend's calculations.

We hear again and again of our "peculiar physical makeup." Is there something radically different about us that is not found in other people? Why the constant fear of Negro supremacy if the white brain is more active and intelligent than the brain found in the colored man? A good lawyer never fears a poor one in a court battle--he knows that he has him bested from the start. The fact that we have made good wherever and whenever given an opportunity, we admit, is a little disquieting, but it is a way we have, and is hard to get out of. Once upon a time we permitted other people to think for us--today we are thinking and acting for ourselves, with the result that our "friends" are getting alarmed at our progress. We'd like to oblige these unselfish (?) souls and remain slaves in the South, but to other sections of the country we have said, as the song goes: "I hear you calling me," and boarded the train singing, "Good-by to Dixie-Land."

News articles in the _Defender_ kept alive the enthusiasm and fervor of the exodus:

LEAVING FOR THE NORTH

Tampa, Fla., Jan. 19.--J. T. King, supposed to be a race leader, is using his wits to get on the good side of the white people by calling a meeting to urge our people not to migrate North. King has been termed a "good nigger" by his pernicious activity on the emigration question. Reports have been received here that all who have gone North are at work and pleased with the splendid conditions in the North. It is known here that in the North there is a scarcity of labor, mills and factories are open to them. People are not paying any attention to King and are packing and ready to travel North to the "promised land."

DETERMINED TO GO NORTH

Jackson, Miss., March 23.--Although the white police and sheriff and others are using every effort to intimidate the citizens from going North, even Dr. Redmond's speech was circulated around, this has not deterred our people from leaving. Many have walked miles to take the train for the North. There is a determination to leave and there is no hand save death to keep them from it.

THOMAS LIKES THE NORTH

J. H. Thomas, Birmingham, Ala., Brownsville Colony, has been here several weeks and is very much pleased with the North. He is working at the Pullman shops, making twice as much as he did at home. Mr. Thomas says the "exodus" will be greater later on in the year, that he did not find four feet of snow or would freeze to death. He lives at 346 East Thirty-fifth St.

LEAVING FOR THE EAST

Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 19.--Fifteen families, all members of the Race, left here today for Pittsburgh, Pa., where they will take positions as butlers, and maids, getting sixty to seventy-five dollars per month, against fifteen and twenty paid here. Most of them claim that they have letters from their friends who went early and made good, saying that there was plenty of work, and this field of labor is short, owing to the vast amount of men having gone to Europe and not returned.

THEY'RE LEAVING MEMPHIS IN DROVES

Some are coming on the passenger, Some are coming on the freight, Others will be found walking, For none have time to wait.

Other headlines read: "Thousands Leave Memphis"; "Still Planning to Come North"; "Northbound Their Cry." These articles are especially interesting for the impelling power of the suggestion of a great mass movement.

_Denunciation of the South._--The idea that the South is a bad place, unfit for the habitation of Negroes, was "played up" and emphasized by the _Defender_. Conditions most distasteful to Negroes were given first prominence. In this it had a clear field, for the local southern Negro papers dared not make such unrestrained utterances. Articles of this type appeared:

EXODUS TO START

Forest City, Ark., Feb. 16.--David B. Smith (white) is on trial for life for the brutal murder of a member of the Race, W. H. Winford, who refused to be whipped like others. This white man had the habit of making his "slave" submit to this sort of punishment and when Winford refused to stand for it, he was whipped to death with a "black snake" whip. The trial of Smith is attracting very little attention. As a matter of fact, the white people here think nothing of it as the dead man is a "nigger."

This very act, coupled with other recent outrages that have been heaped upon our people, are causing thousands to leave, not waiting for the great spring movement in May.

The _Defender_ had a favorite columnist, W. Allison Sweeney. His specialty was "breaking southerners and 'white folks' niggers on the wheel." One of his articles in the issue of June 23, 1917, was captioned: "A Chicago 'Nigger' Preacher, a 'Feeder,' of The 'Little Hells,' Springs up to Hinder Our Brethren Coming North."

A passage from this article will illustrate the temper of his writings. Aroused by what he calls a "white folks nigger," he remarks:

Such a creature has recently been called to my attention, and for the same reason that an unchecked rat has been known to jeopardize the life of a great ship, a mouse's nibble of a match to set a mansion aflame, I've concluded to carve a

"Slice of liver or two"

from that bellowing ass, who, at this very moment no doubt, somewhere in the South, is going up and down the land, telling the natives _why_ they should be content, as the _Tribune_, puts it, to become "Russianized," to remain in that land--to them--of _blight_; of _murdered_ kin, _deflowered_ womanhood, _wrecked_ homes, _strangled_ ambitions, _make-believe_ schools, _roving_ "gun parties," _midnight arrests_, _rifled_ virginity, _trumped up_ charges, _lonely_ graves, where owls hoot, and where friends dare not go! Do you wonder at the thousands leaving the land where every foot of ground marks a tragedy, leaving the grave of their fathers and all that is dear, to seek their fortunes in the North? And you who say that their going is to seek better wages are insulting truth, dethroning reason, and consoling yourself with a groundless allegation.

_Retaliation._--In answer to the warnings of the South against the rigors of the northern winters, articles of this nature appeared:

FREEZING TO DEATH IN THE SOUTH

So much has been said through the white papers in the South about the members of the race freezing to death in the North. They freeze to death down South when they don't take care of themselves. There is no reason for any human staying in the Southland on this bugaboo handed out by the white press, when the following clippings are taken from the same journals:

AGED NEGRO FROZEN TO DEATH

Albany, Ga., Feb. 8.--Yesterday the dead body of Peter Crowder, an old Negro, was found in an out-of-the-way spot where he had been frozen to death during the recent cold snap [from the _Macon_ (Georgia) _Telegraph_].

DIES FROM EXPOSURE

Spartanburg, Feb. 6.--Marshall Jackson, a Negro man, who lived on the farm of J. T. Harris near Campobello Sunday night froze to death [from the _South Carolina State_].

NEGRO FROZEN TO DEATH IN FIRELESS GRETNA HUT

Coldest weather of the last four years claimed a victim Friday night, when Archie Williams, a Negro, was frozen to death in his bed in a little hut in the outskirts of Gretna [from the _New Orleans Item_, dated Feb. 4th].

NEGRO WOMAN FROZEN TO DEATH MONDAY

Harriet Tolbert, an aged Negro woman, was frozen to death in her home at 18 Garibaldi Street early Monday morning during the severe cold [Atlanta (Ga.) _Constitution_, dated Feb. 6].

If you can freeze to death in the North and be free, why freeze to death in the South and be a slave, where your mother, sister, and daughter are raped and burned at stake, where your father, brother and son are treated with contempt and hung to a pole, riddled with bullets at the least mention that he does not like the way he has been treated?

Come North then, all of you folks, both good and bad. If you don't behave yourself up here, the jails will certainly make you wish you had. For the hard working man there is plenty of work--if you really want it. The _Defender_ says come.

Still in another mood:

DIED, BUT TOOK ONE WITH HIM

Alexandria, La., Sept. 29.--Joe Pace (white) a southern workman, who had a way of bulldozing members of the Race employed by the Elizabeth Lumber Company, met his match here last Saturday night.

Pace got into one of his moods and kicked a fellow named Israel. Israel determined to get justice some way and knowing that the courts were only for white men in this part of the country, he took a shot at Pace and his aim was good.

Another type of article appeared. In keeping with the concept of the South as a bad place for Negroes, their escape from it under exceptional circumstances was given unique attention. Thus, there were reported the following kind of cases.

SAVED FROM THE SOUTH

Lawyers Save Another from Being Taken South

SAVED FROM THE SOUTH

Charged with Murder, but His Release Is Secured by Habeas Corpus

NEW SCHEME TO KEEP RACE MEN IN DIXIE LAND

A piece of poetry which received widespread popularity appeared in the _Defender_ under the title "Bound for the Promise Land." Other published poems expressing the same sentiment were: "Farewell, We're Good and Gone"; "Northward Bound"; "The Land of Hope."

Five young men were arraigned before Judge E. Schwartz for reading poetry. The police claim they were inciting riot in the city and over Georgia. Two of the men were sent to Brown farm for thirty days, a place not fit for human beings. Tom Amaca was arrested for having "Bound for the Promise Land," a poem published in the _Defender_ several months ago. J. N. Chislom and A. A. Walker were arrested because they were said to be the instigators of the movement of the race to the North, where work is plentiful and better treatment is given.

_The "Great Northern Drive."_--The setting of definite dates was another stimulus. The "Great Northern Drive" was scheduled to begin May 15, 1917. This date, or the week following, corresponds with the date of the heaviest arrivals in the North, the period of greatest temporary congestion and awakening of the North to the presence of the new arrivals. Letters to the _Chicago Defender_ and to social agencies in the North informed them of many Negroes who were preparing to come in the "Great Drive." The following letter tells its own story:

April 24th, 1917 _Mr. R. S. Abbot_

SIR: I have been reading the _Defender_ for one year or more and last February I read about the Great Northern Drive to take place May 15th on Thursday and now I can hear so many people speaking of an excursion to the North on the 15th of May for $3.00. My husband is in the North already working, and he wants us to come up in May, so I want to know if it is true about the excursion. I am getting ready and oh so many others also, and we want to know is that true so we can be in the Drive. So please answer at once. We are getting ready.

Yours, ----

Usually the dates set were for Wednesday and Saturday nights, following pay days.

It is probably no exaggeration to say that the _Defender's_ policy prompted thousands of restless Negroes to venture North, where they were assured of its protection and championship of their cause. Many migrants in Chicago attribute their presence in the North to the _Defender's_ encouraging pictures of relief from conditions at home with which they became increasingly dissatisfied as they read.

IV. THE ARRIVAL IN CHICAGO

At the time of the migration the great majority of Negroes in Chicago lived in a limited area on the South Side, principally between Twenty-second and Thirty-ninth streets, Wentworth Avenue and State Street, and in scattered groups to Cottage Grove Avenue on the east. State Street was the main thoroughfare. Prior to the influx of southern Negroes, many houses stood vacant in the section west of State Street, from which Negroes had moved when better houses became available east of State Street. Into these old and frequently almost uninhabitable houses the first newcomers moved. Because of its proximity to the old vice area this district had an added undesirability for old Chicagoans. The newcomers, however, were unacquainted with its reputation and had no hesitancy about moving in until better homes could be secured. As the number of arrivals increased, a scarcity of houses followed, creating a problem of acute congestion.

During the summer of 1917 the Chicago Urban League made a canvass of real estate dealers supplying houses for Negroes, and found that in a single day there were 664 Negro applicants for houses, and only fifty houses available. In some instances as many as ten persons were listed for a single house. This condition did not continue long. There were counted thirty-six new neighborhoods, formerly white, opening up to Negroes within three months.

At the same time rents increased from 5 to 30 and sometimes as much as 50 per cent. A more detailed study of living conditions among the early migrants in Chicago was made by the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. The inquiry included seventy-five families of less than a year's residence. In the group were sixty married couples, 128 children, eight women, nine married men with families in the South. Of these migrants forty-five families came from rural and thirty-two from urban localities. The greatest number, twenty-nine, came from Alabama; twenty-five were from Mississippi, eleven from Louisiana, five from Georgia, four from Arkansas, two from Tennessee, and one from Florida. Forty-one of these seventy-five families were each living in one room. These rooms were rented by the week, thus making possible an easy change of home at the first opportunity.

It was at this period that the greatest excitement over the "incoming hordes of Negroes" prevailed.

A significant feature was the large number of young children found. The age distribution of 128 children in these seventy-five families was forty-seven under seven years, forty-one between seven and fourteen years, and forty over fourteen years.

Most of these children were of school age and had come from districts in the South which provided few school facilities. The parents were unaccustomed to the requirements of northern schools in matters of discipline, attendance, and scholarship. Considerable difficulty was experienced by teachers, parents, and children in these first stages of adjustment.

V. ADJUSTMENTS TO CHICAGO LIFE

Meeting actual conditions of life in Chicago brought its exaltations and disillusionments to the migrants. These were reflected in the schools, public amusement places, industry, and the street cars. The Chicago Urban League, Negro churches, and Negro newspapers assumed the task of making the migrants into "city folk." The increase in church membership indicates prompt efforts to re-engage in community life and establish agreeable and helpful associations. It also reflects the persistence of religious life among the migrants. This increase is shown in Table V.

TABLE V

========================================= | INCREASE IN MEMBERSHIP | DURING MIGRATION PERIOD NAME OF CHURCH |------------+------------ | Number | Percentage ---------------+------------+------------ Salem | 700 | 51 Olivet | 5,543 | 80 South Park | 2,425 | 1,872 St. Mark's | 1,800 | 100 Hyde Park | 95 | 131 Bethel | 650 | 800 Walters | 351 | 338 ---------------+------------+------------

Adjustment to new conditions was taken up by the Urban League as its principal work. Co-operating with the Travelers Aid Society, United Charities, and other agencies of the city, it met the migrants at stations and, as far as its facilities permitted, secured living quarters and jobs for them. The churches took them into membership and attempted to make them feel at home. Negro newspapers published instructions on dress and conduct and had great influence in smoothing down improprieties of manner which were likely to provoke criticism and intolerance in the city.

Individual experiences of the migrants in this period of adjustment were often interesting. The Commission made a special effort to note these experiences for the light they throw upon the general process. Much of the adjustment was a double process, including the adjustment of rural southern Negroes to northern urban conditions. It is to be remembered that over 70 per cent of the Negro population of the South is rural. This means familiarity with rural methods, simple machinery, and plain habits of living. Farmers and plantation workers coming to Chicago had to learn new tasks. Skilled craftsmen had to relearn their trades when they were thrown amid the highly specialized processes of northern industries. Domestic servants went into industry. Professional men who followed their clientèle had to re-establish themselves in a new community. The small business men could not compete with the Jewish merchants, who practically monopolized the trade of Negroes near their residential areas, or with the "Loop" stores.

Many Negroes sold their homes and brought their furniture with them. Reinvesting in property frequently meant a loss; the furniture brought was often found to be unsuited to the tiny apartments or large, abandoned dwelling-houses they were able to rent or buy.

The change of home carried with it in many cases a change of status. The leader in a small southern community, when he came to Chicago, was immediately absorbed into the struggling mass of unnoticed workers. School teachers, male and female, whose positions in the South carried considerable prestige, had to go to work in factories and plants because the disparity in educational standards would not permit continuance of their profession in Chicago.

These illustrations in Table VI, taken from family histories, show how adjustment led to inferior occupation.

TABLE VI

====================================================================== Occupation in South | Occupation on First | Occupation One or | Arrival in Chicago | More Years Later -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Display man on |Laborer |Laborer in factory furniture | | -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Stone mason |Laborer in coal yard |Laborer in Stock Yards -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Proprietor of café |Laborer |Elevator man -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Farmer |Laborer in Stock Yards |Laborer in Stock Yards -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Coal miner |Porter in tailoring |Janitor |shop | -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Proprietor of |Laborer |Laborer in Stock Yards boarding-house | | -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Farmer |Factory worker |Factory worker -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Barber |Painter |Janitor -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Hotel waiter |Waiter |Porter in factory -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Plasterer |Laborer in Stock Yards |Laborer in steel mill -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Farmer |Hostler |Laborer in livery | |stable -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Clergyman |Stationary fireman |Laborer in Stock Yards -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Tinsmith |Waiter |Laborer -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Farmer |Laborer in cement |Laborer in Stock Yards |factory | -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Blacksmith |Barber |Janitor -----------------------+-----------------------+---------------------- Office boy |Porter |Laborer in Stock Yards -----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

The following experiences of one or two families from the many histories gathered, while not entirely typical of all the migrants, contain features common to all:

_The Thomas family._--Mr. Thomas, his wife and two children, a girl nineteen and a boy seventeen, came to Chicago from Seals, Alabama, in the spring of 1917. After a futile search, the family rented rooms for the first week. This was expensive and inconvenient, and between working hours all sought a house into which they could take their furniture. They finally found a five-room flat on Federal Street. The building had been considered uninhabitable and dangerous. Three of the five rooms were almost totally dark. The plumbing was out of order. There was no bath, and the toilet was outside of the house. There was neither electricity nor gas, and the family used oil lamps. The rent was $15 per month. Although the combined income of the family could easily have made possible a better house, they could find none.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were farmers in the South. On the farm Mrs. Thomas did the work of a man along with her husband. Both are illiterate. The daughter had reached the fourth grade and the boy the fifth grade in school. At home they belonged to a church and various fraternal orders and took part in rural community life.

On their arrival in Chicago they were short of funds. Father and son went to work at the Stock Yards. Although they had good jobs they found their income insufficient; the girl went to work in a laundry, and the mother worked as a laundress through the first winter for $1 a day. She later discovered that she was working for half the regular rate for laundry work. Soon she went back to housekeeping to reduce the food bill.

All the family were timid and self-conscious and for a long time avoided contacts, thus depriving themselves of helpful suggestions. The children became ashamed of the manners of their parents and worked diligently to correct their manner of speech. The children attended Wendell Phillips night school in the hope of improving their community status.

The freedom and independence of Negroes in the North have been a constant novelty to them and many times they have been surprised that they were "not noticed enough to be mistreated." They have tried out various amusement places, parks, ice-cream parlors, and theaters near their home on the South Side and have enjoyed them because they were denied these opportunities in their former home.

The combined income of this family is $65 a week, and their rent is now low. Many of their old habits have been preserved because of the isolation in which they have lived and because they have not been able to move into better housing.

_The Jones family._--Mr. Jones, his wife, a six-year-old son, and a nephew aged twenty-one, came from Texas early in 1919. Although they arrived after the heaviest migration, they experienced the same difficulties as earlier comers.

They searched for weeks for a suitable house. At first they secured one room on the South Side in a rooming-house, where they were obliged to provide gas, coal, linen, bedding, and part of the furniture. After a few weeks they got two rooms for light housekeeping, for $10 a month. The associations as well as the physical condition of the house were intolerable. They then rented a flat on Carroll Avenue in another section. The building was old and run down. The agent for the property, to induce tenants to occupy it, had promised to clean and decorate it, but failed to keep his word. When the Jones family asked the owner to make repairs, he refused flatly and was exceedingly abusive.

Finally Jones located a house on the West Side that was much too large for his family, and the rent too high. They were forced to take lodgers to aid in paying the rent. This was against the desire of Mrs. Jones, who did not like to have strangers in her house. The house has six rooms and bath and is in a state of dilapidation. Mr. Jones has been forced to cover the holes in the floor with tin to keep out the rats. The plumbing is bad. During the winter there is no running water, and the agent for the building refuses to clean more than three rooms or to furnish screens or storm doors or to pay for any plumbing. In the back yard under the house is an accumulation of ashes, tin cans, and garbage left by a long series of previous tenants. There is no alley back of the house, and all of the garbage from the back yard must be carried out through the front. Jones made a complaint about insanitary conditions to the Health Department, and the house was inspected, but so far nothing has been done. It was difficult to induce the agent to supply garbage cans.

Jones had reached the eighth grade, and Mrs. Jones had completed the first year of high school. The nephew had finished public-school grades provided in his home town and had been taught the boiler trade. He is now pursuing this trade in hope of securing sufficient funds to complete his course in Conroe College, where he has already finished the first year. The boy of six was placed in a West Side school. He was removed from this school, however, and sent back south to live with Mrs. Jones's mother and attend school there. Mrs. Jones thought that the influence of the school children of Chicago was not good for him. He had been almost blinded by a blow from a baseball bat in the hands of one of several older boys who continually annoyed him. The child had also learned vulgar language from his school associates.

The Jones family were leading citizens in their southern home. They were members of a Baptist church, local clubs, and a missionary society, while Jones was a member and officer in the Knights of Tabor, Masons, and Odd Fellows. They owned their home and two other pieces of property in the same town, one of which brought in $20 a month. As a boiler-maker, he earned about $50 a week, which is about the same as his present income. Their motive in coming to Chicago was to escape from the undesirable practices and customs of the South.

They had been told that no discrimination was practiced against Negroes in Chicago; that they could go where they pleased without the embarrassment or hindrance because of their color. Accordingly, when they first came to Chicago, they went into drug-stores and restaurants. They were refused service in numbers of restaurants and at the refreshment counters in some drug-stores. The family has begun the re-establishment of its community life, having joined a West Side Baptist church and taking an active interest in local organizations, particularly the Wendell Phillips Social Settlement. The greatest satisfaction of the Joneses comes from the "escape from Jim Crow conditions and segregation" and the securing of improved conditions of work, although there is no difference in the wages.

VI. MIGRANTS IN CHICAGO

Migrants have been visited in their homes, and met in industry, in the schools, and in contacts on street cars and in parks. Efforts have been made to learn why they came to Chicago and with what success they were adjusting themselves to their new surroundings.

Some of the replies to questions asked are given:

_Question_: Why did you come to Chicago?

_Answers_:

1. Looking for better wages.

2. So I could support my family.

3. Tired of being a flunky.

4. I just happened to drift here.

5. Some of my people were here.

6. Persuaded by friends.

7. Wanted to make more money so I could go into business; couldn't do it in the South.

8. To earn more money.

9. For better wages.

10. Wanted to change and come to the North.

11. Came to get more money for work.

12. To better my conditions.

13. Better conditions.

14. Better conditions.

15. Better living.

16. More work; came on visit and stayed.

17. Wife persuaded me.

18. To establish a church.

19. Tired of the South.

20. To get away from the South, and to earn more money.

_Question_: Do you feel greater freedom and independence in Chicago? In what ways?

_Answers_:

1. Yes. Working conditions and the places of amusement.

2. Yes. The chance to make a living; conditions on the street cars and in movies.

3. Going into places of amusement and living in good neighborhoods.

4. Yes. Educationally, and in the home conditions.

5. Yes. Go anywhere you want to go; voting; don't have to look up to the white man, get off the street for him, and go to the buzzard roost at shows.

6. Yes. Just seem to feel a general feeling of good-fellowship.

7. On the street cars and the way you are treated where you work.

8. Yes. Can go any place I like here. At home I was segregated and not treated like I had any rights.

9. Yes. Privilege to mingle with people; can go to the parks and places of amusement, not being segregated.

10. Yes. Feel free to do anything I please. Not dictated to by white people.

11. Yes. Had to take any treatment white people offered me there, compelled to say "yes ma'am" or "yes sir" to white people, whether you desired to or not. If you went to an ice cream parlor for anything you came outside to eat it. Got off sidewalk for white people.

12. Yes. Can vote; feel free; haven't any fear; make more money.

13. Yes. Voting; better opportunity for work; more respect from white people.

14. Yes. Can vote; no lynching; no fear of mobs; can express my opinion and defend myself.

15. Yes. Voting, more privileges; white people treat me better, not as much prejudice.

16. Yes. Feel more like a man. Same as slavery, in a way, at home. I don't have to give up the sidewalk here for white people as in my former home.

17. Yes. No restrictions as to shows, schools, etc. More protection of law.

18. Yes. Have more privileges and more money.

19. Yes. More able to express views on all questions. No segregation or discrimination.

20. Sure. Feel more freedom. Was not counted in the South; colored people allowed no freedom at all in the South.

21. Find things quite different to what they are at home. Haven't become accustomed to the place yet.

_Question_: What were your first impressions of Chicago?

_Answers_:

1. I liked the air of doing things here.

2. A place of real opportunity if you would work.

3. Place just full of life. Went to see the sights every night for a month.

4. I thought it was some great place but found out it wasn't. Uncle told me he was living on Portland Avenue, that it was some great avenue; found nothing but a mud hole. I sure wished I was back home.

