Negro Migration during the War

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hosts of others followed, the white South became deeply concerned and endeavored to check the movement. Throughout the exodus drastic legislation and force were employed. In Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Georgia laws were passed in an effort to

alty of imprisonment. For example, in Tampa when these operations were brought to the attention of the authorities, Joe Robinson, a negro officer, was detailed to investigate the matter. He discovered that one Joyce and another negro named Alex Reeves were implicated in the movement. These men were charged with having collected $7 from each of several hundred negroes who wan

ectives were assigned the task of arresting those who were said to be spreading false reports among negroes there to the effect that special trains were ready on various specified dates to take them to points in the North. When, therefore, large crowds

ng the negroes of the city and the efforts that were being put forth on the part of the authorities to keep them from being transported from Macon to the North, might result in a riot with which the city authorities would not be able to cope, Chief of Police George S. Riley recommended to the civil service commission that forty magazine rifles be purchased for the police department.78 At that time the police had only their pistols a

by legal measures they could be deterred from going North. The officers in charge of this raid were armed with State warrants charging misdemeanors and assisted by a formidable array of policemen and deputy sheriffs. Negroes were roughly taken from the t

odus. A committee of their most prominent citizens met with the mayor and discussed the matter freely. They arranged for a large mass meeting of white and colored citizens who undertook to cooperate in bringing the exo

great commotion among the negroes, who, already much disturbed by the agitation for and against the movement, were easily induced to start for the North. When, at about five o'clock that morning, 2,000 negroes assembled at the station for this purpose, the county police, augmented by a detachment of city officers, appeared at the station and attempted to clear the tracks; but the cro

station and immediately a cordon was formed by the police around all negroes in the lobby and every exit from the station was guarded. By this unusual sight many persons were attracted to the station and excitement ran high. Ma

, entered the depot to cash a check for $11 when he was arrested, sent to jail and searched. Still another, a middle-aged man of most pleasing appearance, had just arrived from Jacksonville, Florida, and was waiting in the station until the time to proceed by boat that afternoon to New York. On one occasion, J.H. Butler, manager of the Savannah Tribune, a negro newspaper, was arrested charged with violation of the city and State law of sending labor out of the city. He was obliged to give bond of $400 to app

entenced to hard labor for the city, for not more than six months, one or both in the discretion of the court. The other ordinance provided that any person, firm or corporation who published, printed or wrote or delivered or distributed or posted or caused to be published, printed or written or delivered or distributed or posted, any advertisement, letter, newspaper, pamphlet, handbill or other writing, for the purpose of enticing, persuading or influencing an

ests and influencing decisions in court cases. Negroes were secretly enticed away, however, after they had been dispersed from the railway stations and imprisoned when in the act of boarding the trains. The police interfered at one time with negroes leaving, especially when it was suspected that they were leaving on passes. To circumvent this,

reported that local authorities were reprimanded for interfering with interstate commerce. At Greenwood there was much complaint against the brutality of the police, whose efforts to intimidate negroes carried them

nd, according to one of the men, made the crowd so angry that they swore they would not stop until all had gone. There are cited further instances of letters to plantation hands which were detained and telegrams which were delayed. At Meridian, Mississippi, a trainload of negroes en route to the North was held up by the chief

ho carried away several carloads of negroes to work on their places, leaving the Mississippi employers without the labor to gather or grow their crops. It can not, therefore, be interpreted as an attempt to k

the heavy exodus of negro labor from the South during the past year, and, because of his very important interest in that section, it was not to his advantage to encourage it, but as common carriers, they could not refuse to sell tickets

h rate from pneumonia and tuberculosis. Social workers in the North reported frequent cases of men with simple colds who actually believed that they had developed "consumption." Speakers who wished to discourage the exodus reported "exact" figures on the death rate of the migrants in the North that were astounding. As, for example, it was said by one Reverend Mr. Parks that there were 2,000 of them sick in Philadelphia. The edit

nd communities where contact on this plane had been infrequent, it was a bit difficult to approach the subject. The press of Georgia gave much space to the discussion of the movement and what ought to be done to stop it. The consensus of opinion of

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bor is one of the prices Georgia is paying for unchecked mob activity against negroes often charged only with ordinary crimes. 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 that the heaviest migration of negroes has been from those counties in which there have been the worst ou

king some steps in regard to the exodus of negroes from this section to the North and West. The whole sentiment of the meeting was very amicable, the negroes applauding enthusiastically the speeches of the white men and the advice

irst, more protection at the hands of the law. We ask that the law of the State, made and enforced by white men, should be made to apply with exact justice to both races. We have no sympathy for criminals, but we ask that the innocent shall be protected to the fullest extent of the law. Second, that more liberal provisions be made for the education of our people." They commended Governor Dorsey for his courageous recommendation in his inaugural address

wenty-sixth annual negro conference at Tuskegee Institute, the institution took that occasion to send through certain declarations a message to the negroes of the South. These declarations recited the distress and suffering impelling the negroes to migrate, expressing the appreciation of the necessity to do something to better their condition by embracing the new opportunities offered them in the North. On the other hand, this institution felt that there were many permanent opportunities f

ill get better treatment, better protection under the law and better school facilities for their children. The conference urged, therefore, that the southern white people avail themselves of their greatest opportunity to cooperate with the blacks in the various communities and have a thoro

sing the Red Cross and the food conservation meetings as a forum for the discussion of the movement. This was the first time that the negroes and whites of Greenwood had met to discuss matters of mutual welfare. Bishop W.P. Thirkield of New Orleans addressed a body of negroes and whites on the movement. He suggested that whites get representative colored pe

ok after the economic welfare of the Delta country, but in reality to develop some plan for holding labor. A subcommittee of seventeen men was appointed to look into the labor situation. There were twelve white men and five negroes. The subcommittee met and reported to the body that the present labor shortage was due to the migration, and that the migration was due to a feeling of insecurity before the law, the unrestrained action of mobs, unfair methods of yearly settlement on farms and inade

t, adequate and sympathetic oversight are the important factors in any effort to hold labor. He made a trip to his farm every week, endeavoring to educate his tenants in modes of right living. Every man on his place had a bank account and was

the southern white man knows them and will in consequence be more lenient with their shortcomings. The papers further urged an increase in wages and better treatment. Wherever

the place of Planter C.D. Walcott, near Hollandale, took a bond, while one negro, Boley Cox, a renter, bought bonds to the amount of $1,000 and gave his check for the total amount out of

bring suit. This he did and urged as his principal grievance that he was stranded in a strange town and was forced to sleep in quarters wholly at the mercy of bed bugs. It is said that he was awarded damages to the extent of $800. A Jackson, Mississippi, daily paper that had been running a column of humorous incidents about negroes taken from the daily court sessions, which was very distasteful to the co

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ended. It was the sense of the conference that the colored people as a race should do all in their power in the present crisis to assist the government and, above all else, to help themselves by conserving food. The president of the conferen

pecial methods of combating the boll weevil be used. To advance no more than $25 to the plow, and, in every case possible, to refrain from any advance; to encourage land holders to rent land for part of the crops grown; to urge the exercise of leniency on unpaid notes and mortgages due from thrifty and industrious farmers so as to give them a chance to recover from the boll weevil conditions and storm losses; to create a market lasting all year for such crops as hay, cow-pea

the Twenty-sixth Annual Negro

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