The Chicago Urban League reported that numbers of migrants from towns where lynchings had occurred registered for jobs in Chicago very shortly after lynchings. Concerning mob violence and general insecurity both whites and Negroes living in the South have had much to say. Their statements at the time of the migration are here quoted.
From the Atlanta Constitution (white), November 24, 1916:
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:
The heaviest migration of Negroes has been from those counties in which there have been the worst outbreaks against Negroes. It is developed by investigation that where there have been lynchings, the Negroes have been most eager to believe what the emigration agents have told them of plots for the removal or extermination of the race. Comparatively few Negroes have left Dougherty County, which is considered significant in view of the fact that this is one of the counties in southwest Georgia in which a lynching has never occurred.
These statements are most significant. Mob law as we have known in Georgia has furnished emigration agents with all the leverage they want; it is a foundation upon which it is easy to build with a well concocted lie or two, and they have not been slow to take advantage of it.
This loss of her best labor is another penalty Georgia is paying for her indifference and inactivity in suppressing mob law.
From the Southwestern Christian Advocate (Negro), April 26, 1917:
But why do they [the Negroes] go? We give a concrete answer: some months ago Anthony Crawford, a highly respectable, honest and industrious Negro, with a good farm and holdings estimated to be worth $300,000, was lynched in Abbeville, South Carolina. He was guilty of no crime. He would not be cheated out of his cotton. That was insolence. He must be taught a lesson. When the mob went for him he defended himself. They overpowered him and brutally lynched him. This murder was without excuse and was condemned in no uncertain words by the Governor, other high officials and the press in general of South Carolina. Officials pledged that the lynchers would be punished. The case went to the grand jury. Mr. Crawford was lynched in the daytime and dragged through the streets by unmasked men. The names of the leaders were supposed to have been known, and yet the grand jury, under oath, says that it could not find sufficient evidence to warrant an indictment....
Is any one surprised that Negroes are leaving South Carolina by the thousands? The wonder is that any of them remain. They will suffer in the North. Some of them will die. But Anthony Crawford did not get a chance to die in Abbeville, South Carolina. He was shamefully murdered. Any place would be paradise compared with some sections of the South where the Negroes receive such maltreatment.
From the Savannah (Georgia) Morning News (white), January 3, 1917: