Negro Migration during the War Part 17

This movement eastward and westward of unskilled negro labor will both directly and indirectly help the negro. The younger element, those of ambition and of some training in the schools, will be constantly emerging from unskilled to the semiskilled cla.s.ses, with a consequent increase in their pay rolls and a betterment in their methods of living.

A decidedly better treatment of the negro, both in the North and the South, will grow out of the fact that the demand for his labor has been limited and the supply unlimited.

In the spring of 1918 the Walla Walla, Washington, _Bulletin_[167]

summed up the situation thus:

There was much alarm a year or two ago over the migration of negroes to the North in large numbers. It was felt that they had far better stay in the South, in a familiar and congenial environment, and keep on raising cotton and food, than crowd into the inhospitable North for unaccustomed factory work. We have heard less of that lately; it is still doubtful whether the change is good for the negro himself, and there's no question that his coming has complicated housing conditions and social problems in northern cities. But economically the matter appears in a new light. At a time when war industries were starving for labor, the negro provided the labor. He is recognized as a new industrial a.s.set.

The migration has been unfortunate, to be sure, for the communities thus deprived of agricultural labor; but it is said that from a broad, national standpoint the gain to the manufacturing industries more than compensates. And there has been an actual increase in the output of energy. The negro works harder in the North. He produces more. He is thus of more use to the community. And for the benefit he brings, communities are more willing than they were at first to tolerate the inconvenience due to his coming.

Some of the negro newspapers opposed the migration. Prominent among these was the _Journal and Guide_ of Norfolk, Virginia, and the _Voice of the People_ of Birmingham, Alabama. In speaking against the migration, the _Journal and Guide_[168] said:

It is difficult, if not impossible, to check the operation of an economic law, and it is perfectly natural that men should seek fields of labor in which they are promised higher wages and better conditions, but those who go and those who encourage the going of them should get the facts of the so-called inducements and learn the truth about them before lending their influence to a movement that can not only promise no permanent good to laborers, but works untold injury to the foundation of their own economic structure.

Another phase of the matter, and one that invites the condemnation of all honest persons, is the manner in which negro labor is at present exploited to satisfy the selfish whims of a group of misguided and ill-advised agitators and fanatics on the race question. All of the nice talk about "fleeing from southern oppression," and going where "equal rights and social privileges" await them is pure buncombe. It is strange that negro labor should stand the oppression of the South for fifty years and suddenly make up its mind to move northward as an evidence of its resentment.

The truth of the matter is that the element of negroes in the South that feel the oppression most is not concerned in the migration movement. Nor are they going to leave their homes and acc.u.mulations of half a century as a solution of their problems. They are going to remain here and fight out their const.i.tutional rights accorded them here in the land of their birth.

The editor of _The Star of Zion_, Charlotte, North Carolina,[169]

conceded the right of the negro to go wherever he had opportunity to go; on the other hand, it was doubtful whether a wholesale exodus was for the best. He said:

While I concede the black man's right to go where he likes, for he has the right of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, yet I doubt the wisdom of such wholesale exodus from the South. There are some things which the negro needs far more than his wages, or some of the rights for which he contends.

He needs conservation of his moral life.

In the North a negro is brought face to face with new problems; among the many is the problem of adjusting himself to the abundance of freedom into which he comes so suddenly.

His new freedom brings him new changes, as well as new opportunities, for among the roses there lies the thorn....

While the inducements of the North are very alluring, in the end the negro problem must be wrought out in the South.

Concerning the _Journal and Guide's_ position, the Raleigh, North Carolina, _Independent_[170] took issue and said:

Our disagreement with our estimable contemporary, the Norfolk _Journal and Guide_, we are persuaded, is far less real than seeming. Essentially we are in accord. We are certain that the _Journal and Guide_ is not advocating the limitation of the negro to any one section of the country. If the exigencies of the present war have created a demand for his labor in the North at better wages than he can secure in the South like other people, he should take advantage of it and plant himself firmly in the industrial life of the section.

There are two ways by which we may improve our condition in this country. The one is segregation--voluntary segregation.

