Part 3 (2/2)
Letters were pa.s.sed around and read before large groups. A woman from Hattiesburg is accredited with having sent back a letter which enticed away over 200 persons. A tailor who had settled in a town of white people in the West wrote a letter which was read in a church. It explained the advantages of the free schools open to all, and the privilege to ride and to go where one pleases. The reading of the letter brought forth long and loud applause. A man who had left home, writes back to his friend yet undecided:
Mike, old boy, I was promoted on the first of the month. I was made first a.s.sistant to the head carpenter. When he is out of place I take everything in charge and was raised to $95 per month. You know I know my stuff. What's the news generally around H'burg? I should have been here twenty years ago. I just begin to feel like a man. It's a great deal of pleasure in knowing that you have got some privileges. My children are going to the same school with the whites and I don't have to humble to no one. I have registered. Will vote the next election and there isn't any 'yes, sir, and no, sir.' It's all yes and no, and no, Sam, and Bill.
The man has long since been joined by his friend.
The pastor of a Hattiesburg church received a letter from one of his members with the extravagant a.s.sertion that the people whose funerals he had preached were in Chicago (meaning Heaven) because they were good Christians. To give a.s.surance on the question of weather migrants in the North would mention the fact that they were writing with their coats off. A fact which strengthened the belief in the almost incredible wages offered in the North was the money sent back to the families in the South. A man whose wife had preceded him wrote that she was making $3.50 a day in charge of a bluing works in Chicago, and actually sent home $15 every two weeks. Another man wrote that he was in Gary working at his trade making sometimes as much as $7 a day. He sent home $30 every two weeks. Fully one-half, or perhaps even more of those who left, did so at the solicitation of friends through correspondence.[40]
Despite the restraints on loose talk in encouragement of the exodus, there were other means of keeping the subject alive. One method, of course, was the circulation of literature from the North. One of the most novel schemes was that of a negro dentist in a southern town who had printed on the reverse side of his business cards quotations from rather positive a.s.sertions by northerners on the migration.[41] The northern press early welcomed the much needed negro laborers to the North and leaders of thought in that section began to upbraid the South for its antagonistic att.i.tude towards the welfare of the negroes, who at last had learned to seek a more congenial home.
A stronger influence than this, though not quite so frequent, was the returned migrant who was a living example of the prosperity of the North. It was a frequent complaint that these men were as effective as labor agents in urging negro laborers to go north. There are reported numerous instances of men who came to visit their families and returned with thirty to forty men. It has been suspected, and with a strong suggestion of truth, that many of these were supplied with funds for the trip by the northern firms which employed them. A woman whose daughter had gone north had been talking of her daughter's success. The reports were so opposite to the record of the girl at home that they were not taken seriously. Soon, however, the daughter came home with apparently unlimited money and beautiful clothes, and carried her mother back with her. This was sufficient. It was remarked afterwards: ”If she can make $2.50 a day as lazy as she was, I know I can make $4.”[42]
The labor agents were a very important factor in stimulating the movement. The number at work in the South appears to have been greatly exaggerated. Agents were more active in large cities where their presence was not so conspicuous. It was difficult to discover because of the very guarded manner in which they worked. One, for example, would walk briskly down the street through a group of negroes and, without turning his head, would say in a low tone, ”Anybody want to go to Chicago, see me.” That was sufficient. Many persons were found to remark frequently on the strange silence which negroes _en ma.s.se_ managed to maintain concerning the movement of the agents. A white man remarked that it was the first time there had ever happened anything about which he could not get full information from some negro. Agents were reported, at one time or another, in every section from which the migrants went. When the vigilance of the authorities restricted their activities they began working through the mails. Many sections were flooded with letters from the North to persons whose names had been obtained from migrants in the North or through a quiet canva.s.s of the community by un.o.bstructed solicitors.[43]
Poems on the migration were also strong stimuli. In some instances arrests of persons circulating them were made. A bit of poetry which received widespread popularity was one called ”Bound for the Promised Land.” It was said that this piece of poetry was responsible for much trouble. The _Chicago Defender_ reported on June 1, 1917, that five young men were arraigned before Judge John E. Schwartz of Savannah, Georgia, for reading poetry. The police contended that they were inciting riot in the city and over Georgia. Two of the men were sent for thirty days to Brown Farm, a place not fit for human beings. Tom Amaca was arrested for having ”Bound for the Promised Land,” a poem which had been recently published in the _Defender_. J.N. Chisholm and A.P. Walker were arrested there because they were said to be the instigators.[44] Another very popular poem widely circulated was ent.i.tled ”Farewell! We're Good and Gone.” It was said that this poem influenced thousands to go. Other poems on the migration were ”Northward Bound,” ”The Land of Hope” and ”Negro Migration” and ”The Reason Why.”
[Footnote 32: Johnson, _Report on the Migration from Mississippi_.]
[Footnote 33: Ibid.]
[Footnote 34: Johnson, _Report on the Migration from Mississippi_.]
[Footnote 35: Ibid.]
[Footnote 36: Some of the material prepared by the _Defender_ for consumption in the South was as follows:
”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 our 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 in the South, for he means you no good here in the North.... 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 have boarded the train, singing, 'Good-bye, Dixie Land.'”]
[Footnote 37: The following clippings are taken from these white papers:
”Aged Negro Frozen to Death--Albany, Ga., February 8.
”Yesterday the dead body of Peter Crowder, an old negro, was found in an out-of-the-way place where he had been frozen to death during the recent cold snap.”--_Macon Telegraph_.
”Dies from Exposure--Spartanburg, S.C., February 6.
”Marshall Jackson, a negro man, who lived on the farm of J.T. Harris near Campobello, Sunday night froze to death.”--_South Carolina State_.
”Negro Frozen to Death in Fireless Gretna Hut.
”Coldest weather in 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.”--_New Orleans Item_, February 4.
”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 Const.i.tution_, February 6.]
[Footnote 38: Articles such as the following kept alive the spirit of the exodus:
”Tampa, Florida, January 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 n.i.g.g.e.r' 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.'”
”Jackson, Miss., March 23. J.H. Thomas, Birmingham, Alabama, 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.”
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