5. When I got here and got on the street cars and saw colored people sitting by white people all over the car I just held my breath, for I thought any minute they would start something, then I saw nobody noticed it, and I just thought this was a real place for colored people. No, indeed, I'll never work in anybody's kitchen but my own, any more, that's the one thing that makes me stick to this job.

6. Was completely lost, friend was to meet me but didn't and I was afraid to ask anyone where to go; finally my friend came; was afraid to sleep first night--so much noise; thought the cars would finally stop running so I could rest.

7. Liked the place.

8. Always liked Chicago, even the name before I came.

9. Liked it fine.

10. Good city for colored people.

11. Fine city.

12. Thought it the best place for colored people.

13. Thought it a good place for colored people to live in.

14. Very favorable, thought it the place to be for myself and family.

15. Didn't like it; lonesome, until I went out. Then liked the places of amusement which have no restrictions.

16. Liked it fine, like it even better now.

17. Liked Chicago from the first visit made two years ago; was not satisfied until I was able to get back.

18. Think I will like it later on.

_Question_: In what respects is life harder or easier here than in the South?

_Answers_:

1. Easier. I don't have to work so hard and get more money.

2. Easier in that here my wife doesn't have to work. I just couldn't make it by myself in the South.

3. Living is much easier; chance to learn a trade. I make and save more money.

4. Easier, you can make more money and it means more to you.

5. Easier to make a living here.

6. Easier, I get more money for my work and have some spare time.

7. Have better home, but have to work harder. I make more money, but spend it all to live.

8. Have more time to rest here and don't work as hard.

9. Find it easier to live because I have more to live on.

10. Earn more money; the strain is not so great wondering from day to day how to make a little money do.

11. Work harder here than at home.

12. Easier. Work is hard, but hours are short. I make more money and can live better.

13. More money for work, though work is harder. Better able to buy the necessities of life.

14. Easier; more work and more money and shorter hours.

15. Living higher, but would rather be here than in South. I have shorter hours here.

16. Don't have to work as hard here as at home. Have more time for rest and to spend with family.

17. Easier to live in St. Louis. More work here and better wages. Living higher here. Saved more there.

18. Must work very hard here, much harder than at home.

19. Harder because of increased cost of living.

20. The entire family feels that life is much easier here than at home. Do not find work as hard anywhere.

_Question_: What do you like about the North?

_Answers_:

1. Freedom in voting and conditions of colored people here. I mean you can live in good houses; men here get a chance to go with the best-looking girls in the race; some may do it in Memphis, but it ain't always safe.

2. Freedom and chance to make a living; privileges.

3. Freedom and opportunity to acquire something.

4. Freedom allowed in every way.

5. More money and more pleasure to be gotten from it; personal freedom Chicago affords, and voting.

6. Freedom and working conditions.

7. Work, can work any place, freedom.

8. The schools for the children, the better wages, and the privileges for colored people.

9. The chance colored people have to live; privileges allowed them and better homes.

10. The friendliness of the people, the climate which makes health better.

11. Like the privileges, the climate; have better health.

12. No discrimination; can express opinion and vote.

13. Freedom of speech, right to live and work as other races. Higher pay for labor.

14. Freedom; privileges; treatment of whites; ability to live in peace; not held down.

15. Freedom of speech and action. Can live without fear, no Jim Crow.

16. More enjoyment; more places of attraction; better treatment; better schools for children.

17. Liberty, better schools.

18. I like the North for wages earned and better homes colored people can live in and go more places than at home.

19. Privileges, freedom, industrial and educational facilities.

20. The people, the freedom and liberty colored people enjoy here that they never before experienced. Even the ways of the people are better than at home.

21. Haven't found anything yet to like, except wife thinks she will like the opportunity of earning more money than ever before.

_Question_: What difficulties do you think a person from the South meets in coming to Chicago?

_Answers_:

1. Getting used to climate and houses.

2. Getting accustomed to cold weather and flats.

3. Getting used to living conditions and make more money; not letting the life here run away with you.

4. Adjusting myself to the weather and flat life: rooming and "closeness" of the houses.

5. Getting used to flat conditions and crowded houses.

6. Getting used to living in flats, and growing accustomed to being treated like people.

7. Getting used to the ways of the people; not speaking or being friendly; colder weather, hard on people from the South.

8. Just the treatment some of the white people give you on the trains. Sometimes treat you like dogs.

9. Know of no difficulties a person from the South meets coming to Chicago.

10. I didn't meet any difficulties coming from the South. Know of none persons would likely meet.

11. Can think of no difficulties persons meet coming from the South to Chicago.

12. Adjustment to working conditions and climate.

13. Climatic changes.

14. Change in climate, crowded living conditions, lack of space for gardens, etc.

15. Change in climate, crowded housing conditions.

16. Coming without knowing where they are going to stop usually causes some difficulty. Get in with wrong people who seek to take advantage of the ignorance of newcomers.