The other is "scatteration." If we can come together, build up communities of our own, promote them into towns and even cities, we shall do well. If, on the other hand, we shall scatter all over the land and have nowhere a numerical congestion, we strengthen our cause.

The _Dallas_ (Texas) _Express_[171] said:

The strangest thing, the real mystery about the exodus, is that in all the Southland there has not been a single meeting or promoter to start the migration. Just simultaneously all over the South about a year ago, the negro began to cross the Mason and Dixon line. Indeed, this is a most striking case where the negro has been doing a great deal more thinking than talking, knowing he is not given the freedom of speech. Who knows, then, what the providence of G.o.d is in this exodus.

This exodus is not by any means confined to the worthless or the ignorant negro. A large per cent of the young negroes in this exodus are rather intelligent. Many of the business houses in Houston, Dallas and Galveston, where the exodus is greatest in Texas, have lost some of their best help. To tell the truth more fully, the negroes generally throughout the South are more dissatisfied with conditions than they have been for several years and there are just reasons why they should be. Every negro newspaper and publication in this broad land, including pamphlets and books, and the intelligent negro pastor with backbone and courage are constantly protesting against the injustices done the negro. And possibly these agents have been the greatest incentives to help create and crystallize this unrest and migration.

How the negro should be treated and what would hold him in the South was discussed at length and on many occasions in the columns of the _Atlanta_ (Georgia) _Independent_.[172] An example of this discussion follows:

Last week we discussed at length the negro exodus. We tried to point out in plain, simple and manly language the reason and remedy for moving north. We warned our white neighbors that city ordinances and legislation could not stem the tide; that humane treatment would do more to settle the negro's industrial and economic unrest than anything else; that the South was his natural home and he desired to stay here; but in order to keep him at home he must have contentment; he had to be a.s.sured of protection of life and property; a.s.sured of the enjoyment of public utilities; a.s.sured of educational advantages, ample and adequate, to prepare his children for useful and helpful citizenship; he must be permitted to serve G.o.d unmolested and to a.s.semble in the community where he lives, in church, in society and politics; for his own moral, intellectual and physical benefit he must be given living wages and reminded in his daily dealings with his white neighbor that he is a citizen, not a negro, and that he is charged with responsibilities like other citizens. The negro is conscious of his racial ident.i.ty and not ashamed of it. He is proud of his race and his color, but does not like to have the word "negro" define his relation as a citizen. The white man should understand that the negro is making progress; that he is getting property and education; that his wants are increasing in common with the white man's wants and that he is not going to be bottled up or hemmed up in any community, so long as there is another community on the face of the earth where he can breathe freely and enjoy the pursuits of life, liberty and happiness in common with other men.

_The Christian Index_[173] the official organ of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, published at Jackson, Tennessee, was of the opinion that:

There are two sets of causes for the negro leaving the South at this time. One set may be known as the surface causes and the other set beneath-the-surface causes. The surface causes are easily seen and understood. These are economic causes. The war in Europe has called home foreigners out of the industrial centers of the North and West. These large factories and other industrial enterprises, representing enormous investments, had to turn in some other direction for labor. These large industrial opportunities with higher wages made strong appeals to the southern negro.

The beneath-the-surface causes are to be found in the handicaps under which the negro labors in the South and the uncivilized treatment to which he is subjected. He is segregated. To this he most strenuously objects. There is a difference between segregation and separation, especially so in the southern interpretation of segregation as observed in the practice of the South in its enforcement of the idea.

Separation in matters social and religious is not necessarily objectionable. Left alone each race group instinctively seeks separation from other race groups. But segregation, as we have it, means more than separation; it means inferiority and humiliation. It means not only another section of the city for the negro, but a section that is inferior in improvement and protection; it means not only a different school, but an inferior school both in building and equipment; it means not only separate accommodations on the railroads, but deplorably inferior accommodations; this, too, in the face of the fact that the negro pays the same price that is paid by others.

Another cause is the code of laws, or rather the practice of it, that gives more concern to the color of a man's skin than to the merits of a case he may have in the courts of justice.

The negro is taught not to expect justice in the courts, however industrious, honest, law abiding he may be, when his lawful rights to liberty and protection are contested by a white man. The negro suffers in the courts, not always because he is guilty, not because he lacks character, but because his skin, not his heart, is black.

What was the att.i.tude of the northern negroes toward the migration?

With some exceptions, negroes north a.s.sumed a friendly att.i.tude toward the migrants. Many of these residents of the North were themselves but recently come from the South. The newcomers were looked upon as brethren, just coming into the "Promised Land." They were welcomed in the churches and otherwise made to feel at home. In some cities there were organizations of resident negroes to look after the welfare of the new arrivals. In the northern race newspapers, the att.i.tude of the negro north was fully set forth, as the following extracts from the _New York News_[174] indicate:

We hail with no alarm whatever the influx of colored men from the South. The colored people of the North will be strengthened by the hard working, ambitious laborers added to their numbers. The laboring conditions and life of the ma.s.ses of the colored people in the South will be made better and brighter by their leaving.

Yet a heavy responsibility rests upon every colored leader, moral and civic, in these northern States to take an especial interest in their newly arriving brethren. You must teach them not to take their liberty to be ladies and gentlemen for license to degrade themselves and their race here. You must urge them to avoid the deadly vice and wasting extravagance of the unhealthy congested city. They should find their homes and rear their families in the suburbs, where they can buy their own homes and properly train their children in head, hand and heart. Urge them to get steady work and settle down. Urge them to become good citizens and better parents. Urge them to go to church, to lead patient Christian lives and all will come out well in the end.

The Philadelphia _Christian Recorder_[175] took the ground that:

1. The negro is an American. He speaks the language of the country and is, therefore, superior to the foreigner in this respect.

2. He knows the customs of the country and here again has the advantage of the foreigner.

3. He is a peaceable worker and is glad to have an opportunity to make good.

4. The negro is physically the equal and morally the superior of the immigrant from Europe.

There are reasons why the negro should succeed in the North.

So we have no doubt that many will come.

Indeed, if a million negroes move north and west in the next twelve months, it will be one of the greatest things for the negro since the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. And the movement of a million negroes should not alarm anybody, especially when we remember that a million immigrants were coming every year to this country before the war.

Let the good work go on. Let every community in the North organize to get jobs for our friends in the South. Let a million come. In coming the negroes will get higher wages.

They will get first cla.s.s schools, running nine months a year--a thing worth leaving the South for, if there were no other advantages.

They will have a chance in the courts. If they should happen to have a difference with a white man, they will not take their lives in their own hands by standing up for their side.

They will be able to defend their homes, their wives and children in a way no negro can now protect them in the South.

They will have the right to vote. The foreigner must wait seven years for this--the negro only one year. If a million negroes come north, they will soon get sufficient political power, which combined with their economic power will be able to force the South to do some things she is now unwilling to do.

With labor compet.i.tion for the negro between North and South with the North offering higher wages, better living conditions, better education, protection and a vote, the South must bestir herself if she would keep the best labor in the world. And southern statesmen will see that the South must cease to lynch, begin to educate and finally restore the ballot.

"But," says an objector, "these negroes coming north will increase prejudice." What if they do? Then the northern negro will sympathize more with his southern brother. But if prejudice increases, the negro has the ballot which is an effective way to combat it. If a million negroes come here we will have more negro businesses, better churches, more professional men and real political power, and the negro in the North will begin to get a social position not based on mere charity.

What were the causes of migration? A very large part of the discussion of the movement was taken up with setting forth the causes. The Montgomery _Advertiser_ was of the opinion that the chief causes of the negro's leaving central Alabama were floods and the cotton boll weevil:

The negro from middle Alabama is going north because of economic conditions which he can not help and which he can not overcome. He is not being forced out by pressure from the white race. The relations between the two races in this section were never better; the negro is not subjected to oppression or to any outbreaks of violence, which have induced the negro to leave certain sections of the South.

The negro is going because he is the most unfortunate of the victims of the combined disaster this year of the flood and the boll weevil. There have been actual want and hunger among some of the negroes on the plantations. The heads of negro families have been without present resources and without future prospects. The wise planter and farmer has said to his negro employes and tenants:

"You have not made anything this year. I have not made anything this year. But we will do our best and I will see what resources I can get together to keep you until next year, when we can all make a fresh start."