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.
| Negroes | Percentage of Negro Increase, 1910-20 | Percentage of White Increase, 1910-20 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1910 | 1920 | |||
| 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]