THE NEGRO EXODUS.
The Negro has remained in the South almost as a solid mass since his
emancipation. This, in itself shows that he loves the South, and if he
is now migrating to the East, North and West by the hundreds and
thousands, there must be a cause for it.
We should do our best to find out these causes and at least suggest the
remedy, if we cannot accomplish it. The time has come for plain speaking
on the part of us all. It will do us no good to try to hide the facts,
because "truth crushed to earth will rise again."
In the first place, the Negro in this country is oppressed. This
oppression is greatest where the Negro population is greatest. The Negro
population happens to be greater in the South than in the North,
therefore, he is more oppressed in the South than in the North.
Take the counties in our own state. Some are known as white counties and
others as black counties. In the white counties the Negro is given
better educational opportunities than in the black counties. I have in
mind one Black Belt county where the white child is given fifteen
dollars a year for his education and the Negro child thirty cents a
year. See the late Dr. Booker T. Washington's article, "Is the Negro
Having a Fair Chance?" Now these facts are generally known throughout
this State by both white and black. And we all know that this is unjust.
It is oppression.
This oppression shows itself in many other ways. Take for example the
railroads running through the rural sections of the South. There are
many flag stations where hundreds of our people get off and on train.
The railroads have at these little stops a platform about six feet
square, only one coach stops at this point; the Negro women, girls and
boys are compelled to get off and on the train sometimes in water and in
the ditches because there are no provisions made for them otherwise.
Again, take the matter of the franchise. We all agree that ignorant
Negroes should not be entrusted with this power, but we all feel that
where a Negro has been smart and industrious in getting an education and
property and pays his taxes, he should be represented. Taxation without
representation is just as unjust today as it was in 1776. It is just as
unfair for the Negro as it is to the white man, and we all, both white
and black, know this. We may shut our eyes to this great truth, as
sometimes we do, but it is unjust just the same.
Take the matter of the courts. There is no justice unless the Negro has
a case against another Negro. When he has a case against a white man you
can tell what the decision will be just as soon as you know the nature
of the case, unless some strong white man will come to the Negro's
rescue. This, too, is generally known, and the Negro does not expect
justice.
None of us have forgotten the recent campaign of Mr. Underwood and Mr.
Hobson for United States Senator from this State. Mr. Underwood's
supporters attacked Mr. Hobson because he defended the Negro soldiers
when he was Representative, and Mr. Hobson's supporters attacked Mr.
Underwood because they said that he had a Negro secretary in Washington.
Any politician who dares defend a Negro, however just the cause may be,
is doomed to political death. This is another fact which we all know.
As yet, there has been no concerted actions on the part of the white
people to stop mob violence. I know a few plantations, however, where
the owners will not allow their Negroes to be arrested unless the
officer first consults them, and these Negroes idolize these white men
as gods, and so far not one of these Negroes has gone North. I repeat
that there are out-croppings of these oppressions everywhere in this
country, but they show themselves most where the Negroes are in largest
numbers.
All of these sorrows the Negro has endured with patience and long
suffering, and they may be all classed as the secondary cause of this
great exodus.
The primary cause is economics. The storms and floods destroy crops in
the Black Belt section. These people are hungry, they are naked, they
have no corn and had no cotton; so they are without food and clothes.
What else can they do but go away in search of work? There are a great
many wealthy white men here and there throughout the Black Belt section.
They have large plantations which need the ditches cleared and new ones
made to properly drain their farms. They could have given much work to
these destitute people; but what have they done? Nothing. They say that
it is a pity for the Negro to go away in such large numbers, and so it
is, but that will not stop them. They have it in their power to stop
them by making the Negro's economic condition better here.
The South must do more than make cotton and corn; it must begin to
manufacture some of the things that it uses. Why should we send our raw
material to the North to be manufactured? Practically all the furniture
we use comes from the North and they get the timber from us. The South
must be both a manufacturing as well as a farming section, if it would
hold its own with the other sections of this great country. The
capitalists of the South must turn loose their money if this section
would come into its own.
Thus far, the average white man of the South has been interested in the
Negro from a selfish point of view. He must now become interested in him
from a humanitarian point of view. He must be interested in his
educational, moral and religious welfare. We know that we have many
ignorant, vicious, and criminal Negroes, which are a disgrace to any
people, but they are ignorant because they have not had a chance. Why I
know one county in this State today with 10,000 Negro children of school
age and only 4,000 of these are in school, according to the report of
the Superintendent of Education. We cannot expect ignorant people to act
like intelligent ones, and no amount of abuse will make them better.
We know that our race is weak and that the white race is strong. We know
also that our race is sick and that the white race is well or whole.
Now, how should the strong treat the weak? How should the whole treat
the sick? Would a strong man say, here is a weak man with a heavy
burden, therefore, I will put more upon him? Would a well man say, here
is a sick man, therefore, I shall give him less medical treatment? Then
why do you say, here is the ignorant Negro, therefore let us give him
less educational opportunities than we give the white man? If the white
man would be logical in this particular, he would say in the courts,
because he is ignorant let us make his punishment less severe; because
he is weak, let us protect him, because he is ignorant, let us give him
greater educational opportunities. But this has not been done. There has
not been one dollar increase in the Negro public school fund in the
rural districts in twenty years; if anything, it is less today than it
was twenty years ago.
Sometimes we hear it said that the white man of the South knows the
Negro better than anybody else, but the average white man of the South
only knows the ignorant, vicious and criminal class of Negroes better
than anybody else. He knows little of the best class of Negroes. I am
glad to say, however, that there are a few Southern white men who know
the better class and know them intimately and are doing what they can to
better the Negro's condition. I would to God that the number of these
few could be increased a hundred fold.
We used to deride the North for giving the Negro a chance to spend a
dollar while withholding from him the opportunity to make one. But in
the Providence of God all this has been changed by the great war in
Europe, which has created a labor scarcity in the North, East and West,
and the Negro is now being given a chance to make a dollar there as well
as spend one. The white man of the North is due no special credit for
this, the credit belongs to God. He is the Righteous Judge of all the
earth and in the end He will do right.
We will hear many tales of the sufferings of these people who go from
this section. Many will die and some will come back, but still some will
never return. You remember the fate of the Pilgrims, and the early
colonists who first came to this country. You also know the fate of the
men in the world war; many must die that some be saved. It behooves us
of the South who remain here, both white and black, to re-dedicate
ourselves to unselfish service and try more and more each day of our
lives to live up to the great principle laid down in the memorable
Atlanta speech by the immortal Booker T. Washington when he said: "In
all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers,
yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress."