Negro Migration during the War Part 8

At Thomasville, Georgia, a ma.s.s meeting of colored citizens of the town with many from the country was held at the court house and addresses were made by several prominent white men, as well as by several colored with a view to taking some steps in regard to the exodus of negroes from this section to the North and West. The whole sentiment of the meeting was very amicable, the negroes applauding enthusiastically the speeches of the white men and the advice given by them. Resolutions were drawn up by a committee expressing the desire that the people of the two races continue to live together as they have done in the past and that steps be taken to adjust any difference between them.[90]

After a conference of three days at Waycross, Georgia, the negroes came to a decision as to the best manner in which to present their cause to the white people with a view to securing their cooperation towards the improvement of conditions in the South to make that section more habitable. "There are four things of which our people complain," they said, "and this conference urges our white friends to secure for us these things with all possible speed. First, more protection at the hands of the law. We ask that the law of the State, made and enforced by white men, should be made to apply with exact justice to both races. We have no sympathy for criminals, but we ask that the innocent shall be protected to the fullest extent of the law.

Second, that more liberal provisions be made for the education of our people." They commended Governor Dorsey for his courageous recommendation in his inaugural address that an agricultural school should be established for negroes in some center in southern Georgia, and asked their friends everywhere to urge the members of the legislature from the various counties to put Governor Dorsey's n.o.ble sentiments into law. These memorialists felt, too, that as far as possible, wages should be in keeping with the cost of living, and that the white people generally should take an interest in the general welfare of the negroes.[91]

Tuskegee Inst.i.tute was also quick to offer a remedy for the migration.

In the latter part of September, 1916, the inst.i.tution made a strong effort to persuade the negro farmers to remain on the land instead of going to the cities. Conferences were held with the bankers of Tuskegee and with many planters of Macon county and a method of dealing with the situation was worked out. This method embraced a number of helpful suggestions as to how to solve their many perplexing problems.[92] At the twenty-sixth annual negro conference at Tuskegee Inst.i.tute, the inst.i.tution took that occasion to send through certain declarations a message to the negroes of the South. These declarations recited the distress and suffering impelling the negroes to migrate, expressing the appreciation of the necessity to do something to better their condition by embracing the new opportunities offered them in the North. On the other hand, this inst.i.tution felt that there were many permanent opportunities for the ma.s.ses of the colored people in the South, which is now entering upon a great era of development. Among these are the millions of acres of land yet to be cultivated, cities to be built, railroads to be extended and mines to be worked. These memorialists considered it of still greater importance to the negro that in the South they have acquired land, buildings, etc., valued at about five hundred million dollars. The negroes were, therefore, urged to stay on the soil which they owned.

Addressing a word to the white people of the South, the conference said that the disposition of so many of the blacks to leave is not because they do not love the Southland but because they believe that in the North they will not only have more opportunity to get more money but that they will get better treatment, better protection under the law and better school facilities for their children. The conference urged, therefore, that the southern white people avail themselves of their greatest opportunity to cooperate with the blacks in the various communities and have a thorough understanding as to working for the common welfare of all. The delegates believed that the time had come for the best element of the whites and blacks to unite to protect the interests of both races to the end that more effective work may be done in the upbuilding of a greater South.[93]

In the same way the people of Mississippi soon discovered that any attempt forcibly to hold negroes resulted apparently in an increased determination to leave. Nor was it sufficient to warn the negroes against the rigors of the northern winter and the death rate from pneumonia and tuberculosis. In Greenwood, Mississippi, the difficulty was circ.u.mvented by using the Red Cross and the food conservation meetings as a forum for the discussion of the movement. This was the first time that the negroes and whites of Greenwood had met to discuss matters of mutual welfare. Bishop W.P. Thirkield of New Orleans addressed a body of negroes and whites on the movement. He suggested that whites get representative colored persons together and find the cause. He also suggested a remedy through better treatment, more wages and more cooperation between the races. Negro ministers stated that they were offered sums of money by bankers, planters and merchants to speak in discouragement of the movement. Some spoke, and others, by far the greater number, seem to have remained neutral.[94]

