Negro Migration during the War Part 19

In this connection our white friends should know that not only in the lynchings, and in the courts and in the unwholesome conditions on the southern railway common carriers (as vital as these are), but that in the general att.i.tude of many of our southern white people, there is exhibited a contempt for the negro which makes the best of the negroes feel that they are only tolerated in the South. And yet in their individual relations there is no better friend to the negro in the world than the southern white man. In the face of our friends it is hard to explain this discounting and this contemptuous att.i.tude, and yet everybody understands that it exists.

"You are only a negro and are not ent.i.tled to the courteous treatment accorded to members of other races." 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 acc.u.mulate 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 so 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 any one else. If he will not do this, the negro must seek those north or west who will give him better wages and better treatment.[183]

One of the most thoughtful discussions of the causes of migration was by W.T. Andrews, a negro lawyer and editor, formerly of Sumter, South Carolina. In an address before the 1917 South Carolina Race Conference he said:

In my view the chief causes of negro unrest and disturbance are as follows: the destruction of his political privileges and curtailment of his civil rights; no protection of life, liberty and property under the law; Jim Crow car; residential and labor segregation laws; no educational facilities worthy of the name in most of the southern States. These, I believe, are the most potent causes which are now impelling the southern negro to seek employment and find homes in northern and western sections of the country.

In South Carolina, and I believe it is equally true of every southern State, except those cla.s.sed as "border States,"

statute after statute has been pa.s.sed to curtail the rights of the negro, but in not a single instance can a law be pointed to which was enacted for the purpose of enlarging his opportunity, surrounding himself and his family with the protection of the law, or for the betterment of his condition.

On the contrary every law pa.s.sed relating to the negro has been pa.s.sed with the intent of controlling his labor and drawing his circle of freedom into smaller and smaller compa.s.s.

In the rural districts the negro is not only at the mercy of the lawless white individual citizen, but equally at the mercy of the rural police, the constables and magistrates. There is hardly a record in modern history of greater oppression by judicial officers than that dealt to the negroes by a large majority of the magistrates and other officials who preside over the inferior courts of South Carolina.

In towns and cities, as a rule, mayors' and recorders' courts are mills for grinding out negro convicts; negroes charged with petty offenses are brought into these courts, convicted and sentenced with lightning speed, before they even realize that they are on trial unless they are able to hire attorneys, whose fees often equal the fine that would be imposed. They are beaten at will by arresting officers, frequently shot and many killed if attempt is made to escape by running away from the officer, and for any such shooting, officers are seldom put to the inconvenience of trial, even if the victim die.

In tragic truth it must be confessed that there is in the South--South Carolina, more certainly--no protection for the life or person of any negro of whatever standing, s.e.x, age, against the intent of the b.l.o.o.d.y-minded white man.

The negro does not ask for special privileges or social legislation in his behalf. He does not ask to be measured by any standard less than the white man's standard, but he insists that the same test shall apply to all men of all races. He refuses to accept the declaration of men who claim to be earthly agents and representatives of the Almighty, the interpreters of His will and laws, and who solemnly a.s.sert that the G.o.d of the Christian ordained and decreed the negro race to be in slavery or semislavery to the white race.

The negro believes that the world is built on a moral foundation with justice as its basic rock. He believes that the Almighty is just, merciful and benevolent, and that He included all men in His plan of human development and reaching out for protection.

He asks only for justice. Nothing less than justice will stay the movement of negroes from the South. Its continued refusal will drive in the next two years a third or more of its negro population to other portions of the country.[184]

[Footnote 156: New Orleans _Times Picayune_, December 15, 1916.]

[Footnote 157: August 19, 1916.]

[Footnote 158: October 5, 1916.]

[Footnote 159: December 2, 1916.]

[Footnote 160: December 22, 1916.]

[Footnote 161: _The Advertiser_, Montgomery, Alabama, September 22, 1917.]

[Footnote 162: July 1, 1917.]

[Footnote 163: July 16, 1916.]

[Footnote 164: August 25, 1916.]

[Footnote 165: July 31, 1916.]

[Footnote 166: October 1, 1916.]

[Footnote 167: March 13, 1918.]

[Footnote 168: March 24, 1917.]

[Footnote 169: July 19, 1917.]

[Footnote 170: April 28, 1917.]

[Footnote 171: August 11, 1917.]

[Footnote 172: January 27, 1917.]

[Footnote 173: June 24, 1917.]

[Footnote 174: September 17, 1916.]

[Footnote 175: February 1, 1917.]

[Footnote 176: _The Advertiser_, Montgomery, Alabama, December 12, 1916.]

[Footnote 177: _Atlanta Const.i.tution_, December 10, 1916.]

[Footnote 178: _Georgia Gazette_, reprint from _Atlanta Const.i.tution_, December 10, 1916.]

[Footnote 179: _Age Herald_, Birmingham, Alabama, September 25, 1916.]

[Footnote 180: Weldon Victor Jenkins, in _Chattanooga Times_, October 10, 1916.]

[Footnote 181: _The Advertiser_, Montgomery, Alabama, October 7, 1916.]

[Footnote 182: W.J. Edwards, Princ.i.p.al of Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Inst.i.tute (Colored), Snow Hill, Alabama, in the _Advertiser_, Montgomery, Alabama, January 27, 1917.]

[Footnote 183: Reprinted from the _Morning News_, Savannah, Georgia, January 3, 1917.]

[Footnote 184: From an address by W.T. Andrews at the South Carolina Race Conference, Columbia, South Carolina, February 8, 1917.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS AND PERIODICALS

A Century of Negro Migration. C.G. Woodson, Washington, 1918.

The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh. Abraham Epstein, Pittsburgh, 1918.

Negro Newcomers in Detroit. G.E. Haynes, New York, 1918.

The Migration of a Race, 1916-1917, Annual Report of National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes.