Burton, the first victim of the mob's violence, was lynched in the yard

back of his shop. The mob tied a rope around his neck and dragged him

through the streets. An effort was then made to burn the body, which

had been hung to a tree. This was at two o'clock in the morning.

About this time a company of militia arrived from Decatur, Illinois, and

proceeded through Madison Street to Twelfth Street, where the mob was

engaged in mutilating Burton's body, riddling it with bullets. The mob

was twice ordered to disperse, and the militia fired in the air twice.

The third time the troops fired into the ankles and legs of the mob. At

least two of the men in the mob were wounded and the mob quickly gave way.

By this time the Negroes were badly frightened and began leaving town.

Meanwhile, Governor Deneen had sent for more troops, including two

regiments from Chicago. Before the rioting ended 5,000 militiamen were

patrolling the streets of Springfield. On Saturday morning the militia

began to arrive in force, including detachments from Chicago. This was a

comparatively quiet day, but that night another Negro was lynched within

a block of the State House. The mob gathered on the Court House Square

and marched south on Fifth Street to Monroe, west on Monroe to Spring,

and south on Spring to Edwards. At the southeast corner of Spring and

Edwards streets a Negro named Donegan and his family had lived for many

years. Donegan was eighty-four years old and owned the half-block of

ground where he lived. He was found sleeping in his own yard and was

quickly strung up to a tree across the street. Then his throat was cut

and his body mutilated. The troops interfered at this point and cut down

the man, taking him in an ambulance to the hospital, where he died the

following morning. Donegan's only offense seems to have been that he had

had a white wife for more than thirty years. He bore a good reputation,

and the mob had found no reason for lynching him.

Abe Raymer, who was supposed to have been the leader of the mob, was

charged with the murder of Donegan, but was released.

As an example of the disorder which occurred Friday evening, it is

narrated that Eugene W. Chafin, Prohibition candidate for the presidency,

was delivering an address on the east side of the public square. A

Negro pursued by the mob ran toward the speaker's stand from Fifth and

Washington streets, where he had been pulled from a street car. Two

men helped him to the speaker's stand, while Chafin at the front of the

platform threatened to shoot into the crowd. Although he had no revolver

he made a motion toward his hip pocket. During the mêlée before gaining

the platform the Negro drew a knife from his pocket and slashed several

white men. When he had escaped from the rear of the platform, missiles

flew in the direction of Mr. Chafin, one of them hitting him on the head.

Four men were rounded up who had been blacked up to resemble Negroes and

had been firing on soldiers during the night in an effort to substantiate

the assertion that the Negroes did not welcome the soldiers.

Sunday was quiet. No effort was made to reorganize the mob. The whole

city was as if under martial law. The saloons were shut and every place

of business was closed at 9:00 P.M.

The people who took part in the mob violence had no grievances against

the Negroes. They were hoodlums and underworld folk. Many of the hoodlums,

according to one observer, were less than twenty years old.

During the rioting four white men were killed. They were: Louis Johnson,

of 1208 East Reynolds Street, whose body was found at the foot of the

stairs leading to the barroom in Loper's restaurant. He was shot through

the abdomen; John Colwell, of 1517 Matheny Street, who died at St. John's

Hospital; J. W. Scott, of 125 East Adams Street, who was shot in the

lungs; Frank Delmore, who was killed by a stray bullet.

Seventy-nine persons were injured. The property destroyed included Loper's

restaurant and automobile, Scott Burton's barber shop, the Delmonico

saloon, and one block of houses between Tenth and Eleventh streets,

which were burned, with all their contents. Scores of families were

left destitute. Many Negroes were severely beaten before they were able

to escape from the district. Numbers of these homeless colored people

swarmed to neighboring towns and to Chicago. Three thousand of them were

concentrated at Camp Lincoln, the National Guard camp grounds. Some of

the refugees were cared for at the arsenal.

Current comment concerning the riots suggested political corruption and

laxity of law enforcement as important underlying causes of the riots. An

assistant state's attorney in Springfield charged that saloons had long

been violating the law, and that the law was not generally enforced as

it ought to be. He cited these conditions as responsible in large measure

for the rioting and murders. Pastors in their sermons on the riot focused

attention on the way in which vicious elements were permitted to flout

the law with impunity. This comment came so generally and insistently

from those conversant with the situation that the _Chicago Daily News_

was led to remark editorially upon the responsibility of the public

authorities of Springfield. It said:

Vice and other forms of law breaking have been given wide

latitude here. The notoriety of Springfield's evil resorts

has been widespread.

A mob which murders, burns and loots, is a highly undesirable

substitute even for a complacent city administration. It is

a logical result, however, of long temporizing with vice and

harboring of the vicious. When a mob begins to shoot and hang,

to destroy and pillage, there is instant recognition on the

part of responsible persons of the beauty of law enforcement

and of general orderliness.

On the Sunday following the riots some Springfield saloon-keepers took

advantage of the fact that large crowds of sight-seers had come to

town to open their places, in violation of the order by Mayor Reece to

remain closed. Some of them were arrested for defiance of the mayor's

proclamation to remain closed until order had been restored.

By Monday or Tuesday order was pretty well restored in Springfield. Some

of the National Guard troops were kept on duty for several days. Almost

100 arrests were made, and a special grand jury returned more than fifty

indictments.

III. EAST ST. LOUIS RIOTS

May 28 and July 2, 1917

Following a period of bitter racial feeling, frequently marked by open

friction, a clash between whites and Negroes in East St. Louis, Illinois,

occurred on May 28, 1917, in which, following rumors that a white man

had been killed by Negroes, a number of Negroes were beaten by a mob

of white men. This outbreak was the forerunner of a much more serious

riot on July 2, in which at least thirty-nine Negroes and eight white

people were killed, much property was destroyed by fire, and the local

authorities proved so ineffective and demoralized that the state militia

was required to restore order. A Congressional Committee investigated

the facts of the riot and the underlying conditions, which included

industrial disturbances and shameful corruption in local government.[13]

The coroner of St. Clair County in which East St. Louis is situated, held

thirty-eight inquests, as a result of which it was found that twenty-six

of these deaths had been due to gun-shot wounds, four to drowning, four

to burns, two to fractured skulls, one to hemorrhage of the brain, and

one to pneumonia after a fracture of the thyroid cartilage. Hundreds

of persons were estimated to have been more or less seriously injured,

seventy having been treated in St. Mary's Hospital. It has been impossible

to get an accurate accounting of the deaths and injuries. One man who

had taken a deep interest in the situation estimated that from 200 to

300 Negroes were killed.

About 200 people were arrested. Some of these were released, some were

charged with rioting and conspiracy, and others with arson. Two white

women were tried for conspiracy and rioting, and fined $50.00. Ten Negroes

were convicted of rioting and murder. Indictments of 104 white persons

grew out of the immediate activities of the rioters. Three policemen

were among those indicted for murder in connection with firing upon

Negro bystanders. In this same group of assailants were seven soldiers

who were court-martialed. No finding in their cases has been announced.

Three white men were indicted for murder in connection with a raid upon

a street-car load of Negro passengers in which a father and son were

killed, a mother was wounded severely, and a little daughter escaped.

Twenty-six men, two of them Negroes, were indicted for arson.

The effort to bring the guilty to justice was commented upon and

summarized by this Congressional Committee as follows:

Assistant Attorney General Middlekauf had active charge of the

prosecutions growing out of the riot, and he showed neither

fear nor favor. Capable, determined, and courageous, he allowed

neither political influence nor personal appeals to swerve

him from the strict line of duty.

As a result of these prosecutions by the attorney general's

office 11 Negroes and 8 white men are in the State penitentiary,

2 additional white men have been sentenced to prison terms,

14 white men have been given jail sentences, 27 white men,

including the former night chief of police and three policemen,

have pleaded guilty to rioting and have been punished.

These convictions were obtained in the face of organized,

determined effort, backed with abundant funds, to head off the

prosecutions and convictions. In the case of Mayor Mollman

there seems to have been an open, paid advertising campaign

to slander and intimidate the attorney general.

The burned area of the city was on Fifth Street, Broadway, Walnut

Street, Eighth Street, Eleventh Street and Bond Avenue, as well as "the

Flats" on Seventh Street, between Division and Missouri avenues. This

latter area was that occupied by Negroes. There were 312 buildings and

forty-four railroad cars totally or partially destroyed, with a total

loss of $393,600.

The riots in East St. Louis may be traced, more or less directly, to a

number of causes, the influence of each being apparent.

Without doubt conditions resulting from the migration of a large number

of Negroes from the South, a movement which was more or less general at

that time, account in large measure for the riots, but also involved in

it all are the facts that there had been industrial friction, and that

the city was flagrantly misgoverned.

The Congressional Committee observed an effort to shift the blame from one

element to another. The labor interests sought to place responsibility for

the riots upon the employers, who, they said, had brought great numbers of

Negroes to East St. Louis in order that they might more readily dominate

the employment situation. The employers, on the other hand, thought the

blame rested upon the city and county administration because of laxity

in law enforcement, exploitation of Negroes for political purposes, and

all sorts of political corruption, including the "protection" of vice and

crime. The political ring sought to dodge responsibility by emphasizing

economic and industrial causes of the outbreak.

Whatever may have been the conditions resulting from the influx of

Negroes, they were undoubtedly actuated by a desire to improve their

condition. Some 10,000 or 12,000 Negroes had come to St. Clair County

from the South during the winter of 1916-17. During the year and a

half preceding the riot, the number of such migrants was estimated at

18,000, although it was reported that many had returned during the winter

of 1916-17, because of the unaccustomed cold climate. It is certain

that this influx severely taxed the housing accommodations of East St.

Louis, which were of the insanitary and inadequate nature that so often

characterizes urban districts in which the Negroes find that they must

live. The report of the Congressional Committee on this point says:

It is a lamentable fact that the employers of labor paid too

little heed to the comfort or welfare of their men. They saw

them crowded into wretched cabins without water or any of the

conveniences of life, their wives and children condemned to

live in the disreputable quarters of the town, and made no

effort to lift them out of the mire. The Negroes gravitated

to the insanitary sections, existed in the squalor of filthy

cabins and made no complaint, but the white workmen had a

higher outlook, and failure to provide them with better homes

added to their bitter dissatisfaction with the burdens placed

upon them by having to compete with black labor.

It is likewise in evidence that special inducements were offered to the

southern Negroes to come to East St. Louis, as well as to other industrial

centers in the North. Advertisements were placed in southern newspapers,

offering employment at wages far in excess of those paid in the South. Low

railroad rates were offered, and in some instances during this general

migration the railroads are said to have transported Negroes free in

order that they might be employed by the railroads. Failures of crops

in the South, floods and ill treatment of Negroes there, coupled with

the hope that they would find fairer treatment in the North, as well as

better wages and living conditions, were the direct causes of migration.

After this had become fairly general it was further stimulated by Negroes

who had come North, and who wrote home painting northern conditions in

glowing colors.

From the industrial point of view it should be noted that in the summer

of 1916 there had been a strike of 4,000 white men in the packing-plants

of East St. Louis. It was asserted that Negroes were used in these plants

as strike breakers. A report on the Negro migration by the United States

Department of Labor states that when the strike was ended Negroes were

still employed, and some of the white men lost their positions. It says

further: "The white leaders undoubtedly realized that the effectiveness

of striking was materially lessened by this importation of black workers."

Furthermore, it is stated in the report of the Congressional Committee

that the Aluminum Ore Company, during a strike, brought hundreds of

Negroes to the city as strike breakers in order to defeat organized

labor, "a precedent which aroused intense hatred and antagonism, and

caused countless tragedies as its aftermath. The feeling of resentment

grew with each succeeding day. White men walked the streets in idleness

and their families suffered for food and warmth and clothes, while their

places as laborers were taken by strange Negroes who were compelled to

live in hovels and who were used to keep down wages."

In May, 1917, a strike followed demands which had been made upon

the Aluminum Ore Company by the "Aluminum Ore Employees' Protective

Association." These related to alleged injustices and discriminations

said to have been practiced against the employees. The company failed

to comply with these demands, and a thousand white workers struck.

Closely related to this situation was a notice sent to the delegates of

the Central Trades Labor Union by the secretary of the Union, dated May

23, which declared that the immigration of the southern Negro had reached

a point where "drastic action must be taken if we intend to work and to

live peaceably in this community." This notice declared that these men

were being used "to the detriment of our white citizens by some of the

capitalists and a few real estate owners." It called a meeting to present

to the mayor and city council a demand for action to "retard this growing

menace, and also devise a way to get rid of a certain portion of those

who are already here." The notice read further: "This is not a protest

against the Negro who has long been a resident of East St. Louis, and

is a law abiding citizen."

This meeting was held on May 28 in the auditorium of the city hall and

was attended not only by the labor men but also by a large number of

other persons. The Congressional Committee refers to one of the speakers

at this meeting as "an attorney of some ability and no character." The

report of the Committee says that he virtually advised the killing of

Negroes and burning of their homes. The report says further:

He was not authorized to speak for those who went there to

protest against the lawlessness which disgraced the city and

the presence of thousands of Negroes who it is claimed were

taking the places of the white workmen, but his inflammatory

speech caused many of his hearers to rush into the street and

to resort to acts of violence.... He was in full sympathy with

the action of the mob. They followed his advice and the scenes

of murder and arson that ensued were the logical result of

his utterances.

That night, May 28, following the meeting, a crowd of white people

assembled in front of the police station and clamored for Negro prisoners.

A rumor circulated through the crowd that a white man had just been killed

by Negroes, and parts of the crowd left, forming a mob which severely beat

a number of Negroes whom it met. The situation was so serious that the

mayor called for troops. The trouble subsided, however. It is important

to note that from this time until the riot of July 1-2, no effort was

made to strengthen the police force nor were any other steps taken to

control the situation.

In connection with the industrial phase of the situation, it should be

remembered that the war had cut off the normal supply of foreign labor,

and that not a few white workers had left East St. Louis for other

industrial centers. Most of the Negro migrants were unskilled workers,

and their competition was, therefore, with the unskilled white workers.

One witness before the Congressional Committee expressed the view that

the labor shortage in East St. Louis prior to the riot certainly did

not justify the great influx of Negroes, but it is of record that most

of the newcomers got profitable employment in unskilled occupations.

The employers were fighting unions of any sort, whether of whites or

Negroes. Unions were seeking membership of Negroes as well as whites in

the hope that the use of Negroes as strike breakers might be prevented.

Whether union men or not, the white workers resented the influx of

Negro workers who might take their jobs. The inevitable consequence was

friction between whites and Negroes.

The Congressional Committee laid great stress upon corrupt politics

as the leading cause of the riots of July 2. It disclosed an almost

unbelievable combination of shameless corruption, tolerance of vice and

crime, maladministration, and debauchery of the courts. The report says

that East St. Louis for many years was a plague spot, harboring within

its borders "every offense in the calendar of crime" and committing

openly "every lapse in morals and public decency." Politicians looted its

treasury, gave away valuable franchises, and elected plunderers to high

office. Graft, collusion with crime and vice, and desecration of office

were openly and deliberately practiced. Criminals were attracted and

welcomed, and the good people of the community were powerless. Owners of

large corporations and manufacturers pitted white against black labor,

giving no thought to their thousands of workmen living in hovels, the

victims of "poverty and disease, of long hours and incessant labor."

The mayor, continues the report, was a tool of dishonest politicians,

the electorate was "debauched," the police were a conscienceless bunch

of grafters, and the revenue of the city was largely derived from saloons

and dens of vice.

Several officials and politicians of high standing were singled out by

the Committee for especial condemnation as the "brains of the city's

corruption."

A great deal of the city's crime and vice was concentrated in what is

known as "Black Valley." This was the section in which the Negroes

lived, but much of the vice and crime was promoted and practiced by

vicious whites. There was much mixing of whites and Negroes in the vilest

practices.

Similar conditions existed in the town of Brooklyn near by, with about

3,000 people, of whom only about fifty were white. Its dens of iniquity

were notorious and were the resort of many white people. So openly

operated were these resorts that the Congressional Committee reported

that in the Brooklyn high school "24 out of 25 girls who were in the

graduating class went to the bad in the saloons and dance halls and

failed to receive their diplomas."

Not only were conditions of this sort demoralizing and degrading for

the decent Negroes, but the sanitary conditions were likewise extremely

bad. Some of the houses in the Negro districts had not been painted

for fifteen years and were in a state of great disrepair. Their setting

consisted largely of pools of stagnant water and beds of weeds. At one

period during the migration Negroes were coming in so fast that even

these miserable housing conditions were inadequate, and some of them

were forced to live in sheds. In one instance sixty-nine newcomers were

found living in one small house. Whenever houses were vacated by white

people and rented to Negroes, the rental price was largely increased,

sometimes doubled.

After reviewing the corruption in East St. Louis, the report of the

Congressional Committee discussed the riot. It described the condition of

affairs on the night of July 1, 1917, when the second and most serious

outbreak occurred. An automobile (some witnesses said two) went through

the Negro section of the city, its occupants firing promiscuously into

homes. This aroused fierce resentment among the Negroes, who organized

for defense and armed themselves with guns. The ringing of the church

bell, a prearranged signal for assembling, drew a crowd of them, and

they marched through the streets ready to avenge the attack. A second

automobile filled with white men crossed their path. The Negroes cursed

them, commanded them to drive on, and fired a volley into the machine.

The occupants, however, were not the rioters but policemen and reporters.

One policeman was killed and another was so seriously wounded that he

died later.

Thousands viewed the riddled car standing before police headquarters. The

early editions of the newspapers gave full accounts of the tragedy, and

on July 2 the rioting began. Negro mobs shot white men, and white men

and boys, girls and women, began to attack every Negro in sight. News

spread rapidly and, as excitement increased, unimaginable depredations

and horrible tortures were committed and viewed with "placid unconcern"

by hundreds. Negro men were stabbed, clubbed, and hanged from telephone

poles. Their homes were burned. Women and children were not spared.

An instance is given of a Negro child two years old which was shot and

thrown into a doorway of a burning building.

On the night of July 1, Mayor Mollman telephoned to the Adjutant General

of Illinois saying that the police were no longer able to handle the

situation and requesting that the militia be sent. Both the police and

the militia are severely censured by the Congressional report for gross

failure to do their duty. The police, says the report, could have quelled

the riot instantly, but instead they either "fled into the safety of

cowardly seclusion or listlessly watched the depredations of the mob,

passively and in many instances actively sharing in the work."

In all, five companies of the Illinois National Guard were sent to East

St. Louis. Some of them arrived on the morning of July 2, the first at

8:40 A.M. These forces were in command of Colonel S. O. Tripp. Concerning

the conduct of the militia, the Congressional Committee reported in

strong terms, singling out Colonel Tripp for especial condemnation. It

said that he was a hindrance instead of a help to the troops; that "he

was ignorant of his duties, blind to his responsibilities and deaf to

every intelligent appeal that was made to him."

The troops, in the estimation of the Committee, were poorly officered and

in only a few cases did their duty. The report states that "they seemed

moved by the same spirit of indifference or cowardice that marked the

conduct of the police force. As a rule they fraternized with the mob,

joked with them and made no serious effort to restrain them."

Many instances are given of active participation and encouragement of

the mob in its murders, arson, and general destruction.

The only redeeming feature of the activities of the militia, according

to the Congressional Committee, was "the conduct, bravery, and skill

of the officer second in command, whose promptness and determination

prevented the mob from committing many more atrocities."

By eight o'clock of the evening of July 2 there were seventeen officers

and 270 men on duty, and by July 4 the force had increased to thirty-seven

officers and 1,411 men. On the evening of July 2 the fury of the mob

had spent itself, and the riot subsided.

The behavior of the troops was condemned not only by the Congressional

Committee but by citizens generally, and a special inquiry was made

into their conduct by the Military and Naval Department of the State of

Illinois. Witnesses to dereliction on duty on the part of the soldiers

were examined and commanding officers of troops were asked to testify and

explain specific acts of violence and neglect of duty. In all seventy-nine

persons were examined. Although the charges against the soldiers in

a large number of cases were serious and sufficient to warrant the

criticism which they received, identification of individuals guilty of

these acts was difficult. This probably accounts for the fact that only

seven court-martials resulted from the inquiry. The commanding officer,

though severely censured by the Congressional Committee, was exonerated

by this inquiry.

CHAPTER III

THE MIGRATION OF NEGROES FROM THE SOUTH

I. INTRODUCTION

During the period 1916-18 approximately a half-million Negroes suddenly

moved from southern to northern states. This movement, however, was not

without a precedent. A similar migration occurred in 1879, when Negroes

moved from Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, and North

Carolina to Kansas. The origin of this earlier movement, its causes, and

manner resemble in many respects the one which has so recently attracted

public attention.

The migration of 1916-18 cannot be separated completely from the steady,

though inconspicuous, exodus from southern to northern states that has

been in progress since 1860, or, in fact, since the operation of the

"underground railway." In 1900 there were 911,025 Negroes living in

the North, 10.3 per cent of the total Negro population, which was then

8,883,994. Census figures for the period 1900-1910 show a net loss for

southern states east of the Mississippi of 595,703 Negroes. Of this number

366,880 are found in northern states. Reliable estimates for the last

decade place the increase of northern Negro population around 500,000.

The 1910-20 increase of the Negro population of Chicago was from 44,103

to 109,594, or 148.5 per cent, with a corresponding increase in the white

population of 21 per cent, including foreign immigration. According to

the Census Bureau method of estimating natural increase of population,

the Negro population of Chicago unaffected by the migration would be

58,056 in 1920, and the increase by migration alone would be 51,538.

The relative 1910-20 increases in white and Negro population in typical

industrial cities of the Middle West, given in Table II, illustrate the

effect of the migration of southern Negroes.

_The migration to Chicago._--Within a period of eighteen months in 1917-18

more than 50,000 Negroes came to Chicago according to an estimate based

on averages taken from actual count of daily arrivals. All of those

who came, however, did not stay. Chicago was a re-routing point, and

many immigrants went on to nearby cities and towns. During the heaviest

period, for example, a Detroit social agency reported that hundreds of

Negroes applying there for work stated that they were from Chicago. The

tendency appears to have been to reach those fields offering the highest

present wages and permanent prospects.

TABLE II

===============================================================

| Negroes | Percentage | Percentage

| | of Negro | of White

+--------+---------+ Increase, | Increase,

| 1910 | 1920 | 1910-20 | 1910-20

------------------+--------+---------+------------+------------

Cincinnati, Ohio | 19,639 | 29,636 | 50.9 | 8.0

Dayton, Ohio | 4,842 | 9,029 | 86.5 | 28.0

Toledo, Ohio | 1,877 | 5,690 | 203.1 | 42.5

Fort Wayne, Ind. | 572 | 1,476 | 158.0 | 34.3

Canton, Ohio | 291 | 1,349 | 363.6 | 71.7

Gary, Ind. | 383 | 5,299 | 1,283.6 | 205.1

Detroit, Mich. | 5,741 | 41,532 | 623.4 | 106.9

Chicago, Ill. | 44,103 | 109,594 | 148.5 | 21.0

------------------+--------+---------+------------+------------

II. CAUSES OF THE MIGRATION

A series of circumstances acting together in an unusual combination both

provoked and made possible the migration of Negroes from the South on

a large scale. The causes of the movement fall into definite divisions,

even as stated by the migrants themselves. For example, one of the most

frequent causes mentioned by southern Negroes for their change of home

is the treatment accorded them in the South. Yet this treatment of

which they complain has been practiced since their emancipation, and

fifty years afterward more than nine-tenths of the Negro population

of the United States still remained in the South. "Higher wages" was

also commonly stated as a cause of the movement, yet thousands came

to the North and to Chicago who in the South had been earning more in

their professions and even in skilled occupations than they expected to

receive in the North. These causes then divide into two main classes:

(1) economic causes, (2) sentimental causes. Each has a bearing on both

North and South. The following statements are based on reports prepared

by trustworthy agencies during the migration, on letters and statements

from migrants, Negroes and whites living in the South and the North,

and on family history obtained by the Commission's investigators.

I. ECONOMIC CAUSES OF THE MIGRATION

A. THE SOUTH

_Low wages._--Wages of Negroes in the South varied from 75 cents a day

on the farms to $1.75 a day in certain city jobs, in the period just

preceding 1914. The rise in living costs which followed the outbreak of

the war outstripped the rise in wages. In Alabama the price paid for day

labor in the twenty-one "black belt" counties averaged 50 and 60 cents

a day. It ranged from 40 cents, as a minimum, to 75 cents, and, in a

few instances, $1.00 was a maximum for able-bodied male farm hands.[14]

A Negro minister, writing in the _Montgomery_ (Alabama) _Advertiser_, said:

The Negro farm hand gets for his compensation hardly more than

the mule he plows; that is, his board and shelter. Some mules

fare better than Negroes. This, too, in spite of the fact that

the money received for farm products has advanced more than

100 per cent. The laborer has not shared correspondingly in

this advance.

High rents and low wages have driven the Negro off the farms.

They have no encouragement to work. Only here and there you

will find a tenant who is getting a square deal and the proper

encouragement.

A white man, writing in the same paper, said:

There is an article in today's _Advertiser_ headed "Exodus

of the Negroes to Be Probed." Why hunt for a cause when it's

plain as the noonday sun the Negro is leaving this country for

higher wages? He doesn't want to leave here but he knows if

he stays here he will starve. They have made no crops, they

have nothing to eat, no clothes, no shoes, and they can't

get any work to do, and they are leaving just as fast as they

can get away.... If the Negro race could get work at 50 cents

per day he would stay here. He don't want to go. He is easily

satisfied and will live on half rations and will never complain.

The _Atlanta Independent_, white, said:

If our white neighbors will treat the Negro kindly, recognizing

his rights as a man, advance his wages in proportion as the cost

of living advances, he will need no ordinance nor legislation

to keep the Negro here. The South is his natural home. He

prefers to be here, he loves its traditions, its ideals and

its people. But he cannot stay here and starve....

When meat was 15 cents a pound and flour $8 a barrel, the Negro

received from $4 to $8 a week. Now meat is 30 cents a pound

and flour $16 a barrel, and the Negro is receiving the same

wages. He cannot live on this and the white man cannot expect

him to live in the South and live on the starvation wages he

is paying him, when the fields and the factories in the North

are offering him living wages.

[Illustration: TYPICAL PLANTATION HOMES IN THE SOUTH OF MIGRANTS TO

CHICAGO]

_The boll weevil._--In 1915 and 1916 the boll weevil cotton pest so

ravaged sections of the South that thousands of farmers were almost

ruined. Cotton crops were lost, and the farmers were forced to change

from cotton to food products. The growing of cotton requires about

thirty times as many "hands" as food products. As a result many Negroes

were thrown out of employment. The damage wrought by the boll weevil

was augmented by destructive storms and floods, which not only affected

crops but made the living conditions of Negroes more miserable.

_Lack of capital._--The "credit system" is a very convenient and common

practice in many parts of the South. Money is borrowed for upkeep until

the selling season, when it is repaid in one lump sum. The succession

of short crops and the destruction due to the boll weevil and storms

occasioned heavy demands for capital to carry labor through the fall and

early winter until a new crop could be started. There was a shortage of

capital, and as a result there was little opportunity for work. During

this period many white persons migrated from sections of the South most

seriously affected.

_"Unsatisfactory" living conditions._--The plantation cabins and

segregated sections in cities where municipal laxity made home

surroundings undesirable have been stated as another contributing cause

of the movement.

_Lack of school facilities._--The desire to place their children in good

schools was a reason often given by migrants with families for leaving

the South. School facilities are described as lamentably poor even by

southern whites. Perhaps the most thorough statement of these conditions

is given in a _Study of Negro Education_ by Thomas Jesse Jones, made

under the direction of the federal Bureau of Education, and comparing

provisions for white and Negro children in fifteen southern states and

the District of Columbia. He states:

In the South they [Negroes] form 29.8 per cent of the total

population, the proportion in Mississippi and South Carolina

being over 55 per cent and ranging in the "black belt" counties

from 50 to 90 per cent of the total population. Almost 3,000,000

are engaged in agricultural pursuits. They form 40.4 per cent

of all persons engaged in these pursuits in the Southern States.

Though the United States census shows a decrease in illiteracy,

there are still about 2,225,000 Negroes illiterate in the

South, or over 33 per cent of the Negro population ten years

of age and over.

TABLE III

======================================================================

| White | Colored

---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------

Total population | 23,682,352 | 8,906,879

Population six to fourteen years of age | 4,889,762 | 2,023,108

Population six to fourteen[15] | 3,552,431 | 1,852,181

Teachers' salaries in public schools |$36,649,827 |$5,860,876

Teachers' salaries per child six to fourteen | $10.32 | $2.89

Per cent of illiteracy | 7.7 | 33.3

Per cent rural | 76.9 | 78.8

---------------------------------------------+------------+-----------

In the fifteen states and the District of Columbia for which salaries by

race could be obtained, the public school teachers received $42,510,431

in salaries. Of this sum $36,649,827 was for the teachers of 3,552,431

white children and $5,860,876 for teachers of 1,852,181 colored children.

On a per capita basis, this is $10.32 for each white child and $2.89

for each colored child.

TABLE IV

======================================================================

| | | Per | Per

| White | Negro | Capita | Capita

County Groups, Percentage of | School | School | for | for

Negroes in the Population | Population|Population| White | Negro

------------------------------+-----------+----------+--------+-------

Counties under 10 per cent | 974,289 | 45,039 | $ 7.96 | $7.23

Counties 10 to 25 per cent | 1,008,372 | 215,744 | 9.55 | 5.55

Counties 25 to 50 per cent | 1,132,999 | 709,259 | 11.11 | 3.19

Counties 50 to 75 per cent | 364,990 | 661,329 | 12.53 | .77

Counties 75 per cent and over | 40,003 | 207,900 | 22.22 | 1.78

------------------------------+-----------+----------+--------+-------

The supervisor of white elementary rural schools in one of the states

recently wrote concerning the Negro schools:

"I never visit one of these [Negro] schools without feeling that

we are wasting a large part of this money and are neglecting a

great opportunity. The Negro schoolhouses are miserable beyond

all description. They are usually without comfort, equipment,

proper lighting, or sanitation. Nearly all of the Negroes of

school age in the district are crowded into these miserable

structures during the short term which the school runs. Most

of the teachers are absolutely untrained and have been given

certificates by the county board, not because they have passed

the examination, but because it is necessary to have some kind

of a Negro teacher. Among the Negro rural schools which I have

visited, I have found only one in which the highest class knew

the multiplication table."

A state superintendent writes:

"There has never been any serious attempt in this state to

offer adequate educational facilities for the colored race. The

average length of the term for the state is only four months;

practically all of the schools are taught in dilapidated

churches, which, of course, are not equipped with suitable

desks, blackboards, and the other essentials of a school;

practically all of the teachers are incompetent, possessing

little or no education and having had no professional training

whatever, except a few weeks obtained in the summer schools;

the schools are generally overcrowded, some of them having as

many as 100 students to the teacher; no attempt is made to do

more than teach the children to read, write, and figure, and

these subjects are learned very imperfectly. There are six or

eight industrial supervisors financed in whole or in part by

the Jeanes Fund; most of these teachers are stimulating the

Negro schools to do very good work upon the practical things

of life. A few wide-awake Negro teachers not connected with

the Jeanes Fund are doing the same thing. It can probably be

truthfully said that the Negro schools are gradually improving,

but they are still just about as poor and inadequate as they

can be."

Commenting on the cause of the migration, the _Atlanta Constitution_,

a prominent southern white paper, says:

While mob violence and the falsehood which has been built

upon that foundation constitutes, perhaps, a strong factor

in the migration of the Negroes, there is scarcely a doubt

that the educational feature enters into it. Negroes induced

to go to the North undoubtedly believe they can secure better

educational facilities there for their children, whether they

really succeed in getting them or not.

Georgia, as well as other southern states, is undoubtedly

behind in the matter of Negro education, unfair in the matter

of facilities, in the quality of teachers and instructors, and

in the pay of those expected to impart proper instruction to

Negro children.

We have proceeded upon the theory that education would, in his

own mind, at least, carry the Negro beyond his sphere; that

it would give him higher ideas of himself and make of him a

poorer and less satisfactory workman. That is nonsense....

B. THE NORTH

_The cessation of immigration._--Prior to the war the yearly immigration

to the United States equaled approximately the total Negro population of

the North. Foreign labor filled the unskilled labor field, and Negroes

were held closely in domestic and personal-service work. The cessation of

immigration and the return of thousands of aliens to their mother-country,

together with the opening of new industries and the extension of old

ones, created a much greater demand for American labor. Employers looked

to the South for Negroes and advertised for them.

_High wages._--Wages for unskilled work in the North in 1916 and 1917

ranged from $3.00 to $8.00 a day. There were shorter hours of work and

opportunity for overtime and bonuses.

_Living conditions._--Houses available for Negroes in the North, though

by northern standards classed as unsanitary and unfit for habitation,

afforded greater comforts than the rude cabins of the plantation. For

those who had owned homes in the South there was the opportunity of

selling them and applying the money to payment for a good home in the

North.

_Identical school privileges._--Co-education of whites and Negroes in

northern schools made possible a higher grade of instruction for the

children of migrants.[16]

II. SENTIMENTAL CAUSES OF THE MIGRATION

The causes classed as sentimental include those which have reference to

the feelings of Negroes concerning their surroundings in the South and

their reactions to the social systems and practices of certain sections

of the South. Frequently these causes were given as the source of an

old discontent among Negroes concerning the South. Frequently they took

prominence over economic causes, and they were held for the most part

by a fairly high class of Negroes. These causes are in part as follows:

_Lack of protection from mob violence._--Between 1885 and 1918, 2,881

Negroes were lynched in the United States, more than 85 per cent of these

lynchings occurring in the South. In 1917, 2,500 Negroes were driven by

force out of Dawson and Forsythe counties, Georgia.[17]

The Chicago Urban League reported that numbers of migrants from towns

where lynchings had occurred registered for jobs in Chicago very shortly

after lynchings. Concerning mob violence and general insecurity both

whites and Negroes living in the South have had much to say. Their

statements at the time of the migration are here quoted.

From the _Atlanta Constitution_ (white), November 24, 1916:

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 as 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 concocted 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.

From the _Southwestern Christian Advocate_ (Negro), April 26, 1917:

But why do they [the Negroes] go? We give a concrete answer:

some months ago Anthony Crawford, a highly respectable, honest

and industrious Negro, with a good farm and holdings estimated

to be worth $300,000, was lynched in Abbeville, South Carolina.

He was guilty of no crime. He would not be cheated out of his

cotton. That was insolence. He must be taught a lesson. When

the mob went for him he defended himself. They overpowered him

and brutally lynched him. This murder was without excuse and

was condemned in no uncertain words by the Governor, other

high officials and the press in general of South Carolina.

Officials pledged that the lynchers would be punished. The

case went to the grand jury. Mr. Crawford was lynched in the

daytime and dragged through the streets by unmasked men. The

names of the leaders were supposed to have been known, and

yet the grand jury, under oath, says that it could not find

sufficient evidence to warrant an indictment....

Is any one surprised that Negroes are leaving South Carolina

by the thousands? The wonder is that any of them remain.

They will suffer in the North. Some of them will die. But

Anthony Crawford did not get a chance to die in Abbeville,

South Carolina. He was shamefully murdered. Any place would

be paradise compared with some sections of the South where

the Negroes receive such maltreatment.

From the _Savannah_ (Georgia) _Morning News_ (white), January 3, 1917:

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 accumulate 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 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 anyone else. If

he will not do this, the Negro must seek those North or West,

who will give him better wages and better treatment. I hope,

however, that this will not be necessary.

_Injustice in the courts._--An excerpt from one of the newspapers of

that period illustrates the basis of this cause:

While our very solvency is being sucked out from underneath

we go out about affairs as usual--our police officers raid

poolrooms for "loafing Negroes," bring in twelve, keep them

in the barracks all night, and next morning find that many

of them have steady, regular jobs, valuable assets to their

white employers, suddenly left and gone to Cleveland, "where

they don't arrest fifty niggers for what three of 'em done"

[_Montgomery_ (Alabama) _Advertiser_ (white), September 21,

1916].

_Inferior transportation facilities._--This refers to "Jim Crow cars,"

a partitioned section of one railway car, usually the baggage car, and

partitioned sections of railway waiting-rooms, poorly kept, bearing

signs, "For colored only." This dissatisfaction is expressed in part in

the following comment of a Negro presiding elder, writing in the _Macon_

(Georgia) _Ledger_, a white paper:

The petty offenses, which you mention, are far more numerous

than you are aware of, besides other unjust treatments enacted

daily on the streets, street cars and trains. Our women are

inhumanly treated by some conductors, both on the street

cars and trains. White men are often found in compartments

for Negroes smoking, and if anything is said against it they

who speak are insulted, or the car is purposely filled with

big puffs of smoke and the conductor's reply is, "He'll quit

to-rectly." Recently a white man entered a trailer for Negroes

with two little dogs. One of the dogs went between the seats

and crouched by a woman; she pushed him from her and the

white man took both dogs and set them aside her and she was

forced to ride with them. This is one of the many, many acts

of injustice which often result in a row for which the Negro

has to pay the penalty. These things are driving the Negro

from the South.

Other causes stated are (_a_) the deprivation of the right to vote,

(_b_) the "rough-handed" and unfair competition of "poor whites," (_c_)

persecution by petty officers of the law, and (_d_) the "persecution of

the Press."

III. BEGINNING AND SPREAD OF MIGRATION

The enormous proportions to which the exodus grew obscure its beginning.

Several experiments had been tried with southern labor in the Northeast,

particularly in the Connecticut tobacco fields and in Pennsylvania.

In Connecticut, Negro students from the southern schools had been

employed during summers with great success. Early in 1916, industries in

Pennsylvania imported many Negroes from Georgia and Florida. During July

one railroad company stated that it had brought to Pennsylvania more than

13,000 Negroes. They wrote back for their friends and families, and from

the points to which they had been brought they spread out into new and

"labor slack" territories. Once begun, this means of recruiting labor

was used by hard-pressed industries in other sections of the North. The

reports of high wages, of the unexpected welcome of the North, and of

unusually good treatment accorded Negroes spread throughout the South

from Georgia and Florida to Texas.

The stimuli of suggestion and hysteria gave the migration an almost

religious significance, and it became a mass movement. Letters, rumors,

Negro newspapers, gossip, and other forms of social control operated to

add volume and enthusiasm to the exodus. Songs and poems of the period

characterized the migration as the "Flight Out of Egypt," "Bound for

the Promised Land," "Going into Canaan," "The Escape from Slavery," etc.

The first movement was from Southeast to Northeast, following main lines

of transportation. Soon, however, it became known that the Middle West

was similarly in need of men. Many industries advertised for southern

Negroes in Negro papers. The federal Department of Labor for a period

was instrumental in transporting Negroes from the South to relieve the

labor shortage in other sections of the country, but discontinued such

efforts when southern congressmen pointed out that the South's labor

supply was being depleted. It was brought out in the East St. Louis riot

inquiry that plants there had advertised in Texas newspapers for Negro

laborers.

Chicago was the logical destination of Negroes from Mississippi, Arkansas,

Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, because of the more direct railway lines,

the way in which the city had become known in these sections through its

two great mail-order houses, the Stock Yards, and the packing-plants with

their numerous storage houses scattered in various towns and cities of

the South. It was rumored in these sections that the Stock Yards needed

50,000 men; it was said that temporary housing was being provided by

these hard-pressed industries. Many Negroes came to the city on free

transportation, but by far the greater numbers paid their own fare.

Club rates offered by the railroads brought the fare within reach of

many who ordinarily could not have brought their families or even come

themselves. The organization into clubs composed of from ten to fifty

persons from the same community had the effect, on the one hand, of

adding the stimulus of intimate persuasion to the movement, and, on the

other hand, of concentrating solid groups in congested spots in Chicago.

A study of certain Negro periodicals shows a powerful influence on

southern Negroes already in a state of unsettlement over news of the

"opening up of the North."

The _Chicago Defender_ became a "herald of glad tidings" to southern

Negroes. Several cities attempted to prevent its circulation among their

Negro population and confiscated the street- and store-sales supplies as

fast as they came. Negroes then relied upon subscription copies delivered

through the mails. There are reports of the clandestine circulation

of copies of the paper in bundles of merchandise. A correspondent of

the _Defender_ wrote: "White people are paying more attention to the

race in order to keep them in the South, but the _Chicago Defender_ has

emblazoned upon their minds 'Bound for the Promised Land.'"

In Gulfport, Mississippi, it was stated, a man was regarded "intelligent"

if he read the _Defender_, and in Laurel, Mississippi, it was said that

old men who had never known how to read, bought the paper simply because

it was regarded as precious.[18]

Articles and headlines carrying this special appeal which appeared in

the _Defender_ are quoted:

WHY SHOULD THE NEGRO STAY IN THE SOUTH?

WEST INDIANS LIVE NORTH

It is true the South is nice and warm, and may I add, so is

China, and we find Chinamen living in the North, East, and

West. So is Japan, but the Japanese are living everywhere.

SCHOOL BOARDS BAD

While in Arkansas a member of the school board in one of the

cities of that state (and it is said it is the rule throughout

the South that a Race woman teacher to hold her school must be

on friendly terms with some one of them) lived openly with a

Race woman, and the entire Race, men and women, were afraid to

protest or stop their children from going to school, because

this school board member would get up a mob and run them out

of the state. They must stomach this treatment.

FROZEN DEATH BETTER

To die from the bite of frost is far more glorious than that

of the mob. I beg of you, my brothers, to leave that benighted

land. You are free men. Show the world that you will not let

false leaders lead you. Your neck has been in the yoke. Will

you continue to keep it there because some "white folks Nigger"

wants you to? Leave to all quarters of the globe. Get out of

the South. Your being there in the numbers you are gives the

southern politician too strong a hold on your progress.

TURN DEAF EAR

Turn a deaf ear to everybody. You see they are not lifting

their laws to help you, are they? Have they stopped their Jim

Crow cars? Can you buy a Pullman sleeper where you wish? Will

they give you a square deal in court yet? When a girl is sent

to prison, she becomes the mistress of the guards and others

in authority, and women prisoners are put on the streets to

work, something they don't do to a white woman. And your leaders

will tell you the South is the best place for you. Turn a deaf

ear to the scoundrel, and let him stay. Above all, see to it

that that jumping-jack preacher is left at the South, for he

means you no good here at the North.

GOOD-BYE, DIXIE LAND

_One of our dear southern friends_ informs an anxious public

that "the Negroes of the North seem to fit very well into their

occupations and locations, but the southern Negro will never

make a success in the North. He doesn't understand the methods

there, the people and the work are wholly unsuited to him.

Give him a home in the South where climatic conditions blend

into his peculiar physical makeup, where he is understood and

can understand, and let him have a master and you have given

him the ideal home." There is the solution of the problem in

a nutshell. This dear friend thinks that under a master back

of the sugar cane and cotton fields, we might really be worth

something to the world. How thoughtful to point out the way

for our stumbling feet.

Those who live in the North presumably always lived there, and,

like Topsy, they "just growed" in that section, so naturally

fit well into their occupations. There is such a difference

between the white man and the black man of the South; the

former can travel to the North Pole if he chooses without

being affected, the latter, "they say" will die of a million

dread diseases if he dares to leave Dixie land, and yet the

thousands who have migrated North in the past year look as

well and hearty as they ever did. Something is wrong in our

friend's calculations.

We hear again and again of our "peculiar physical makeup." Is

there something radically different about us that is not found

in other people? Why the constant fear of Negro supremacy if

the white brain is more active and intelligent than the brain

found in the colored man? A good lawyer never fears a poor one

in a court battle--he knows that he has him bested from the

start. The fact that we have made good wherever and whenever

given an opportunity, we admit, is a little disquieting, but

it is a way we have, and is hard to get out of. Once upon a

time we permitted other people to think for us--today we are

thinking and acting for ourselves, with the result that our

"friends" are getting alarmed at our progress. We'd like to

oblige these unselfish (?) souls and remain slaves in the

South, but to other sections of the country we have said, as

the song goes: "I hear you calling me," and boarded the train

singing, "Good-by to Dixie-Land."

News articles in the _Defender_ kept alive the enthusiasm and fervor of

the exodus:

LEAVING FOR THE NORTH

Tampa, Fla., Jan. 19.--J. T. King, supposed to be a race leader,

is using his wits to get on the good side of the white people

by calling a meeting to urge our people not to migrate North.

King has been termed a "good nigger" by his pernicious activity

on the emigration question. Reports have been received here

that all who have gone North are at work and pleased with the

splendid conditions in the North. It is known here that in the

North there is a scarcity of labor, mills and factories are

open to them. People are not paying any attention to King and

are packing and ready to travel North to the "promised land."

DETERMINED TO GO NORTH

Jackson, Miss., March 23.--Although the white police and sheriff

and others are using every effort to intimidate the citizens

from going North, even Dr. Redmond's speech was circulated

around, this has not deterred our people from leaving. Many

have walked miles to take the train for the North. There is

a determination to leave and there is no hand save death to

keep them from it.

THOMAS LIKES THE NORTH

J. H. Thomas, Birmingham, Ala., Brownsville Colony, has been

here several weeks and is very much pleased with the North.

He is working at the Pullman shops, making twice as much as

he did at home. Mr. Thomas says the "exodus" will be greater

later on in the year, that he did not find four feet of snow

or would freeze to death. He lives at 346 East Thirty-fifth St.

LEAVING FOR THE EAST

Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 19.--Fifteen families, all members

of the Race, left here today for Pittsburgh, Pa., where they

will take positions as butlers, and maids, getting sixty to

seventy-five dollars per month, against fifteen and twenty

paid here. Most of them claim that they have letters from

their friends who went early and made good, saying that there

was plenty of work, and this field of labor is short, owing to

the vast amount of men having gone to Europe and not returned.

THEY'RE LEAVING MEMPHIS IN DROVES

Some are coming on the passenger,

Some are coming on the freight,

Others will be found walking,

For none have time to wait.

Other headlines read: "Thousands Leave Memphis"; "Still Planning to Come

North"; "Northbound Their Cry." These articles are especially interesting

for the impelling power of the suggestion of a great mass movement.

_Denunciation of the South._--The idea that the South is a bad place,

unfit for the habitation of Negroes, was "played up" and emphasized by

the _Defender_. Conditions most distasteful to Negroes were given first

prominence. In this it had a clear field, for the local southern Negro

papers dared not make such unrestrained utterances. Articles of this

type appeared:

EXODUS TO START

Forest City, Ark., Feb. 16.--David B. Smith (white) is on

trial for life for the brutal murder of a member of the Race,

W. H. Winford, who refused to be whipped like others. This

white man had the habit of making his "slave" submit to this

sort of punishment and when Winford refused to stand for it,

he was whipped to death with a "black snake" whip. The trial

of Smith is attracting very little attention. As a matter of

fact, the white people here think nothing of it as the dead

man is a "nigger."

This very act, coupled with other recent outrages that have

been heaped upon our people, are causing thousands to leave,

not waiting for the great spring movement in May.

The _Defender_ had a favorite columnist, W. Allison Sweeney. His specialty

was "breaking southerners and 'white folks' niggers on the wheel." One

of his articles in the issue of June 23, 1917, was captioned: "A Chicago

'Nigger' Preacher, a 'Feeder,' of The 'Little Hells,' Springs up to

Hinder Our Brethren Coming North."

A passage from this article will illustrate the temper of his writings.

Aroused by what he calls a "white folks nigger," he remarks:

Such a creature has recently been called to my attention, and

for the same reason that an unchecked rat has been known to

jeopardize the life of a great ship, a mouse's nibble of a

match to set a mansion aflame, I've concluded to carve a

"Slice of liver or two"

from that bellowing ass, who, at this very moment no doubt,

somewhere in the South, is going up and down the land, telling

the natives _why_ they should be content, as the _Tribune_,

puts it, to become "Russianized," to remain in that land--to

them--of _blight_; of _murdered_ kin, _deflowered_ womanhood,

_wrecked_ homes, _strangled_ ambitions, _make-believe_ schools,

_roving_ "gun parties," _midnight arrests_, _rifled_ virginity,

_trumped up_ charges, _lonely_ graves, where owls hoot, and

where friends dare not go! Do you wonder at the thousands

leaving the land where every foot of ground marks a tragedy,

leaving the grave of their fathers and all that is dear, to

seek their fortunes in the North? And you who say that their

going is to seek better wages are insulting truth, dethroning

reason, and consoling yourself with a groundless allegation.

_Retaliation._--In answer to the warnings of the South against the rigors

of the northern winters, articles of this nature appeared:

FREEZING TO DEATH IN THE SOUTH

So much has been said through the white papers in the South

about the members of the race freezing to death in the North.

They freeze to death down South when they don't take care of

themselves. There is no reason for any human staying in the

Southland on this bugaboo handed out by the white press, when

the following clippings are taken from the same journals:

AGED NEGRO FROZEN TO DEATH

Albany, Ga., Feb. 8.--Yesterday the dead body of Peter Crowder,

an old Negro, was found in an out-of-the-way spot where he

had been frozen to death during the recent cold snap [from

the _Macon_ (Georgia) _Telegraph_].

DIES FROM EXPOSURE

Spartanburg, Feb. 6.--Marshall Jackson, a Negro man, who lived

on the farm of J. T. Harris near Campobello Sunday night froze

to death [from the _South Carolina State_].

NEGRO FROZEN TO DEATH IN FIRELESS GRETNA HUT

Coldest weather of the last four years claimed a victim Friday

night, when Archie Williams, a Negro, was frozen to death in

his bed in a little hut in the outskirts of Gretna [from the

_New Orleans Item_, dated Feb. 4th].

NEGRO WOMAN FROZEN TO DEATH MONDAY

Harriet Tolbert, an aged Negro woman, was frozen to death in

her home at 18 Garibaldi Street early Monday morning during

the severe cold [Atlanta (Ga.) _Constitution_, dated Feb. 6].

If you can freeze to death in the North and be free, why

freeze to death in the South and be a slave, where your mother,

sister, and daughter are raped and burned at stake, where your

father, brother and son are treated with contempt and hung

to a pole, riddled with bullets at the least mention that he

does not like the way he has been treated?

Come North then, all of you folks, both good and bad. If you

don't behave yourself up here, the jails will certainly make

you wish you had. For the hard working man there is plenty of

work--if you really want it. The _Defender_ says come.

Still in another mood:

DIED, BUT TOOK ONE WITH HIM

Alexandria, La., Sept. 29.--Joe Pace (white) a southern workman,

who had a way of bulldozing members of the Race employed by

the Elizabeth Lumber Company, met his match here last Saturday

night.

Pace got into one of his moods and kicked a fellow named

Israel. Israel determined to get justice some way and knowing

that the courts were only for white men in this part of the

country, he took a shot at Pace and his aim was good.

Another type of article appeared. In keeping with the concept of the

South as a bad place for Negroes, their escape from it under exceptional

circumstances was given unique attention. Thus, there were reported the

following kind of cases.

SAVED FROM THE SOUTH

Lawyers Save Another from Being Taken South

SAVED FROM THE SOUTH

Charged with Murder, but His Release Is Secured by Habeas Corpus

NEW SCHEME TO KEEP RACE MEN IN DIXIE LAND

A piece of poetry which received widespread popularity appeared in the

_Defender_ under the title "Bound for the Promise Land." Other published

poems expressing the same sentiment were: "Farewell, We're Good and

Gone"; "Northward Bound"; "The Land of Hope."

Five young men were arraigned before Judge E. Schwartz for

reading poetry. The police claim they were inciting riot in

the city and over Georgia. Two of the men were sent to Brown

farm for thirty days, a place not fit for human beings. Tom

Amaca was arrested for having "Bound for the Promise Land,"

a poem published in the _Defender_ several months ago. J. N.

Chislom and A. A. Walker were arrested because they were said

to be the instigators of the movement of the race to the North,

where work is plentiful and better treatment is given.

_The "Great Northern Drive."_--The setting of definite dates was another

stimulus. The "Great Northern Drive" was scheduled to begin May 15,

1917. This date, or the week following, corresponds with the date of

the heaviest arrivals in the North, the period of greatest temporary

congestion and awakening of the North to the presence of the new arrivals.

Letters to the _Chicago Defender_ and to social agencies in the North

informed them of many Negroes who were preparing to come in the "Great

Drive." The following letter tells its own story:

April 24th, 1917

_Mr. R. S. Abbot_

SIR: I have been reading the _Defender_ for one year or more

and last February I read about the Great Northern Drive to

take place May 15th on Thursday and now I can hear so many

people speaking of an excursion to the North on the 15th of

May for $3.00. My husband is in the North already working,

and he wants us to come up in May, so I want to know if it is

true about the excursion. I am getting ready and oh so many

others also, and we want to know is that true so we can be in

the Drive. So please answer at once. We are getting ready.

Yours,

----

Usually the dates set were for Wednesday and Saturday nights, following

pay days.

It is probably no exaggeration to say that the _Defender's_ policy

prompted thousands of restless Negroes to venture North, where they were

assured of its protection and championship of their cause. Many migrants

in Chicago attribute their presence in the North to the _Defender's_

encouraging pictures of relief from conditions at home with which they

became increasingly dissatisfied as they read.

[Illustration: A NEGRO FAMILY JUST ARRIVED IN CHICAGO FROM THE RURAL

SOUTH]

[Illustration: NEGRO CHURCH IN THE SOUTH]

IV. THE ARRIVAL IN CHICAGO

At the time of the migration the great majority of Negroes in Chicago

lived in a limited area on the South Side, principally between

Twenty-second and Thirty-ninth streets, Wentworth Avenue and State

Street, and in scattered groups to Cottage Grove Avenue on the east.

State Street was the main thoroughfare. Prior to the influx of southern

Negroes, many houses stood vacant in the section west of State Street,

from which Negroes had moved when better houses became available east

of State Street. Into these old and frequently almost uninhabitable

houses the first newcomers moved. Because of its proximity to the old

vice area this district had an added undesirability for old Chicagoans.

The newcomers, however, were unacquainted with its reputation and had no

hesitancy about moving in until better homes could be secured. As the

number of arrivals increased, a scarcity of houses followed, creating

a problem of acute congestion.

During the summer of 1917 the Chicago Urban League made a canvass of

real estate dealers supplying houses for Negroes, and found that in a

single day there were 664 Negro applicants for houses, and only fifty

houses available. In some instances as many as ten persons were listed

for a single house. This condition did not continue long. There were

counted thirty-six new neighborhoods, formerly white, opening up to

Negroes within three months.

At the same time rents increased from 5 to 30 and sometimes as much

as 50 per cent. A more detailed study of living conditions among the

early migrants in Chicago was made by the Chicago School of Civics

and Philanthropy. The inquiry included seventy-five families of less

than a year's residence. In the group were sixty married couples, 128

children, eight women, nine married men with families in the South. Of

these migrants forty-five families came from rural and thirty-two from

urban localities. The greatest number, twenty-nine, came from Alabama;

twenty-five were from Mississippi, eleven from Louisiana, five from

Georgia, four from Arkansas, two from Tennessee, and one from Florida.

Forty-one of these seventy-five families were each living in one room.

These rooms were rented by the week, thus making possible an easy change

of home at the first opportunity.

It was at this period that the greatest excitement over the "incoming

hordes of Negroes" prevailed.

A significant feature was the large number of young children found.

The age distribution of 128 children in these seventy-five families

was forty-seven under seven years, forty-one between seven and fourteen

years, and forty over fourteen years.

Most of these children were of school age and had come from districts

in the South which provided few school facilities. The parents were

unaccustomed to the requirements of northern schools in matters of

discipline, attendance, and scholarship. Considerable difficulty was

experienced by teachers, parents, and children in these first stages of

adjustment.

V. ADJUSTMENTS TO CHICAGO LIFE

Meeting actual conditions of life in Chicago brought its exaltations and

disillusionments to the migrants. These were reflected in the schools,

public amusement places, industry, and the street cars. The Chicago

Urban League, Negro churches, and Negro newspapers assumed the task of

making the migrants into "city folk." The increase in church membership

indicates prompt efforts to re-engage in community life and establish

agreeable and helpful associations. It also reflects the persistence of

religious life among the migrants. This increase is shown in Table V.

TABLE V

=========================================

| INCREASE IN MEMBERSHIP

| DURING MIGRATION PERIOD

NAME OF CHURCH |------------+------------

| Number | Percentage

---------------+------------+------------

Salem | 700 | 51

Olivet | 5,543 | 80

South Park | 2,425 | 1,872

St. Mark's | 1,800 | 100

Hyde Park | 95 | 131

Bethel | 650 | 800

Walters | 351 | 338

---------------+------------+------------

Adjustment to new conditions was taken up by the Urban League as its

principal work. Co-operating with the Travelers Aid Society, United

Charities, and other agencies of the city, it met the migrants at stations

and, as far as its facilities permitted, secured living quarters and

jobs for them. The churches took them into membership and attempted to

make them feel at home. Negro newspapers published instructions on dress

and conduct and had great influence in smoothing down improprieties of

manner which were likely to provoke criticism and intolerance in the city.

Individual experiences of the migrants in this period of adjustment

were often interesting. The Commission made a special effort to note

these experiences for the light they throw upon the general process.

Much of the adjustment was a double process, including the adjustment

of rural southern Negroes to northern urban conditions. It is to be

remembered that over 70 per cent of the Negro population of the South

is rural. This means familiarity with rural methods, simple machinery,

and plain habits of living. Farmers and plantation workers coming to

Chicago had to learn new tasks. Skilled craftsmen had to relearn their

trades when they were thrown amid the highly specialized processes of

northern industries. Domestic servants went into industry. Professional

men who followed their clientèle had to re-establish themselves in a

new community. The small business men could not compete with the Jewish

merchants, who practically monopolized the trade of Negroes near their

residential areas, or with the "Loop" stores.

Many Negroes sold their homes and brought their furniture with them.

Reinvesting in property frequently meant a loss; the furniture brought

was often found to be unsuited to the tiny apartments or large, abandoned

dwelling-houses they were able to rent or buy.

The change of home carried with it in many cases a change of status.

The leader in a small southern community, when he came to Chicago, was

immediately absorbed into the struggling mass of unnoticed workers.

School teachers, male and female, whose positions in the South carried

considerable prestige, had to go to work in factories and plants because

the disparity in educational standards would not permit continuance of

their profession in Chicago.

These illustrations in Table VI, taken from family histories, show how

adjustment led to inferior occupation.

TABLE VI

======================================================================

Occupation in South | Occupation on First | Occupation One or

| Arrival in Chicago | More Years Later

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Display man on |Laborer |Laborer in factory

furniture | |

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Stone mason |Laborer in coal yard |Laborer in Stock Yards

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Proprietor of café |Laborer |Elevator man

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Farmer |Laborer in Stock Yards |Laborer in Stock Yards

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Coal miner |Porter in tailoring |Janitor

|shop |

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Proprietor of |Laborer |Laborer in Stock Yards

boarding-house | |

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Farmer |Factory worker |Factory worker

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Barber |Painter |Janitor

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Hotel waiter |Waiter |Porter in factory

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Plasterer |Laborer in Stock Yards |Laborer in steel mill

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Farmer |Hostler |Laborer in livery

| |stable

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Clergyman |Stationary fireman |Laborer in Stock Yards

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Tinsmith |Waiter |Laborer

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Farmer |Laborer in cement |Laborer in Stock Yards

|factory |

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Blacksmith |Barber |Janitor

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

Office boy |Porter |Laborer in Stock Yards

-----------------------+-----------------------+----------------------

The following experiences of one or two families from the many histories

gathered, while not entirely typical of all the migrants, contain features

common to all:

_The Thomas family._--Mr. Thomas, his wife and two children,

a girl nineteen and a boy seventeen, came to Chicago from

Seals, Alabama, in the spring of 1917. After a futile search,

the family rented rooms for the first week. This was expensive

and inconvenient, and between working hours all sought a house

into which they could take their furniture. They finally found

a five-room flat on Federal Street. The building had been

considered uninhabitable and dangerous. Three of the five

rooms were almost totally dark. The plumbing was out of order.

There was no bath, and the toilet was outside of the house.

There was neither electricity nor gas, and the family used

oil lamps. The rent was $15 per month. Although the combined

income of the family could easily have made possible a better

house, they could find none.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were farmers in the South. On the farm

Mrs. Thomas did the work of a man along with her husband. Both

are illiterate. The daughter had reached the fourth grade and

the boy the fifth grade in school. At home they belonged to

a church and various fraternal orders and took part in rural

community life.

On their arrival in Chicago they were short of funds. Father

and son went to work at the Stock Yards. Although they had

good jobs they found their income insufficient; the girl went

to work in a laundry, and the mother worked as a laundress

through the first winter for $1 a day. She later discovered

that she was working for half the regular rate for laundry

work. Soon she went back to housekeeping to reduce the food

bill.

All the family were timid and self-conscious and for a long

time avoided contacts, thus depriving themselves of helpful

suggestions. The children became ashamed of the manners of

their parents and worked diligently to correct their manner

of speech. The children attended Wendell Phillips night school

in the hope of improving their community status.

The freedom and independence of Negroes in the North have

been a constant novelty to them and many times they have been

surprised that they were "not noticed enough to be mistreated."

They have tried out various amusement places, parks, ice-cream

parlors, and theaters near their home on the South Side and

have enjoyed them because they were denied these opportunities

in their former home.

The combined income of this family is $65 a week, and their

rent is now low. Many of their old habits have been preserved

because of the isolation in which they have lived and because

they have not been able to move into better housing.

_The Jones family._--Mr. Jones, his wife, a six-year-old son,

and a nephew aged twenty-one, came from Texas early in 1919.

Although they arrived after the heaviest migration, they

experienced the same difficulties as earlier comers.

They searched for weeks for a suitable house. At first they

secured one room on the South Side in a rooming-house, where

they were obliged to provide gas, coal, linen, bedding, and

part of the furniture. After a few weeks they got two rooms

for light housekeeping, for $10 a month. The associations as

well as the physical condition of the house were intolerable.

They then rented a flat on Carroll Avenue in another section.

The building was old and run down. The agent for the property,

to induce tenants to occupy it, had promised to clean and

decorate it, but failed to keep his word. When the Jones family

asked the owner to make repairs, he refused flatly and was

exceedingly abusive.

Finally Jones located a house on the West Side that was much

too large for his family, and the rent too high. They were

forced to take lodgers to aid in paying the rent. This was

against the desire of Mrs. Jones, who did not like to have

strangers in her house. The house has six rooms and bath and

is in a state of dilapidation. Mr. Jones has been forced to

cover the holes in the floor with tin to keep out the rats. The

plumbing is bad. During the winter there is no running water,

and the agent for the building refuses to clean more than three

rooms or to furnish screens or storm doors or to pay for any

plumbing. In the back yard under the house is an accumulation

of ashes, tin cans, and garbage left by a long series of

previous tenants. There is no alley back of the house, and all

of the garbage from the back yard must be carried out through

the front. Jones made a complaint about insanitary conditions

to the Health Department, and the house was inspected, but

so far nothing has been done. It was difficult to induce the

agent to supply garbage cans.

Jones had reached the eighth grade, and Mrs. Jones had

completed the first year of high school. The nephew had finished

public-school grades provided in his home town and had been

taught the boiler trade. He is now pursuing this trade in hope

of securing sufficient funds to complete his course in Conroe

College, where he has already finished the first year. The boy

of six was placed in a West Side school. He was removed from

this school, however, and sent back south to live with Mrs.

Jones's mother and attend school there. Mrs. Jones thought that

the influence of the school children of Chicago was not good

for him. He had been almost blinded by a blow from a baseball

bat in the hands of one of several older boys who continually

annoyed him. The child had also learned vulgar language from

his school associates.

The Jones family were leading citizens in their southern

home. They were members of a Baptist church, local clubs, and

a missionary society, while Jones was a member and officer

in the Knights of Tabor, Masons, and Odd Fellows. They owned

their home and two other pieces of property in the same town,

one of which brought in $20 a month. As a boiler-maker, he

earned about $50 a week, which is about the same as his present

income. Their motive in coming to Chicago was to escape from

the undesirable practices and customs of the South.

They had been told that no discrimination was practiced against

Negroes in Chicago; that they could go where they pleased

without the embarrassment or hindrance because of their color.

Accordingly, when they first came to Chicago, they went into

drug-stores and restaurants. They were refused service in

numbers of restaurants and at the refreshment counters in

some drug-stores. The family has begun the re-establishment

of its community life, having joined a West Side Baptist

church and taking an active interest in local organizations,

particularly the Wendell Phillips Social Settlement. The

greatest satisfaction of the Joneses comes from the "escape

from Jim Crow conditions and segregation" and the securing of

improved conditions of work, although there is no difference

in the wages.

VI. MIGRANTS IN CHICAGO

Migrants have been visited in their homes, and met in industry, in the

schools, and in contacts on street cars and in parks. Efforts have been

made to learn why they came to Chicago and with what success they were

adjusting themselves to their new surroundings.

Some of the replies to questions asked are given:

_Question_: Why did you come to Chicago?

_Answers_:

1. Looking for better wages.

2. So I could support my family.

3. Tired of being a flunky.

4. I just happened to drift here.

5. Some of my people were here.

6. Persuaded by friends.

7. Wanted to make more money so I could go into business;

couldn't do it in the South.

8. To earn more money.

9. For better wages.

10. Wanted to change and come to the North.

11. Came to get more money for work.

12. To better my conditions.

13. Better conditions.

14. Better conditions.

15. Better living.

16. More work; came on visit and stayed.

17. Wife persuaded me.

18. To establish a church.

19. Tired of the South.

20. To get away from the South, and to earn more money.

_Question_: Do you feel greater freedom and independence in

Chicago? In what ways?

_Answers_:

1. Yes. Working conditions and the places of amusement.

2. Yes. The chance to make a living; conditions on the street

cars and in movies.

3. Going into places of amusement and living in good

neighborhoods.

4. Yes. Educationally, and in the home conditions.

5. Yes. Go anywhere you want to go; voting; don't have to look

up to the white man, get off the street for him, and go to

the buzzard roost at shows.

6. Yes. Just seem to feel a general feeling of good-fellowship.

7. On the street cars and the way you are treated where you

work.

8. Yes. Can go any place I like here. At home I was segregated

and not treated like I had any rights.

9. Yes. Privilege to mingle with people; can go to the parks

and places of amusement, not being segregated.

10. Yes. Feel free to do anything I please. Not dictated to

by white people.

11. Yes. Had to take any treatment white people offered me

there, compelled to say "yes ma'am" or "yes sir" to white

people, whether you desired to or not. If you went to an ice

cream parlor for anything you came outside to eat it. Got off

sidewalk for white people.

12. Yes. Can vote; feel free; haven't any fear; make more money.

13. Yes. Voting; better opportunity for work; more respect

from white people.

14. Yes. Can vote; no lynching; no fear of mobs; can express

my opinion and defend myself.

15. Yes. Voting, more privileges; white people treat me better,

not as much prejudice.

16. Yes. Feel more like a man. Same as slavery, in a way,

at home. I don't have to give up the sidewalk here for white

people as in my former home.

17. Yes. No restrictions as to shows, schools, etc. More

protection of law.

18. Yes. Have more privileges and more money.

19. Yes. More able to express views on all questions. No

segregation or discrimination.

20. Sure. Feel more freedom. Was not counted in the South;

colored people allowed no freedom at all in the South.

21. Find things quite different to what they are at home.

Haven't become accustomed to the place yet.

_Question_: What were your first impressions of Chicago?

_Answers_:

1. I liked the air of doing things here.

2. A place of real opportunity if you would work.

3. Place just full of life. Went to see the sights every night

for a month.

4. I thought it was some great place but found out it wasn't.

Uncle told me he was living on Portland Avenue, that it was

some great avenue; found nothing but a mud hole. I sure wished

I was back home.

5. When I got here and got on the street cars and saw colored

people sitting by white people all over the car I just held my

breath, for I thought any minute they would start something,

then I saw nobody noticed it, and I just thought this was a

real place for colored people. No, indeed, I'll never work in

anybody's kitchen but my own, any more, that's the one thing

that makes me stick to this job.

6. Was completely lost, friend was to meet me but didn't and I

was afraid to ask anyone where to go; finally my friend came;

was afraid to sleep first night--so much noise; thought the

cars would finally stop running so I could rest.

7. Liked the place.

8. Always liked Chicago, even the name before I came.

9. Liked it fine.

10. Good city for colored people.

11. Fine city.

12. Thought it the best place for colored people.

13. Thought it a good place for colored people to live in.

14. Very favorable, thought it the place to be for myself and

family.

15. Didn't like it; lonesome, until I went out. Then liked

the places of amusement which have no restrictions.

16. Liked it fine, like it even better now.

17. Liked Chicago from the first visit made two years ago;

was not satisfied until I was able to get back.

18. Think I will like it later on.

_Question_: In what respects is life harder or easier here

than in the South?

_Answers_:

1. Easier. I don't have to work so hard and get more money.

2. Easier in that here my wife doesn't have to work. I just

couldn't make it by myself in the South.

3. Living is much easier; chance to learn a trade. I make and

save more money.

4. Easier, you can make more money and it means more to you.

5. Easier to make a living here.

6. Easier, I get more money for my work and have some spare

time.

7. Have better home, but have to work harder. I make more

money, but spend it all to live.

8. Have more time to rest here and don't work as hard.

9. Find it easier to live because I have more to live on.

10. Earn more money; the strain is not so great wondering from

day to day how to make a little money do.

11. Work harder here than at home.

12. Easier. Work is hard, but hours are short. I make more

money and can live better.

13. More money for work, though work is harder. Better able

to buy the necessities of life.

14. Easier; more work and more money and shorter hours.

15. Living higher, but would rather be here than in South. I

have shorter hours here.

16. Don't have to work as hard here as at home. Have more time

for rest and to spend with family.

17. Easier to live in St. Louis. More work here and better

wages. Living higher here. Saved more there.

18. Must work very hard here, much harder than at home.

19. Harder because of increased cost of living.

20. The entire family feels that life is much easier here than

at home. Do not find work as hard anywhere.

_Question_: What do you like about the North?

_Answers_:

1. Freedom in voting and conditions of colored people here.

I mean you can live in good houses; men here get a chance to

go with the best-looking girls in the race; some may do it in

Memphis, but it ain't always safe.

2. Freedom and chance to make a living; privileges.

3. Freedom and opportunity to acquire something.

4. Freedom allowed in every way.

5. More money and more pleasure to be gotten from it; personal

freedom Chicago affords, and voting.

6. Freedom and working conditions.

7. Work, can work any place, freedom.

8. The schools for the children, the better wages, and the

privileges for colored people.

9. The chance colored people have to live; privileges allowed

them and better homes.

10. The friendliness of the people, the climate which makes

health better.

11. Like the privileges, the climate; have better health.

12. No discrimination; can express opinion and vote.

13. Freedom of speech, right to live and work as other races.

Higher pay for labor.

14. Freedom; privileges; treatment of whites; ability to live

in peace; not held down.

15. Freedom of speech and action. Can live without fear, no

Jim Crow.

16. More enjoyment; more places of attraction; better treatment;

better schools for children.

17. Liberty, better schools.

18. I like the North for wages earned and better homes colored

people can live in and go more places than at home.

19. Privileges, freedom, industrial and educational facilities.

20. The people, the freedom and liberty colored people enjoy

here that they never before experienced. Even the ways of the

people are better than at home.

21. Haven't found anything yet to like, except wife thinks

she will like the opportunity of earning more money than ever

before.

_Question_: What difficulties do you think a person from the

South meets in coming to Chicago?

_Answers_:

1. Getting used to climate and houses.

2. Getting accustomed to cold weather and flats.

3. Getting used to living conditions and make more money; not

letting the life here run away with you.

4. Adjusting myself to the weather and flat life: rooming and

"closeness" of the houses.

5. Getting used to flat conditions and crowded houses.

6. Getting used to living in flats, and growing accustomed to

being treated like people.

7. Getting used to the ways of the people; not speaking or

being friendly; colder weather, hard on people from the South.

8. Just the treatment some of the white people give you on

the trains. Sometimes treat you like dogs.

9. Know of no difficulties a person from the South meets coming

to Chicago.

10. I didn't meet any difficulties coming from the South. Know

of none persons would likely meet.

11. Can think of no difficulties persons meet coming from the

South to Chicago.

12. Adjustment to working conditions and climate.

13. Climatic changes.

14. Change in climate, crowded living conditions, lack of

space for gardens, etc.

15. Change in climate, crowded housing conditions.

16. Coming without knowing where they are going to stop usually

causes some difficulty. Get in with wrong people who seek to

take advantage of the ignorance of newcomers.

17. Becoming adjusted to climate.

18. If they know where they are going, when they come here.

The danger lies in getting among the wrong class of people.

19. Adjustment to city customs, etc.

20. If persons know where they are going and what they are

going to do, will not have any trouble. Must come with the

intention of working or else expect many difficulties.

21. Know of no difficulties.

_Question_: Do you get more comforts and pleasures from your

higher wages?

_Answers_:

1. Yes. Better homes, places of amusement, and the buying of

your clothes here. You can try on things; you can do that in

some stores in Memphis, but not in all.

2. Yes. Living in better houses, can go into almost any place

if you have the money, and then the schools are so much better

here.

3. Yes. I live better, save more, and feel more like a man.

4. Yes. I can buy more, my wife can have her clothes fitted

here, she can try on a hat, and if she doesn't want it she

doesn't have to keep it; go anywhere I please on the cars after

I pay my fare; I can do any sort of work I know how to do.

5. Yes. Go anywhere I please, buy what I please; ain't afraid

to get on cars and sit where I please.

6. Well, I make more money. I can't save anything from it.

There are so many places to go here, but down South you work,

work, work, and you have to save, for you haven't any place

to spend it.

7. Yes. Better homes. Spend money anywhere you want to, go

anywhere you have money enough to go; don't go out very much

but like to know I can where and when I want to.

8. Have chance to make more money, but it is all spent to keep

family up.

9. At home did not earn much money and did not have any left

to go what few places colored people were allowed to go. Here,

Negroes can have whatever they want.

10. Don't have to worry about how you are going to live. More

money earned affords anything wanted.

11. Have more comforts in the home that could not have at home;

more conveniences here. Wages sons earn make it possible to

have all that is wanted.

12. Yes. Better houses and more enjoyment.

13. Yes. I live in larger house and have more conveniences.

Can take more pleasure; have more leisure time.

14. Yes. Better houses and more amusement. More time of my

own, better furniture and food.

15. Yes. Better houses and furniture. More pleasures because

of shorter hours of work, giving me more time.

16. What little was earned at home was used for food and

clothing. Here, earn more, have more to spend; now and then

put some in the bank, and can spend some for pleasure without

strain or inconvenience.

17. Yes. More places to go, parks and playgrounds for children,

and no difference made between white and colored. Houses more

convenient here.

18. Have more money to spend but when you have to live in houses

where landlord won't fix up you can't have much comfort. Go

no place for pleasure, but enjoy the chance of earning more

money.

19. No comment.

20. Have money to get whatever is desired. Live in a better

house and can go places denied at home. All the family are

perfectly satisfied and are happier than they have ever been.

21. Live in better house than ever lived in. Never had the

comforts furnished here. Some houses there had no water closets;

only had cistern and wells out in the yard.

_Question_: Are you advising friends to come to Chicago?

_Answers_:

1. Yes. People down there don't really believe the things we

write back, I didn't believe myself until I got here.

2. No. I am not going to encourage them to come, for they

might not make it, then I would be blamed.

3. Yes. If I think they will work.

4. Some of them, those who I think would appreciate the

advantages here.

5. No. Not right now, come here and get to work, strikes come

along, they're out of work. Come if they want to, though.

6. Yes. I have two sisters still in Lexington. I am trying

to get them to come up here. They can't understand why I stay

here, but they'll see if they come.

7. Yes. People here don't realize how some parts of the South

treat colored folks; poor white trash were awful mean where

we came from; wish all the colored folks would come up here

where you ain't afraid to breathe.

8. Yes. Want friend and husband to come; also sister and family

who want her to come back that they may see how she looks

before they break up and come. Youngest son begs mother never

to think of going back South. Oldest son not so well satisfied

when first came, but since he is working, likes it a little

better.

Only a few migrants were found who came on free transportation, and many

of these had friends in Chicago before they came. Few expressed a desire

to return.

VII. EFFORTS TO CHECK MIGRATION

The withdrawal of great numbers of Negroes, both because of the migration

and because of military service, left large gaps in the industries of the

South dependent upon Negro labor. Thousands of acres of rice and sugar

cane went to waste. The turpentine industry of the Carolinas and the

milling interests of Tennessee were hard pressed for labor. Cotton-growing

was much affected, especially in the delta region of Mississippi. The

situation became critical, presenting a real economic problem. Organized

efforts were made, and at times extreme measures were taken, to start a

return movement. A report was circulated that on one day in the winter

of 1919 in Chicago, 17,000 Negroes were counted in a bread line. The

"horrors of northern winters" were played up as they had been during

the migration.

The press throughout the country was used to spread broadcast the South's

needs, its kind treatment of Negroes, its opportunities, and its growing

change of heart on the question of race relations. Newspaper articles

from sections of the North and South carried about the same story.

The _Chicago Tribune_ said in a conspicuous headline: "Louisiana Wants

Negroes to Return." Other such headlines were: _Washington Post_--"South

Needs Negroes. Try to Get Labor for Their Cotton Fields. Tell of Kind

Treatment"; _New York Evening Sun_--"To Aid Negro Return"; _Philadelphia

Press_--"South Is Urging Negroes to Return. Many Districts Willing to

Pay Fare of Those Who Come Back"; _Memphis Commercial Appeal_--"South

Is Best for Negro, Say Mississippians. Colored People Found Prosperous

and Happy."

Though such reports were widely circulated throughout the North, the

actual efforts of agencies from the South seeking the return of Negro

labor centered around Chicago. This was due largely to the fact that

from the southern states most acutely in need the drift during the

migration had been to Chicago, and because the increase of Chicago's

Negro population had been so great.

Immediately following the riots in Chicago and Washington, rumors gained

wide currency that hundreds of migrants were leaving for sections of

the South. So strong was the belief in the truth of this report that a

Chicago newspaper telegraphed the governors of southern states inquiring

the number of Negroes they needed. Agents of the South, including

representatives of the Tennessee Association of Commerce, the Department

of Immigration of Louisiana, the Mississippi Welfare League, and the

Southern Alluvial Land Association, visited northern cities with a view to

providing means for the return of Negroes. Although free transportation

was offered, together with promises of increased wages and better living

conditions, the various commissions were disappointed.

Their interviews with Negroes living in Chicago revealed a determination

not to return to conditions they had left two years before. To offset

this objection, two Chicago Negroes and one white man were taken to

Mississippi by a representative of the Mississippi Welfare League to

make an investigation. They visited several delta towns, traveling for

the most part in automobiles and interviewing farmers and laborers. They

reported in substance as follows:

Railroad accommodations for Negroes were adequate and uniform,

irrespective of locality; treatment accorded Negro passengers

by railroad officials was courteous throughout. Public-school

terms were nine months in the city and eight months in the

country for white and colored alike, and the strongest possible

human ties between planter and worker exist.... In no instance

were Negroes not given the freest use of sidewalks, streets,

and thoroughfares and we were unable to find any trace of

friction of any kind between the races.

An effort was then made by the Chicago Urban League to ascertain the

precise state of affairs. Its southern representative questioned hundreds

of Negroes living in the South, regarding improved relationships. Answers

to this query were all about the same. Some of them are quoted:

There has been no change. Lincoln League organized in this

city has been denounced by the white newspapers as a movement

that will cause trouble, and the National Association for

the Advancement of Colored People, and the Urban Leagues of

various cities have been called "strife breeders and meddlers

in southern affairs"; Jim Crow accommodations are just the

same as ever. If there is any change for the better, I can't

see it.

It is ridiculous for any Negro to say he finds conditions

better here. Don't you remember that Negroes answering an

invitation to meet the Welfare Committee of white men not long

ago were told as soon as they got into the meeting place that

the Committee was ready to hear what Negroes wanted, but that

the question of the Negro's right to exercise the right of

voting would not be allowed to be discussed at all, and that

that must be agreed to before any discussion whatever would

be entertained, and that the Negroes left the meeting place

without a chance to demand the one thing they wished to enjoy?

* * * * *

Some deceitful, lying Negro may say that times are better, but

he would, at the same time, know that he was not telling the

truth. Haven't you been hearing more reports of lynching of

Negroes than you ever did in your life, since the war? Where,

then, is there any improvement? Ain't all the judges, all the

police and constables, all the juries as white man as ever?

Does the word of a Negro count for more now than it did before

the war? Don't white men insult our wives and daughters and

sisters and get off at it, unless we take the law into our

own hand and punish them for it ourselves, and get lynched

for protecting our own, just as often as ever? How much more

schooling from public funds do our children get now than they

got before the war? How much more do we have to say now than

we had to say before the war about the way the taxes we pay

shall be spent for schools, or for salaries, or for anything

connected with administration and government? Why, even the

colored man in Caddo parish who subscribed for $100,000 in

Liberty bonds and bought lots of War Savings stamps, and others

who bought less, but in the hundreds, and thousands of the

bonds and War Saving stamps, have no more to say about affairs

now than they ever had. Where is the improvement?

The Urban League also made an inquiry into the numbers of Negroes leaving

and arriving in the week following the riot, and when the strongest

efforts were being made to induce a return of migrants. During this

period 261 Negroes came to Chicago and 219 left the city. Of the 219

leaving, eighty-three gave some southern state as their destination.

For the most part, they were persons returning from vacations in the

North, and Chicago Negroes going South to visit or on business. Some

were rejoining their families. Fourteen were leaving because of the

riot. None, however, indicated any intention of going South to work.

It is clear that migrant Negroes are not returning South. On the contrary,

there is a small but continuous stream of migration to the industrial

centers of the North. No great number of Negroes returned to the South

even during the trying unemployment period in the early part of 1921.

Census figures for Chicago for 1920 show a number much smaller than the

usual estimates of the size of the Negro population during the period

of the heaviest migration. This may be accounted for by the fact that

Chicago has been used as a re-routing point to other northern cities. The

decrease from 1918 undoubtedly means that some returned to the South, but

it is apparent that the great majority of the migrants remain, despite

the hardships attending shortage of work.

CHAPTER IV

THE NEGRO POPULATION OF CHICAGO

A. DISTRIBUTION AND DENSITY

The Negro population of Chicago, as reported by the Federal Bureau of

the Census, was 44,103 in 1910 and 109,594 in 1920. The increase during

the decade was therefore 65,491, or 148.5 per cent. Negroes constituted 2

per cent of the city's total population in 1910 and 4.1 per cent in 1920.

The increase in the white population during the decade was 450,047, or

21 per cent, bringing the white population up to 2,589,104 in 1920. The

remainder of the population consisted of 3,007 Chinese, Japanese, and

Indians, of whom there were 2,123 in 1910. Chicago's total population

in 1920 was 2,701,705.

In order to indicate where the Negro population of the city lived in 1910

and in 1920, the Commission sought the co-operation of the Census Bureau.

On the basis of a rough preliminary survey, certain areas in which it

was evident that the main groups of Negroes lived were delimited, and

liberal margins allowed to include scattered residents living near the

main areas. For these areas the Census Bureau supplied figures showing

the total and Negro population by census-enumeration districts. Since

each enumeration district embraced from one or two to six city blocks

in the more crowded portions of the city, the data thus made available

enabled the Commission to prepare maps showing with a fair degree of

accuracy where Negroes in Chicago lived in 1910 and in 1920, and also

their proportion to the total population in these units of area.

The 510 enumeration districts covered for 1910 included 40,739, or

92.3 per cent of the 44,103 Negroes reported by the Census Bureau for

that year; and the 730 enumeration districts covered for 1920 included

106,089, or 96.8 per cent of the 109,594 Negroes reported for that year.

The small remaining number of Negroes scattered throughout the parts

of the city not embraced in these areas in 1910 and 1920 included many

janitors living in the buildings where they worked, and others employed

in private homes and living on the premises, thus making their presence

inconspicuous among white residents. The areas in which 40,739 Negroes

were living in 1910 contained a total population of 657,044, the Negroes

thus constituting 6.2 per cent of the total. The areas in which 106,089

Negroes lived in 1920 contained a total population of 779,279, the

Negroes thus constituting about 13 per cent of the total.