It was found necessary to increase wages from ten to twenty-five per cent and in some cases as much as 100 per cent to hold labor. The reasons for migration given by negroes were sought. In almost all cases the chief complaint was about treatment. An effort was made to meet this by calling conferences and by giving publicity to the launching of a campaign to make unfair settlements and other such grievances unpopular. Thus, in Bolivar county, Mississippi, a meeting was called, ostensibly to look after the economic welfare of the Delta country, but in reality to develop some plan for holding labor. A subcommittee of seventeen men was appointed to look into the labor situation. There were twelve white men and five negroes. The subcommittee met and reported to the body that the present labor shortage was due to the migration, and that the migration was due to a feeling of insecurity before the law, the unrestrained action of mobs, unfair methods of yearly settlement on farms and inadequate school facilities. As a result of the report, it was agreed to make an appropriation of $25,000 towards an agricultural high school, as a step towards showing an interest in the negroes of Bolivar county and thus give them reasons for remaining. A campaign was started to make unpopular the practice among farmers of robbing negroes of the returns from their labor, and a general effort was made by a few of the leading men behind the movement to create "a better feeling" between the races.[95]

Wide publicity was given to the experiment in plantation government, and the policy was accepted by a number of planters as opportunistic action. Thus, one Mr. Abbott of Natchez, Mississippi, told the planters of his section that good treatment, adequate and sympathetic oversight are the important factors in any effort to hold labor. He made a trip to his farm every week, endeavoring to educate his tenants in modes of right living. Every man on his place had a bank account and was apparently satisfied. This example was presented with the statement that where these methods had been used, few had left. One planter purchased twenty-eight Ford automobiles to sell on easy terms to his tenants with the hope of contenting them.

The newspapers published numerous letters from southern negro leaders urging negroes to consider well their step, a.s.serting that the South is the best place for them and that the southern white man knows them and will in consequence be more lenient with their shortcomings.

The papers further urged an increase in wages and better treatment.

Wherever possible, there were published articles which pointed to the material prosperity of negroes in the South. For example, a writer of Greenville, said of negroes' loyalty in 1917:

The prosperity as well as the patriotism of the negro farmer has been shown in the purchase of Liberty Bonds in the Delta.

Many colored farm laborers subscribed for bonds. Every family on the place of Planter C.D. Walcott, near Hollandale, took a bond, while one negro, Boley c.o.x, a renter, bought bonds to the amount of $1,000 and gave his check for the total amount out of the savings of this year from his crop and still has cotton to sell. There are negro families on Delta plantations making more money this year than the salary of the governor of the State.

When migrants could be induced to talk freely, they complained also against the treatment in the courts. Some of the cities consequently are known to have suspended their raids and arrests on petty charges.

In some instances the attempts at pacification reached almost incredible bounds. For example, a negro missed connection with his train through the fault of the railroad. His white friend advised him to bring suit. This he did and urged as his princ.i.p.al grievance that he was stranded in a strange town and was forced to sleep in quarters wholly at the mercy of bed bugs. It is said that he was awarded damages to the extent of $800. A Jackson, Mississippi, daily paper that had been running a column of humorous incidents about negroes taken from the daily court sessions, which was very distasteful to the colored people of the city, discontinued it. Such methods as these have been the only ones to prove effective in bringing about an appreciable stem in the tide. With the advent of the United States Government constructing cantonments and establishing manufacturing plants in the South, the millions thus diverted to that section have caused such an increase in wages that the movement has been decidedly checked.

[Footnote 77: Work, _Report on the Migration from Florida_.]

[Footnote 78: _Atlantic Const.i.tution_, November 1, 1916.]

[Footnote 79: Work, _Report on the Migration from Georgia_.]

[Footnote 80: Ibid.]

[Footnote 81: Work, _Report on the Migration from Georgia_.]

[Footnote 82: Work, _Report on the Migration from Georgia_.]

[Footnote 83: Work, _Report on the Migration from Alabama_.]

[Footnote 84: Johnson, _Report on the Migration from Mississippi_.]

[Footnote 85: Ibid.]

[Footnote 86: Johnson, _Report on the Migration from Mississippi_.]

[Footnote 87: _Times Picayune_, New Orleans. October 1, 1916.]

[Footnote 88: Work, _Report on the Migration from Louisiana_.]

[Footnote 89: Johnson, _Report on the Migration from Mississippi_.]

[Footnote 90: _Atlanta Const.i.tution_, June 1, 1917.]

[Footnote 91: I.D. Davis served as president of the conference and J.B. Ellis as secretary. Former Superior Court Judge T.A. Parker and V.L. Stanton, president of the Chamber of Commerce, were among the prominent white people who attended. It was the sense of the conference that the colored people as a race should do all in their power in the present crisis to a.s.sist the government and, above all else, to help themselves by conserving food. The president of the conference said the colored people had to work harder than ever before with so many problems confronting their country. "It is no time for loafing," he said, "we must work early and late, and make our work count."--_Savannah Morning News_, July 18, 1917.]

[Footnote 92: The suggestions were: to encourage the farmer to plant peanuts, soy beans, velvet beans and cotton as cash crops; to create a cash market for such crops named above as at present have no cash market; to encourage tenants to grow fall and winter gardens and to plant at least five acres of oats to the plow, seed being furnished when necessary; to stipulate, in making tenant contracts for another year, that cotton stalks be plowed under in the fall, that special methods of combating the boll weevil be used. To advance no more than $25 to the plow, and, in every case possible, to refrain from any advance; to encourage land holders to rent land for part of the crops grown; to urge the exercise of leniency on unpaid notes and mortgages due from thrifty and industrious farmers so as to give them a chance to recover from the boll weevil conditions and storm losses; to create a market lasting all year for such crops as hay, cow-peas, sweet potatoes, poultry and live stock; to urge everybody to build fences and make pastures so as to grow more live stock and to produce more nearly all of the supplies used on the farm; to carry on a food campaign in the country, devoting the first Sunday in October to the work of urging the people to plant gardens and sow oats, and to organize a Farmers' Loan a.s.sociation in Macon county to work with the Farmers' Loan Bank being established by the United States Government.]

[Footnote 93: Report of the Twenty-sixth Annual Negro Conference at Tuskegee Inst.i.tute.]

[Footnote 94: Johnson, _Report on the Migration from Mississippi_.]

[Footnote 95: Johnson, _Report on the Migration from Mississippi_.]

CHAPTER VIII

EFFECTS OF THE MOVEMENT ON THE SOUTH

The first changes wrought by this migration were unusually startling.

Homes found themselves without servants, factories could not operate because of the lack of labor, farmers were unable to secure laborers to harvest their crops. Streets in towns and cities once crowded a.s.sumed the aspect of deserted thoroughfares, houses in congested districts became empty, churches, lodges and societies suffered such a large loss of membership that they had to close up or undergo reorganization.

Probably the most striking change was the unusual increase in wages.

The wages for common labor in Thomasville, Georgia, increased almost certainly 100 per cent. In Valdosta there was a general increase in the town and county of about 50 per cent, in Brunswick and Savannah the same condition obtained. The common laborer who had formerly received 80 cents a day earned thereafter $1.50 to $1.75. Farm hands working for from $10 to $15 per month were advanced to $20 or $35 per month. Brick masons who had received 50 cents per hour thereafter earned 62-1/2 cents and 70 cents per hour. In Savannah common laborers paid as high as $2 per day were advanced to $3. At the sugar refinery the rates were for women, 15 to 22 cents per hour, men, 22 to 30 cents per hour. In the more skilled lines of work, the wages were for carpenters, $4 to $6 per day, painters, $2.50 to $4 per day, and bricklayers $4 to $5 per day.

The increase in the Birmingham district may be studied as a type of the changes effected in the industrial centers of the South, as Birmingham is a great coal mining center and, with the exception of Pittsburgh, is the greatest iron ore district in the United States.

On November 6, 1917, the average daily wage earnings of forty-five men was $5.49. On November 10, 1917, the average for seventy-five men was $5.30. One man was earning $10 a day, two $9 to $10 a day, five $8 to $9, six $7 to $8, ten $6 to $7, fourteen $5 to $6, thirty-two $4 to $5, nine $3 to $4, and six under $3. In the other coal and iron ore sections the earnings had been similarly increased.[96]

In Mississippi, largely a farming section, wages did not increase to the extent that they did in Alabama, but some increase was necessary to induce the negroes to remain on the plantations and towns to keep the industries going. In Greenville wages increased at first about ten per cent but this did not suffice to stop the migration, for, because of the scarcity of labor, factories and stores had to employ white porters, druggists had to deliver their own packages and firms had to resort to employing negro women. On the farms much of the crop was lost on account of the scarcity of labor. In Greenwood wages of common laborers increased from $1 and $1.25 to $1.75 per day. Clarksdale was also compelled to offer laborers more remuneration. Vicksburg found it necessary to increase the wages of negroes from $1.25 to $2 per day.