17. Becoming adjusted to climate.

18. If they know where they are going, when they come here. The danger lies in getting among the wrong class of people.

19. Adjustment to city customs, etc.

20. If persons know where they are going and what they are going to do, will not have any trouble. Must come with the intention of working or else expect many difficulties.

21. Know of no difficulties.

_Question_: Do you get more comforts and pleasures from your higher wages?

_Answers_:

1. Yes. Better homes, places of amusement, and the buying of your clothes here. You can try on things; you can do that in some stores in Memphis, but not in all.

2. Yes. Living in better houses, can go into almost any place if you have the money, and then the schools are so much better here.

3. Yes. I live better, save more, and feel more like a man.

4. Yes. I can buy more, my wife can have her clothes fitted here, she can try on a hat, and if she doesn't want it she doesn't have to keep it; go anywhere I please on the cars after I pay my fare; I can do any sort of work I know how to do.

5. Yes. Go anywhere I please, buy what I please; ain't afraid to get on cars and sit where I please.

6. Well, I make more money. I can't save anything from it. There are so many places to go here, but down South you work, work, work, and you have to save, for you haven't any place to spend it.

7. Yes. Better homes. Spend money anywhere you want to, go anywhere you have money enough to go; don't go out very much but like to know I can where and when I want to.

8. Have chance to make more money, but it is all spent to keep family up.

9. At home did not earn much money and did not have any left to go what few places colored people were allowed to go. Here, Negroes can have whatever they want.

10. Don't have to worry about how you are going to live. More money earned affords anything wanted.

11. Have more comforts in the home that could not have at home; more conveniences here. Wages sons earn make it possible to have all that is wanted.

12. Yes. Better houses and more enjoyment.

13. Yes. I live in larger house and have more conveniences. Can take more pleasure; have more leisure time.

14. Yes. Better houses and more amusement. More time of my own, better furniture and food.

15. Yes. Better houses and furniture. More pleasures because of shorter hours of work, giving me more time.

16. What little was earned at home was used for food and clothing. Here, earn more, have more to spend; now and then put some in the bank, and can spend some for pleasure without strain or inconvenience.

17. Yes. More places to go, parks and playgrounds for children, and no difference made between white and colored. Houses more convenient here.

18. Have more money to spend but when you have to live in houses where landlord won't fix up you can't have much comfort. Go no place for pleasure, but enjoy the chance of earning more money.

19. No comment.

20. Have money to get whatever is desired. Live in a better house and can go places denied at home. All the family are perfectly satisfied and are happier than they have ever been.

21. Live in better house than ever lived in. Never had the comforts furnished here. Some houses there had no water closets; only had cistern and wells out in the yard.

_Question_: Are you advising friends to come to Chicago?

_Answers_:

1. Yes. People down there don't really believe the things we write back, I didn't believe myself until I got here.

2. No. I am not going to encourage them to come, for they might not make it, then I would be blamed.

3. Yes. If I think they will work.

4. Some of them, those who I think would appreciate the advantages here.

5. No. Not right now, come here and get to work, strikes come along, they're out of work. Come if they want to, though.

6. Yes. I have two sisters still in Lexington. I am trying to get them to come up here. They can't understand why I stay here, but they'll see if they come.

7. Yes. People here don't realize how some parts of the South treat colored folks; poor white trash were awful mean where we came from; wish all the colored folks would come up here where you ain't afraid to breathe.

8. Yes. Want friend and husband to come; also sister and family who want her to come back that they may see how she looks before they break up and come. Youngest son begs mother never to think of going back South. Oldest son not so well satisfied when first came, but since he is working, likes it a little better.

Only a few migrants were found who came on free transportation, and many of these had friends in Chicago before they came. Few expressed a desire to return.

VII. EFFORTS TO CHECK MIGRATION

The withdrawal of great numbers of Negroes, both because of the migration and because of military service, left large gaps in the industries of the South dependent upon Negro labor. Thousands of acres of rice and sugar cane went to waste. The turpentine industry of the Carolinas and the milling interests of Tennessee were hard pressed for labor. Cotton-growing was much affected, especially in the delta region of Mississippi. The situation became critical, presenting a real economic problem. Organized efforts were made, and at times extreme measures were taken, to start a return movement. A report was circulated that on one day in the winter of 1919 in Chicago, 17,000 Negroes were counted in a bread line. The "horrors of northern winters" were played up as they had been during the migration.

The press throughout the country was used to spread broadcast the South's needs, its kind treatment of Negroes, its opportunities, and its growing change of heart on the question of race relations. Newspaper articles from sections of the North and South carried about the same story. The _Chicago Tribune_ said in a conspicuous headline: "Louisiana Wants Negroes to Return." Other such headlines were: _Washington Post_--"South Needs Negroes. Try to Get Labor for Their Cotton Fields. Tell of Kind Treatment"; _New York Evening Sun_--"To Aid Negro Return"; _Philadelphia Press_--"South Is Urging Negroes to Return. Many Districts Willing to Pay Fare of Those Who Come Back"; _Memphis Commercial Appeal_--"South Is Best for Negro, Say Mississippians. Colored People Found Prosperous and Happy."

Though such reports were widely circulated throughout the North, the actual efforts of agencies from the South seeking the return of Negro labor centered around Chicago. This was due largely to the fact that from the southern states most acutely in need the drift during the migration had been to Chicago, and because the increase of Chicago's Negro population had been so great.

Immediately following the riots in Chicago and Washington, rumors gained wide currency that hundreds of migrants were leaving for sections of the South. So strong was the belief in the truth of this report that a Chicago newspaper telegraphed the governors of southern states inquiring the number of Negroes they needed. Agents of the South, including representatives of the Tennessee Association of Commerce, the Department of Immigration of Louisiana, the Mississippi Welfare League, and the Southern Alluvial Land Association, visited northern cities with a view to providing means for the return of Negroes. Although free transportation was offered, together with promises of increased wages and better living conditions, the various commissions were disappointed.

Their interviews with Negroes living in Chicago revealed a determination not to return to conditions they had left two years before. To offset this objection, two Chicago Negroes and one white man were taken to Mississippi by a representative of the Mississippi Welfare League to make an investigation. They visited several delta towns, traveling for the most part in automobiles and interviewing farmers and laborers. They reported in substance as follows:

Railroad accommodations for Negroes were adequate and uniform, irrespective of locality; treatment accorded Negro passengers by railroad officials was courteous throughout. Public-school terms were nine months in the city and eight months in the country for white and colored alike, and the strongest possible human ties between planter and worker exist.... In no instance were Negroes not given the freest use of sidewalks, streets, and thoroughfares and we were unable to find any trace of friction of any kind between the races.

An effort was then made by the Chicago Urban League to ascertain the precise state of affairs. Its southern representative questioned hundreds of Negroes living in the South, regarding improved relationships. Answers to this query were all about the same. Some of them are quoted:

There has been no change. Lincoln League organized in this city has been denounced by the white newspapers as a movement that will cause trouble, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Urban Leagues of various cities have been called "strife breeders and meddlers in southern affairs"; Jim Crow accommodations are just the same as ever. If there is any change for the better, I can't see it.

It is ridiculous for any Negro to say he finds conditions better here. Don't you remember that Negroes answering an invitation to meet the Welfare Committee of white men not long ago were told as soon as they got into the meeting place that the Committee was ready to hear what Negroes wanted, but that the question of the Negro's right to exercise the right of voting would not be allowed to be discussed at all, and that that must be agreed to before any discussion whatever would be entertained, and that the Negroes left the meeting place without a chance to demand the one thing they wished to enjoy?

* * * * *

Some deceitful, lying Negro may say that times are better, but he would, at the same time, know that he was not telling the truth. Haven't you been hearing more reports of lynching of Negroes than you ever did in your life, since the war? Where, then, is there any improvement? Ain't all the judges, all the police and constables, all the juries as white man as ever? Does the word of a Negro count for more now than it did before the war? Don't white men insult our wives and daughters and sisters and get off at it, unless we take the law into our own hand and punish them for it ourselves, and get lynched for protecting our own, just as often as ever? How much more schooling from public funds do our children get now than they got before the war? How much more do we have to say now than we had to say before the war about the way the taxes we pay shall be spent for schools, or for salaries, or for anything connected with administration and government? Why, even the colored man in Caddo parish who subscribed for $100,000 in Liberty bonds and bought lots of War Savings stamps, and others who bought less, but in the hundreds, and thousands of the bonds and War Saving stamps, have no more to say about affairs now than they ever had. Where is the improvement?

The Urban League also made an inquiry into the numbers of Negroes leaving and arriving in the week following the riot, and when the strongest efforts were being made to induce a return of migrants. During this period 261 Negroes came to Chicago and 219 left the city. Of the 219 leaving, eighty-three gave some southern state as their destination. For the most part, they were persons returning from vacations in the North, and Chicago Negroes going South to visit or on business. Some were rejoining their families. Fourteen were leaving because of the riot. None, however, indicated any intention of going South to work.

It is clear that migrant Negroes are not returning South. On the contrary, there is a small but continuous stream of migration to the industrial centers of the North. No great number of Negroes returned to the South even during the trying unemployment period in the early part of 1921. Census figures for Chicago for 1920 show a number much smaller than the usual estimates of the size of the Negro population during the period of the heaviest migration. This may be accounted for by the fact that Chicago has been used as a re-routing point to other northern cities. The decrease from 1918 undoubtedly means that some returned to the South, but it is apparent that the great majority of the migrants remain, despite the hardships attending shortage of work.