Negro Migration during the War Part 18

Another cla.s.s of farmers, and we suspect that their number is too large, has said, "You never made anything this year.

I never made anything this year. I can not afford to feed you and your family until the beginning of the next crop year. You must go out and shift for yourselves."

This cold blooded business view of the situation, we suspect, has been the best a.s.sistance that the labor agent has received. It is not difficult to know what a negro farm hand will do when he and his family are facing hunger, when a labor agent offers him a railroad ticket and a promise of two dollars and a half a day in the industrial works of the North and East.[176]

Lynching was one of the reasons most often given as a cause of the migration.

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 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 conducted 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.

If Georgia is injured, agriculturally and industrially by the negro exodus, the white people here have no one to blame but themselves.

The indictment is true, every word of it. The appeal to humanity, to fairness and justice and right, has been apparently without effect. It is unfortunate for the people of Georgia that an appeal to the pocketbook should be necessary to bring back the enthronement of law, but if moral suasion is powerless, the question of personal interest has entered and in no uncertain degree.

The trouble incident to the migration of negroes from Georgia and the South is exactly as stated.

There is no secret about what must be done, if Georgia would save herself from threatened disaster, which, in some sections, has already become serious.

In the first place, there must be no more mobs. Mobs and mob spirit must be eliminated completely, so completely that there will be no danger of recurrence. If a negro be charged with a crime, even if it be known that he is guilty, he must be given the same fair treatment before the law that is accorded the white man. If anything, it would seem that ignorance and childishness demand even more consideration than the crime which lacks that excuse.

But more than that, we must be fair to the negro. There is no use in beating about the bush; we have not shown that fairness in the past, nor are we showing it today, either in justice before the law, in facilities accorded for education or in other directions. Argue it as you will, these things which we have not done are the things which we must do, or Georgia will suffer for it in proportion as she fails.[177]

In connection with lynchings there was the general fear of mob violence. This fear was taken advantage of by labor agents, as the following indicates:

We are astonished, too, to learn that one of the reasons for this unrest among the negroes who were born and reared here is fear that all negroes are to be run out of Georgia. This idea, of course, has been planted in the minds of the simple minded of the race by the crafty and unscrupulous labor agents who have operated in almost every section of the State.

The negroes have this idea from the fact that there are localities in the State right now where a negro can not live.

And we do not know of anybody that is doing anything to change this condition.

Labor agents are doing their best to put the fear into the hearts of the negroes in this State that they are going to be run out by the white people, some of them even fixing the time as next June; but this work began long before the negro exodus north was thought of. The example of one county in north Georgia, which ran every negro out, was followed by other counties adjoining, and the general public has little idea how widespread the contagion became--for lawlessness is nearly always contagious.

If Georgia is injured, agriculturally and industrially, by the negro exodus, the white people here have no one to blame but themselves. They have allowed negroes to be lynched, five at a time, on nothing stronger than suspicion; they have allowed whole sections to be depopulated of them; they have allowed them to be whitecapped and whipped, and their homes burned, with only the weakest and most spasmodic efforts to apprehend or punish those guilty--when any efforts were made at all.

Has not the negro been given the strongest proof that he has no a.s.sured right to live, to own property nor to expect justice in Georgia?

When the negro is gone, his loss will be felt in every large agricultural section and every industrial community of the South. For the average white man can not do the heavier work at the sawmills, naval stores plants and in many lines of manufacture, that is now being done by the negro. As a consequence, these plants and many large plantations must stand idle or import a cla.s.s of white labor that will be a great deal worse than the black. Confronted with cheap white labor, and white men of a race of which they have no understanding--then will the South have its labor problems.

But at present, it seems, little can be done. Unless southern white people who have their all invested in agriculture or manufacturing take care of their own interest by seeing that the negro gets justice when suspected and a fair trial when accused, and a.s.sured that so long as he behaves he will be guaranteed safety of life and property, it is perhaps as well to let the negro go. It will mean an industrial revolution for the South, but the present condition of affairs has become intolerable.[178]

The negroes of the South used both the white and negro newspapers of that section in carrying on the discussion of the migration movement.

The substance of what the negroes said through the press was that, first of all, the negroes wanted to stay in the South and were going north not only because there they could secure better wages than were generally paid in the South, but also because they would, in the North, get protection and have privileges not accorded in the South.

Concerning the negro wanting to stay in the South, it was pointed out that in the South he did have economic opportunity and received encouragement. "The truth is that the negroes who are leaving the South in large numbers, and others who are thinking of going, do not want to go. They prefer to remain here."[179]

It was pointed out that the pa.s.sing of stringent labor laws would not stop the exodus. The negro could not be kept in the South by force.

Various communities [said a negro] are pa.s.sing stringent laws with the view of making the business of agents either impracticable or impossible. This will ultimately have the very opposite effect of what was intended. I am a negro and know the deeper thoughts and feelings of my own people. I know their yearnings and the religious zeal with which they look forward to the future for better days, and to other climes than this for better conditions.

Now to pa.s.s severe laws to block this movement will not only be a waste of time, but the most unwise way of dealing with the problem. The problem can not be solved from the angle of force.

In order for the negro to be kept in the South he must be made to see, to feel, that on the whole it will be better for him to remain in the South than to migrate to the North. Stop lynching. Teach us to love the South and be contented here by ceasing to abridge us in such extremes in common rights and citizenship.

Another method of helping to keep the negro in the South is for the better cla.s.s of whites to get hold of the negroes.

In a word, there should be cooperation between the races. The negroes should be given better schools and the whites should set before the negroes better examples of law and order. The North is offering better homes, better schools and justice before the law. The South can do the same.

"One of our grievances," said a negro correspondent of the _Chattanooga Times_,[180] "is that in colored localities we have very bad streets, no lights, no sewerage system, and sanitary conditions are necessarily bad. Give the negro the right kind of a show, living wages, consider him as a man, and he will be contented to remain here."

A good presentation of the negroes' side of the case is given in the following letter from a negro minister to the Montgomery _Advertiser_.[181] He wrote:

Why should the South raise such objections to the jobless man seeking the manless job, especially when it has held that jobless man up to the ridicule of the world as trifling, shiftless and such a burden to the South? Now the opportunity has come to the negro to relieve the South of some of its burden, and at the same time advance his own interests, a great hue and cry is started that it must not be allowed, and the usual and foolish method of repressive legislation is brought into play.

Addressing the editor of the _Advertiser_, another negro correspondent said:

I have read with profound interest the many articles published in your paper upon the great negro exodus from the South.

The negro has remained in the South almost as a solid ma.s.s since his emanc.i.p.ation. This in itself shows that he loves the South, and if he is now migrating to the East, North and West by the hundreds and thousands, there must be a cause for it.

We should do our best to find out these causes and at least suggest the remedy.

The time has come for plain speaking on the part of all. It will do us no good to try to hide the facts, because "truth crushed to earth will rise again." In the first place, the negro in this country is oppressed. This oppression is greatest where the negro population is greatest. The negro population happens to be greater in the South than in the North, therefore, he is more oppressed in the South than in the North.

Take the counties in our State. Some are known as white counties and others as black counties. In the white counties the negro is given better educational opportunities than in the black counties. I have in mind one Black Belt county where the white child is given $15 per year for his education and the negro child only 30 cents a year. See the late Booker T.

Washington's article, "Is the Negro Having a Fair Chance?" Now these facts are generally known throughout this State by both white and black. And we all know that it is unjust. It is oppression.

This oppression shows itself in many ways. Take for example the railroads running through the rural sections of the South.

There are many flag stations where hundreds of our people get off and on the train. The railroads have little stops at the platform about six feet square; only one coach stops at this point; the negro women, girls and boys are compelled to get off and on the train sometimes in water and in the ditches because there are no provisions made for them otherwise.

Again take the matter of the franchise. We all agree that ignorant negroes should not be intrusted with this power, but we all feel that where a negro has been smart and industrious in getting an education and property and pays his taxes, he should be represented. Taxation without representation is just as unjust today as it was in 1776. It is just as unfair for the negro as it is to the white man, and we all, both white and black, know this. We may shut our eyes to this great truth, as sometimes we do, but it is unjust just the same.

Take the matter of the courts. There is no justice unless the negro has a case against another negro. When he has a case against a white man, you can tell what the decision will be just as soon as you know the nature of the case, unless some strong white man will come to the negro's rescue. This, too, is generally known and the negro does not expect justice.

As yet, there has been no concerted action on the part of the white people to stop mob violence. I know a few plantations, however, where the owners will not allow their negroes to be arrested without the officer first consulting them, and these negroes idolize these white men as G.o.ds, and so far not one of these negroes has gone north. I repeat there are outcroppings of these oppressions everywhere in this country, but they show themselves most where the negroes are in the largest numbers.

But all of this the negro is perfectly willing to endure, and they all may be cla.s.sed as the secondary cause of this great exodus.

The primary cause is economic. The storms and floods of last July and August destroyed practically all crops in a large part of the South, and especially in the Black Belt section.

These people are hungry, they are naked, they have no corn and had no cotton, so they are without food and clothes. What else can they do but go away in search of work? There are a great many wealthy white men here and there throughout the Black Belt section. They have large plantations which need the ditches cleared and new ones made to properly drain their farms. They could have given work to these dest.i.tute people; but what have they done? Nothing. They say that it is a pity for the negro to go away in such large numbers, and so it is, but that will not stop them. They have it in their power to stop them by making the negro's economic condition better here.

Thus far the average white man of the South has been interested in the negro from a selfish point of view; he must now become interested in him from a humanitarian point of view. He must be interested in his educational, moral and religious welfare. We know that we have many ignorant, vicious and criminal negroes which are a disgrace to any people, but they are ignorant because they have not had a chance. Why, I know one county in this State today with 10,000 negro children of school age, and only 4,000 of these are in school, according to the report of the Superintendent of Education. We can not expect ignorant people to act like intelligent ones, and no amount of abuse will make them better.

Sometimes we hear it said that the white man of the South knows the negro better than anybody else, but the average white man of the South only knows the ignorant, vicious and criminal negro better than anybody else. He knows little of the best cla.s.s of negroes. I am glad to say, however, that there are a few southern white men who know the better cla.s.s, and know them intimately, and are doing what they can to better the negro's condition. I would to G.o.d that the number of these few could be increased a hundredfold.[182]

R.R. Wright, President of the Georgia State Industrial College for Negroes, in a discussion of the causes of the migration movement stated that it is undoubtedly true that the high wages offered is the main cause. There are other aiding causes, however, for this movement besides low wages.

Naturally the negro is peculiarly adapted to a southern climate and prefers to remain in the South. He has made his best progress in the South. There are nearly a million negro farm operators and most of them are in the South. The total acreage of their farms is 42,279,510: valued at $1,141,792,526. In the value of farms operated there was an increase of 128.5 per cent, during the last census decade, while the value of farm property operated by white farmers for the same time increased only 99.6 per cent. The negro is prospering in the South.

Now this and other facts const.i.tute for the negro a strong tie to the southern soil.

This tie should not be broken lightly. The negro does not want to leave the South. The only thing to break this tie is unfair and cruel treatment of the negro on the part of the white man.