Chapter III: The Migration of Negroes From the South (1)

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.