A Century of Negro Migration Part 13

The occupations in which these people engage will throw further light on their situation. About ninety per cent of them do unskilled labor. Only ten per cent of them do semi-skilled or skilled labor. They serve as common laborers, puddlers, mold-setters, painters, carpenters, bricklayers, cement workers and machinists. What the Negroes need then is that sort of freedom which carries with it industrial opportunity and social justice. This they cannot attain until they be permitted to enter the higher pursuits of labor. Two reasons are given for failure to enter these: first, that Negro labor is unstable and inefficient; and second, that white men will protest. Organized labor, however, has done nothing to help the blacks. Yet it is a fact that accustomed to the easy-going toil of the plantation, the blacks have not shown the same efficiency as that of the whites. Some employers report, however, that they are glad to have them because they are more individualistic and do not like to group. But it is not true that colored labor cannot be organized. The blacks have merely been neglected by organized labor. Wherever they have had the opportunity to do so, they have organized and stood for their rights like men. The trouble is that the trades unions are generally antagonistic to Negroes although they are now accepting the blacks in self-defense. The policy of excluding Negroes from these bodies is made effective by an evasive procedure, despite the fact that the const.i.tutions of many of them specifically provide that there shall be no discrimination on account of race or color.

Because of this tendency some of the representatives of trades unions have asked why Negroes do not organize unions of their own. This the Negroes have generally failed to do, thinking that they would not be recognized by the American Federation of Labor, and knowing too that what their union would have to contend with in the economic world would be diametrically opposed to the wishes of the men from whom they would have to seek recognition. Organized labor, moreover, is opposed to the powerful capitalists, the only real friends the Negroes have in the North to furnish them food and shelter while their lives are often being sought by union members. Steps toward organizing Negro labor have been made in various Northern cities during 1917 and 1918.[18] The objective of this movement for the present, however, is largely that of employment.

Eventually the Negro migrants will, no doubt, without much difficulty establish themselves among law-abiding and industrious people of the North where they will receive a.s.sistance. Many persons now see in this shifting of the Negro population the dawn of a new day, not in making the Negro numerically dominant anywhere to obtain political power, but to secure for him freedom of movement from section to section as a compet.i.tor in the industrial world. They also observe that while there may be an increase of race prejudice in the North the same will in that proportion decrease in the South, thus balancing the equation while giving the Negro his best chance in the economic world out of which he must emerge a real man with power to secure his rights as an American citizen.

[Footnote 1: _New York Times_, Sept. 5, 9, 28, 1916.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., Oct. 18, 28; Nov. 5, 7, 12, 15; Dec. 4, 9, 1916.]

[Footnote 3: _The Crisis_, July, 1917.]

[Footnote 4: _American Journal of Political Economy_, x.x.x, p. 1040.]

[Footnote 5: _The World's Work_, XX, p. 271.]

[Footnote 6: _The World's Work_, XX, p. 272.]

[Footnote 7: _New York Times_, March 29, April 7, 9, May 30 and 31, 1917.]

[Footnote 8: _Survey_, x.x.xVII, pp. 569-571 and x.x.xVIII, pp. 27, 226, 331, 428; _Forum_, LVII, p. 181; _The World's Work_, x.x.xIV, pp.

135, 314-319; _Outlook_, CXVI, pp. 520-521; _Independent_, XCI, pp. 53-54.]

[Footnote 9: _The Crisis_, 1917.]

[Footnote 10: _The New Orleans Times Picayune_, March 26, 1914.]

[Footnote 11: _American Journal of Social Science_, XI, p. 4.]

[Footnote 12: Epstein, _The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh_.]

[Footnote 13: Epstein, _The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh_.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

As the public has not as yet paid very much attention to Negro History, and has not seen a volume dealing primarily with the migration of the race in America, one could hardly expect that there has been compiled a bibliography in this special field. With the exception of what appears in Still's and Siebert's works on the _Underground Railroad_ and the records of the meetings of the Quakers promoting this movement, there is little helpful material to be found in single volumes bearing on the antebellum period. Since the Civil War, however, more has been said and written concerning the movements of the Negro population. E.H. Botume's _First Days Among the Contrabands_ and John Eaton's _Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen_ cover very well the period of rebellion. This is supplemented by J.C. Knowlton's _Contrabands_ in the _University Quarterly_, Volume XXI, page 307, and by Edward L. Pierce's _The Freedmen at Port Royal_ in the _Atlantic Monthly_, Volume XII, page 291. The exodus of 1879 is treated by J.B. Runnion in the _Atlantic Monthly_, Volume XLIV, page 222; by Frederick Dougla.s.s and Richard T.

Greener in the _American Journal of Social Science_, Volume XI, page 1; by F.R. Guernsey in the _International Review_, Volume VII, page 373; by E.L. G.o.dkin in the _Nation_, Volume XXVIII, pages 242 and 386; and by J.C. Hartzell in the _Methodist Quarterly_, Volume x.x.xIX, page 722. The second volume of George W. Williams's _History of the Negro Race_ also contains a short chapter on the exodus of 1879. In Volume XVIII, page 370, of _Public Opinion_ there is a discussion of _Negro Emigration and Deportation_ as advocated by Bishop H.M. Turner and Senator Morgan of Alabama during the nineties. Professor William O.

Scroggs of Louisiana University has in the _Journal of Political Economy_, Volume XXV, page 1034, an article ent.i.tled _Interstate Migration of Negro Population_. Mr. Epstein has published a helpful pamphlet, _The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh_. Most of the material for this work, however, was collected from the various sources mentioned below.

BOOKS OF TRAVEL

Brissot de Warville, J. P. _New Travels in the United States of America: including the Commerce of America with Europe, particularly with Great Britain and France_. Two volumes. (London, 1794.) Gives general impressions, few details.

Buckingham, J.S. _America, Historical, Statistical, and Descriptive_.

Two volumes. (New York, 1841.)--_Eastern and Western States of America_. Three volumes. (London and Paris, 1842.) Contains useful information.

Olmsted, Frederick Law. _A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, with Remarks on their Economy_. (New York, 1859.)--_A Journey in the Back Country_. (London, 1860.)

--_Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom_. (London, 1861.) Olmsted was a New York farmer. He recorded a few important facts about the Negroes immediately before the Civil War.

Woolman, John. _Journal of John Woolman, with an Introduction by John G.

Whittier_. (Boston, 1873.) Woolman traveled so extensively in the colonies that he probably knew more about the Negroes than any other Quaker of his time.

LETTERS

Boyce, Stanbury. _Letters on the Emigration of the Negroes to Trinidad_.

Jefferson, Thomas. _Letters of Thomas Jefferson to Abbe Gregoire, M.A.

Julien, and Benjamin Banneker. In Jefferson's Works, Memorial Edition_, xii and xv. He comments on Negroes' talents.

Madison, James. _Letters to Frances Wright_. In _Madison's Works_, vol. iii, p. 396. The emanc.i.p.ation of Negroes is discussed.

May, Samuel Joseph. _The Right of the Colored People to Education_.

(Brooklyn, 1883.) A collection of public letters addressed to Andrew T.

Judson, remonstrating on the unjust procedure relative to Miss Prudence Crandall.

McDonogh, John. "_A Letter of John McDonogh on African Colonization addressed to the Editor of the New Orleans Commercial Bulletin_."

McDonogh was interested in the betterment of the colored people and did much to promote their mental development.

BIOGRAPHIES

Birney, William. _James G. Birney and His Times_. (New York, 1890.) A sketch of an advocate of Negro uplift.

Bowen, Clarence W. _Arthur and Lewis Tappan_. A paper read at the fiftieth anniversary of the New York Anti-Slavery Society, at the Broadway Tabernacle, New York City, October 2, 1883. An honorable mention of two friends of the Negro.

Drew, Benjamin. _A North-side View of Slavery. The Refugee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada. Related by themselves, with an Account of the History and Condition of the Colored Population of Upper Canada_. (New York and Boston, 1856.)

Frothingham, O.B. _Gerritt Smith: A Biography_. (New York, 1878.)

Garrison, Francis and Wendell P. _William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879. The Story of his Life told by his Children_. Four volumes. (Boston and New York, 1894.) Includes a brief account of what he did for the colored people.

Hammond, C.A. _Gerritt Smith, The Story of a n.o.ble Man's Life_.

(Geneva, 1900.)

Johnson, Oliver. _William Lloyd Garrison and his Times_. (Boston, 1880. New edition, revised and enlarged, Boston, 1881.)