There were laborers on steamboats who received $75 to $100 per month.

At Leland 500 to 1,000 men received $1.75 per day. The oil mills of Indianola raised the wages of the negroes from $1.50 to $2 per day.

At Laurel the average daily wage was raised from $1.35 to $1.65, the maximum wage being $2. Wages increased at Meridian from 90 cents and $1.25 to $1.50 and $1.75 per day. The wholesale houses increased the compensation of their employes from $10 to $12 per week. From $1.10 in Hattiesburg the daily wage was raised to $1.75 and $2 per day. Wages in Jackson increased from $1 and $1.25 to $1.35 and $1.50 per day. In Natchez there was an increase of 25 per cent. On the whole, throughout the State there was an increase of from 10 to 30 per cent and in some instances of as much as 100 per cent.[97]

Throughout the South there was not only a change in policy as to the method of stopping the migration of the blacks to the North, but a change in the economic policy of the South. Southern business men and planters soon found out that it was impossible to treat the negro as a serf and began to deal with him as an actual employe ent.i.tled to his share of the returns from his labor. It was evident that it would be very much better to have the negroes as coworkers in a common cause than to have them abandon their occupations in the South, leaving their employers no opportunity to secure to themselves adequate income to keep them above want.

A more difficult change of att.i.tude was that of the labor unions. They had for years been antagonistic to the negroes and had begun to drive them from many of the higher pursuits of labor which they had even from the days of slavery monopolized. The skilled negro laborer has gradually seen his chances grow less and less as the labor organizations have invaded the South. In the end, however, the trade unions have been compelled to yield, although complete economic freedom of the negro in the South is still a matter of prospect.

There was, too, a decided change in the att.i.tude of the whole race toward the blacks. The white people could be more easily reached, and very soon there was brought about a better understanding between the races. Cities gave attention to the improvement of the sanitary condition of the negro sections, which had so long been neglected; negroes were invited to take part in the clean-up week; the Women's Health League called special meetings of colored women, conferred with them and urged them to organize community clubs. Committees of leading negroes dared to take up with their employers the questions of better accommodations and better treatment of negro labor. Members of these committees went before chambers of commerce to set forth their claims.

Others dared boldly to explain to them that the negroes were leaving the South because they had not been given the treatment which should be accorded men.

Instead of expressing their indignation at such efforts on the part of the negroes, the whites listened to them attentively. Accordingly, joint meetings of the whites and blacks were held to hear frank statements of the case from speakers of both races. One of the most interesting of these meetings was the one held in Birmingham, Alabama.

The negroes addressing the audience frankly declared that it was impossible to bring back from the North the migrants who were making good there, but that the immediate problem requiring solution was how to hold in the South those who had not gone. These negroes made it clear that it was impossible for negro leaders through the pulpit and press to check the movement, but that only through a change in the att.i.tude of the whites to the blacks could the latter be made to feel that the Southland is safe for them.

Here we see the coming to pa.s.s of a thing long desired by those interested in the welfare of the South and long rejected by those who have always prized the peculiar interest of one race more highly than the welfare of all. White men, for the first time, were talking on the streets with negroes just as white men talk with each other. The merchants gave their negro patrons more attention and consideration. A prominent white man said, "I have never seen such changes as have come about within the last four months. I know of white men and negroes who have not dared to speak to one another on the streets to converse freely." The suspension of harsh treatment was so marked in some places that few negroes neglected to mention it. In Greenwood and Jackson, Mississippi, the police were instructed to curtail their practices of beating negroes. Several court cases in which negroes were involved terminated favorably for them. There followed directly after the exodus an attempt at more even handed justice, or at least some conciliatory measures were adopted. The authorities at Laurel, Mississippi, were cautioned to treat negroes better, so as to prevent their leaving. There is cited the case of a negro arrested on an ambiguous charge. He was a.s.signed to the county chain gang and put to work on the roads. At this time the treatment in the courts was being urged by negroes as a reason for leaving. This negro's case was discussed. He was sent back from the county roads alone for a shovel.

He did not return; and his return was not expected.[98]