The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 9, 1924, Page 6

Negro Migration and its Causes By LOUIS ZOOBOCK. The recent spectacular movement of the Negroes Northward assumed such large proportions as to overshadow in its results all other movements of the kind in the U. S; The movement is another chapter in the story of ‘the masses struggling to secure better conditions of living and a better life. It is greatly influencing and vitally changing the South; and the Negroes themselves, North and South. While the South is confronted with a serious labor shortage caused by the migra- tion, the North is gaining large num- bers of Negroes for its industries. Be- sides, the cessation.of European im- migration has made the Negro a very important factor in the national labor situation. Men in industry are looking to the black population as a reservoir of good and thoroly “American” labor to be drawn upon in the future. Several recent writers have been prone toemphasize the development by the Negro of a “sudden desire to move,” but an examination of ayail- able data® soon reveals the fact that the Negro, ever since the days of his emancipation, has shown a tendenmy to migrate. From 1875 until 1915, there was a constant, fluctuating stream moving northward. It was a part of the drift of the general population from the rural districts to the cities, and it fol- lowed an exodus between 1865 and 1875 similar to the present one. Th: breaking up of the plantation syster based ‘upon slavery and racial frictior of K. K, K. and Reconstruction day: were the moving causes of the strikin; increase in the movement of thai period. Between 1890 and 1900, there was also a considerable increase in the movement due to economic and social disadvantages of the period. The European war has simply hastened and intensified a movement that has been under way for a. half century. Nevertheless, the recent mi- gration, that of the last census, differs from the previous migrations in sev- eral important respects. And, first and foremost, in volume or amount. An examination of statistics shows that from 1870 to 1940 the number of Southern born Negroes in the North increased from 146,490 to 415,553, an average decennial increase of 67,000. But in the decade, 191@ to 1920, there was an increase of 321,890 which was more than the aggregate increase of the preceding 40 years. Since 1920, the migration has shown still greater increase. Thus, during the year ending September 1, 1923, ac- cording to data collected by the late Phil H. Brown, the Negro migration from 13 Southern states reached a total of 478,000. Georgia alone, ac- cording to figures given by the Bank- ers’ Association of that state, lost for the past three years nearly a quarter of a million Negroes. Another characteristic of the recent migration is that it has been to a much larger extent than ever before a migration from the far South. The earlier northward migration was most- ly from the more northern states of the South. Even as recently as 1910, 48 per cent of the southern born Ne- groes living in northern states came from two states, Virginia and Ken- tucky. The migration between 1910 and 1920 reduced the proportion born in these two states to 31.6 per cent. On the other hand the proportion of northern Negroes coming from the states farther South increased 18.2 per cent of the total number of south- ern-born Negroes living in the North in 1910 to 40.5 per cent of the total of 1920. Negroes in the North. In 1870 the total number of Negroes living in the North was 452,818, but of these 118,071 were in the state of Missouri, which had been a slave state. In 1920 there were 1,472,309 Negroes in the North as compared with 452,818 in 1870. Since 1920, the Negro population in the North has in- creased’ consideralby. The movement of the Negroes to the North is not to this section as a whole, but rather to a few industrial centers, there is only a small Negro. popula- tion. It is found that 73.4 per cent of the Négro population in the North is living in ten industrial districts as follows: District Population Indianapolis 47,550 Detroit-Toledo . 55,918 Cleveland ....... 58,850 Kansas City ..... 65,393 PUCUEBETER so cts 88,273 Columbus-Cincinnati 89,651 St. Louis 102,607 Chicago .... ee 131,580 Philadelphia . « 242,343 DN IRS sii ntact itenipcaictnnitinacdas 251,340 The total Negro population of the North is now little more than 2 per cent. The percentage, as we see, is still very small. Only one person in 43 in the northern states is a Negro. If, therefore, the Negroes were evenly distributed over the northern states, to correspond with the distribution of the white population, their numbers would not be large enough to consti- tute a disturbing factor in the social organism. But, as pointed out, the Negroes are concentrated largely in certain cities where they form a con- siderable part of the total population. It is this concentration that produced the Negro problem in the North. per cent of them are landless. And it is almost impossible to con- sider the importance of each as a sep- arate factor. However, considering them as joint forces, the causes may be classified as underlying and im- mediate. The former are both eco- nomic and social’ The main eco- nomic causes are: the tenant system of farming, or the landlessness of the Negro farmers, the low wages paid to Negro labor in the South; while some of the underlying social causes have been the desire for better schools, for justice in the courts, for equal politi- cal and civil rights, etc. The immedi- te causes have been the demand for labor in the North during the years of “prosperity,” the cessation of immi- gration, and the activities of labor agents, the persuasion of friends. An examination of some of these causes will give us a clearer understanding of the situation. The Negro Farmer.Tenant. The Negro in the South still clings to the soil. His condition as a farmer is very low. He is being reduced to a state of landlessness. In four of the most congested Southern states, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, containing over 36 per cent of all the Negroes in the country, 83 The The Saw-Mill’s Closed! By Charles Oluf Olsen The saw-mill’s closed, because—so I’ve been told— There’s too much lumber and it can’t be sold! ' I scan the daily paper—There I read Of homeless people. So there must be need, There must be bitter need, somewhere, it seems, | Of timbers, planks and boards and beams. The woolen mills are closed, the textile too, And I'm told, “There’s too much clothing and it can’t be sold.” And so it goes—everything—down the line— This factory and that, and here a mine; “There’s too much coal, too many things to eat, Too many shoes. ...” Just look! There’s thoughts that bother me—my head’s not strong— Yet there’s something wrong— Maybe I’m crazy! And yet—that fellow’s feet, His toes stick out— I’m glad the saw-mill’s closed. Without a doubt I need a lot of time to figure it out. The recent exodus has carried off a surprisingly large number of Negroes from many sections of the South. The movement has been confined to no one class entirely: the ignorant and the edueated, the inefficient and the capable, the unskilled and the skilled Negroes have gone. They have left both the farming districts of the South as well as the cities. The South’s mining, lumbering, and manu- facturing districts lost a considerable number of their working forces. In- deed many of the first immigrants came out of the industrial regions of the South, The Northern manufac- tunrers, thru their labor agents, re- cruited laborers first of all in these districts. These local centers in the South in turn filled up their depleted ranks with farm labor. As a result, in places like Birmingham, Alabama, the center of the South’s largest mining and iron manufacturing district, a two - phased migration was taking place: one stream from industrial cen- ters of the South to industrial centers of the North, and the second stream from the rural districts of the South to the industrial centers of the South, The fact that the recent migration is not only from the country, but also from the city districts of the South; the fact that the migration affected all classes; the fact that the recent migration is but the accentuation of a process which has been going on for more than 50 years, calls naturally for a full discussion of the causes of this mass movement, The forces pro- ducing such an effect mest be deep- seated and fundamental. Causes of Migration. There have been many causes of |clear Outside of the large cities,!the exodus of Negroes from the South. | gives per eent of landless farmers actually increased in every Southern state dur- ing the past decade. The large plan- tation owners are gradually taking over the land, thus reducing tenants, white and colored, to a state of unre- lieved and helpless peasantry. The agricultural laborers and the share tenants who are little more than laborers, are low in the industrial seale. They are paid a wage on which they can hardly exist. Many are im- provident and constantly in debt. Their institutions ars poor and ren: dered poorer because of their shifting constituency, A landless people is a hopeless people, and it is not long be- fore hopelessness develops into shift- lessness. A careful observation of farming regions of the South reveals this fact: Negro farmers are most backward in places where they do not or cannot own land, It is in such places that schools are most backward, that home life and morals are most back- ward. It is in such places that planta- tion houses are not homes. They are little more than temporary shelter where the laborer remains until the crop is made and then moves on. To make matters worse, the plant- ers persistently exploit their labor. True, under the share cropping sys- tem the landlord furnishes everything except the labor, but in the end he gets everything. Tenants, croppers and other agricultural workers are settlements of which the tenant farm- ers, white and colored, complain bit- terly. Apparently, in order to secure his labor, the landlord often will not settle for the year’s work till late in the spring when the next crop has been “picked.” -The Negro is then bound hand and foot and must accept the landlord’s terms. It is impossible for him to get out of the landlord’s clutches, The Negro, like other sections of our population, is not content with the drudgery, the homelessness, the ex- ploitation, and the cheerlessness and discomfort which surround rural life in the South. And, whenever he is able to get out of his landlord’s clutches, he moves to the North ex- pecting to find something better. Negro Disfranchisement. Disfranchisement of the Negroes in Southern states is another important cause of the Negro exodus. The fif- teenth amendment provided that “tpe right of citizens of the U. S. to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the U. S. or by any of the states on ac- count of race, color, or previous con- dition of servitude.” But the Negro enjoyed the full use of the ballot only so long as federal troops had control of Southern elections. Following their withdrawal, the black man was debarred from the polis. At first the whites used force, intimidation and other extra-legal and illegal devices to accomplish this end. Later, wear- ‘ied wit such methods, the states of . the South amended their constitutions in such a way as to achieve the dis- franchisement of the Negro without expressly excluding him on the ground of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Legal restrictions based on the ability to read and write, own- ership of property, payment of poll tax, long periods of residence, good eharacter, good understanding of the constitution, military service, and vot- ing ancestors have fully achieved the purposes of those who drafted the amendments; they have deprived the Negro of the ballot. Educational Disadvantages. fe Another source of long slumbering discontent is in the matter of Negro schools. Seven years ago, Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones made a thoro study of the school situation in the South. The results of the study, embodied in bul- letins 38 and 39 U. S. Bureau of Edu- cation (1917), reveals the great infer- iority of the colored schools. Condi- tions at present are not any better. “The Negro schoolhouses are miser- able beyond description. They are usually without comfort, equipment, proper lighting or sanitation. Nearly all the Negroes of school age are crowded into these miserable struc- tures during the short term which the school runs. Most ofthe teachers are absolutely untrained and have been given certificates by the county board, not because they have passed the ex- amination, but because it is necessary to have some kind of Negro teachers.” Iu Georgia, as a recent report shows, four-fifths of the colored pupils must meet in church buildings and lodge halls for lack of school buildings, And even these “schools” are wholly with- out equipment in the way of desks, blackboards, maps, charts, and the like. High schools are badly lacking: “there are less than a dozen junior high schools for colored youths, and only one with a four-year course, while there are more than 100 for whites.” Even in training for their work, the Negroes are not given a fair show, “although the Negro performs 75 per cent oi the agricultural labor of our state, there is not a single first-class agricultural school for colored people in Georgia, and only 3 of any kind, and these receive such small appropria- tions that improvement upon what they are now doing is practically im- le; while there are 12 for whites, one in each congresisonal dis-